Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Read online

  The ladies coo at Jay’s sweetness, and Skip begins a round of small talk. Briefly, we learn about each other. They’re friends who live in Arizona. We are the Town family who live in Breckenridge. The lie is like a bright truth.

  * * *

  • • •

  Nicole goes into the lodge for the cookies, then distributes them into our eager hands. The chocolate chunks are as big as eyes. We eat as we walk, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen people eat delicious cookies with such melancholy. We’ve come down, literally, from our high, no longer soaring over the trees or gliding down mountains. We’re at street level, pushing on, our snowboards under our arms, walking into the wind to Skip’s truck.

  “That was nice,” Skip says, trying to maintain our previous high, and it was, but now there’s phone service. There’s internet. I see Nicole check her phone.

  “Nothing yet,” she says.

  Jay and I get in the back of the truck. My mom would be pissed if she saw us like this. Unsafe and trashy-looking in the back of a pickup. I love it. We keep our goggles on to block the wind. Skip makes his way out of the lot.

  “Did it work?” I ask.

  “Did what work?” Jay says.

  “Skip-Nic’s little outing to get our minds off of things.”

  “It worked for a while,” he says.

  We drive down Main Street, and the town looks peaceful in the late day, the sun a low blur. Everyone is heading somewhere—families, teenagers, maids in matching uniforms.

  “You should check your phone,” he says, but doesn’t say anything when I don’t answer. I don’t want to check my phone.

  “I looked up bear garden,” Jay says. “It’s from Henry the Eighth. A state of near chaos or turmoil, but back in the day, there were these actual bear gardens—people would gather around and watch blind bears get whipped until blood dripped down their backs.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I say.

  “Life was brutal,” Jay says. “People are brutal.”

  That actually makes me feel physically ill, and then I’m even more sick with myself for wanting to show Bree and Mackenzie anything at all. Then I’m just as petty as they are. I keep trying to convince myself I’ve changed, that I can go high, but screw it. I’m going to go back and forth—both striving and failing, seesawing between goodness and selfishness. I give up, which, oddly, feels like a gain.

  I watch all the people around us on the street, each one having something they’re struggling with, longing for, though at this moment, surrounded by this golden light, most of them are on vacation, off the tracks of their normal lives. If only life could always be off track.

  “School’s going to be brutal.” I tilt my head back and look at the fan of clouds. “You think we’ll be in a bear garden?”

  “No blood,” Jay says. “Maybe some sweat.”

  I feel good that we’ll have each other. I’ll snowboard, see Brose, if he’ll have me. I’ll study like crazy. I’ll keep my head down, hide. I look up, trying to read my fortune in the sky.

  “This show the other night reminded me of you,” my brother says.

  I look at him. “What?”

  “This show,” he says again, and there’s that old glimmer in his eye that I haven’t seen for a while. “I thought of you when I saw it. Did you ever see I Didn’t Know I Had an STD?”

  I bite my lip, shake my head. “I didn’t see that one. But I saw one the other night, too, and it made me think of you.”

  “What a coincidence!”

  “I know! So, have you ever see that show I Didn’t Know I Had a Half Peen?”

  “No, I regret that I have not, but have you seen I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant with Triplets! I Just Thought I Was Frickin’ Huge?”

  I give him a look. Joke failed.

  “Or, um—” he says.

  But I cut him off: “I Didn’t Know That a Disorder Was Named After Me?”

  “Or!” he says. “I Used to Be an Ice Queen, but Now I’m a Dishwasher?” His smile falls, but I’m not offended.

  I laugh. “Or,” I say, “I Used to Have SO Many Friends, but Now My Dad Is a Crook.”

  “Ouch,” he says. “Missed that one, but it’s probably something I should see.”

  We look at one another, slight smiles, and then he sits back against the tailgate and I sit back against the window, hearing Nicole and Skip laughing about something.

  We pull into our neighborhood.

  I smell other people’s dinners and am comforted by the thought of us all side by side, living. We slow down, and I take my goggles off, feeling the fresh minty air on my face. I text Brose, wondering where we stand. The ground always seems to be shifting.

  “Oh my god,” Jay says. “That’s Mom and Dad.”

  I lean over and look at the driveway, and it takes a while for the image to reach my brain or something. It’s just wrong—seeing them in this space—and I feel a bit guilty that this is my first thought. It’s like when my mom would pick me up from school or sleepovers when I was little, and she’d be happy to see me and I’d feel bad that the sight of her disappointed me because I just wanted to stay. But then I think of everything—and it’s a long list—and I don’t feel guilty at all.

  “Sammy,” I say. “Look at him. He’s bigger.”

  The truck comes to a hard stop, and we’re all stunned into stillness. Nicole and Skip sit there staring. Jay and I don’t get out. The neighbor is in the process of deflating the Santa. I can hear the air sigh out, see the puff of red, white, and black slowly collapse.

  We finally get out, and our family, the Tripp-Towns, meet again.

  28

  Awkward hugs and hellos. Skip immediately says he’ll throw some food together, and I help, needing to do something with my hands. This is just too weird for me. I can’t even remember the last time I saw my mom and Nicole together. It’s a memory that only exists in storage somewhere.

  The question has already been asked—“How did it go today?”—and it has been answered by my father: “Good. But let’s sit for a sec, huh?”

  My mom and dad, sitting on the couch, keep looking over the place with small, timid smiles. I feel defensive, like these are my friends they’re silently judging. And yet that was me just two weeks ago.

  Jay is making a fire, and Nicole is tidying up, probably totally mortified that they’re here and she didn’t have time to stage the place. I feel bad for her, and oddly vigilant. My mom gets up, holding Sammy. She looks bewildered walking around, and I see things through her eyes, all our ski gear, the books and magazines, the knickknacks that would never be in our home, like the ceramic name tag she has picked up from a side table: HELLO MY NAME IS DOUCHEBAG. She sets it down, then wipes her hand on her pants. Sammy squirms in her arms, and she reluctantly puts him down on the carpet.

  Nicole places a glass of red wine on the table in front of my mom, then sits in the chair across the room from her. My mom takes a sip and grimaces.

  “We had fun today,” Skip says. He’s chopping zucchini, and I’m smashing garlic. “Up on the mountain.”

  My dad looks at my mom. He pats his neck with his handkerchief.

  Just when I’m about to scream, Cut the chitchat! my dad says, “I’ve been sentenced to three years.”

  “Oh my god,” Nicole says, and I just blink and blink, like there’s something in my eye. No matter how much I’ve thought about it, I just didn’t believe this could actually happen. I still don’t really believe it—I’m convinced he’ll be able to work something out like he always does.

  “What are you going to do?” I blurt out.

  Jay mutters, “Jesus.” I don’t think he realizes how much lighter fluid he’s using. He’s in a zoned-out state of pure anger.

  “Buddy,” Nicole says to him. “No need for an eternal flame.”

  My mom glances between the two o
f them.

  “Were you thinking about us at all?” Jay says.

  I could barely hear him. He throws a match in, and the fire jumps to life with a hollow, explosive sound.

  Sammy crawls off his mat that my mom has needlessly laid down on the carpet, and he moves across the floor, then stops to watch the fire, banging his legs with his tiny fists.

  “Today?” my dad asks. “Of course.”

  “Before today,” Jay says, turning away from the fire and facing my dad. “When you made decisions. Did you think about us going back to school with the people whose families you screwed over? I’m not going back there.”

  My dad has on that expression he gets when someone’s challenging him—a flicker of annoyance in his eyes, amusement in his mouth. Jay has the same expression at times, but it never lasts. It surrenders into either embarrassment, empathy, or genuine anger. You can always see his true emotion. And now I see that Jay isn’t as impenetrable and brave as I thought. He’s just as embarrassed and afraid.

  My dad leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Of course I thought of you guys. I did this for all of you.”

  Sammy lets out a happy yell. He’s on the other side of the living room now, near Nicole.

  “Hey,” she says. He looks up at her, gaping, then grabs her legs, using them to pull himself up. She looks down at him and waves.

  I look over at Skip, his knife hovering over the vegetables.

  “I was always thinking of you,” my dad says.

  “Then why did this start out so casually?” Jay says. “Why didn’t you prepare us—”

  “And what do you mean, you did this for us?” I ask. “Did what? Lie to people? Con people? So that—what? We could have stuff? Things?”

  “Annie,” my mom says.

  “What?” I say. “How long have you known?”

  “That’s enough.” My dad stands up. He looks like he did when he was giving the presentation at the launch years ago—at the helm, and like everyone below him better get up and join him. “It’s hard to understand all that’s involved, and sometimes the labels sound harsher than they are—”

  “Like real estate fraud?” I say. “Mail and wire fraud. Siphoning investor money, putting it into a personal account. Defrauding investors of more than thirty million dollars over the three-year course of the project? I understand.”

  Everyone looks at me like someone new has walked in. I’m no longer their perfect girl.

  Skip puts the knife down. My mom crosses her legs and looks at her shoes. My heart races.

  Sammy is still holding Nicole’s legs, looking around while cooing and stomping. He doesn’t mind that no one’s smiling.

  “I didn’t know how bad it was going to get,” my dad says, his shoulders slumped, childlike.

  “You didn’t know you were going to get caught.” I clench my jaw, refusing to cry. I notice my mom’s earrings, little amber tears. She looks like she doesn’t know anyone in this room. What now? What will become of us? And when do we get to choose what happens to us?

  “We know how difficult it’s been to be here,” my mom says. “All cooped up and out of your element. I’m sorry we had to put you through this.”

  “Oh my god, it’s been fine,” I say, pissed at her rudeness.

  Nicole keeps her head down. I don’t know if she’s enjoying the sight of Sammy or treating him like a pet—like I do sometimes at parties when I don’t know anyone. I look at the animals, pat their heads.

  “We were thinking of you having to face your friends,” my mom says. “You’ll be happy to know you don’t have to. We won’t put you through that. None of us are going back.”

  “What do you mean? Where are we going?” Jay asks.

