Backbiter

Backbiting, speaking out of turn in regards to someone who isn’t present. Synonym, Gossip.

They were at the renaissance faire, and all she could think was that everything was overpriced, but while her little sister complained about the quality of the knicknacks, she couldn’t say it was unexpected. Money simply wasn’t an object, so she wasn’t certain how or why her little sister had become so miserly since the age of five.

She’d have asked her elder sister, but even as she was right there she probably wouldn’t have an answer, so she wasn’t about to put her on the spot on the subject.

She liked to imagine it was her mother’s influence, but she also couldn’t imagine mom warning her away from the expenditure. Being so volatile, and spoiled, always so willing to make a scene in front of her boyfriend, or say uncouth things, she couldn’t imagine anything about it being just her little sister.

At least before being taken out of school. She remembered her sister before going to college, at three or four she was just a pit of sunshine, not a deeper thought than the dollish manners meant for little girls, her favorite animal, the shape that good toys came in, but given the time since then, four years, she’d gone crazy.

She also was apparently nowhere to be seen. Somehow, in the lousy few minutes she’d had to leer at the wares in the little blanket shops her sister had wandered off.

Terrified she’d gone looking for her, down an over-full path and past the maps that didn’t do much to orient her, before finding a tree.

Where someone remained in a shaking stillness, undershade on the grass. A too short body, curled overknee, rather obviously her sister, unresponsive, which she could only see as utterly rude.

“Hey, you wandered off.” she said annoyed. She’d gone so far out of her way to bring her somewhere she thought she’d like and she’s behaving like some kind of trauma victim. A few minutes later Ida came and well, they got to talking.

“I just don’t know why she’s behaving this way, she used to be so sociable.” When she was five at least, she really loved talking to waitresses back then, so she didn’t understand why she wouldn’t like being in a crowded outdoor space all by herself.

“It’s to be expected, she was homeschooled since 3rd grade. It’s not like mom put too much thought into it.” Her elder sister brought up, she’d been so open about things since moving in with her boyfriend, really like a blooming flower. “I mean, I was there in the city with them. It’s not like we really bothered with normal methods. She got a laptop during Tax returns and it’s really all she does.” 

“That makes sense, obviously that’s the only thing it could be.” she could’ve said or not, it didn’t matter. “It must be so awful not going to school.” she said, not really thinking much about her little sister still hyperventilating next to a tree. But frankly she couldn’t possibly do anything about that, it was a problem, but she was a grown up and she was talking, and it wasn’t like they weren’t giving her room to say her piece, at least if she wanted to complain about their mom or home in general like kids her age were supposed to do. Honestly, mom didn’t even have a car since Ida moved out with Aunt Peg’s.

There’s a lull in conversation before a work friend walks up, ending their ramble, “hey, Jody what’s wrong?” Penny asked immediately assuming that something had gone wrong, upon seeing all of them by the tree, and her sister’s tear streaked face. Which it totally hadn’t, “nothing, what brings you out here?” 

“Me and some buddies-”

“That’s really great. We were thinking we’d be going though ‘cause my little sister had an episode.”

“Oh, that sucks-” but then Kay popped up like some kind of manic daisy, “yeah it does, I wanted to see the shop over there though.” she said pointing out at the distance which wasn’t strange at all.

They could only really afford to stay for thirty more minutes, mostly because it was rather obvious that Kay hadn’t wanted to be there while she and Ida were talking, and she couldn’t imagine that this would change at all. She zipped around in a way that she really hadn’t the entire trip, and they walked off to the car before driving home.

She doesn’t remember really what the drive home was like, but she’s pretty sure Kay was silent if she was paying any attention.

It had been a few months since the Ren fair and the first time she’d ever worn a corset, it had been for about 3 minutes, and it felt horrible, but she wanted one for a while and she still did. But she doesn’t want to talk to them ever again, and her mom doesn’t like this at all. She’ll learn one day that what they’d said wouldn’t have been enough for her to feel betrayed, but it’s the worst thing to ever know because they ought to live with what they say if they insist on saying it.

She doesn’t want her to go bitter, and there are many a day even when they try to change that make her regret not going no-contact with them, but she almost dies in a mold ridden house, and it takes about thirty messages for them to take mom seriously in regards to her health. She spends an evening on the breathalyzer, and she’ll never really forgive her sisters this moment and all that lead up to it. Not like her teeth almost a decade later.

