Don't Make Me Beautiful (7 page)

Brian takes a big mouthful of the food, chewing it with relish.
 
“Mmmm-mmm-mmmm, this is good.
 
Man, oh, man, nothing like roni cheese and hot doggy dogs for dinner.”

“Mom doesn’t like it when I eat unhealthy like this.
 
She says roni cheese and hot doggies is really bad for your klesterol levels.”
 
He takes another bite.

“Your mom is right.
 
And usually I listen to every single thing she says and never do things she doesn’t like, but tonight is an exception, and we’re allowed to have exceptions once in a while, right?”

Liam shrugs and puts another hotdog slice on his fork.
 
“I guess.”

“Besides … you’re too young to worry about your cholesterol.”

Liam finally looks up, a hint of laughter in his eyes.
 
“You’re not.”

“What are you trying to say?” Brian asks, dropping his fork next to his plate, feigning outrage.
 
“Are you saying I’m old?”

“Well you are.
 
You’re like
really
old.”

Brian flexes his bicep, pointing to it with the opposite hand.
 
“Does
this
look like the body of an old guy to you?”

“Hank has a body like that and he’s super old.”

Brian drops his arm.
 
“True.
 
But he was in the Navy and he works out.”

“You work out.”

“All right, all right, eat your noodles, smarty pants.
 
I’m an old fart, I get it.”
 
Brian pretends to be defeated.

“I’m just kidding, Dad.
 
You’re not old.
 
Mom’s old, though.”

Brian barks out a laugh before he can stop himself.
 
“You’d better not let her hear you say that.”

“She is, though.
 
She has gray hair now.”
 
Liam is smiling again.
 
Most of his earlier worries seem gone.

“You’d better watch it with that.
 
You don’t ever want to let a lady know you saw a gray hair on her head.”

“But what if she’s really old and she only
has
gray hair like Agnes.
 
What do you do then?”

“You lie.
 
You lie and lie and lie.
 
If she asks you if her hair is gray, you say no, it’s blond.”

“But that’s not nice to lie.”

“Sometimes it’s nice to fib a little.
 
So that a person doesn’t get her feelings hurt.”

Liam thinks about this for a few seconds, his eyebrows drawn in with concentration.
 
“So what you’re saying is that if I want to not hurt someone’s feelings, I should lie.”
 
He looks up at Brian with hope in his eyes.

Brian puts his fork down and loosely folds his hands in front of him.
 
“No, not exactly.
 
Lying is not nice.
 
Your mom and I have told you that since you were a tiny baby.”

“Tiny baby’s can’t understand that stuff, Dad.”
 
Liam rolls his eyes.

“Well, we told you anyway.
 
We wanted you to learn right from the get-go that lying isn’t right.”

“Then why did you just tell me to lie to ladies?”

“I guess what I’m saying is there’s a difference between a straight-out lie and a fib that you say to not hurt someone who you love.”

“Like I love you.
 
And mom.”

“Right.”

“So if there was something I could say that would hurt your feelings, I should lie about it?”

Brian blinks a few times to try and get his answer put together.
 
He knows this is one of those landmark moments in his son’s life.
 
“No.
 
You shouldn’t lie to me.
 
Whatever it is you have to say to me, you should just say it.
 
I’ll love you no matter what.”

Liam’s face turns down.

“What’s the matter, Li-Li?
 
Not what you wanted to hear?”

“Not really,” Liam mumbles.
 
“Can I go back to my room now?”

“Why would you want to do that?
 
You’ve hardly eaten anything and I have a brownie for you for dessert.”

Liam takes a deep breath and lets it out.
 
“Well … I feel like maybe I should punish myself and not have dessert for like a whole year or a week.”

“Why’s that?
 
Did you do something wrong?”
 
Brian draws his eyebrows together, trying to fake a look of deep concern.
 
All he really wants to do is stand up and tap dance around the room.
 
Not that he knows how to tap dance, but he’d give it a hell of a shot anyway.
 
My boy has integrity!
 
Woo hooo!

“Kind of.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it.
 
Maybe we can work it out together.”

“I don’t want to tell you.”
 
Liam looks up, his face crumpling and tears lighting up his eyes.

Brian reaches over the table and holds his palm open.
 
“Tell Daddy what happened, Li-Li.
 
I promise, I won’t get mad.”

Liam jumps out of his seat and runs over to his father, throwing his arms around his waist.
 
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.
 
I’m so, so, so, so sorry!”
 
His sobs cut off the rest of what he might have planned to say.

Brian lifts his son up and places him on his lap, putting his arms around his skinny body.
 
“Don’t cry, little man.
 
We’ll work it out.
 
Tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t mean to!
 
I promise, I didn’t!
 
I just wanted to try and hit the ball like Wilson did and then I was really good at it and then the ball went just like a rocket!”

“Where did this happen?”

“On the other street,” Liam says, his voice calmer now, but still near the edge of hysteria.
 
“I went over there so you wouldn’t see me.”

“What happened when you hit it?” asks Brian, rubbing his son’s back.

“It went … it went …”
 
He pushes his face deep into his father’s chest, so deep that his next words are unintelligible.

“It went where?” Brian asks, forcing Liam away from him so he can detach the boy’s face from his shirt.

Liam is looking down, unable to face his father.
 
“It went into the monster’s window,” he says very softly.
 
He looks up at Brian, his face a mask of fear.
 
“There’s a real, live monster living there and I never want to go back there as long as I live.”
 
