Something Real
Heather Demetrios
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For Menendian, who taught me how to write
And for Zach, who always believed I could
Contents
Title page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Baker’s Dozen Cast
Season 17, Episode 1 (The One with the Cameras)
Fireside Chats with Kaye Gibbons
Season 17, Episode 2 (The One with Bourbon and Cigarettes)
Season 17, Episode 3 (The One with the Retake)
Praise for Recipe for a Happy, Healthy Family
Season 17, Episode 4 (The One Where I Ditch School)
Season 17, Episode 5 (The One with Uno)
Season 17, Episode 6 (The One with the Retro Sunglasses)
Season 17, Episode 7 (The One with Spearmint Gum)
Season 17, Episode 8 (The One with the Tell-All)
Season 17, Episode 9 (The One with the Zombie Apocalypse)
Baker’s Dozen: Season 13, Episode 2
Season 17, Episode 10 (The One with the Scones)
Season 17, Episode 11 (The One with the Photo Shoot)
Baker’s Dozen Promo Video
Season 17, Episode 12 (The One in the Janitor’s Closet)
Season 17, Episode 13 (The One with the Pepsi Freezes)
Meet the Baker’s Dozen!
Season 17, Episode 14 (The One with the Skittles)
Season 17, Episode 15 (The One That’s Live)
Baker’s Dozen: Season 10, Episode 9
Season 17, Episode 16 (The One at the Mall)
Associated Press Article
Season 17, Episode 17 (The One with the Movie)
Season 17, Episode 18 (The One with the Autograph)
Baker’s Dozen: Season 13, Episode 9
Season 17, Episode 19 (The One with the Enchiladas)
Season 17, Episode 20 (The One with the Notebook)
Season 17, Episode 21 (The One with the Tabloid)
Season 17, Episode 22 (The One with the Wrapping Paper)
Season 17, Episode 23 (The One with the Fort)
Season 17, Episode 24 (The One with the Diary)
Season 17, Episode 25 (The One with Kaye Gibbons)
Season 17, Episode 26 (The One with the Red Shirt)
Season 17, Episode 27 (The One with the Duct Tape)
Viewpoints with Eileen Smith KTOK AM 540
Season 17, Episode 28 (The One with the Lawyer)
Season 17, Episode 29 (The One with the Boutonnieres)
Season 18, Episode 1 (The One with the Beach Balls)
Season 18, Episode 2 (The One with the Suitcases)
Celeb.com Article
Season 18, Episode 3 (The One with the Letters)
Season 18, Episode 4 (The One with the Cap and Gown)
Acknowledgments
Author bio
Copyright
All happy families are alike;
each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy
You reel me out and then you cut the string.
—Radiohead
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this memoir do not necessarily reflect those of the MetaReel Entertainment Corporation, Baker’s Dozen, Baker’s Dozen: Fresh Batch, or the Baker-Miller family. Bonnie™ Baker is a registered trademark. Any misuse is a violation of applicable laws.
* * *
www.metareel.com/bakersdozen/cast
Click on a name below to find out more about each member of the Baker family! Don’t forget to check out the Baker blog here.
THE PARENTS:
Beth Baker-Miller
Hometown: Bartlett, New Hampshire
Kirk Miller
Hometown: Fresno, California
THE KIDS:
Bonnie™ Baker
Age: 17
Country: USA (biological child)
Benton™ Baker
Age: 17
Country: USA (surrogate mother)
Lexie™ Baker
Age: 17
Country: USA (surrogate mother)
Farrow™ Baker
Age: 15
Country: Ethiopia (Adopted)
Riley™ Baker
Age: 14
Country: Cambodia (Adopted)
Gavin™ Baker
Age: 13
Country: Peru (Adopted)
Tristan™ Baker
Age: 12
Country: Russia (Adopted)
DeShaun™ Baker
Age: 10
Country: USA (Adopted through foster care)
Deston™ Baker
Age: 9
Country: USA (Adopted through foster care)
Lark™ Baker
Age: 8
Country: India (Adopted)
Daisy™ Baker
Age: 7
Country: China (Adopted)
Violet™ Baker
Age: 7
Country: China (Adopted)
Jasmine™ Baker
Age: 7
Country: China (Adopted)
Click here for more information about former cast member Andrew Baker (seasons 1–13).
* * *
SEASON 17, EPISODE 1
(The One with the Cameras)
It took me four years, seven shrinks, three different hair colors, one Zen meditation retreat, and over six hundred mochas to get to this moment.
I step up to the blue velvet backdrop and face the camera. When the photographer isn’t paying attention, I wipe the back of my hand over my damp forehead, then clutch my fingers behind my back, like I’m a two-year-old with a secret. I shouldn’t have worn the sweater-shirt. The wool is itchy, and I’m about two seconds away from breaking out in hives. God, why won’t he just take the damn picture? It’s not like this is Seventeen. The last time they shot me, we’d spent four hours on my hair and makeup and another three in front of the camera. This is nothing compared to that, but it feels so much worse.
