The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait by Blake Bailey Page B

bride, who endured perhaps five minutes of polite chitchat with the local hausfrauen before planting herself in front of the TV and watching Bonanza . Sandra wouldn’t have done that. Indeed, Sandra would have shared the other ladies’ consternation in spades, given that she herself was the favorite daughter of Garden City, Kansas, which is perhaps best known for (a) being near Holcomb of In Cold Blood fame (Sandra had known the Clutters well) and (b) having the World’s Largest Outdoor Municipal Concrete Swimming Pool, which we duly visited, en famille, during our one and only trip to Sandra’s hometown. Like my father, Sandra had somewhat transcended her origins: the prettiest girl in her class at Garden City High, and one of the smartest, she’d been Miss Fort Hays State in college and then survived a ghastly first marriage to the local It Boy, a charming narcissist who gave her two gorgeous children: a girl, Kelli, and a son, Aaron, two and eight years younger than I.
    Sandra’s ménage moved into our house well before the wedding, and forced me to alter those habits that had evolved as a matter of having the place to myself so much. No more lingering bowel movements; now that I shared a bathroom with Kelli, who looked as though she excreted marshmallows, I set my alarm early so I could finish my business in good time and leave the place ventilated once my future stepsister awoke to the song “Celebration,” by Kool and the Gang, as she did every wholesome morning for the six months or so before I left for college. In general I had to be less selfish. The little boy, Aaron, was not taking the change well and was often found weeping under somebody’s bed; what with his mother at work (public relations) and sister off cheerleading or whatever, it was up to me to coax him out and put him on my knee until he dried up.
    Sandra and her children made me feel a bit Caliban-like. Sandra was lovely in a brittle, porcelain sort of way, her strawberry blond hair stylishly coiffed, her frantic smile dissembling some pretty complicated emotional weather. Aaron resembled his mother to an almost unsettling degree, what with his big lashy eyes and rosy cheeks and snub nose (when he went bald at an early age, the effect was that of a depilated Kewpie doll), whereas Kelli was a bosomy, nonbrittle confection of both parents. Back then my stepsiblings seemed not only comelier than I but somewhat sweeter and saner too. A decided liability was my drinking. One memorable evening I was the big loser of a chugging contest, after which I perversely insisted that my friends take me home. This they did, dragging me past the startled eyes of Sandra and her children—Burck too—like a baggy old cadaver crossing the set of Ozzie and Harriet .
    But if I was Caliban, what did that make my brother? And what would these überkinder make of him? My own feeling was that we should put off that final merging of our families as long as possible—at least until Scott’s face cleared up and he made the leap to solid citizenhood that one waited for like the spark from heaven. But no. Shortly before the wedding, Scott came to dinner so he could meet his future stepfamily. It could have gone worse. I’m sure that Sandra, determined to help my father by helping his older son, had said something to her kids beforehand, since they twinkled around Scott like social workers in the presence of a promising welfare mother.
    “I’ve eaten there,” Kelli gushed, when Scott mentioned his present place of employment. “Oh my God, it’s so good . It’s like the best restaurant in town!”
    “Was it fun living in New York?” asked eager Aaron at some point, whereupon his mother broke into a bright smile and said (not for the first time) how wonderful it was to be together like this, together at last.
    Scott was on his best behavior—that is, a tad creepy but in control, a stylized version of a Nice Young Man. He was careful to enunciate in a way that erased