Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Read online

  “Not you, Pandemonium,” the driver says, and the horse resumes after a cluck. “How much longer?”

  “Just look for the Santa on the Harley that blink-blinks all night long!” she says.

  I see the Santa up ahead.

  “My mom always said that you resented her, that you never wanted to know us—I finally get it—”

  “Your mom made it a point for me not to know you. I’d offer to babysit all the time. I’d come over to see Jay after he was born. I’d invite you over and send all kinds of crap that your mom shoved in a closet because it didn’t fit in with her decor. Like that duck that’s in your room now—Ping. I gave him the book, The Story About Ping, along with that duck, which became his absolute favorite. She shoved it in the closet. I took it back for days when he’d ‘visit’—yeah, like that ever happened. I wanted to be your cool aunt. I was excited. I had plans. I was fine with everything!”

  “She didn’t want you around because you imbibe, and you had an eating disorder and have a drug problem. That’s why—”

  “I imbibe? I have a drug problem? My goodness, I smoke a little pot, the whole town does. She should, too! And everyone has an eating disorder when they’re young.”

  “She says you can’t get pregnant because of all that stuff,” I say. The Santa is getting brighter. I want to stay on this horse, but alone. I text Brose again: Please. I need you. Can u meet?

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” she says. “She said that? She actually said that?”

  “Yes,” I say, and feel kind of bad about it. I soften my look and am about to say I’m sorry, but smile when I notice her rogue eyebrow, and then I freeze. My smile falls. Her intense anger at my mom for lying about Jay, their estranged relationship, her selfless, unbelievable favor for a “friend.” Oh my god.

  “It was for my mom,” I say.

  She rubs her eyes. “What?”

  The driver starts whistling again. Take me home, country roads. I try to speak, I’m shocked into silence. My mother used her eggs. A few warm tears fall from my eyes. At this moment I feel untethered from everyone in my family. Like I could ride away and never come back. My mother used her eggs. The sentence runs through my head, and I finally force it out.

  “My mom used your eggs. You’re Jay’s biological mother.”

  I want her to laugh at me, hug me, and say, Is that what you thought? No, that’s not it, but she looks at me in shock, on the verge of explosive anger or explosive weeping.

  “You got it,” she says. “My skinny, pot-infused egg. And Jay is gorgeous. Healthy as a goddamn stallion.”

  And now their rift, our distance, everything makes sense. I can’t believe my mom told us such lies about Nicole. And our dad’s a liar, too. Lied to us. Lied to everyone. Something in me comes to a boil. Everything buried deep rises, rises, rises, and the lights ahead are blinking, blinking, blinking.

  I get off and run, recovering the terrain we just covered. I don’t know where I’m going. I just go, every now and then looking at my phone. Finally, he answers:

  At bar. Maggie Pond.

  20

  The rink is situated in the middle of hotels. Mist rises off of it. I don’t know where he is, and part of me is tempted to get out on the ice and skate this adrenaline out. God, I spent so much time skating. Do I miss the feeling of my ponytail whipping through space, the edges of my skates glinting dangerously, ice shavings trailing behind me like mist? Not really. Though the thought of going back to school with family drama and an identity not based on skating feels horrible. It’s something I’m known for, something I can always use as a reason or an excuse.

  There are kids out there with their parents, smiling, laughing, something I never did on the ice even at their age, a miniature of myself, circling Coach, who’d stand in the middle like a horse trainer. I had loved skating backward, still do, I guess; it’s the only time in life when going determinedly back is considered skillful and elegant. There is nothing elegant about what happened tonight. Nicole took me back, revealed the truth, and I’ve totally lost my balance.

  “What’s up?”

  I turn to see him, and even though I’m in anguish, the sight of him brings relief. That is, until I register his coldness. It’s like being with Nat again the day after. It’s happening again with someone I didn’t think it would happen with. Or am I being too needy?

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I say. “I don’t even know where to begin. Nicole—”

  “Your aunt?” he says.

  “Yes.” It’s then I realize he must be irritated that he didn’t know Skip and Nicole were my aunt and uncle—how, though unintentionally, I got him in trouble, maybe even put his job in jeopardy.