I want to bolt so bad, and this guy’s taking forever, longer than he took for anyone who was in line ahead of me. But I have to stick it out. I’ve been psyching myself up for this all summer. A senior photo is an important pastime for a normal girl. And I’m a normal girl.
Finally.
I can do this. Breathe. It’s not even a camera camera … it’s just a photo. One photo. That’s it. And the name that will be underneath it in the yearbook? Totally unremarkable. Nothing Us Weekly would care about. Chloe Baker’s a nobody.
The scruffy photographer crouches down behind the camera, like a sniper looking through a scope. The panic that had started out as a slight queasiness in my stomach is pushing past my ribs, pressing against my lungs.
The sweater itching. Sweat on my forehead. Nails digging into my skin. Keep it together. Just a few more seconds.
I’m a freaking basket case.
“All right, Chloe,” he says. “On three. One, two—”
I smile as the flash goes off, and the photographer gives me a thumbs-up, then turns to the kid behind him. “Next!”
My first voluntary picture in four years.
I grab my backpack off the floor and throw it over one shoulder as I walk out of the makeshift photo studio. Giddiness wells up in me, like I mainlined a Pepsi Freeze and got a little too high on caffeine and sugar. I want to do something to commemorate the day—bake a cake or put a sticker on my calendar. Light a candle.
Behind me, a long l
ine of seniors wait their turn for the yearbook photos, but since my last name is at the beginning of the alphabet, I’m among the first to go home on this rare half day. Thank God for long faculty meetings.
“Proud of you, sis.”
My brother, Benton™, also a senior, gives me a hug. I knew he’d been waiting for me after he took his photo, which, because he’s a well-adjusted person, is no biggie for him.
“Is that relief I see in your eyes?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Maybe a little.”
“Someday, you’ll be proud of me for doing something that’s scarier than a yearbook picture.”
He gives my ponytail an affectionate tug. “Baby steps.” We walk away from the line together and then he jerks his thumb toward the locker room. “I’m meeting Matt, so you can take the car, ’kay?”
“Have fun.”
He gives me a wicked little grin. “We get his house to ourselves until he has practice at three.”
I feign shock. “Scandalous!”
He laughs and then jogs off to meet his boyfriend, while I go the opposite way, toward the parking lot.
Maybe not freaking out is proof that I’m no longer a paranoid schizo. I mean, if my classmates haven’t figured it out by now, they never will. Right? Right. It doesn’t matter if they look at me all day long or have ten yearbook pictures of me. It doesn’t. They’ll only see Chloe Baker.
Still. A tiny part of me wants to turn around and demand that the photographer delete my photo. It isn’t too late. But I keep walking, one foot in front of the other, out of the gym, through the parking lot, and to the car Benny and I share—a used silver Hyundai with dark-tinted windows, as unremarkable as I want to be.
It’s one of those rare perfect fall days that we only get, like, three of in central California. The sun is shining, but the breeze bites, and even though the trees don’t really change here, not like back home in New Hampshire, a few across the parking lot have turned golden or rust-colored. I smile at them, like we’re old friends. Then I slide into the driver’s seat, and when I turn the key, the radio starts blaring Lily Allen’s “Smile,” and really, how freakin’ perfect is that?
My cell rings, and I put it on speaker as I back out of my spot.
“Chlo. You still coming over?” It’s Tessa, one of my two best friends.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just going home to change. This sweater makes me want to rip my skin off.”
“Yikes.” I can hear the heavy buzz of students all around her—her last name’s Lee, so she’ll be in line for a while. “Well, don’t hurry. After this, I have to make sure the paper’s good to go. There are about five articles that I know right now, without the benefit of psychic powers, are going to suck.”
Tessa is the editor of the school paper, and it pretty much takes up her whole life. It sort of works out that my friends are super-busy overachievers—it gives them less time to ask questions I can’t answer.
“Don’t you have underclassmen minions to do your bidding?” I say. “Make someone else proofread for a change. It’s a half day!”
I pull out of the parking lot and head north, toward the highway that leads to the new housing developments out in the boonies.
“Can’t. The paper’s my baby. Leaving it in their hands is like child endangerment,” Tessa says. “Call you when I’m done?”
“Sounds good.”
I hang up and sing along with Lily Allen, reveling in the noon sun. Now that the photo’s over, I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’m tempted to call my therapist from last year and be like, I’m cured!! but I wouldn’t want to give her the satisfaction. She always used the phrase “that’s understandable” whenever I told her about the stuff that happened to me, and I was like, No, actually, none of it’s understandable. That’s sort of the whole point of why I’m here. But like everything else, that’s in the past.
Twenty minutes later, I slow down in front of the big metal gate that leads into our driveway. It’s exactly like the one we had in New Hampshire four years ago—built so that paparazzi can’t see in. I press the control attached to my sun visor, and the gate creaks open. As soon as I pull into the drive, my good mood is gone, like someone came over and kicked it out of me. I hit the brakes and stare.