  “I’m going to a—” My dad looks around, like he’s forgotten the words. The truth is he’s never used these words, never had to. “I’m going to a facility in Oregon. Our attorneys pushed for the location, since you’ll be going to college there. First year’s been paid for. We thought all of us may as well relocate.”

  May as well! As if we’re just carefree folks. I can’t absorb this. Jay and I look at one another. “What about the rest of my senior year?” Jay asks.

  “Since this is your last semester,” my mom says, “Ms. Spagnoli thought it unwise for you to transfer.”

  “Yeah, genius call,” he says.

  “Unnecessary, I mean. She says you can finish long distance with internet, Skype . . . Most of your assignments are online anyway. You have a three-point-five. They’re willing to make it work.”

  “What about me?” I’m gripping the knife.

  “You’ll go to school in Eugene,” my mom says.

  Eugene?

  I look down at my phone to see if Brose has texted me back. How many times do we have to swing between forgiveness and what feels like hatred? When will he decide to stop the pendulum, and am I supposed to just bow and submit to the answer? Why is none of it up to me?

  “I’ve spoken to Dean Bennet,” my dad says. “He’s the dean at Lakewood in Eugene—”

  “Wait, his name is Dean, and he’s the dean?” I ask.

  “And,” my dad says, annoyed I’ve interrupted, “you can finish out your sophomore year. It’s a public school, so not a lot of hurdles to this. You’ll need to take some class required of all sophomores, but—”

  “And right now?” I ask. “In the middle of the year?”

  Nicole is holding Sammy under his arms. He stands on her thighs.

  “It’s a fine school, I’ve heard,” my mom says.

  “So we’re selling the house?” Jay asks.

  My parents look at one another. “Yes,” my dad says.

  “We have to,” my mom says.

  “Why?” I ask.

  I guess I can already think of the reasons—we need money, or maybe the government or something is going to take our house, or maybe we have to move because our town is spitting us out.

  No one bothers to answer me, anyway. The way they’re handling all this makes me think that they thought this out long before the ruling.

  “Annie, the new school will be a good thing,” my mom says. “No one will know who we are.”

  The words are like a potion. No Mackenzie, no Evergreen, no Eric and pitying or resentful teachers. No relying on a guy and his indecisive pendulum. No guilt from not seeing Cee at school, no castle on the hill reminding me of what I once had. No one will know who you are.

  A future shines before me. A new start in a new world. A girl walking confidently down the halls, her virginity gone, her dad on a long business trip. She worked in a restaurant, she’s in a long-distance relationship, she’s kind of a mystery. Who knows why she moved here in the middle of the year. Did she get kicked out of her old school? For what? Grades, drugs? Let’s get to know the new girl . . .

  Nicole, as usual, is having trouble hiding what she feels. She’s looking at my parents with disgust, and I wonder what’s bothering her most: the fact that we’re leaving or the fact that my mom can leave and just start up again somewhere else, sweeping the dirty secrets under the rug. She sees my mom as Brose once saw me, or perhaps still does: as someone who lives life without consequences, who doesn’t play by the same set of rules. How they could still see us this way, I don’t know. How do they not see that we do suffer the consequences? We’re not getting away with anything. And yet, I feel judged, and Nicole’s judgment means something.

  “When do we go?” I ask.

  “As soon as possible,” my mom says.

  The fire cracks and pops. This could be such a nice scene if observed from the outside—the glow from the hearth, the family gathered in companionable silence. It makes me never want to speak again. Words turn beautiful scenes into ugly realities.

  Skip breaks our long silence. “Why don’t we sit?” he says. “Have some dinner.” />
  I don’t bother looking at anyone but him. “I need to be alone,” I say to him, though everyone can hear. “I’ll eat later.” He nods, not seeing if it’s okay with my parents. I walk to my room.

  Brose finally responds, and I have him meet me in the backyard. I get there through the door in Skip and Nicole’s bedroom.

  We sit on the picnic bench under a pink and gray sky. I can hear the snowcats grooming the mountain, erasing everyone’s marks.

  I tell him the plan my parents have made, wanting him to see that things aren’t so easy for us either. I look at his profile as he absorbs it all. His eyes look sad, but his mouth holds something bitter.

  “Good for you,” he says. “Start fresh. No one will know a thing.”

  I cross my ankles and lean back into the table. “Is that what you want?”

  “For you or for myself?”

  “You. Do you wish you could do the same?”

  He takes his hands out of his pockets, drums them on his thighs. “Not really. I mean, I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “I don’t either,” I say, and everything falls apart.

  That new-girl fantasy and the idea that no one would know who we were felt like a serum, but now it’s like a poison. While I’m walking down the halls of my new school, I’m hiding my dad, I’m hiding the real reason why we’ve moved, why my brother isn’t in school. I’m hiding my past, my pride and shame, my mistakes and my strengths. My story. And since I’ve been here in Breckenridge, I’ve started to like my story.

  Brose looks over at me, then places his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “For not doing the same. Letting you have a blank slate. Start new and all that.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” I say, and then I stand up, which I can tell takes him by surprise. I’m not going to beg.

  “I need to get back.” I nod to the house. He’s flustered, thinking this is it. I’ll never see him again. Is this how it ends? “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”