Perfect You (15 page)

"You just can't help yourself, can you? You always have to get in a dig at my husband.

God forbid you say you're sorry to hear we're going to have to move."

Okay, I'd heard enough. More than enough. I got up and edged my way to the hall, hoping to slip around Mom and make it back to my room before this fight got any worse.

"You wouldn't have to move if you'd leave Steve and let him sink on his own," Grandma said. "You know I'd take care of you, darling. You and the children mean the world to me."

"Really? Because I had no idea that meaning the world to someone actually meant 'I'll fix things for you, but only if you do exactly what I say and destroy your family' Let him sink on his own? Listen to you!"

The phone rang then. I'd never been so happy to hear it, and that included the time Grandma called after I failed my first driving test and got Mom so upset that she forgot she'd told me I couldn't

take the test again for another year and let me take it the next month.

"I'll get it," I said, eager to get away from both of them, and didn't even think about who could be calling until I'd already picked up. And then I thought, Will. WillWillWillWill.

"Hello?" Please let me sound normal. Please let it be for me. Please let it be him.

"Is Todd there?"

Of course. Everyone wanted to talk to Todd.

It wasn't until I'd taken a message and hung up that I realized I hadn't even thought it could have been Anna calling. I hadn't even hoped it was her. I hadn't thought about her once today. Not until now.

I didn't know if that was good or bad. It was like . . it was like it was both somehow, actually.

During dinner, Todd came home and said, "I got a job," as he sat down at the kitchen table. He was going to work full-time at another branch of the mall coffee place, and I didn't even care that he acted like he was the first person in the world to ever get a job.

It was just nice to see Mom smile.

Dad came home late, probably trying to avoid Grandma, who'd actually gone to bed early claiming she was tired. I'd seen her face when she'd tried to help Mom clear the table after dinner, though, saw the sadness in her eyes when Mom stiffened and said,

"I've got it, thanks," like Grandma was a stranger she was forcing herself to be polite to.

When Dad sat down in the living room, smiling at me and Mom and Todd, I figured we'd finally talk about the house, or at least discuss where we might move to. After all, we had to live somewhere, and Mom had already said it wasn't going to be in our house anymore.

"Is there anything to eat?" Dad said.

"Of course," Mom said, and we ended up back in the kitchen, the four of us sitting around the kitchen table just like we used to every night for dinner.

"So," Dad said, looking at Todd and me as Mom handed him a plate with a sandwich on it, "I guess you two know about the house?"

Todd and I nodded.

"Good," Dad said. "That's really good." He clapped Todd on the shoulder. "Dave at the coffee place told me about your job at their new branch. Congratulations." He leaned over and kissed Mom. "I'm beat, honey. Can you wrap this up for me? I think I'd better go get some sleep."

He yawned and started to get up, pushing his chair back from the table. I stared at him.

That was it? I knew Dad didn't handle bad news well, but this was our house, not me failing my driver's test, or Todd doing it with some girl in his room, or even Grandma coming to visit. I must have looked upset, because when Dad glanced at me, he quickly looked away.

Like he did anytime he saw something he didn't want to see.

"I can't work tomorrow," I said, the words coming out strangled, like they'd gotten caught in my throat. I looked at Mom, waiting for a reaction. She wouldn't let this be it, would she? She'd say something, tell me I had to work, tell Dad we needed to talk about everything that had happened. Mom didn't look at me. She just stared at Dad's sandwich, her mouth a thin, tight line.

"No problem," Dad said. "With Todd getting a job, I'll need to get used to working by myself a bit more anyway."

And that was it. That was all anyone said about the house, about how it would soon belong to someone else.

When I woke up the next morning, I looked around my room.

I saw the smudges on the wall from where Anna and I had practiced handstands and rested our feet against it, scrabbling to stay upright before we fell. I saw the weird crack in the corner of my ceiling that I'd always thought looked like a spiderweb. I saw the shells I'd collected the summer me and Mom and Todd stayed with Grandma at her beach house. I'd forgotten how much I loved walking along the beach with her. She never got mad when I wanted to stop and pick something up. She said walking too fast was silly, and it was important to see everything you could.

I tried to picture my desk and my bed in a new room. I tried to picture myself in a new room. I couldn't do it, even though I knew it would happen.

Since I didn't have to go to the mall, I went for a walk, not even bothering to try and talk to Mom about driving. I just wanted to get away from the house, from everything that was already gone.

I ended up at Anna's.

Walking by her house made me feel better and worse. Better, because it brought back so many memories. Worse, because that's all I had. Memories.

I stood at the edge of her driveway, staring down at it and wishing I could walk up to her front door without even thinking about it the way I used to, when I heard Anna say,

"Kate?"

I looked up, embarrassed, and saw Anna standing just inside her house, peering at me from the open door. I waved weakly, feeling like an idiot.

"What are you doing here?" She didn't sound mad, just surprised.

"I was out walking. I would have gone for a drive but Mom has this whole thing about me and driving and . . ."I forced myself to stop talking, aware I was babbling and that Anna had no reason to care about me walking or anything else.

"Oh," she said, and then, a second later, "Do you want to come in?"

And just like that, my friendship with Anna began again. It was like a dream but better, because it was real, because we went to her room and sat like we always did, me curled up in the overstuffed chair that Anna's mom had picked up at a yard sale years ago, and that Anna had decorated with the butterfly stickers I'd given her when she turned eleven. It felt like coming home in the best way.

The stickers were gone, but the chair was still there, familiar and solid, and Anna lay on the floor like she always had, resting her feet on the bed, and told me all about Sam.

She told me everything I'd always wondered about the two of them, answered all the questions I'd wanted to ask but hadn't been able to.

