Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Page 8

  I return his hostility, mirroring his expression. What’s his problem? I guess I know. He must see through my act. He must see the privileged girl stopping in for a little life experience. Guys like him never give me the time of day. I suppose they’re as judgmental of girls like me as girls like me are of them.

  * * *

  • • •

  Now that dinner service is almost over, I’m back to dishes, which are stacking up at an overwhelming rate. A waitress walks in with a tray of shots, and the kitchen staff gather around her and throw ’em back, not in some celebratory way, but more like they’re running a race and the shots are little cups of water. She’s come in before, and there’s an air of assuredness about her—like it’s some territory she’s taken over, and she’s running the show.

  The girl comes up to me. She has short hair with long bangs, green eyes, and notably full lips.

  “You’ve got quite a pile there,” she says.

  I look at my mounting load of dishes and stand up straighter.

  “Here,” she says, and hands me a glass of amber liquid. I take the shot and make a face, which probably looked like I had sucked a lemon. She watches the production with amusement, like she gave it to me just to be entertained.

  “You’re Skip’s niece,” she says.

  “I am,” I say, my eyes watering. “Absolutely. Annie Town.”

  “Absolutely Annie Town.” She smirks. “I’m Rickie. Skip told me not to give you any shots, and he told me to be your friend.”

  I load a plate into the rack. Something in me releases, and I’m warm. Poised. I’m a carefree girl with self-possession. I occupy myself well, too.

  “You don’t have to be my friend,” I say, “but you can keep the shots comin’.”

  “Ha!” she says, and I reflexively smile at her huge, consuming grin. She turns to leave. “Good job, boys!” she says, and Pablo drops down another load in front of me.

  The kitchen is even louder, but more relaxed now that dinner is over. People are singing, and I don’t feel like such an elephant. In an odd way, I feel like I belong. It’s a sensation I don’t get a lot, even while skating on a team. I’d keep to myself, always competing. I wanted to be able to lighten things up, but my mom and coach never allowed it. And so it was a sport I enjoyed that I never enjoyed.

  No one here knows that I’ve never had a job before, that even at home I don’t have chores. No one knows my dad is in court for real estate fraud. No one knows a thing. I’ve managed to get my work done and I’m feeling an approval from Pablo and Ren, like I’m not some spoiled white girl.

  Nat walks through the swinging doors, making the sound I’ve come to enjoy. They’re like doors in a saloon—you hear the creak and you look up, wondering who’s going to come through.

  He raises his eyebrows at me and walks toward the door that leads to the outdoor parking lot.

  “Smoke break?” he asks.

  I don’t smoke.

  “Sure,” I say, and for some reason look over at Brose, who is openmouthed, head back, laughing at something Freddie is talking about. I’m caught off guard seeing him smile.

  Nat lights up a joint, and while he takes a drag, he appraises me in a way that makes me both uncomfortable and highly flattered.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing.” He laughs.

  He passes the joint. I take a little drag and pass it back. “I thought you meant cigarette,” I say, and smile in a way I hope is cute.

  “Hell no,” he says. “My grandpa died because of cigarettes.”

  The air is cold and clear. “I’m sorry,” I say. “How old was he?”

  “Ninety-two,” he says, and I refrain from saying, Maybe he died from being ninety-two.

  He hands me the joint again.

  “All set,” I say, holding up my hands. “I’m not super good at it.”

  “What are you good at?” He squints his eyes and takes a step back as if framing me for a shot.

  I try to think of something. I shop well. I watch TV well. I skate well, but I don’t want that to be part of my new persona. At summer camp I was surprisingly good at archery.

  “Um,” I say. “Shooting.” I don’t want to say “archery” and sound like one of those Renaissance fair weirdos.

  “Shooting? Like, guns?” he says, clearly freaked out.

  I need to rescue myself. Gun fanatics are a hundred percent worse than Renaissance fanatics. At least the Renaissance people seem educated.

