I'm Done Being the Family Joke novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Washable
On Christmas Eve Daisy promises her washable paint, then turns Della to the mirror and the whole family laughs at the words on her back; Della walks out, and Cal texts that his horse is down.
In front of eleven relatives, in my parents' front room, my sister asked if she could paint on my back.
"I finished my first body art class online," Daisy said, and she was grinning. "I did Mom's nails this afternoon, and now I want a real back. Please, Della?"
She held up a small black pot and a flat brush.
Her phone stood propped on the bookshelf, the way it always was at family dinners.
"You'd be doing me a huge favor," she said.
The candles on the dining table were already burning.
Daisy had lit them before anyone sat down, the way she did every year since the night the feed store burned.
I was nineteen then, and I left a space heater on in the back office.
Dad called it the matches rule, and everybody laughed.
I had put the matchbox in Daisy's hand myself when I came through the door.
She lit the candles with her own silver lighter and kept the matches in her pocket.
"Let her, honey," my mother said from the kitchen doorway. "It's Christmas."
"Go on, Della," Dad called from his recliner. "Be useful for once."
My uncle snorted into his beer.
I looked at the little pot.
"Is that safe on skin?"
"It's totally washable," Daisy said. "It fades in a few days. I'd never put anything on you that stayed."
She said it warmly, with her hand on my arm.
I believed her.
I took off my sweater and sat backwards on a kitchen chair in my camisole.
The brush was cold.
Daisy worked slowly, and everybody drifted closer to watch.
"What is it?" I asked. "A flower?"
"Don't peek. It's a surprise."
Behind me someone coughed to cover a laugh.
Dad said, "Hold still, canvas."
When the paint was dry, Daisy walked me into the hall and turned me around in front of the long mirror.
She held a hand mirror up behind me.
Under my right shoulder blade, in black capitals as tall as my palm, it said: I'M AN IDIOT.
I stood there with my sweater in my hand.
The whole front room laughed.
My uncle laughed, and my aunt, and two cousins who had never once spoken to me at a family dinner.
"Well," Dad said, wiping his eyes. "She's not wrong."
"Oh, Della, don't make that face," my mother said. "It's a joke. It's Christmas."
Daisy tipped her phone toward me so it caught my face.
"Say hi to everybody!" she said.
I walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
I wet a washcloth and scrubbed with dish soap until my skin burned.
The letters didn't even smear.
Her craft bag sat open on the hall bench when I came out.
A tall brown bottle stood in it with a feed store price sticker on the side.
I read the label twice.
Permanent livestock marking ink. Do not apply to skin. Wears off in four to eight weeks.
"Daisy."
She looked up from her phone.
"This is from Dad's shelf."
"Is it?" She blinked. "I just grabbed one that was on the counter. I didn't read it. It must be a mix-up."
"You told me it was washable."
"I thought it was!"
Mom put a hand on my shoulder.
"She didn't know, Della. Don't ruin dinner over a mistake."
Dad had already sat down at the head of the table.
"Carol, bring out the roast," he said. "Della, come eat. Your sister worked hard on that."
"Russ, she's upset," my mother said. "Give her a minute."
"She's had a minute. She's had eight years of them."
I looked at my father, my mother, and my sister with her phone held out.
Then I noticed the screen.
She had already posted it.
It was in the Elk Fork Locals group, with a caption that said: Told my sister it was washable lol. Forty-one people had already laughed at it.
Somebody touched my elbow.
My grandmother Peg stood beside me, thin and upright in her good cardigan, with my coat over her arm.
She had not laughed once.
She held out the coat, and my truck keys on top of it.
"Go on," Peg said quietly.
Nobody else heard her.
So I stepped out.
The cold hit my bare shoulders before I had the coat on.
I sat in my truck in the dark driveway with the heater running and opened the group on my phone.
Daisy's post had two hundred comments now.
The top one said: Is this the girl who burned down the feed store? Honestly she earned it.
Under it, someone had written: lol she's the family idiot, everybody knows.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
It was Cal Ockenden, whose hay barn I was supposed to have burned.
In eight years he had texted me only a time and a horse's name.
Black is down in the stall. Colic. Vet is an hour out. Can you come now.
I put the truck in reverse.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend