Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Page 18

  Does he learn his lesson, or does he get away with it, earn more, spend more, need more, hurt more?

  I remember when the units first went on the market, he told me things were going well. He told me this was so special. Every detail was considered, every corner, hinge. Materials from all over. German tile, Italian marble, the greater the distance, the more my eyes were supposed to widen.

  So now what?

  I think of Cee in Kansas, standing in a barren field. I think of the shop owner who spat out my last name, Joanie the secretary, Brose and his family, the countless strangers who’ve lost their savings, who’ve been abandoned, replaced, moved, forgotten. Going well for who?

  I imagine him answering me, with no guilt whatsoever, “For us. For you.”

  I never questioned the things I’ve always had at my fingertips. I never thought that the way we got our things was at the expense of others, both loved ones and strangers.

  “We wait,” Nicole says, finally answering the question I never needed to be answered.

  I say good night to my aunt and uncle, then go to my room and wait.

  26

  The next day, I wake up and wait. What else is there to do? I wait for my mom to call. I wait with my brother, watching The Naked Spur and Tootsie. I wait with Rickie, playing virtual golf and telling her everything over coffee at the Shack.

  Now I wait with Brose in the Steak and Rib kitchen. Rickie has come in early just to hang out. I can feel them looking over my head, as if trying to silently agree upon what to talk about.

  “It will all be okay,” Brose says while we peel carrots.

  “It will be okay if my dad goes to jail, or if we’re broke?” I ask, and yet as soon as I say this, I look up at him and hold back. It’s extremely awkward to vent to him, and I don’t know how we’re going to overcome this.

  “Yes,” he says. “Either. Both. It will be okay.”

  I should have left it alone. When he first said it would be okay, he was sincere; now he’s bitter, resentful that it could be okay, and I have to let him be. Though does that mean I have to be okay with him not wanting the best for me?

  “We’ll all be okay,” Rickie says. “What else is there to be?”

  “That’s the question,” Brose says.

  “I don’t want to show my face in school,” I say, scraping carrots furiously. They’re both being like my brother—unrecruitable into my negative space. Though, I should say, that was the old version of Jay. He’s a new person, too.

  “Wear sunglasses,” Brose says, and I know he’s trying to cheer me up, and I know I need to let him. I’m working fast, my pile of shreds much bigger.

  “You’re supposed to peel, not whittle,” Brose says.

  “Fine.”

  We continue in silence.

  “I’m going to go change,” Rickie says, and walks toward the office nook. “You guys keep on keeping on.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I know it’s hard to hear me complain. I’m just nervous.”

  “We can take turns,” he says. “But I’ll let you have the mic for a while.”

  I bump my hip into him as a thank-you. Nat walks in and smirks like we’re something cute, something small, even though he looks so reduced in here, a preppy boy who couldn’t cut it in the kitchen. While I don’t want my problems, part of me likes the way they bring me up to this weird vantage point, making everything that was once big so tiny, a speck.

  “Where is everyone?” Nat asks.

  “Who’s everyone?” I want to throw something at him. Maybe this pointy carrot.

  Nat makes a sound like a cat scrapping, even though my voice was perfectly calm.

  “Why’d you just do that?” I ask. “Why did you make that noise?”

  He laughs. “Shit, relax.” He looks around for assurance, for another laugh. So insecure. I can see everything from up here.

  I feel Brose’s leg press into mine. “I think she’s pretty relaxed,” he says, and Nat just shakes his head with an embarrassed smile on his face, then leaves.

  “Do you need to cool off?” Brose asks. “’Cause we can go to the walk-in.”

  I laugh—something I haven’t done in days, it seems—and he gives me a new carrot.

  And so I wait, peeling carrots.

  Later, I wait in the hot tub with him and a bowl of mint ice cream. I wait for him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. I don’t take offense. I can tell he’s deep in his thoughts, and I let him rummage through them. But the more he rummages, the more distant he seems to get.

  “You okay?” I finally ask.

  “Yeah?” he says. “I think I need some time.”

  I leave, now waiting for him, too.

  Later, I wait on the couch, this time with Skip and The Searchers, John Wayne in the wilderness of Texas, searching for his lost niece.

  27

  I wake up on the couch, disoriented, with a blanket over me. I sit up to face the kitchen, smelling dough and maple syrup.

  “Morning!” Nicole yells.

  “Oh my god,” I say, and curl into a ball. “You’re so perky.”

  “It’s such a nice day,” she says from the kitchen.

  Her cheeks are flushed. She looks like a fitness instructor. Skip walks out from the hall, dressed for the mountain. He has goggles on his head. I grunt my hello.

  “Any news?” I ask.

  “Nope,” Nicole says.

  “What about when school starts?”

  “You can commute,” she says. “I mean, you start on a Wednesday. That’s just three days until the weekend. I’m sure everything will be wrapped up by then.”

  She is being annoyingly chipper.

  “And we thought we’d all go take some runs together,” Skip says.

  He’s all casual, like this is any other day. I look back and forth between the two of them, understanding this is their plan, designed to take the child’s mind off of things.

  He sees my skepticism.

  “Come on, Niece Annie,” he says, running his hands through his hair, forgetting about his goggles, which fall to the floor.

  “Uncle Klutz,” I say, and he stands up, grinning, probably thrilled with my cheesy humor. There must be nothing worse to a man than a depressed teenage girl, not because he empathizes but because he feels inept.

  Now Jay waltzes out, clearly already recruited, though he probably wasn’t a hard sell. He looks at me, rolls his eyes, telling me to just go with it.

  I stand up with the blanket wrapped around me and go to my room to change. I guess I wouldn’t mind going fast down a hill. It actually sounds like a great idea.

  * * *

  • • •

  We wait in the lift lines, we wait on the lift, but the waiting is good now. Being outside, feeling the sun and wind. We’re high above the ground, Skip and I, on a two-seater, swinging slightly with our snowboards hanging. Life from this height is nice. The lift comes to a stop, and we swing between the rows of pines.

  “I’m scared,” I say to Skip, his big gloves on his legs. He lowers his sweatshirt so I can see his mouth.

  “Of the lift?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Of course you are,” he says. “I am, too. For you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. You know what’s good about all of this? Not good, but just one positive thing?”

  “What?” I say. Our shoulders touch.

  “Getting to meet you guys. I know you didn’t pick us to live with. I’m not an idiot. We were probably your parents’ only option.”

  “The only ones my dad didn’t screw over,” I say.

  “We were their easiest option. From us there’d be no questions asked.”

  The lift starts up again.

  “Actually, Nicole had tons of questions,” he says. “But we would never have said no. It’s been gre
at for us.”

  “Us, too,” I say.

  I hear the sounds of skiers and snowboarders below, swishing through the snow.

  “Nicole told me everything,” he says.

  I’m not sure what he’s referring to. That I had sex? Oh, god.

  “She told me you know that she helped your mom out a long time ago.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Were you around then?” I ask.

  He smiles to himself. “Yup.”

  “And you didn’t have issues?”

  “I’m the most issueless guy you’ll ever know, but yes, I did.” He pauses. “But there was no talking her out of it. Nicole was set on helping your mom.”

  “It’s just so weird,” I say. “It’s crazy—I forget about it sometimes and then I remember, and I look at Jay and feel awful about not telling him. And then I get furious at them for keeping it from us. Keeping so much from us . . .”

  “We’ve always thought if you keep it a secret, then it’s something, well, secret, something to hide instead of take pride in. It’s different, sure, but it’s not shameful. Nicole always felt ashamed, but if it had never been a secret, then—no shame.” He holds up his big gloved hands.

  We’re almost to the top. I swing my legs to get the blood flowing.