  “Look, they’ll be okay. I talked to Skip. He’s not going to fire you or anything.”

  “Oh, thanks,” he says, looking behind me, as if I’m wasting his time. “Thanks for saving my job.”

  I reach for his hand. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Really, I am. I didn’t mean to trick you or anything. I thought you knew. But listen. This is, like, crazy, life-altering stuff. I found out Nicole is Jay’s biological mother! Jay—my brother. You met him, um, last night.” I feel warmth at the thought of us in bed together, and how awesome it is to have the memory, a distraction, and to have Brose, who helps dull the edges of this blow tonight, this humiliation.

  He looks down, removes his hand from mine.

  “That’s crazy,” he says.

  “I know,” I say, already feeling relief. The music from the rink, the children’s laughter. My boyfriend? Is that what he is, what he’ll be? I’ll have someone to accompany me through this.

  “I don’t even know what I’m going to say to my mom.” I shake my head.

  “Your mom,” he says. “Skip’s sister?”

  “What? No.”

  “Skip’s brother’s wife, then?”

  It’s then I realize he still thinks I’m actually Annie Town.

  “No,” I say. “God, that would be complicated. No, Nicole’s my mom’s sister.”

  He puts his hands in his pockets, clenches his jaw. “So your last name is . . .”

  “Tripp,” I say.

  “Tripp,” he says. “Annie Tripp.”

  “That’s me!” I exhale, and come into something that feels like peace—a kind of light-headed dumbness. A blackout. My mind must be up to something—gathering, locking pieces, but it’s not getting back to me. I’m on the ice, gliding, floating.

  “Well,” he says, his tone shaking me out of my comfortable trance. “Good luck with your drama. Sounds like quite the soap opera.”

  He looks me over. It feels like a look he first gave me—judgmental. Thinking I was someone I was. His eyes are mean, a little glassy. He’s been drinking, and I’m about to speak, but I can tell, right now, he’s not there. He’s not available.

  He turns and walks away from me.

  I am alone.

  21

  When I get home from the rink, I want to collapse into hibernation, but Jay’s door is open. I take a breath and look in. How do I unleash this information that’s making my body hurt? How do I tell him that everything he knows to be true is wrong? I can barely understand it myself.

  “Out partying again?” he asks. He’s lying on his back and tossing a ball into the air.

  I start to speak, but stumble over my thoughts. I zoom into his eyebrows, his nose, seeing someone new, someone not entirely my brother, and yet feeling closer to him, more protective of him than ever. He doesn’t know his deeper link to Nicole; he doesn’t know what she’s given our mother. He doesn’t know his own story. Neither of us does. The scribbles that make us feel wiped out. I can’t be here.

  “You okay?” he asks, clutching the ball and sitting up. I feel so powerful, so in charge, and until now, I didn’t realize that this isn’t always a good thing to be. I could change
his life in an instant.

  “I’m . . . I’m whatever,” I say. “I don’t know what I am.” My sadness and confusion morph into an even bigger feeling than anger. What else haven’t our parents told us? Why don’t they feel we deserve to be let in? Why aren’t we collaborators? Why is our whole life a lie?

  “God fucking damn it,” I say.

  “Whoa,” he says.

  My brother, I keep thinking. You are my brother, and I paid enough attention in biology to know that half of his genes are Nicole’s.

  He picks up his guitar. “I’ll lull you,” he says, and I’m glad he’s playing so that he doesn’t notice me studying his face. His brown hair, the tiny fan at the end of his left eyebrow, the roundness of his face, unlike the triangular shape of my mom’s. Maybe his singing voice, too. No one in my family but Jay can keep a tune.

  “Where were you tonight?” he asks.

  I shake myself out of my trance and tell him some of the truth.

  “I was working, and then I ran into Nicole in the parking lot. She was looking for Skip, and she was totally drunk. I got her home in a horse-drawn carriage.”

  “No way,” he says, his green eyes lighting up. “She cracks me up.” A smile stays on his face, thinking of his aunt Nicole, thinking of his biological mother, and it makes me feel so sick. I hear voices in the other room.

