part0009

“Happiest place on earth needs a cheaper, happier hotel,” Marc groused as he hung up the damp towels on the ironing board Beth had set out as a makeshift drying rack. “We’re still a shuttle ride away from the park, and yet we’re paying a month’s worth of mortgage to stay three goddamn nights. That’s some grade-A bullshit right there.”

“You need to keep that language to a minimum. I already told you it was the only one I could find on short notice.”

“Christ, Beth! How long were you out there? Your back.”

By then, Marc had already joined her in the suite’s narrow bathroom, his face furrowed in disgust. She looked over her shoulder at her reflection to see for herself.

He wasn’t wrong. There was a stark contrast between the milky white cut-out patterns where her swimsuit had covered and the wide, fiery strips where it looked like blood had boiled beneath her skin. Marc pulled a little bottle of aloe from his Dopp kit, popped the snap lid, and squeezed some on his hand, his face bunched as he did.

Beth didn’t want to hear it, but it was inevitable nonetheless. The chiding, the deep sighs wholly exaggerated for her benefit. It was all about treating her as if she were a child, like she was one of the twins, completely naïve to the big, bad strangeness of the world, and with Marc there to guide her through the rough terrain.

No, that wasn’t correct. The twins were treated better.

Beth caught snippets of the girls’ whispers, punctuated by their shrieks and giggles over whatever it was they were watching on their iPad. It was probably some other unsuitable series on Netflix that Marc had brushed off as unimportant. Small favor that they’d brought the thing, Beth supposed, as it had kept the twins occupied during the flight, but it was infuriating that Marc had turned off the parental controls without conferring with her. “They’re practically teenagers. I mean, they’re going to be curious anyway, so we may as well let them check out things for themselves. It’s not like everyone else is gonna censor anything around them,” Marc had said in that tone he normally reserved for his younger staff, and, as of late, for Beth as well.

The coolness of the gel, combined with the warmth of Marc’s hands, ought to have been soothing, but it felt abrasive, like he was attempting to rub the unsightly sunburn away. Anything to rid her of another flaw.

“Next time, get in the shade or something. Put up one of those umbrellas they set out,” Marc said, punctuating with the snap of the bottle lid. “You can wear a tee over it tomorrow, cover it up.”

“A tee won’t let my skin breathe.”

“Let your skin ‘breathe’? What is that? Some dermatologist in a magazine make that up? Skin doesn’t ‘breathe’. That’s stupid. Just cover it up so no one will see it. Gotta blend in or you’re gonna look like a tourist.”

Marc turned her around, his fingers tightly grasping her chin. She flinched, tried to pull away, but he held her in close, his eyes narrowed. “You making it hard on me here, Beth?”

“Daddy, you doing okay?” Sadie called out from the bedroom. Of the twins, she was the one who was quick to come to Marc’s defense no matter the issue, and it had grown from adorable to creepy over the years. By the time Sadie was deep in her teens, it wouldn’t surprise Beth if she got a “daddy’s girl” tattoo someplace entirely inappropriate.

“Daddy’s just fine, sweetheart,” he said over his shoulder, his eyes still locked with Beth’s. “You girls need to get ready for dinner. Put on something nice, okay? We’re going out for hibachi.” He let go of Beth’s chin, gave her a quick peck on the forehead, and murmured, “ Cover it up, baby. Trust me here. Wear that short, black thing you brought, the one with the sleeves and tie in front. Show those legs of yours.”

“Oh, so no skin, but the legs are okay because legs don’t have skin.”

“You don’t have to be a bitch about it. It’s just a suggestion.”

Friday, ITINERARY: Main park all day. Bring carryall. Get bottled water at park. Lunch there. Keep budget to a minimum (dinner, takeout?). SUNSCREEN, you idiot!

It was the sixth queue of the day and, unfortunately, the longest. Still, anything to make the twins happy, something they could share on Snapchat and Instagram and whatever other horrible social networking site they had profiles on (Beth had lost that fight a long time ago). They’d predictably pouted and whined when Beth had them put their phones in one of the park’s locker stations. Of course, when Marc had pointed out the practicality in it—that their phones could fall or even, perhaps, kill someone standing below—they stopped complaining and linked arms with his as they all headed for the line.

They’d been there moving in line at a snail’s pace for roughly thirty minutes when Beth felt the itch on her back. It started as a mild distraction, a slight prickling tingle. The shirt she’d worn hadn’t helped; it was some old Blondie concert tee she’d had since college that was whispery thin against her skin.

