Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Page 12

  It’s weird to hear him say my name.

  “Can’t wait to get the hell out of here,” he says, his shame leaping into anger.

  “You can’t leave.”

  “I can leave for Oregon this summer,” he says.

  “Has your tuition been paid already?” I ask, and he’s about to answer, then stops. We’ve never had to ask about something like tuition before.

  We’re the only ones on this section of the highway, I realize, framed by the steep mountains, the sharp rocks.

  “That’s not what I meant anyway,” I say. “You can’t leave our family. You can’t leave this.”

  “This is such bullshit,” he says. “He fucked up. He lied to people, he lied to us.”

  “I know,” I say. “If we believe Ken.”

  He’s about to respond, but he doesn’t. I wonder if we’re thinking the same thing. We know Ken. We know our father. We know what things are supposed to look like and what they’re really like. We know who to believe. We just don’t want to, and we don’t want to say it out loud.

  And so we drive the rest of the way in silence. He drops me off at work. I get out without saying good-bye, and he doesn’t say anything either. We’re holding it in, waiting for the right moment to let it all go.

  16

  Steak and Rib is packed tonight, and it’s early—the happy hour crowd, which to me means people who don’t go home to shower. Brose looks stressed out, as he usually is at the beginning of the night. I’ve never noticed how green his eyes are, how broad his chest. He catches me looking at him, and I swear he scowls. I don’t know what his deal is, but I guess he isn’t that friendly or sociable with anyone, and I don’t know why I’m challenging myself by wanting him to not hate me. I return his look with an amused, pitying look. I’ve had a shot on top of the shotgun and feel good all over, even in the lobes of my ears. I tamp everything that’s happened with Cee and Ken down, way down.

  When Nat comes in, I don’t look up. The dishwater feels like silk. The Beastie Boys are playing, and earlier Skip came in and said that the Beastie Boys have been playing in this kitchen for more than seventeen years. Maybe longer, but that’s when he started working here.

  I finish my set of dishes and walk over to Brose. He’s slicing ostrich, and the meat looks perfectly medium rare.

  “I’d like lipstick in that color,” I say, and he looks at my lips, something I didn’t intend, but now I intend to use that line another time on someone. Put it in my playbook.

  “Dead Ostrich by Revlon,” he says, which makes me smile. He stands with his legs far apart.

  “Wild Game,” I say, looking up from the meat.

  “Ready?” Nat says, walking up to the line. Brose shoves it forward.

  “Easy, line chef,” Nat says, and walks away.

  “Guy’s such a dick,” Brose says.

  “Yes, yes, he is,” I say.

  “I guess you’d know.”

  I can’t read his tone—if it’s sympathetic or accusatory. It’s embarrassing. How many people know about us?

  “I do know.” I wish I had something to do. I realize I’m tracing the counter, my fingers gathering salmonella. “Hey, so, what’s your deal with me?” I turn to face him, and he gives me a cold, incredulous look, but then it softens under my unwavering stare.

  His shoulders relax. His hands rest on the counter. “I don’t know,” he says. And that’s it. We just look at one another, as if we’re each trying to solve an equation first. He shrugs. Gets some celery, passes it to me.

  “I’ve got baggage,” he says. “And some money concerns, and you just seem to waltz in—take it or leave it, slum it and go.”

  I dice the celery. “You don’t know anything about me.” Our tones aren’t hostile, I notice, just honest. “I’ve got baggage, too.” He looks me over, amused, but seems to check himself. We dice, dice, dice in a way that’s becoming fun and competitive.

  “I bet you’ve got luggage, not baggage,” he says.

  “Yup,” I say. “Coach and Louis Vuitton. The very best.”

  He keeps his head down, but is smiling. “You want to do something after this?”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “We could go find some music somewhere,” he says. His expression seems to be carrying a warm joke. “The Gold Pan?”

  “Mining for music,” I say. “Dancing on peanut shells?”