  “Is Skip home?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I guess he had a long night. He had to talk to . . . well, you know.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Your Brose friend. And I guess he left his phone at the restaurant, so he wanted to go to his room to decompress before he felt the wrath of his wife.”

  The wrath of Nicole. The wrath of Annie. My hands are in fists, and I don’t know if I should scream or sob. I go to his bed to sit, so exhausted, so gutted. What did Skip say to Brose? Is that why he was so cold to me? Is it more than a Romeo and Juliet joke? Are we banned from one another? And yet this is another issue, one that’s being pressed down by the one in my fists.

  “Has Mom ever told you why she isn’t close to Nicole?” I ask with my eyes closed. “Why we’ve never really seen them before?”

  “She’s just said that Nicole has issues.”

  I shake my head.

  “But she seems fine to me,” Jay says. “I mean, she’s a little nuts, but not in a bad way. Maybe it’s just petty sister stuff. Sibling stuff. Glad we’re not that way.” He punches my shoulder to roughen up his kind words.

  “Maggot,” I force myself to say, trying to attempt normalcy, clarity.

  “I’m glad we’re getting to know them.” He starts to play “Wild Mountain Thyme,” and I hold back tears. I can’t help but feel the same way: glad to know them, but the gladness makes it hurt even more. They’re all liars. Everyone I’ve ever depended on, and in Skip and Nicole’s case, have grown to like, maybe even love, has lied. Everyone’s a fraud, everyone’s out to hurt and to fend for themselves. Everyone but my brother. Though even he’s changed. It’s like a part of him is gone. The mischievous glint in his eyes, the way all of his words would carry a lilt of sass. It’s like he’s grown up overnight.

  I keep my eyes closed, listening to the song, feeling like it’s my soundtrack on this wild mountain, but it conjures up too many emotions. I go to my room, erupting, my pillow hiding the sound of my punches and cries.

  22

  We move trancelike through our morning routine. Skip and Nicole know our patterns now. They’ll give us vitamins after we finish our cereal. They’ll ask us to put our bowls in the dishwasher, even though they don’t need to ask anymore. Nicole has been quiet all morning. I keep shifting my eyes between her and Jay, and she doesn’t even look at him, as if afraid any look will reveal everything. Secrets are the heaviest of weights. I imagine them making our bodies ache from carrying them for so long.

  “You guys are quiet,” Skip says. He sits at the counter, eating a bowl of oatmeal.

  Jay and I sit alongside him, and we both emit primitive sounds, showing him we heard.

  “Tired?” he asks. “Or—”

  “Tired,” we both say.

  “Maybe you should go for a run,” Nicole says, and sort of smiles in my direction. We have a private joke. A private drama as well. I can’t carry it all. I need to get rid of these heavyweights.

  “Am I still grounded?” I ask.

  “Well, you’re not technically grounded grounded,” Skip says. He gets up and rinses his bowl, then turns his back and makes a bunch of noise with the dishes.

  “So I’m not grounded, but Brose isn’t allowed to talk or be nice to me anymore?” I ask, and the kitchen noise stops, then slowly starts again.

  “I’m going to ride before it gets crowded,” Jay says, glancing at me.

  “Skip?” I ask.

  Nicole clears her throat. “Annie—why don’t you come with me to work—”

  “No,” Skip says. “I can answer her.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I need to go, but, Annie, would you want to take the shuttle up? Bring me my clothes? I’d like to talk to you too.”

  “Do I have a choice?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says. “You do. I’ll take you to the spa after. Then you can head to Steak and Rib?”

  She’s finding an excuse to be with me. The truth has been set free, and now we need to figure out what to do with it.

  “Sure,” I say, and I can tell this brings her relief. When Skip turns back around, there’s a faint smile on his face, as if he and Nicole are finally figuring things out, and I wonder if he’s right or completely deluded.

  But the smile fades when she puts on her headphones and heads out the door. It’s his turn to handle the truth, to figure out how to package and deliver it to me.

  “I heard you talked to him last night,” I say. “Which sort of explains—and sort of doesn’t—why he was so rude to me. Is he not allowed to talk to me?” I laugh and shake my head. It sounds so ridiculous.

