It's All Your Fault Read online

  “Angel Wars?” asked my mom as if she’d never heard of the books before. I love my mom but I just have to say it: She was lying.

  The three books, which are called Angel Wars: First Flight, Angel Wars: Devil’s Dominion and Angel Wars: Aloft, were written by a nice preschool teacher in North Carolina who first self-published the books online along with selling stapled-together xeroxed copies out of the trunk of her Toyota Camry at yard sales. After a year the books became a cult phenomenon and once they were republished by a regular publisher and translated into over eight hundred languages, the sales wouldn’t stop. Here’s how I know how popular and addictive the Angel Wars books are: I was allowed to read them only after I caught my mom reading the second book in the toolshed out behind our house. She didn’t hear me open the door to the shed because she was so absorbed in her book, which she was reading by flashlight. She begged me not to tell Dad, so we made a deal: I’d keep my mouth shut as long as I could borrow the books.

  That’s another reason why I love my mom: While she tries really hard to be a good person every single second of the day, sometimes she just has to give in, eat three cupcakes in a row, and read Angel Wars.

  Since the Angel Wars books were so overwhelmingly successful, a studio decided to make at least four movies out of them and Heller was cast as Lynnea, the Chosen Winglet, for one simple reason: The studio didn’t know what Heller was really like because the studio wasn’t her cousin.

  The Angel Wars movie seems to have cost over two hundred million dollars to make,” said my mom. “It premieres next week all over the world.”

  “The studio is going insane,” said Aunt Nancy. “They’ve tried to keep everything that’s happened to Heller as quiet as possible; they’ve been paying all sorts of people to hush everything up because there’s so much riding on this movie and because people love those books so much. And because this movie could turn Heller into a major movie star.”

  My mom has always told me that Hollywood is a very dangerous place and that it can turn people into monsters. I’m not saying that Aunt Nancy is a monster but for someone who talks a lot about solar power and tantric energy and rediscovering her birth self, Aunt Nancy also knows a lot about what she calls the entertainment industry.

  “Heller becoming a movie star isn’t really our concern here,” said my mom. “What I’m worried about is Heller herself, and what’s happened to her. Because Heller is still a member of our family and we love her very much.”

  My mom and Aunt Nancy exchanged a look—checkmate again.

  “So the studio, the people who made the Angel Wars movie,” said Aunt Nancy, “they want someone to stay with Heller every second for this whole weekend before the movie opens. She’s all booked up with an enormous press junket and a whole schedule of appearances and then the world premiere in Manhattan. They want someone who’ll be a cross between a chaperone and a sober companion and a bodyguard. I would do it but the studio doesn’t trust me. There was only one person I could think of who knows Heller and who’s also, well, who’s not some skeevy character like everyone else in Heller’s world. Basically, the studio is looking for someone who understands Heller and who’s also a stick-up-her-ass, uptight teenage nun. But in a really good way.”

  “Meaning you,” said my mom, and she took my hand.

  It was starting with my legs, which were shaking and numb. I clutched my mom’s hand really hard and I squinched my eyes shut. My whole body was trying to curl up into a tight little ball to escape the panic as if maybe I could roll out of its path. I had to say something, I had to do something, I had to stop this whole situation from getting any more real.

  “NO!” I said. “I … I … can’t! I won’t! Please don’t ask me to do this! I … I … I can’t!”

  “Sweetie, Catey, it’s okay,” said my mom, putting her arms around me. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We’ll completely understand.”

  “I … I …” I was doing the deep breathing and trying to unclench my fingers. My mom’s hug was helping but the dread wasn’t going away.

  “Catey, I totally get it,” said Aunt Nancy. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  I was instantly back in that last day, the last time I’d seen Heller. The day I’d almost died. People who’ve been in car accidents and plane crashes sometimes can’t remember the details; they just remember waking up days later in the hospital. I remembered almost everything, especially the fear. My therapist had me rate my attacks on a scale between one and ten, but why does the scale stop at ten? Ten is nothing. Ten is being alone in our house on a dark night and hearing the screen door slam. This attack was already somewhere near a thousand. This was Heller.