  “No, like . . . photography,” I say. “Mountains and lakes, uh . . . I’m trying to create a moving record of Colorado’s transformation.”

  “Oh, wow,” he says, and looks serious, but I can tell he’s just being polite. This is much too artsy for him.

  “Hey, you should come out with us.” He puts the joint on the ground and squishes it with his shoe.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”

  I rub my hands up and down my arms. He puts his hand on my back as we walk toward the door. “You chilly?” he says, and I laugh, even though it wasn’t funny.

  When I’m finally done with the dishes, I walk out of the kitchen to the bar area, which is packed. Skip is behind the bar helping Jessica, the super-sweet bartender, who is all smiles and boobs.

  “How’s it going?” Skip says.

  “Good,” I say, kind of shy to admit how good it is. Skip was right. I haven’t thought about my dad or Cee and her stupid texts. Rickie comes out of the kitchen and pats my head. She’s about two heads taller than me.

  “Can I go out with everyone? They’re going to Eric’s for pizza.”

  Skip pours a beer into a frosty glass. “Sure,” he says. He looks at me with pride. It’s like he stops what he’s doing and just soaks in the moment. “Be good,” he says.

  “What else is there to be?” Rickie says. She hooks her elbow into mine and pulls. This is what I want.

  Rickie and I sit at a table in back, away from the sounds of the arcade games where the boys have gone. In back of us is a booth full of guys loudly cheering at some game on TV. At the table next to us is a family, and I keep looking over at them, feeling both dismissive and envious.

  “So how long are you staying with Skip?” Rickie asks, across the table from me. She has a fry in her mouth that she’s biting but not eating, like it’s a stick or a cigar.

  “Just for winter break,” I say. I fiddle with the salt and pepper.

  “And then you go back to . . .”

  “Colorado Springs,” I lie.

  “Ah,” she says.

  “And you live here, right?”

  “I do,” she says. “I’m a senior. You?”

  “Sophomore.” I can see her being a senior. I can just as easily picture her as a college grad, living on her own. She seems so much older than me.

  “Cool. And why are you staying with Skip? Just for fun?”

  “My parents are getting a divorce,” I say, which doesn’t sound like a lie once I say it. It feels inevitable somehow, and the thought makes me anxious. Was my mom prepared for this? Does she feel betrayed? If my dad loses, will she be there for him? My eyes water and blink quickly.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “It’s for the best.” I take a long drink from my Sprite to buy some time. “My dad . . . he cheated, and it’s the talk of the town.”

  “Oh, wow,” she says, squirting mayonnaise into the bowl of ketchup, then stirring it with a fry. “How’s that going?”

  I roll my eyes. “It sucks. It was totally unexpected. We never imagined he could do something like it. And now our family . . . is like a freak show. Like everyone’s looking at us, judging us, even though we didn’t do anything wrong. And he may not have either. My mom just thinks he cheated.” I realize I’ve raised my voice and I’m drowning a fry in the mayo-ketchup concoc
tion.

  Rickie puts her hand on my arm.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Got carried away.” And I did. I guess I’m not used to being so honest, even though I’m not being honest at all.

  “It’s good you’re here, then,” Rickie says. “You can hide out for a bit.”

  “That’s the plan,” I say.

  She looks toward the front, and I see Brose and Forest and then Nat and Cara, following behind. They sit down, and Forest continues with the story he was already telling them, and the table’s atmosphere changes completely. When we first planned on coming out, I envisioned sitting here with Nat. Now I look across the table at Rickie and wish it was just us. We could keep talking, telling both truth and lies.

  Brose is talking to Cara. Everyone is laughing at whatever Forest is saying. I feel dismissed, not into it, wanting to go back to reality with Rickie, even though it wasn’t reality at all. But it was steps toward it.

  Nat smiles at me from across the table, and I perk up a bit, but never quite get into a groove.

