Page 8 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
It’s easy to hate someone when you’re six years old. We knew the Seo-Cookes got a pool and a swing set because ofsomething they hijacked from Dad. That was enough for us to go to war. Maya was born with a short temper, and I’ve always been a petty little shit.
Fights in the sandbox turned into backhanded compliments and vicious insults as we grew older but never wiser. Our parents stood by as they watched their kids find new and contrived ways to annoy the hell out of each other, playing their own, subtler hating game behind the scenes. They kept up appearances around the community, attending happy hours and local mixers with saccharine smiles, letting their friends think this family feud was something they let us kids indulge in to pass the time. Our parents would joke, laugh, and exchange shortbread recipes like they weren’t the ones handing us the tools to tear each other apart.
In total, our friendship with the Seo-Cookes lasted a month. The resulting rivalry has lasted a decade.
Every year, we picked our loathing back up where we left off. Hating the Seo-Cookes was second nature here, as much a part of our routine as eating tres leches cake and going swimming after dark.
Maya snaps her fingers after she pulls the last of the curtains shut. “We should build a catapult.”
“What?” Andy asks around a mouthful of Doritos.
“A catapult, or a really big slingshot.” She grabs a notepad from the dining table. “Something we can use to lob garbage at them.”
Andy perches himself a safe distance away, craning his neck to peek over Maya’s shoulder. Dad hovers behind her,using his engineering expertise to guide her in the right direction.
“Isn’t this a bit extreme?” Isabel asks from her place across the room.
“No,” all three of us answer together.
Maya scribbles at top speed, her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. “Maybe there’s a way we could use this in the Lawgies,” she muses, tapping the pencil to her lower lip. “Depends on what events they go with this year, but we could figure something out.”
Our relationship with the Seo-Cookes evolved over the years, but one thing has always stayed the same: the bet. Like clockwork, we’d head down to the visitors center for sign-ups, Mr. Cooke would make some snide comment to Dad about how we wouldn’t stand a chance, and we’d wind up with yet another wager on our hands. None of the prizes were as valuable as Suck-o had been. After the Spill-e incident, Dad’s creative drive faded. The fear of being tricked a second time, or never making anything as successful as Suck-o, was too deep for him to shake off. There were meager consolation prizes. A new toaster or a pair of slippers. One time we agreed to clean the leaves out of the Seo-Cookes’ gutter if we lost. That was an especially annoying defeat.
“Okay, slow down.” Isabel waves her arms. “The log what now?”
At least Andy has accepted that he’s never going to understand what’s happening here. Having to explain ourselves every five minutes is going to take every ounce of fun out of brainstorming weapons of mass annoyance.
“Lake Andreas Winter Games. L-A-W-G. Lawgies,” I say slowly enough for her to follow. As eager as I am to get back to plotting, I can still acknowledge that a five-year-old’s naming convention doesn’t make much sense. “It’s this thing the town hosts every year to raise money for the community. They use the entrance fees on stuff like repairs or to help out local businesses,” I explain while Dad snags the pencil from Maya to make some tweaks to her blueprint. “It’s a full day of events. Sack races, puzzles, softball tournaments, how-much-of-this-food-can-you-eat-in-thirty-secondscompetitions. That kind of thing. You get points for how well you place in each event, and the team with the most points wins.”
This piques her interest. “Do you get something if you win?”
Glory. Power. The knowledge that you’ve finally beat the Seo-Cookes. “A plastic gold medal. And a gift card to the souvenir shop.”
The Seo-Cookes must have enough gift cards to cover their entire house inI Got Crabs at Lake AndreasT-shirts by now.
“And your face on the Wall of Champions at the visitors center,” Maya adds.
How could I forget the rows and rows of stiff Seo-Cooke smiles that Mami glared at every time we went to the visitors center? That was what mattered the most to her, more than the bets and the useless prizes. Proof that we’d finally beaten them at their own game.
Every year she’d wake us up early on the day of the games to practice our poses and smiles in the mirror. Every year we came home biting back frowns and tears.
Isabel nods slowly. “Right…And we need a catapult for this because…?”
“Because the Seo-Cookes cheat every time!” Maya interjects, slamming her fist down on the table hard enough to topple the decorative bowl of fruit.
Well, we’re 99.9 percent sure they were cheating. Even if we started the day off with a significant lead, the Seo-Cookes always found a way to creep up on us. Magically, they’d leap to first place after pulling off mental and physical feats that would make Einstein and Houdini sweat. And yet we’d still train until our tiny knuckles bled year after year. All for second, third, and sometimes fourth place.
Dad suddenly looks up, tossing the pencil and rushing toward the back door. “There should be some plywood in the shed out back.”
Isabel stops him in his tracks. “Oh no.” She rests her index finger on Dad’s chest, making him go rigid. “You said this was going to be a peaceful family vacation. I didn’t cash in all of my PTO to come up to the boonies and play Bob the Builder. No games, and no waging war on the neighbors.”
Maya launches out of her seat, coming to stand beside Dad. “But the games are a tradition.” It’s a low blow, pulling the tradition card on someone who’s always been so careful about treading the delicate line of life before and after Mami. Especially now,here,in a home full of lost traditions.
But the Seo-Cookes bring out the worst in us.
Isabel softens, biting her lip as she looks from Maya to Dad. “Look, I know that there’s a lot of tension here, but holding grudges doesn’t do any good, right?”
No one responds. The lack of support makes her pivot,shifting to face Dad specifically. “What if we made our own traditions?” she suggests to him, wearing the smile I know he can never say no to. “Ones that don’t involve revenge.”