  “Catey, Catey, I’m right here, nothing bad is going to happen,” said my mom, who was hugging me very tightly because I’d started to rock back and forth, and open and shut my eyes very quickly to blot out the world.

  “It’s just … ,” said Aunt Nancy. “No. Things will work out. They have to.”

  “What?” I asked and opened my eyes. “What were you going to say?”

  “I know that you hate Heller,” Aunt Nancy said. “And I know that you have a very good reason to hate her and I’d never deny that. It’s just—and I have no right to say this but it’s all I keep thinking—Heller needs you.”

  Heller WHAT? Heller had never needed me. Heller didn’t need anyone. Heller was the most independent and confident and reckless person I’d ever met. Heller was the total opposite of me, in every way. But now—she needed me?

  “What … what do you mean? Why does Heller need me?”

  “Well,” said my mom, “you are so sweet and so disciplined and so conscientious. Your father and I are so proud of you. You’re a role model, and a fine young woman. I’m just going to say it, right out loud—you’re a Singleberry. You could set an example. Just maybe—you could change Heller’s life.”

  Oh my God. Literally. OH MY GOD. God was speaking to me. God was saying, Caitlin, you’re a very good girl but that isn’t enough. You have to help others. You have to reach out. If you’re a truly good person, you have to help the most difficult and the most undeserving and the most disgustingly evil people in the world.

  You have to help Heller.

  How could I help her, when I hated her guts? When she’d never listen to a word I’d say? When she’d be drunk or high or having sex or doing something even worse than all of those things put together, something so putrid and rancid and revolting that my brain was too pure to even conceive of it?

  My mom was right. There was only one way to help Heller. I was going to Singleberry her.

  I stopped rocking and I smoothed my skirt and I raised my chin high, because I was accepting the Lord’s challenge. Just like Lynnea, from Angel Wars, I was going to descend into the bowels of the underworld and I was going to save the planet, or at least Heller Harrigan. Maybe I wasn’t an angel or a saint or Joan of Arc. Or maybe I was.

  “I’ll do it,” I said proudly, although I was also trying to sound selfless and humble because that’s who I am. “I’ll go.”

  Within half an hour my mom had packed my suitcase for the weekend while Aunt Nancy dithered, saying things like, “Doesn’t Caitlin own anything with a little shimmer?” and “Does she really need that many pairs of kneesocks? Aren’t kneesocks just chastity belts for your shins?” My mom finally shut her up by saying, “Nancy, we’d like Caitlin to be herself and not some hormonal Hollywood creature. And it won’t hurt Heller to see what underwear looks like.”

  My whole family clustered around me as this huge black limousine pulled up in front of our house. I’d traveled before, as far as Branson, Missouri, for concerts with all of us packed into a reconditioned school bus. My dad had bought this bus years ago at a county auction and he’d installed seat belts and he’d painted the outside in our family colors of burgundy and gold. He’d painted a musical staff running along both sides of the bus and he’d inscribed each of our names on the musical notes,
adding more notes and names as each new Singleberry arrived. We called the bus the Singleberry Express and sometimes the Singlebus, although Heller had once commented, “That thing looks like it’s taking mentally handicapped students to choir camp. Which I guess it pretty much is.”

  I’d certainly never been inside a limousine and when it pulled up my brothers and sisters surrounded it, as if it was a piñata filled with treats, or explosives.

  “This is so cool,” said Carter, who’s seven and who loves pretty much anything on wheels.

  “Is this whole car just for Caitlin?” asked Corinne, who’s Carter’s twin sister. “Does it have a bathroom?”

  “Kids, don’t touch the car,” said my dad, although I could tell that he wanted to. My dad is really good at doing anything mechanical so I’m sure he was dying to pop the limo’s hood or to see what driving a limo might feel like, especially on the turns.

  “Caitlin is only riding in this car because she has a job to do,” my mom explained to everyone.

  “Oh man, limos,” said Aunt Nancy, getting misty-eyed. “The first time I ever had a three-way was in a limo.”

  “What’s a three-way?” asked Carter.

  “A three-way is like a turnpike,” said Calico, to head off that particular conversation.