It comes up later after maybe a year, but she can’t really remember. She was at an art expo with her aunt, and she’d been feeling the utter pollution of people for the last ten minutes, and she was feeling that moment again. That moment when she’d seen the crush of people and the lack in her body and just the utter awareness - dread she’d only felt from asthma attacks and school.

She did that thing again. Found a spot not underlight, where only she knew where she was. She needed to not feel where she was, and she couldn’t afford what her aunt might say over it.

But Aunt Peg finds her and doesn’t say a thing, just leads her off to a cafe installation and buys her a soda for her ‘stomach ache’.

She’d had a panic attack. Like she did when she was little, in class that her teachers couldn’t deal with, and like she’d had the once in front of her sister’s. That her sisters decided to blame on mom, but not on her and still on her since they couldn't deal. But even knowing that, could she even afford to let them know it hurt? A lot could be said about the poverty they’d lived with, but it was only the slim obedience she showed that made them help. Almost dying wasn’t enough if mom asked. She knew that as certainly as anything. If she says anything. “My sisters don’t know how to deal with anything real.” she might’ve said, she could’ve said if she’d had any tact back then, but her aunt figured out how she felt about them before she died either way.

She- her aunt brings it up later like her sisters never do when she behaves the way she does, “I think Kay has an anxiety disorder, she had an anxiety attack.”

“Crowds worry her I think. It’s not surprising in the least. Crowds suck.”

And she doesn’t remember what mom said about it, nor does she trust her mom’s proud memory, but she figures it’s as accepted as everything else about her in her mom’s view.

That’s the least she can say about her mom. There’s nothing so wrong with her that it is unacceptable as it actually is.

Her mom and sister had moved in with Aunt Peg, and Cancer like a lot of things was eating stomachs and wills and just the desire to change. Actually a lot of things had happened, Kay apparently has an anxiety issue or some nonsense, and she broke a confidence. She'd told mom about everything they’d totally never said at the ren faire, which is completely unfair, since they were doing her a favor, making it very clear what they thought of her life. She’s married her boyfriend and broke it off with her husband, and she was trying with Billy since she did sleep with him, but everything was strange.

Kay doesn’t really claw for invites anymore, doesn’t really want to be entertained at the resale, or go to the mall. When they go places she forces the issue, “we need toilet tissue first” “soap first” “I want candy” and then they’d buy their groceries, but that didn’t bother her one bit.

It was her clothes. Gone were the holey daisy dukes and too thin stained tank tops over summer, she’d somehow come to the conclusion that cutoff leggings and a mini tank bra were acceptable clothes for the public.

After shopping and the mall Jody rushed home to mom, “Did you see what Kay was wearing?”

“Yeah?” Mom said from her old armchair.

“Mom, People were talking about her! Why doesn’t she have anything proper to wear?” She asked quite reasonably, it really wouldn’t do for complete strangers to think they couldn’t buy her appropriately thick clothes that covered exactly that much of her. Only for her mother to make light of it.

“Hon, it’s the middle of summer. It’s only a sense of elderly shame that has me wearing more than that.”

“Mom, you can’t joke about this. I’d buy her new clothes if you’d said anything.” She said very honestly, if she had to go on another ‘shopping trip’ that became a ‘grocery run’ she’d have to actually evaluate their living circumstances.

“I think it’s funny how quick you are to judge her for what she wears, what about you or your sister? Can you be so certain that Kay is the only one turning heads or some such ire?” she asked in some fashion which was really very rude, they were talking about her little sister dressing like an underpaid slut, not how people who were going to opine about that were also going to view literally anything else about the feminine body.

“That’s not. We can buy her clothes. We should be guiding her towards better decisions!” she said, losing the mark as her mom kept onward.

“Towards what? Towards wasting what funds we have? Or towards feeling bad about her lot in life? Besides, did you defend her?” she asked, which she wasn’t really interested in arguing with ‘cause money and self-esteem really shouldn’t be more important than how strangers saw them. Besides, “I’d be the first to defend her if something happened.”

“And did anything actually happen? Or did you get ego-sore about how she dresses and drag it back to me like I don’t already know.” Which was pretty much where it ended. Mom wasn’t going to listen anymore to her perfectly well-thought and not at all reactionary observation. In any case she decided to put it under review. Maybe it’s okay for her sister to dress like a destitute skank, but also, it’s really very not fun to think about money as a resource that in its limitations decides anything about her sister’s experience of basically everything, so she was going to block that part out.