By the time the queue had moved from the heat of the outdoors to the air-conditioned indoor area that signaled to guests that they were edging closer to the ride with its brightly colored set-pieces and talking animatronic characters, Beth’s back felt as if it were crawling with insects. She gave her back a quick scrape, rubbing up and down against a wooden post, but Marc urged her to keep up with the line. He then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in close, his whisper hard in her ear. “Need to keep up. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?”

“My back itches like crazy.”

“Well, don’t slow down the line like that. The girls are getting on up there. Just keep in front of me. I’ll scratch it for you.”

For any other couple, it would’ve been an adorable sight, the guy helping to ease away an itch on his wife’s back. On the outside looking in, Beth thought she and Marc probably appeared playful and easy. But Marc’s fingertips were hard and rough; they rapidly raked across Beth’s sunburnt skin. She winced and withdrew from his painful touch. He reached for her again, but this time she dodged his hand and scuttled ahead, farther up the line.

“C’mon, Beth. Get back here. Let me just—”

“Nope, you’re being rough. Not a good look for you.”

Sadie turned and had her sister stop beside her long enough to give her parents an eye roll. “Oh, my God, would you guys hurry up! We’re almost up front!” She gave Sylvie one of their shared, exasperated looks the two of them had often expressed in sync. “Told you we should’ve left them. They’re so slow because they forgot their walkers.” Sadie giggled and said something in her sister’s ear, causing Sylvie to shriek and then promptly clap a palm over her mouth.

“You got lice, Mom? Issat why you’re itchy?” Sadie said in a sing-songy voice.

“Or maybe it’s scabies,” Sylvie piped in, causing the two of them to then burst into a giggling fit.

“You need to stop that right now. That is not funny,” said Beth as she maneuvered the girls around, having them walk along with her as Marc trailed right behind them, a dark look on his face.

She hated the balancing act, the ongoing effort to make sure the girls were parented as well as contemporary parenting could possibly allow—wiggle room and all—and the strain of making sure she didn’t upset her husband.

Her husband and those dark moods that sprung up more often lately.

Those unpredictable moods.

“Happiest place on earth my fucking ass,” he muttered, giving Beth what she hoped appeared to others as a playful shove.

In actuality, it was a push and it set her back on fire.

Saturday, ITINERARY: Waterpark, a.m. Rest at noon (no electronics, have twins read instead). Late lunch at Studios park. No more than 3 rides (Any argument & we cancel Sun. Princess Breakfast). Light dinner at hotel. Early bedtime.

Locked in the hotel room bathroom, Beth spent a good part of the late morning examining her back while Marc and the girls were at the waterpark. She had never seen a burn quite like it. Only a couple of days in, and the skin was already shedding in thin sheets. The skin beneath it had a light golden sheen and felt strangely silky, like it had been coated in a fine film of balm .

When Beth stepped under the shower’s lukewarm water, it felt as if she’d just had acid poured down her back. She yelped and reached for the tap, quickly shutting the water off. She then stood there in the tub, panting. With her hands planted against the shower wall, Beth cooled her scorched back in the damp air.

“Beth!” Marc called from behind the bathroom door, rapping it loudly, “We’re back, and the girls want to eat!”

Beth pushed away from the wall and quickly wiped at the corners of her teary eyes. If he saw her crying, he’d scold her for her “wayward decisions” in stupidly attempting to cool the burn down. She didn’t want to hear it, that nagging tone he always used on her . . . his employees . . . his siblings . . . his continually ill mother . . . or anyone else he thought an idiot.

The problem with Marc was that, to him, basically everyone was an idiot. That is, except the girls of course. Those two could set fire to the world, and Marc would find a way to twist the details to make it seem as if society was solely to blame for putting the lighters in their hands.

That’s just how it was with Marc.

“Beth?” The doorknob rattled. “What are you doing in there? Why’s the door locked?”

“I need some privacy for shit’s sake,” Beth muttered as she stepped out of the tub onto the mat. She gently blotted herself down with a towel, taking care not to skim it across her back.

“Nothing. I just needed to go is all,” she said in the door’s direction.

It wouldn’t matter. Marc hated locked doors, the front door being the sole exception. “We’re married, and married people don’t need ‘privacy’ between each other,” he’d say. “And a locked door means there’s no trust, just shame between us, and we shouldn’t ever be ashamed of each other, Beth.” It didn’t help, of course, that his mother had had an affair with the neighbor’s husband or that his father had kept a cache of his construction business’s “investments” in a locked box in a hidden panel in the guest room bookshelf. It didn’t help that every other person in Marc’s entire family had an afternoon soap opera’s worth of secrets that were never really secrets.