  “Sweetie,” said my mom, hugging me especially tightly, “we are all so proud of you, but we want you to be extra careful about everything and we want you to call us every hour on the hour for an update.”

  My dad handed me a cell phone, which was the first time I’d ever touched one. I’d seen other people with cell phones and my parents had them but the Singleberries had a rule: As my dad always said, “No one under the age of eighteen needs a cell phone unless they’re a surgeon, a drug dealer or a prostitute.” The first time he’d ever told me this, Heller had piped up with. “Wouldn’t it be incredible to be all three?”

  “Ms. Singleberry?” said a tall woman in a spiffy black uniform, who was the limo’s driver. “I’m April, and I’ll be with you for the entire weekend.” April, who I later found out had won many women’s bodybuilding titles, including Ms. Olympia, Ms. Universe and Ms. Number One Tri-State Delts, opened the limo’s rear door for me.

  “Oh, April, please take good care of our little girl,” said my mom.

  “Of course I will,” said April, and I trusted her already because she was almost six feet tall with really broad shoulders and a great smile and she looked like if another car ever tried to cut her off or steal her parking space, she’d just pick that car up, spin it a few times and toss it into a nearby river.

  “Caitlin? We’re late,” said a man, probably in his twenties, sticking his head out of the backseat. “Wyatt Markowitz. I’m Heller’s manager. Her new manager. I’ll fill you in about everything on the way.”

  Wyatt was nice-looking and everything about him, including his hair, his eyeglasses and his tight blue suit, looked perfect and expensive. As we left for Manhattan, he said, “Your family, they’re for real, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw some videos of your family singing online and I thought you were great but for a second I wondered if maybe you were an improv troupe, you know, doing a take on that sort of music, with the matching outfits and all. I think you were all wearing these maroon polyester blazers, right? And the guys had flared pants and the girls had those knee-length skirts and kneesocks. I mean, I hadn’t seen kneesocks in maybe, like, ever. Oh my God, you’re wearing them right now.”

  “Of course,” I said, looking down at the white socks, with a mustard-colored stripe at the top, which I’d worn my whole life. “My mom and my sister Catherine make almost all of our clothes, which makes us feel really special, and we order our kneesocks in bulk from this company in Ohio. I can give you the company’s address if you want some.”

  Wyatt tried to speak but for a moment he couldn’t.

  “No no no, thank you, I’m good. And thank you so much for helping us with Heller, because she could use a friend, a real friend. I’ve only been working with Heller for the past six months and I had to clear out a lot of people. I’m not sure why but Heller seems to attract a lot of, well, questionable hangers-on. Why are you staring at me?”

  “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t staring! Or I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

  Wyatt smiled and said, “Okay, Caitlin, be honest, because I know that you’ve been homeschooled and that you’ve led a very sheltered sort of life with that humongous family of yours, which is why you’re perfect for Heller. But tell me the truth—have you ever met a Jewish person before?”

  I blushed so hard that my face probably matched my maroon blazer. Wyatt was right because I had been staring at him and I’d never met anyone Jewish; the closest I’d come was probably a Lutheran with brown hair.

  “I’m sorry! I think it’s wonderful that you’re Jewish! But I don’t want to say anything wrong and insult you!”

  “You are incredibly sweet,” said Wyatt, “and I don’t think you could ever insult anyone. But okay, if you’re going to hang out with Heller in the world of showbiz and beyond, you’re going to meet all sorts of people.” Then he laughed and said, “Oh my God. You are such a total über-goy.”

  “A what?”

  “A goy means a non-Jewish person, in Yiddish, which is sometimes the universal language of show business. Okay, repeat after me: meshuggeneh.”

  “Meh-shoog-en-ah,” I said slowly. “What does that mean?”

  “It means crazy. It means Heller. Okay, now say facacta.”

  This word was even trickier so I sounded it out: “Fa-cock-tah.”