  “Yes,” he says, and holds up his arms like his sports team just scored.

  “Sure,” I say. “But check your baggage.”

  I go back to my station, my face even warmer. I run my hands under the dishwater and wait for the night to end and begin.

  * * *

  • • •

  When we’re done, Brose holds the kitchen’s swinging door and we walk out to the bar. He begins to talk to Forest, and I talk to Rickie.

  “Want to go to the Gold Pan with us?” I ask. “Dance on peanut shells?”

  “Who’s us?” she says.

  “Me and Brose.” I look down, then up at her, cringing.

  “Oh, cute,” she says. “Yeah, sure. I’m down.” Brose walks to the front of the restaurant, gesturing that he’ll wait up there.

  “Hey, Annie?” I turn to see Skip behind the bar, pouring a glass of wine for a woman who looks like she’s wearing a beaver on her head.

  “What?” I say, and can tell that he’s taken aback by my rudeness. I just want to be here without an authority figure like everyone else.

  “Maybe head home tonight.”

  I glance at Jessica, whose boobs are positively demanding to be stared at.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  Rickie elbows me.

  “I mean do. Do head home tonight.”

  I give him a look. He’s not my dad. My dad doesn’t even tell me what to do. No one does. And he just said “do do.”

  “Nicole should be home in a few hours,” he says. “Or maybe sooner.”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ll go home.” I walk out through the crowded restaurant. It’s filled with lots of families tonight. The kind of families that have minivans with stick figure bumper stickers illustrating their abundance.

  When we get outside, I tell Brose and Rickie that I need to go home. “You guys go ahead,” I say.

  “Nah, that’s okay,” Rickie says. “I could use a night off anyway.”

  “I have Amazon Prime,” I say. “If you guys want to come over and watch something. Nicole’s out tonight, so . . . we’ve got the place for a while.”

  Brose has his hands in his pockets, and he takes them out and blows into them.

  “Sure,” he says.

  “I’ll let you guys do that,” Rickie says, and smiles at me as if we’re in on something. I roll my eyes, but hope I’m not blushing. I was challenging myself with Brose, and I guess I won. I like him. It’s crept up on me, and now it’s here. I’m here, and I’ve become a person who doesn’t like being alone, especially tonight. I want distance from this afternoon—my town and my family. I know I need to look at things up close, but I just don’t want to right now.

  And so I obey Skip and head home as Annie Town, someone who’s never heard of Cee and Ken Rush, Genesee, Aria development, someone who has neither baggage nor luggage. And Jacob Tripp? The developer? She may have met him once or twice. He’s her uncle’s brother-in-law, a stranger who she knows.

  17

  I don’t know how this happened, but one minute we’re watching TV, and the next I’m losing my virginity to Brose. Well, I guess I do know how it happened. What happened was we started to talk about baggage, that stuff we were supposed to leave behind.

  “My dad lost his job,” Brose told me.

  “That’s funny,” I said. “Mine lost his, too.”

  He didn’t really, but as it turns out, Brose’s dad didn’t technically lose
his job either.

  “He did his job, but he didn’t get paid for it,” Brose said. “Stiffed by this prick. All his staff stiffed, too.”

  The thought made me feel mortified—that’s exactly what my dad’s been accused of doing.

  “And he works in Denver?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Brose said. “So that’s why I’m working full-time. I’m going to take the semester off, but my dad doesn’t know that yet.”

  I realized I didn’t know anything about him. “From college?”

  “Yeah, first year. Boulder.”

  We were watching TV on my bed, upright and innocent. We kept having to pause the movie and ended up never restarting it.

  “What about you?” he asked. “What does your dad do?”

  “Real estate,” I spat out. “Commercial sales.”

  “Ah,” Brose said.