  When I get home, I call my dad, but of course he doesn’t answer.

  Did you cheat people? I want to ask. Or are you just being wrongfully accused?

  Then a question for myself: If he did cheat, would you want him to get away with it?

  Yes, I think, imagining the consequences—the shame, the erasing of everything we have. I would.

  11

  It’s New Year’s Eve and only my third day working here. I’ve always hated the event of New Year’s, the pressure to have plans, so while I’m glad to be working, I’m nervous. Not nervous exactly—yesterday went pretty well—but I’m filled with even more adrenaline than usual. I expect it to be frantic, crazy, but when I said to Ren, “Tonight’s going to be a madhouse,” liking the way I felt like an insider when I said it, Brose informed me (mumbled, scoffed) that it’s actually easier, since food service stops at ten.

  “And no one cares what it tastes like,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes to myself, but as the night goes on, I see that he’s right. It’s busy, but fun. The cooks are relaxed, goofy, and a lot of the waiters have left earlier than usual since all the activity is at the bar.

  The waitstaff wear New Year’s flair—tinsel and glittery headbands in their hair. Every time the doors swing open, I look over, hoping to see Nat, that he hasn’t left early. When it’s him, I get this fluttering in my body, a brief possession. He always looks at me when he comes in, communicating something with his smirk, his eyes. I’d like to know exactly what he’s trying to say. This time, he doesn’t look at me. Layla and Tamara follow him in, and they’re all chatting. They wait at the counter for their orders and the girls laugh at something Nat has said, but it’s a cruel kind of laughter, an evil quack. When Layla catches me looking at them, I unclench my jaw and she gives me a very fake smile—she may as well have stuck her tongue out at me. I would have respected that.

  “Hey, dishwasher,” Nat says.

  I hold down a grin. “Hey.”

  “You got plans tonight?”

  “Not really,” I say.

  “Everyone who gets off at ten is heading to this party.”

  “Caps are up,” Freddie calls.

  Nat takes the plate of mushrooms, then says something to Layla, making her cackle.

  “You should come,” Brose says after Nat leaves, and I look up at him, surprised he’d have the same plans as them.

  “Sure,” I say. “Sounds like a hog-killin’ time.”

  “A what?” Brose laughs, kind of through his nose, and I smile, because that was a real laugh.

  “Hog-killin’ time,” I say. “Like, super fun. It’s a little Western slang.”

  He nose-laughs again and goes back to dicing onions. “Rad,” he says. “That’s slang for radical.” And I laugh, too.

  * * *

  • • •

  I have to yell to Skip since it’s so loud at the bar. It’s a mixture of young and old people all standing close together. I’ve never wanted to spend New Year’s this way: squished and yelling like you’re at a concert but without a band.

  “Can I go to a party with everyone?” I ask.

  “Sure!” he says. “Be home after you bring in the new year, okay?” He looks at Rickie. “Get her home.”

  “Yes, boss,” she says.

  Jessica reaches for a bottle of vodka, and Skip gets hit by a boob.

  “Excuse me,” he says to Jessica, even though she didn’t even notice—those things probably have a life of their own. I follow Rickie through the crowd to the front door. When we get outside, the raw air is like a gift.

  * * *

  • • •

  I sit next to Nat in the back seat of Rickie’s car. We’re sharing his beer, which I pretend is normal and nothing special, though I usually don’t drink. His arm is pressed against the side of my body, but it has to be because we packed four in the back. I’m against the window. I like the excuse to be so close.

  “Who are you?” Tamara says from the front seat, turning to look at me. She’s seen me countless times in the kitchen. It’s funny—this reverse snobbery. These girls with tattoos and scrubby clothes being just as judgmental as the girls I know with high ponytails and Kate Spade clothes.

  “I’m Annie,” I say.

  “Why are you here?” she asks.

  “Jesus, Tam, you’re such a bee-atch,” Rickie says, and laughs.