The tears start anew and his sobs take over any ability he might have had to communicate.
 
Brian takes him back into an embrace and pats his back.

“Don’t worry about it, Li-Li.
 
Daddy’s not afraid of any old monster, don’t you worry.”

Chapter Eleven

SHE’S STILL ON THE FLOOR in the kitchen as the sun begins to set.
 
John told her to go upstairs hours ago, but she doesn’t have the strength to get up.
 
It’s not a physical thing; right now if the house caught on fire, she could move.
 
It’s mental paralysis that has her thinking the kitchen floor might be a good place to crash out on for the night.
 
Maybe if she just stays here, he’ll leave her alone.
 
A girl can dream.

Her mind wanders through the corridors of her memories, to the day she met him.
 
She was nineteen, starting her first semester of college, working at a coffee shop and waiting for the day her first real job would happen along, hopefully in three years when she finally had her bachelor’s degree.
 
Instead, John came along.

From the first time she saw him, she was star-struck.
 
Oh, he was so handsome and his presence utterly commanding.
 
He came into the shop every day for two weeks before he worked up the nerve to ask her out.
 
She was flattered that such a good-looking, physically fit guy would want to be with her.
 
Sure, she’d been pretty back then.
 
Ever since she was fifteen, she’d gotten lots of attention from plenty of guys.
 
But they always made her feel awkward and embarrassed with their compliments and stumbling efforts at love.

John was different.
 
He brought her flowers, he wrote her poems, and he said all the right things, even though he was kind of shy himself.
 
He wanted to protect her, to walk her home, to make sure she was taken care of.
 
To a girl who’d been taking care of herself for the past couple years, that sounded all right to her.
 
More than all right, it sounded like home.

Their love affair was passionate.
 
They went from a date at the movies to moving in together within a month. Maybe if she’d taken more time and been more patient, she’d have recognized the signs and gotten out sooner.
 
But by the time she was here in this house, it was too late.
 
The first time he hit her was when she’d told him someone had flirted with her at work.
 
He blamed it on the beers and bought her flowers after.
 
For weeks he was the perfect gentleman.
 
And then he hit her again.
 
And again.
 
And again…

The doorbell rings and startles her out of her reverie.
 
The doorbell never rings at this house.
 
John has a sign on the door that tells anyone approaching not to bother.

Nicole struggles to stand.
 
Not that she’ll answer it, but she knows John will flip his lid if he finds her on the floor.
 
She has no idea if he’s even still home.
 
Looking at the clock she realizes she’s slept some of the day away again.
 
More lost time.
 
Why can’t I lose more of it?
 
The bliss of unconsciousness is very alluring.

Whoever is standing outside on the porch, he’s persistent.
 
The doorbell goes off again, jangling Nicole’s nerves.
 
The pounding of John’s feet coming down the stairs does nothing to stop the anxiety from building.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, keep your pants on,” says John, unlocking the deadbolt with the key from his pocket.

Nicole moves closer to the kitchen entrance so she can hear what’s going on just ten feet away.

“Hey!” says a stranger’s voice as the door creaks open.

“Hey, what’s up?” says John.
 
“Can’t you read the sign there, man?”

“Oh, yeah.
 
Sorry about that.
 
I know you don’t want to be disturbed, but this is really important.”

“My wife is sick, so we can’t really have people over.
 
What can I do for you?”

Nicole wants to scream that she’s not his wife, that she’s not sick.
 
But she doesn’t.
 
She remains as still and silent as a person possibly can.
 
Even though one step to her left would make her visible to the stranger, she doesn’t take it.
 
She’s afraid of what they’ll do when they see her, what John will do once he knows they’ve seen her, and what she’ll want to do when she sees the horror on their faces.
 
A tear slips out and rolls down her cheek.

“My son came over to apologize, actually.
 
Go head, Liam.”

Nicole’s head starts pounding painfully.
 
Her heart feels like it’s going to explode in her chest and her face crumples with the effort of holding in the sobs.
 
No, no, no, no noooo!
 
Not the little boy!
 
Not the window!

“I’m sorry, sir,” says a tiny voice.

Tears flow from Nicole’s eyes as if a floodgate in her skull has been opened.
 
She can already sense John’s anger.
 
There’s nothing that sets him off more than the idea of her having contact with the outside world.

“Sorry for what, little dude?”
 
His voice is tight. Controlled.

“For breaking your window and scaring your wife.”

John says nothing for five full seconds.
 
Nicole counts them out, wondering what his face looks like, if he’s showing these neighbors his insanity in his expression.

One … two … three … four … five …

“What are you talking about?
 
What window?”

“That one over there.
 
I hit my ball through it today.
 
I’m really sorry.”

“Didn’t you know?” asks the stranger, the boy’s father apparently.
 
“My son says he talked to your wife, or he saw her.
 
She gave him back the ball.”

John stumbles through his response.
 
“Yeah … uh … sure … she mentioned something, but I guess I wasn’t paying attention.
 
Did you say you talked to her?”

The little boy doesn’t answer right away.
 
The stranger speaks again, in a soft voice. “It’s okay, Liam. Just tell him what happened.
 
Remember what I said about integrity.”
 
Nicole’s heart breaks with how kind and loving the man sounds.
 
John used to pretend to have that voice.

A loud sniff precedes the confession.
 
“I didn’t really talk to her.
 
I just asked her for my ball back and then took it and ran away.”