  He seemed to be slowly sinking into a gloom the more we talked, and I wanted out of the conversation. I felt so bad about everything too. We were in similar situations and yet not at all. His dad was on the receiving end of something. Mine, the possible executioner. His circumstances led him to get a job, stop college, share the stress. Mine led me to get a job for fun and buy hippie clothing that costs the same as my designer clothes. I felt like a fraud, like a spoiled princess, like the girl Brose assumed me to be. And so I kissed him, and then things got intense, but good intense, my worries transforming into pure sensation, and then I stopped thinking about anything at all . . .

  And now here we are, lying on the bed, moving back and forth. It’s like I’m the one who could go to jail and am trying to do as much as I can before I’m locked up. Going home again might feel that way. We won’t want to leave our rooms. We’ll be treated like felons. And why am I thinking about this now?

  I look at the ceiling, wincing because it hurts and he’s lying on my collarbone. I don’t want to say anything, because he’s moving gently and seems to be in a happy place. I’m a different person now. A different girl, but this makes me feel like I’m in an artsy film about mental illness or young sexuality, and so I try not to clear my thoughts. But that doesn’t work. I keep thinking about how I got here. I mean, I like Brose, but this is excessive. What would Cee or my brother’s friends think of me now? I can’t wait to tell Rickie, which makes me imagine her and Tamara, which makes me close my eyes and feel him, in a good way. It’s a feeling like this is something I’d like to do again.

  I make some sort of noise.

  “Are you okay?” Brose stops and looks down at me, his face close.

  “Yeah,” I say. He moves slowly. It’s much nicer with the space between us. “Yes.”

  “I like you,” he says.

  “That’s good,” I say.

  “I’m not just saying that,” he says. “I always have. Despite not wanting to.”

  “I know,” I say. “Oh god.”

  “What?” His brows are furrowed. He looks like he just bit his lip.

  “Nothing,” I say. “It just felt nice. Just then.”

  He smiles, bites his lip, and looks down at my stomach and begins to rev back up. He’s getting strong and creative with his thrusts and then he looks at me, his kind face looking pained, like he just found out his grandma died. He lets out a constrained whimper-grunt and falls back on top of me.

  I let out a hum. I just don’t know how to do this or what I’m supposed to say. I don’t know if that was all it was supposed to be for me. I feel like there’s more road ahead. His breath is warm on my neck. His hands slowly release their grip on me. There’s a penis in me right now. How long will it be there? Do I take it out?

  He rolls off of me and I look down quickly to make sure the condom is still on him.

  He turns his head toward me and grins like we both just finished a race on a bicycle built for two. I feel like I need a doctor. I kind of want to try it again, but I kind of feel like I’m using him just to get some steps under my belt, things I can check off. But no. I’m not using him. I just feel safe with him. Like I have nothing to fear tomorrow. I roll on top of him and let out a little shriek, which makes him laugh and run his hand through my hair.

  “Brose,” I say. “Where did your name come from?”

  “Short for Ambrose,” he says.

  “I’ve never met an Ambrose before.” We kiss, and it’s so soft, so loving, and then the door opens.

  My heart seems to throttle me. I fly off of him, and he drops off the side of the bed.

  “Holy shit attack!” Jay says.

  “What the hell!” I say.

  “What do you mean what the hell?” he says. “What the hell to you?”

  “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend,” Brose says, in a loud whisper by my side.

  “I’m her brother, dude!” Jay yells. “And my car is in the driveway, geniuses. I’m only here ’cause I thought you were crying again, but I obviously heard something else. God, I’m going to barf.”

  Brose mutters something from the ground.

  Jay shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips. He looks at me, then looks up at the ceiling. “And you are?” he says.

  Brose sits up to show his face. “I’m Brose.”

  Jay appraises his face, then looks at me and shakes his head. “Hi, Brose, I’m Jay. Nice to meet you.”

  “Get out of here!” I say.

  “Can you give us a moment to change?” Brose says.

  “What’s going on?” Skip sticks his head in.