  What a weird and lame question. I try to say that I’m here to go to the party just like she is, but I mess up, dropping a few words and say instead, “I’m here to party.”

  Everyone laughs except for her. Brose, who is against the other window, smiles into his fist, then says, “She’s here to have a hog-killin’ time,” and I smile hard, but stop when I notice that he isn’t. He’s just looking out the window, not making an inside joke, just making fun of me. Who cares. I look down at Nat’s leg pressing into mine. Here I am with the preppy boy. Though I tried to be Annie Town, I guess I’ll stick to my own kind. Tamara turns the music up, and we go past the town, then onto a lightless road that smells of pine trees and campfires.

  “Did you survive tonight?” Nat says, his breath on my forehead.

  “I made it,” I say.

  “If you survived tonight, you could pretty much do anything,” he says.

  “Seemed like a pretty easygoing night to me,” Brose says.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Nat says, and rolls his eyes at me, like the kitchen people are third-class citizens, or maybe the eye roll was meant to imply that Brose is an uptight dork. I return the eye roll, wanting to please the front of the house. I take a sip of his beer, then bring it down on his leg.

  Rickie turns off the dark highway and onto a dirt road hedged on both sides with snow. She goes slow, and we bounce around over potholes. We round a bend, and there’s a house lit up ahead. She parks by an empty skate ramp.

  “Okay, kids,” Rickie says. “We are here to party.”

  The house must have been rented by kids, because I can’t imagine adults living here. There’s hardly any furniture, and the windowsills are lined with empty liquor bottles. I wonder if mostly everyone is out of high school here or if, since this is a resort town, it’s normal for high school kids to go to parties like this.

  I trail Rickie for a while, smiling at her jokes, trying to contribute when we’re with a group. When she heads off somewhere, I wander around pretending to look for the keg or the bathroom and end up going to the keg and the bathroom a lot. I’m not sure where Nat has gone, and I wish I could find him so I don’t feel so awkward. On my next round to the keg, Brose is there, sitting on the kitchen counter looking content and peaceful. It’s sort of like the look he has in the kitchen as the night progresses. I notice he starts out with a furrowed brow that eventually irons out.

  “Hey there, Annie,” he says, and I d
on’t like the sound of my name in his mouth. He makes it sound so precious.

  “Hey, Brose,” I say, trying to make his name sound just as lame. “Having fun?”

  “Yeah,” he says, then shrugs. “But sometimes the best part about parties is the coming and going.”

  I know what he means, thinking about the car ride, how it in itself was like a celebration, but I don’t respond.

  He slides off the counter and takes my cup, tilts it into the hose. “Any New Year’s resolutions?” He hands me my cup.

  “Um . . .” I take a sip, then lick the foam off my lip. “Have more fun?” It sounds trivial, but maybe it’s a worthy goal. For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around skating, all my focus on training and not falling behind in school, on not letting myself have fun. Having this as a goal feels worthy. It’s been like a secret to me—not being shaken to the core about not skating anymore. It’s like getting dumped by someone you’re obsessed with, only to realize you’re so much healthier without them.

  “Mine’s to have less,” Brose says. He’s very thin and tall, yet when you get a closer look, he’s substantial—like there’s a lot going on under those clothes.

  “Why less?” I ask, somewhat pleased he seems to be warming up to me.

  “Oh, some of us have to work. Make money for college, figure out what we want to do with our lives, you know, the basics.”

  I don’t know. It has never crossed my mind until now, really, to make money for college. Of course I think sometimes—but never too hard—about what I might do. I’ve always assumed I’d work for my father. But now what’s going to happen? What if he has no business to run? What if we have no money?

  “Some of us?” I ask.

  He looks at my hair, my outfit—so basic, he doesn’t even know—then back to my face.

  “Quick quiz,” he says. “Be honest. Is this job temporary?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Will you work when school starts?”

  “Um, no, I don’t—”