  “He asked to talk to me,” Skip says. “And no, I didn’t tell him not to talk to you. I encouraged him to see you—to treat you the same way.”

  The same way. After getting caught on top of me. I want to return the truth. Hide in shame.

  “Look,” he says. He puts his hands on the counter, looks me in the eye. “Here’s what’s what. Brose’s father is a good friend of mine. He used to live here. We were roommates. He moved to Denver but kept his condo here. I’ve known Brose his whole life. He started working here in the summer three years ago. Long story short: His dad was the contractor for the Aria residences. Desjarlais Construction.”

  My organs seem to plummet. What happens in our bodies that gives us this plummeting feeling? I look at my bowl of cereal, the soggy squares floating.

  “Desjarlais Construction,” I repeat, in a trance.

  “His dad doesn’t know he left school. You know that already. I did him a favor—hired him a few weeks before we found out you guys were coming. I suggested you take my name, just so there was no need to . . . just so you could be yourselves.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, then don’t even need to know the answer. Why would he? He didn’t know I was with Brose. I hardly knew myself. And when he did find us naked—good god—his anger was probably doubled by having caught us because then he was forced to tell Brose who I really was.

  “So you told him the truth?”

  Skip looks down. “No. He came to me, and he knew.”

  Because he knew me. All along. Not that I’m Annie Tripp, but that I’m Annie: the spoiled girl slumming it in the kitchen before washing up and lounging back into life. And that was just the generous assessment. Now he has added to my résumé: daughter of a fraud, a con man who stiffed his dad and made him drop out of school to work in a kitchen, all because of my family’s mistakes.

  I put my head in my hands, mourning
not only this sad summary, but his trust in me, the way he looked at me, even from the start, with judgment, sure, but like he always expected more. I mourn the moment we had the other night—how pure and sweet, no matter how brief—and how I thought it was just the beginning of something good and different and, well, real.

  “What did he say?” I ask, keeping my head down. Tears slide. I flick them into my bowl.

  “Not a whole lot,” Skip says. “He just wanted to confirm what he knew to be true. And . . . he wanted to make sure he still had a job.”

  Skip clears his throat. “And that you . . . didn’t.”

  I look up. “Didn’t have a job?”

  “Yes,” Skip says.

  “And what did you say?”

  He scratches his cheek. “I said we’d talk. That that wasn’t the issue.” He takes my bowl. “And I told him to remember what he told me the other night. When he didn’t know. When he thought you were just . . . you.”

  I wipe my eyes, trying to think of what Brose had said in the hallway, how I had strained, but couldn’t hear everything.

  “He said you weren’t like anyone he’s met before. That with everything he’s going through, you’re like an . . . energy.”

  We look at one another, then away, both embarrassed by . . . by what? By the tenderness my uncle had to communicate? The beautiful, melting words? Or by him communicating that it’s over.

  “So am I going to work today?”

  Skip breaks eye contact.

  “He needs this job.”

  “So he’ll be there?” I ask.

  Skip nods, and I leave it there. He didn’t tell me not to go.

  23

  I take the shuttle up Boreas Pass. The driver, according to the name tag on her shirt, is MANDY from TEXAS. I wonder how many idiots walk onto this bus and say, “Hey there, Mandy from Texas!” I would use a fake name. DORK from MY LOINS. That would shut everyone up.

  I wonder what brought Mandy here. I’ve begun to look at everyone around me, realizing they all have a story. Like this guy across from me, rubbing his goggles so vigorously you’d think they had measles. The old man by himself, wearing a ski hat with a little ball on top, like an ice cream cone on his head. A group of boys walking down the sidewalk, laughing. One of them jumping up like he’s shooting a basketball. The two women in the back of the bus, both showing each other something on their phones and laughing. They could be longtime friends like me and Cee, or they could have just met like Rickie and me. The sky has cleared up, and the sun shines through the window onto my head. My hair seems to absorb all of it. I feel so close to the sun, like Icarus. He was unable to find that balance, as Mr. Earle had told us, “between arrogance and humility.”