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This is a story about Christy, she's a 26 year old writer for a television show based in LA, she met her finace Brian on set, he's an actor on the show. They've been dating for 2 years and Christy hasn't been home or seen the majority of her family in three years. She is coming home to help plan her mother's 60th birthday party but gets sucked into the family drama. There is bound to be laughs, tears, love, anger and good old fashioned family nonsense.



“Alright my darlings, lets finish up this planning so we can start eating.” Marty winked at her Grandchildren and captured the attention of everyone with ‘eating’.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Tina raised her hand acting like a school aged child. Practically everyone at the kitchen table rolled their eyes in her direction, most of Tina’s suggestions tended to be immature or crude.

“Tina if you say we make Wynona a penis shaped cake one more time I swear…” Marty waved a finger in Tina’s direction, Tina opened her mouth to protest and then closed it quickly. Christy snickered into her water glass and Brian tried not to look shocked at the calm way Marty said ‘penis cake’. Conversations like that were one of the main things Christy missed about being around her family.

“You know my mom might actually enjoy a good old fashioned penis cake?” Katrina smiled while she bounced Maggie on her knee and looked in Debbie’s direction. Christy noticed the sly smile that passed between them and couldn’t help but feel her heart twinge a little. There had been a time when she was in on the inside jokes of her sisters, but then again maybe that’s what she deserved from not seeing the entire family in three years.

“What’s so funny?” Christy spoke up and directed the question to Debbie who was sitting next to her holding Kyle’s newborn in her arms.

“Oh it was just a joke from a previous party, you know we were playing charades--”

“Oh my gosh!” Lena practically shrilled and covered her mouth quickly. “I have completely forgotten about that!” Lena started laughing and Kimberly and her girlfriend Desire joined in the laughter.

“I never thought I’d hear someone yell out shuttle cock so loudly in their life.” Desire smiled wide and wrapped her arm around Kimberly. “Honestly this family never ceases to amaze me.” Christy noticed the loving stare that was passed between Kimberly and Desire and she again felt her heart strings pull. She missed the family, she honestly did, being back was sucking her back. She missed being in on the inside jokes and in on all the laughs they shared over games of scatergories, cranium, charades and taboo. There wasn’t anything the family wouldn’t say to win.

“Well I guess I missed a good round of charades.” Christy rolled her eyes and reached for Brian’s hand under the table and squeezed.

“Oh you’ve missed more then one good round of charades.” Tina spoke up and nodded towards everyone else.

“Right.” Christy quickly took a sip of her water and took a deep breath. She had to try and remind herself that her life was good in LA, her writing was going great, she loved her job, she loved her fiancé and most importantly she was finally learning to love herself.

“Alright, alright, enough, lets get back on track before this whole night turns into a reminiscing of good times you’ve had. You know you could all be here all night.” Marty rolled her eyes.

“Hey Marty! Do you want some more warm apple pie?” Allison started laughing hysterically while everyone else caught on and continued laughing. Since Marty had seen American Pie she couldn’t hear the words ‘warm apple pie’ without blushing intensely.

“Oh shut up!” Marty laughed out loud and swatted her hand towards Allison. Christy smiled, she was in on that joke. It had mostly been with her older cousins but most everyone had heard the story and were in on the joke.

“Or how about flashing your--” Patricia perked up and wanted to get in on the conversation of reminiscing but was stopped abruptly with hand being shoved over Patricia’s mouth.

“Don’t you say it!” Marty could hardly contain her laughter. Christy remembered hearing the story, she had been too young to remember, there had been a night that Marty had a little too much to drink and some of the older cousins were hanging out late playing games with the aunts and Marty had picked up her dress and forgotten she wasn’t wearing underwear. A few of the girl cousins had actually witnessed seeing their grandmother’s vagina. Everyone had talked about it for days, maybe even weeks, hell they were still talking about it almost twenty years later.

Brian who was the only non grandchild, well the only male non grandchild at the table, since Desire was sitting there, raised an eyebrow at Christy and she just shook her head laughing. She leaned close and whispered in his ear “Believe me, you really don’t want to know. And if you do you can ask Mario he was around then.”

“I guess I’ll pass this time. But honestly it seems like you guys have your own language to make yourselves laugh.”

“Oh we do. Honestly there isn’t anything this family won’t say out loud.”

“So it seems.” Brian squeezed Christy’s hand tightly and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders. He could see what she was missing out on, and he was sure that as much as she was trying to tell herself she wasn’t missing it, he knew she was. He saw the way she rolled her eyes when they told her she had missed out, he saw the stare she had directed at her sisters as they shared a little secret she wasn’t in on. Why had she really run away from the family? They didn’t seem judgmental, obviously they were accepting of all, with diverse husbands, two gay grandsons and one lesbian granddaughter. He just wished Christy was willing to talk about the “problems” she had had when she had been living there.

“Alright you brats,” Marty smiled showing she was joking, “really we were going to discuss the party, it’s in two days and these past two days you guys really haven’t made any more progress.”

“The caterer will be here by 5 to set up by 6, the dj will be here by 6 to be set up by 7. All we really have left to do is hang the lights, put a few table clothes on tables and put some alcohol on ice.” Christy scanned over her check list once more to make sure she had spoken the truth. “Yeah that looks like everything.”

“Well, well aren’t you the organized one?” Allison sneered in Christy’s direction and took a sip of her drink, which Christy presumed had alcohol in it.

“Well it is my mom’s party, I should be organized for it, you know I didn’t get to really help out at the 50th party since I was only 16. I can do more for it now.”

“You get a little bit of money and think you’ve got the world at your disposal?” Allison raised an eyebrow and stared intently at Christy.

Christy bit her bottom lip, she didn’t know exactly what to say. She didn’t really feel like getting into it with Allison and didn’t want to get into It especially with Brian present. “Ha! Not at all.” Christy smiled weakly and tried to blow off the comment before things got out of hand.

“Hey Allison you want to go outside with me for a smoke?” Desire practically jumped from the table and reached for Allison’s arm.

“Yeah that sounds good.” Allison got up drunkenly from the table and followed Desire out the back door.

“She’s just upset you left her.” Kimberly reached for Christy’s hand to give it a squeeze. “You know how close you two were growing up, she feels deserted I’m sure.”

Christy just nodded her head but was afraid to speak, afraid that if she opened her mouth words would come pouring out that she didn’t want to escape. She was afraid of getting word vomit, or worse, real vomit. Her stomach turned at the thought.

“Don’t let her get to you Christy.” Tina smiled,

“Alright kids well since Christy’s got a lot of this under control why don’t we eat?” Marty stood at the head of table and headed for the kitchen. “Come on.” The grandchildren stood up silently, thinking about the old inside jokes, thinking about the words that were said out loud, they couldn’t help it, absolutely nothing was a secret in the family.