  “Which means ridiculous. Which also means Heller, no, not Heller herself, because she’s amazing and she can break your heart, but everything around her can get major facacta. Okay, just one more, because it’s gonna come in truly handy, trust me: oy vey iz mir. It’s pretty much all-purpose, for whenever everything starts going wrong. It’s a combination of ‘Watch out,’ ‘Woe is me’ and ‘Just wait until your father gets home, mister.’ I mean, what do you say when everything in your life just blows up in your face and it feels like the entire world is about to end in some terrible intergalactic mega-disaster?”

  I thought about the worst moments of my life, like that day with Heller and now waiting to hear back from all those colleges, and those times when everything would be fine and then out of nowhere I’d feel like something awful was going to happen to one of my brothers or sisters because of me and I wondered: What if Wyatt’s Yiddish words could help? What if when I started freaking out I could just say or think some Jewish abracadabra and I’d start to calm down?

  “Oy vase is more,” I said, trying to get it right. Wyatt was staring at me and then he said, “I love you so much that I may have to try on your blazer. One more time: oy vey iz mir.”

  “Oy vaze his smear,” I said, and Wyatt couldn’t stop laughing.

  “What?” I said. “Was that really bad? Am I just hopeless? I mean, at being Jewish?”

  “No,” said Wyatt, wiping his eyes. “You’re doing fine and I love you for trying and I think you’re a complete breath of fresh air, and just what Heller needs. It’s just, and I say this with only the greatest affection and respect, but you are the whitest, most Christian human being I have ever met. You’re what we call a super shiksa.”

  The limo left the tunnel we’d been driving through and suddenly we were right in the middle of New York City.

  “Oy vays gosh … ,” I whispered to myself.

  By the time we got to Heller’s apartment building, Wyatt had filled me in on Heller’s schedule for the next four days, which would be my schedule as well. That night there was going to be a party at a downtown club, thrown by the studio that had produced the Angel Wars movie. On the next day, Saturday, Heller and I would be moving into her midtown hotel to do a full day of interviews and photo shoots for magazines, websites and entertainment TV shows all over the world. There would also be a huge press conference where
Heller, her costars, the movie’s director and Sarah Smilesborough, who had written the Angel Wars books, would all be interviewed together in a big ballroom and they’d be taking questions from hundreds of the most dedicated Angel Wars fans, who’d won a lottery.

  It sounded to me like the whole weekend was going to be all Heller, all the time. Which I suppose made sense, but still—no wonder she was in so much trouble, if the world constantly revolved around her. Thankfully, on Sunday Heller and I would be welcoming a little girl with leukemia who’d requested Spending a Day with Heller Harrigan through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Heller and the little girl would be shooting a public service spot to raise money for cancer research.

  I wondered if even meeting a little girl with cancer could change Heller. I was just going to have to double down, to force Heller to lead a more pious and decent life, like mine. I would even get her to finally apologize for everything she’d done to me. “I’m truly and sincerely sorry,” she would say. “I almost killed you and there’s no way I can ever make up for that. You have behaved perfectly and I am inhuman garbage.”

  If Heller had trouble saying this, she could consult the series of notecards I’d prepared.

  On Monday there was going to be a red carpet and the gala premiere of Angel Wars and a big party afterward. I was going to be one of the first people on earth to see the Angel Wars movie! But that wasn’t why I was here, I reminded myself: I was here to do God’s work. I was here to fix Heller. I was going to lead her into the light, even if I had to chain her up and drag her, kicking and screaming. For a second, I wished I’d brought a gun.

  “Do you think you can handle all that?” Wyatt asked, handing me a packet filled with credentials, tickets, and printed-out copies of the schedule.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll do my very best, with the Lord by my side.”

  Wyatt took a quick look to see if there was anyone else with me, and said, “If you have any questions I’ll be right here, along with plenty of other people from the studio. Never let Heller out of your sight. She can’t drink anything even approaching alcohol or take anything stronger than an aspirin and I mean just one baby aspirin every twenty-four hours. If you see her talking to anyone who looks sketchy or skanky or on the make, just get rid of them or call me to do it. Don’t be afraid to stand up to people and get tough with them. This is your ironclad assignment, Lieutenant Caitlin, no, Corporal Caitlin, no, Commander in Chief Caitlin: When it comes to Heller, absolutely no booze, sex or drugs. I know that’s a lot to ask.”