So, naturally, Marc had trust issues he refused to acknowledge and locked doors didn’t help matters. Beth just wished that hadn’t extended so bizarrely to bathroom doors, though she supposed that could’ve had something to do with her sister-in-law’s habit of hoarding prescription painkillers, the habit that had killed her in the end.

His family issues had so quickly become Beth’s issues.

Beth gave her shaggy mane a brisk rub with the towel and then examined her back once again in the mirror. The jagged, wispy sheets of the loose epidermis had shrunk in the water and had pilled. There were tiny, sticky gray balls dotted here and there around the patchwork of golden skin that had apparently been hiding there, dormant for—well, Beth didn’t know for how long exactly. When she reached behind to touch a particularly noticeable bare spot near her shoulder, she was suddenly hit with a pulsing, tingling, pulling sensation in her groin. It was a shuddering climax that came with no preamble.

An orgasm just from touching her own skin.

It had been powerful enough in its quaking aftershocks that Beth wavered there for a moment and then had to sit on the toilet just to cool off, panting as she did.

There was another rap at the door, a soft one this time, coupled with a “Beth? Seriously, you okay in there?”

She could hear the girls whispering behind the door to their father. He shushed them and Beth heard him say softly, “She’ll be out. She just needs a minute.”

One of the girls giggled, a shrill, bubbling pop of sound. Sylvie. It was her trademark laugh, one of the few traits that set her apart from her sister. “Is she on her period?”

“Sylvie, that’s disgusting. Don’t say that,” Marc scolded. “We don’t talk about that at home, so we don’t talk about it here.”

“Why not? She might be on her period, Dad. Women need privacy when their vaginas are all bloody.”

“That’s enough!”

Sadie piped in, naturally defending her sister. “But what did Sylvie say that was wrong?”

“You know perfectly well what.”

“No, we don’t. Why don’t you explain it to us, Dad?” Sadie said, her egging causing Sylvie to let out a stream of giggles.

Marc obviously wasn’t interested in continuing the conversation, diverting his attention once again in his wife’s direction. “BETH! For fuck’s sake . . .”

Beth smiled at that. She liked it when he was uncomfortable.

She’d stay in the bathroom a little longer, exploring the newest intricacies of her own skin .

“Happiest place on earth,” she said quietly as she touched herself.

It was Sylvie who kept chewing with her mouth open.

Normally, Sadie was the one who’d wolf down her food, practically shoveling it all in, packing as much as she could in one, hefty bite. She often turned it into a contest with her sister, who would pretend to be aloof and uninterested, before she gave in. This time, however, Sylvie had the spark of mischief in her eye. Instead of challenging Sadie, Sylvie turned all of her attention on Beth as she scooped in bite after bite, scarfing down the familiar mouse head-shaped waffles. Beth stared at her when Sylvie grinned around a particularly gluey lump in her mouth.

“Mom, what’s with your skin?” Sadie asked with a sneer. Now that was in character, at least, Beth supposed. Sadie was more inclined to go big when embarrassing Beth in public.

Beth stole a glance over at Marc

Marc, however, was too distracted to notice. He was catching up on the morning’s headlines on his phone as he sipped from his coffee. Every so often, his eyes would flick in the direction of one of the Princesses who cooed and beamed, posing for a selfie with one of the other families there in the dining hall.

“It looks like . . . what’s it called . . . when your skin’s all different shades . . . like ‘melatonin’ or something.”

“Melatonin’s what you take for sleep, like a natural version of Ambien,” Sylvie said in between bites. “That stuff that Mom takes. Right, Mom?”

“You mean vitiligo, sweetheart,” corrected Marc, his focus still partially on his phone, but as ever, he wouldn’t let his scrolling distract him from one of his favorite pastimes, correcting people.

“You don’t need Ambien, Mom,” said Sylvie, her eyes glinting with that spark that often got her in trouble. “You should just drink scotch like Daddy. You won’t need a prescription for it.”

Ten years old and she already knows what a sleeping pill is , Beth thought. Ten years old and going through my bathroom medicine cabinet. How sweet it all is , and he doesn’t give a shit about that.

“Your mom just got too much sun,” said Marc, finally setting his phone down to direct his attention on his wife, if only to chide. He smirked at her. “I think she needs to remember to reapply the SPF every hour like it says on the goddamned bottle. But you know your mom, girls. Always in her own head and stubborn as ever.”