  “Something to keep in mind,” he says. “Secrets suck.”

  “How’s the secret crib coming along?” I ask.

  Skip laughs. “That’s different. That’s a surprise.”

  We glide up toward the end, over the tops of trees.

  At the top, Jay is skating his board toward a group of people I recognize, and I feel like I’m in an elevator, my stomach dropping. I slide off the lift in their direction. There’s Mackenzie and Bree, in matching white beanies. I recognize their laughter—not the sound, but the type—laughter to hide their embarrassment because they suck at snowboarding. Laughter because they’re with boys. Laughter to show how much fun other people aren’t having. I think I recognize Joffrey and Eric. Yes, those are Joffrey’s thick brown curls, tumbling out of his beanie. He seesaws on his snowboard and pulls up his baggy pants. Eric’s on telemark skis. He’s easy to recognize with his orange hair and lanky, long body.

  “Yo!” Jay calls. The boys turn.

  “Dude,” Joffrey says. “What’s up?” Jay slaps hands with him. I catch up and stand by my brother. Eric doesn’t have the same cocky ease he usually has and nods at us in an oddly formal way.

  “Oh, hey,” says Mackenzie, and she and Bree look me up and down. I feel like I’m going through security at the airport.

  “What are you guys doing here?” my brother says. “You should have hit me up.” Jay punches Joffrey in the shoulder. No one speaks. “What,” Jay says. “You guys allowed to talk to me?”

  “Yeah, we be classy,” Joffrey says. “What’s up, Annie?”

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Heading to chair six if you guys want to cruise,” Jay says. “We’re with our aunt and uncle, though.”

  “Skip-Nic,” I say. “Like picnic.” They all look at me like I’ve blurted out ball sac or something.

  “We were just going to the terrain park,” Eric says. “Training for next weekend.”

  “That’s right,” Jay says. “Forgot it’s being held here this year.”

  “Yeah,” Eric says.

  “Yeah,” Jay says, eyeing Eric as if he can’t see him well. I can tell he’s thinking, Is this friend gone?

  I look back for Skip and Nicole and see them by the lift, giving us distance. Nicole waves, and I lift my hand.

  “So cute,” Mackenzie says. “They’re like your foster family.”

  Joffrey laughs. “Hope they don’t mistreat you,” he says.

  “We occasionally get touched inappropriately,” I say.

  “It’s not our fault,” Jay says, and I feel a warmth. He has my back. We can look like weirdos together.

  The girls look at us like our weirdness has tripled its strength, and it has. I glare back at them, thinking, Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

  “Good running into you,” Joffrey says, tilting his chin. He’s trying so hard to put up a good front, and I can tell Jay appreciates it, like he’s getting fired quietly and kindly. I try to communicate with Joffrey, too, with my look: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “See you guys at school,” Jay says, prompting Bree and Mackenzie to look at one another with alarm, like, How dare we show our faces again? They’re going to have so much fun hating us.

  “Let’s roll,” Eric says, which prompts me to roll my eyes.

  This is what school will be like. Every damn day. Strip-searched and judged, loudly and quietly ridiculed. Infuriating those who’ve been affected by my dad and entertaining the remainders.

  The girls push off, twittering like baby birds. Jay puts his hand out for the dude hand slap transition to half hug. Joffrey does the routine and then it’s Eric’s turn. Jay holds his hand out slightly to the side like he’s swinging a racquet.

  Eric just looks at him. “Sorry, man . . .” And then he leaves. He rolls.

  “I’m not my father,” Jay says, and then, when they’ve all left, he says in a funny and exaggerated serious voice, “I am not my father.” He shakes his head. “Jesus. Anyway.”

  “He kind of sucked a ton,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, just protective of his dad, I guess. Same as us.”

  Same as us. I don’t know how Brose can bear to be with me. I worry that he can’t.

  We’re surrounded by peaks and valleys and a swath of white snow before us, billowing when the wind blows.