The telltale signs of my childhood are everywhere: vans with satellite dishes on top, the Mercedes with the familiar BRN4REEL license plate, and ropes of thick black cables that crawl around the house like prehistoric predators, squeezing everyone inside until they suffocate.
The living room curtains are closed. Hot lights seem to burn up everything on the other side of them, the fluorescent quality of the inside mixing with the sunlight outside.
As if the two could coexist.
This is the moment where I’m supposed to visualize something positive. Go to my happy place. Meditate. Instead, I just sit there, numb, with the car running, and try to remember how to breathe. This can’t be possible—not when I’m finally in school and have friends and can go to the mall without Vultures hiding in planters, stalking me. Mom promised. She fucking promised.
But a voice inside whispers, Yeah, Bonnie™, but parents break their promises—you know that better than anyone else.
I close my eyes and beg the universe to pleasepleaseplease let this be a really extreme flashback. It’s not real. Not real. Not.
I open my eyes—this is really happening.
The car feels suddenly small, like the metal sides are warping and shrinking. My sweater-shirt is full of millions of little teeth eating away at me, and I struggle with my seat belt as beads of sweat pile up under my bra, against the tight waistline of my jeans, and trickle down my forehead. Dammit, this seat belt won’t freaking open, it won’t—
Two guys on the roof stare down at me as I stumble out of the car, and I know they’re surveying the neighborhood, seeing if there are any good shots they can get from up there. A crew is already working on making our fence even higher, and security details are mapping out the perimeter of our property. Five hours ago, they weren’t here. They were probably driving up from LA just as I was leaving for school. Funny how your whole world can go to hell within three hundred minutes.
“Excuse me,” someone calls, “didn’t you see the sign? This is private property.”
I turn around and shade my eyes against the sun as an unfamiliar figure walks up to me.
“Yeah, I know,” I say. The woman has a cell phone in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other. I’ve never seen her before. “My stepdad put up that sign. Who are you?”
As she gets closer, she gasps. “OMG! Bonnie™?” A look of recognition passes over her face. “It is you. Wow! You look like a totally different person! I love, love, love your long hair—so different from that cute little bob you always had, and the color—awesome. Oh my gosh, you were, like, my little sister’s idol. For reals, she is going to FLIP when she sees how grown up you are. This is so freakin’ out of control!”
She! Loves! Exclamation! Points!
“Who are you?”
“Oops!” She flips her hair back like she’s in a shampoo commercial. “Sorry. I’m Lacey—the head production assistant for Baker’s Dozen: Fresh Batch.”
I already hate Lacey Production Assistant Who Talks to Me Like She Knows Me.
“Fresh Batch?”
My tongue feels thick, and the words come out sounding like I’ve been drugged. My stomach gets that car sickness sort of feeling, and the world begins to tip on its axis, vertigo style.
Just then, Mom and Chuck come out the front door—Chuck of BRN4REEL fame, MetaReel’s head producer. He hasn’t changed a bit. His paunch strains against his shirt, and he walks toward me like a strutting peacock, his weight on his heels, his arms swinging freely at his sides. Lacey scurries away, and two seconds later I realize why; she doesn’t want to get in the shot. My hands fly up to block my face—my kingdom for a pair of dark sunglasses and a ginormous hat.
“Mom! What is this?” I shout. The last wor
d echoes across our huge driveway, this … this … this.
I can feel eyes on me—the camera, the dudes on the roof, the crew peeking out the windows of my house.
“Bonnie™, why aren’t you in school?”
Mom’s out of practice—back in the day, she would have been able to hide the note of panic that’s creeping into her voice. To her credit, she has a super-stricken look on her face, but right now I hate her more than Lacey Production Assistant.
“Who cares? What’s going on?”
“Bonnie™,” she says, pursing her lips and inclining her head ever so slightly toward the camera.
As if I could forget it’s there.
Chuck’s small, glittering eyes are on us, but he hangs back, letting the cameras take in all our drama. There’s a movement to my right, and I see three little pigtailed heads peering out at me through the slightly open front door—my youngest sisters, our triplets from China: Daisy™, Violet™, and Jasmine™. I was hoping they wouldn’t have the childhood I did, but I guess they will after all.
“Mom, please—” I stop because my voice is getting that high, constricted I’m-trying-not-to-cry sound, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give the cameras what they want. Also, I don’t want to freak out my sisters.
Mom looks at me—really looks at me—and her eyes are sad and stressed, and I think how much they look like my brother Benny’s. Then she squeezes the tip of her nose between her thumb and index finger, which is Mom Speak for shitshitshit. She turns to Chuck.
“We can’t film this—we agreed Kirk and I would get to tell all the kids in a controlled environment. I told you it would be difficult with her. I told you, Chuck.”