  “Oh my god,” I say. I pull the covers up higher.

  “Brose?” Skip says, and Brose drops down once again, hitting his head on the bedside table.

  “Ow! Skip is here,” he whispers loudly. “Why is he here?”

  “Because he lives here,” I say. “He’s my uncle.”

  “What? Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “How have you not known that this whole time?”

  Skip and Jay are just watching me in disbelief.

  “I don’t know! I was focused on my work!”

  “Get off the floor,” Skip says, his voice calm and threatening.

  “Hey, guy,” Jay says. “I have an aunt I can bring in here if you want. And I could call up some other family members while I’m at it.”

  “Get off the floor, Brose,” Skip says again.

  I feel like I’m in Once Upon a Time in the West. Skip looks like Henry Fonda, his sad eyes focused and intense.

  “Please, not yet,” Brose says. “Not now.”

  Skip releases a kind of roar. He hits the wall with his fist, then leaves the room.

  “He left,” I say. Brose scrambles to dress, and I see him put the condom in his pocket. He puts on his shoes, jacket, gloves, hat.

  “Got everything there, bud?” Jay asks.

  “I think so. There’s my scarf.” He picks up his scarf that I took off of him and threw on the shelf. I thought it was so cute that he was wearing a scarf.

  “Bye,” he says to me on the bed. Then he lowers his voice. “That was really great. Except for now.” He makes to lean down and kiss me, but looks at Jay and clumsily pats my head. He walks by Jay and does a kind of respectful bowing gesture.

  “So sorry,” he says.

  When he gets out to the hall, I hear Skip say, “Show up early tomorrow, Ambrose.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brose says. “I didn’t know. I respect Annie very much, sir. I wasn’t using her or anything.”

  “Jesus, Brose,” Skip says.

  “I just . . . She’s . . . different from the other girls . . . I mean not the other girls. There are no other girls. It’s just . . . she’s very candid, sensitive, not to touch, but . . . God. Sorry. I just mean, she’s very . . . giving. She’s not like—”

  Jay covers his mouth with his hand, covering a huge laughing smile, and I can’
t hear the rest of what Brose is saying, even though I’m straining to hear every word.

  “Shut up,” I say.

  “And I swear,” I hear him say, “I had no idea you were related.”

  “Yup, that’s Annie,” Skip says. “Annie Town.”

  I can’t believe he’s still continuing the Annie Town thing. As if it matters. A niece is a niece, awkward no matter what. Jay is practically crying with his hand still over his mouth.

  “I’m going to tape that hand to your mouth, weedwacker,” I say.

  “This is just quality goods,” Jay says. “Oh my god. I should stay home more often.”

  I sit up, feeling less like I’ve had sex than been operated on and my family’s come in to check on me.

  “Wipe the grin off your fat face,” I say.

  “I’m just taken aback,” he says. “I didn’t know you had a gentleman friend. Or that you’re . . . uh . . . active.”

  “I’m not active—that was my first time.”

  He holds his hands up. “Please. Say no more. Shit, should I call Mom?”

  “No!”

  “I mean for guidance, like, if you need a subscription or prescription or whatever—things are bad enough as it is. You don’t want to get pregnant—”

  “Get out!” I throw Nicole’s stuffed duck at him. It lands near his feet. He picks it up by its neck and brings it back to me.

  “Look, I’m choking the chicken.” He holds it by the neck.

  “He’s a duck, jackass!”

  “Which reminds me—there’s nothing wrong with self-love. It’s only natural to explore yourself—”

  “Out, scum sack! Out!” I scream, and Skip comes back in.

  “Girls are scary when they’re mad,” Jay says.

  “No shit,” Skip says. He has two beers in his hand.

  “Can you guys leave my room now?” I ask. I feel more naked than naked. Even though it’s warm, it’s like I’m shivering.

  “I can’t leave,” Skip says. “We need to talk. We need to address this.”