Sylvie scoffed around another bite of waffle. “Yeah, Dad, could you not?”

Her sister chortled into her glass of orange juice.

“Well, you could’ve covered that up, Beth. That tank top isn’t flattering on you. I mean, look at your skin, it’s peeling all around your shoulders there. You should’ve worn something with sleeves like I told you.”

Beth plonked her fork down on her plate, the shrill ring of it reverberating throughout the dining hall. The sound caused the girls to jerk in their seats, their eyes wide in a mixture of shock and anticipation. They both snuck a glance in their father’s direction to gauge his reaction.

Marc’s smirk had since formed into a tight line, teeth clenched, his stare hard.

In one swift motion, Beth was up out of her chair, quickly wiping her mouth with her napkin. She tossed the napkin, picked up her purse, and left her family to stew at the table without her.

“And that, girls,” said Marc. “That is what ladies don’t do when out in public. They don’t make a scene. Speaking of scenes, Sylvie, for fuck’s sake, chew your food with your mouth closed. You look like a cow chewing cud. It’s disgusting.”

Sadie snickered at her sister, who shot her dad a sulky scowl before focusing on her food again.

Beth was tempted to touch it. There, in the public facilities. Just the thought of it got her excited. She wouldn’t be outright masturbating if she did it, or so she told herself. She’d locked herself in a stall, so it wasn’t as if anyone would know what she was doing anyway, there, alone, away from her family.

Her family who simply couldn’t stand her.

“You should do it,” said a silky voice from beyond the stall door.

Beth spun around at the sound of it. “What?”

“Come out of there, Beth,” the woman said.

“How do you—?”

The woman laughed. It sounded like tinkling chimes, strangely high-pitched and sweet. A Princess laugh.

“You should peel, Beth. Peel it all away.”

Beth slowly slid the bolt aside and opened the door. Right outside the door, one of the Princesses stood there, facing Beth directly. A dazzling smile was planted on the Princess’s face, stretching wide and showing off immaculate white teeth. The pastel blue dress she wore was fluffy with layers of crinoline and brocaded satin. Her platinum locks with heavy, thick bangs, had been set in a carefully curled updo with a wide blue headband as decoration. Yet what was most noticeable about the Princess was her radiant skin. It glistened in the low light of the ladies’ room.

And her smell. She smelled of embers and spun sugar. Something wrong, something like home.

Beth couldn’t help herself. She let herself be drawn in, and she moved right into the arms of the Princess, who held her tightly and stroked her hair while murmuring sweet, magical words.

“You’re in the happiest place on earth, Beth,” she said, nuzzling Beth’s hair. “Everyone thinks it’s all about the kids, but it’s not.” She pulled Beth from her to tenderly gaze at her, as if she had created Beth.

As if she had birthed her.

“I . . . I have a family,” Beth whispered. “I should get back to them. They’re waiting.”

But the Princess had already begun peeling Beth’s skin, her gloved hands working at her, unraveling her. It felt as if she was being scratched wide open with razor blades, like the Princess’s talons were coming through the satin of the dress gloves. She didn’t see any fingernails poking through the material, but she certainly felt them shedding her of her waste, shredding her entirely. The tangle of her skin, her cover.

Everything was coming apart; everything was new again. Beth’s body felt electric and a pulsing tingle consumed her. She didn’t need the old skin anymore.

And the next layer was torn away and the one after that. And when Beth really began to bleed, off went the tendons, the nerves, and the tender meat.

When the Princess went for her heart, it was then when Beth finally let herself go.

The man’s eyes crawled all over the cleavage of the dark-haired Princess with the bare midriff and harem pants as she hugged his girls to her, a lithe arm around each of them, the three of them beaming at his camera phone.

Her thumbs idly stroked the back of the girls’ necks, and she said with a tinkling laugh, “Say ‘Princesses forever’!”

The twins’ eyes had grown glassy when their father snapped the picture.

When the Princess broke away from the girls, she gave them a little wave, one last smile before she sauntered off to another table where a group of tiny tots squealed when they saw her coming.

The man checked the time on his phone and let out a low whistle. “You girls ready to go?”

The twins snapped awake and alert, as if they’d just come to life. “Yes, Daddy,” they said in unison as they gathered their backpacks, and the man set down a tip, but not before lamenting aloud about the “goddamn price of a breakfast with no omelet bar.”