  “Our lives are going to be squashed,” I say.

  “We’ll be okay,” he says. “We have each other.”

  I raise my eyebrow, suspicious of his sentimentality, but he looks distracted, caught in complex thought.

  “If Dad goes to jail,” he says, “it might be liberating for him, you know? To come to terms with it. Consequences, being alone, having time to reevaluate, start again.”

  “There is nothing liberating about being stabbed in jail,” I say.

  “Jesus, Annie, it’s not that kind of jail.”

  “Who cares what kind! Did you see how your friends acted?”

  “We’ll get new ones,” he says, and I sigh. It’s like I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m a different, better person, but when I was just confronted with our old life, I cowered. I don’t want to self-reflect, reevaluate. I want what I’ve always had.

  Nicole and Skip slide up to us with looks of concern.

  “You good?” Skip asks.

  “Great,” Jay says.

  “Who were those guys?” Nicole says.

  “Friends,” Jay says, looking at me. “From home.”

  She looks back and forth between the two of us.

  “No one said or did anything to you, did they? Tell me the truth.” She is strapped in, so she keeps flapping her arms for balance. “Tell me. I will wring their fucking necks, I swear to god.”

  “Jeez, OG,” I say. “Nothing happened.”

  “What’s OG?” she asks. “What happened?”

  “Original Gangsta,” Skip says, and Jay hides a smile.

  “You need to let me know things,” she says. “Especially with school starting. If there are bullies or people texting you, like, mean shit, I will waltz right into the principal’s office. Teachers too! They can be self-righteous bastards.”

  Skip pats her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey.”

  “It didn’t look okay,” she says. “You don’t look happy.” She leans on Skip and looks at Jay, something so fiery in her expression, like she’s protecting him from imminent danger. She’s a mother bear.

  “I’m perfectly happy,” Jay says. “Pityin
g glances—that’s all we had to reckon with.”

  “Well, it’s over now,” she says. “I say we buck up and do a few more runs, go fast, feel the wind and the elements, clear our heads, then get a hot chocolate afterward. And one of those mammoth cookies?”

  Skip grins and holds a thumb up behind her so she can’t see. It’s like a cue card telling us to laugh or applaud.

  “Sounds great,” Jay says with enthusiasm.

  “Cookies,” I say.

  * * *

  • • •

  We take the gondola down to the lot. The collar of my sweater is crusted with ice. My chin is numb, my cheeks feel slapped, and it feels so good. I’ve forgotten how much I love this sport, this “ugly sport,” as my mom would say.

  Snowboarding boots are the only boots I’ll put on from now on, so there’s another thing that defines me erased. Gone. It’s then that I wonder: Did my coach really quit me, or did we quit him? Is this another lie my mom told me? That I’m not good enough, when really, she couldn’t afford him anymore? Or he just didn’t want to be associated with our family. This is yet another thing I want to know that will hurt so much to know.

  There are two other women skiers riding with us, and they look to be around eighty years old.

  “So nice seeing a family together,” one of them says. She has a pink suit on that looks like a giant puffy onesie. I want one badly.

  She says something to her friend that makes her laugh and cover her mouth. She has strong cheekbones padded with soft-looking skin. You can tell they’ve been friends for a long time. There was a time when I was convinced Cee and I would be like them, outlasting whatever we ran into over the years, but now I know we’ve already morphed into someone unrecognizable to the other.

  “When my son was your age, he wouldn’t be caught dead skiing with me,” one of the ladies says to Nicole.

  Nicole laughs and begins to explain, placing her hand on Jay’s leg. “Oh, no, he’s my—”

  “His loss,” Jay says, tapping Nicole’s boot with his. “Plus, my mom leaves me in the dust.”

  Nicole is caught off guard. She looks at me, almost shy, and I wonder what it felt like just then, that second, to be his mom, to hear him say my mom. She looks stunned, proud, aglow.