"So, that's how it happened," she said much later, her voice slightly hoarse from talking for so long. "Me and Sam. Our story. Wow. Our story. It sounds unbelievable, doesn't it?

I mean, if you'd told me this time last year that I'd be his girlfriend . ." She lifted her arms up and spread them out to the side, then giggled and crossed them over her chest like she was hugging herself. "I'm so lucky."

"You are." And she was. Being with a guy like Sam was the Jackson High equivalent of dating a movie star.

The thing was, I was the tiniest bit tired of hearing about Sam. Anna had talked about him before, of course, but he'd never been all she talked about.

"Do you miss choir?" I said. "I had to quit when everything with Dad happened, but in the fall we sang at least two songs at the winter concert that you totally would have gotten a solo for."

"Choir?" Anna said. "I swear, Kate, I totally forgot I was ever in it. I was the world's biggest loser back then, wasn't I?"

She laughed. I didn't. Anna seemed different, not just in how she looked, but in how she talked too. It was like Anna was there, but there was someone else layered on top of her as well. Someone new. Someone who didn't care about any of the things she'd once cared about except Sam.

"I guess I do miss singing a little, but I can always do it for real later, you know?" she said. "I was talking to Diane about New York City, and--well, I can totally see myself singing there, you know?"

"New York?"

"Yeah, Diane wants to go to NYU, and she'll totally get in because her aunt or somebody works there, and since there's no money for me to go to school, I'm going to go out there with her and we'll get an apartment and I'll get a job singing." She pointed her toes up into the air, bouncing her heels on the bed. "Maybe I'll end up in a really famous musical or something. Wouldn't that be amazing?"

"Amazing," I said, but it came out flat, strangled-sounding. Anna was going to move to New York and live with Diane. We used to talk about moving to New York. How had she forgotten that? We'd talked about it for years and now . . . now it was like none of it had ever happened.

"Okay, something's going on," she said. "I can tell because you've got that Tm-thinking-too-much' look on your face. What's up?"

Where was I going to start? Her? Dad? Grandma? Todd and his new job? Mom? Finding out about the house? Will?

Will, who hung out with Sam.

"I was thinking about Sam," I said, rolling my eyes when she nudged me with one foot.

"Not like that. I saw him on Friday night. At a party, I mean. Were you there with him? I didn't see you but it was pretty crowded, and I sort of ended up leaving in a hurry."

"Party?" Anna said, sounding startled. "What party?"

"Jennifer T.'s."

"Oh," she said, visibly relaxing. "That thing. I thought you were talking about . . . never mind."

"Talking about what?"

"Nothing." She waved a hand at me, grinning brightly.

I stared at her. She was trying really hard to act casual. Too hard. Plus her smile looked like Dad's did whenever Grandma was around, too wide and fake.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm just brain-dead because of everything with my mom, you know?" she said.

"But anyway, I definitely wasn't at Jennifer's. Me and Diane went out, and I was supposed to go to this thing at Tara's, but she called at the last minute and said it was just going to be a few people."

"Oh," I said, confused as to what this had to do with Sam.

She laughed, but it was hollow sounding. "I forgot, you don't know that Sam and Tara hang out sometimes. See, he swore he wasn't going over there, but I thought he might drop by real fast or something. But instead he went to Jennifer's. I bet she loved that."

I looked at her, hearing something strange in the brittle tone of her voice. "Are you and Sam okay?"

"Of course." She looked away from me, staring up at her ceiling. "It's just that people like Tara can do anything, you know? And Sam says he loves me, but I--I guess I keep thinking it's all a dream, and I'm going to wake up and find out I'm still a nobody."

"Wait a minute--Sam's said he loves you?" WOW I couldn't imagine anyone saying that to me, not ever, and Anna had just said it like it was no big deal. But I knew it must be.

"Yeah," she said, her voice shy and giddy, and in that was a glimpse of the Anna I knew, the one who dreamed about Sam and a perfect life. "Pretty amazing, isn't it? I still can't totally believe it, which I guess is why I worry sometimes. But anyway, you have to tell me how stupid the Jennifers were." She cleared her throat. "Did Jennifer T. throw herself at him?"

"No, but he got pizza when she'd told us there wasn't any food left."

She laughed again, sounding oddly relieved. "God, she's so pathetic. I bet Will talked him into going for some reason. Some girl, probably."

Me? Could Will have talked him into going for me?

"I totally get why you never liked him now, by the way," Anna continued. "You know how sometimes there are stupid rumors about Sam hooking up with random girls? It's all because Will hooks up with anything that breathes, and it's so annoying because it's obvious Sam has actual standards, you know?"

I nodded, stung, the brief flash of whatever I'd had before gone. I had heard rumors about Sam, but there was no way he'd kiss a girl like me, and I knew that. But Will would. He had.

And now I didn't want to know what Anna would think about that.

So I didn't say anything else about that night or Will, and when I left her house, I felt--I felt like things weren't totally back to normal between me and her. I thought they could get there, though. Hoped they could. That they would.

At home, there was a huge for sale sign up in the yard, and no one had called me.

No one called me all night.

I know I could have called Will, but I was afraid. Really afraid, and not like before, when I was afraid that I wouldn't know what to say, or what he'd say. Now I was afraid of everything.

Jennifer T.'s party changed things. I knew she'd tell everyone what she saw, and there was no way to escape the fact that people would know Will and I were . . . whatever.

But I hadn't truly realized what it would mean. Everyone would know. Anna would know.

What would she think?

After today, I was afraid to think about it.

And he hadn't called. When I went to bed, trying to fall asleep but staring at my silent phone, all I could think was that everyone knowing meant disaster on an epic scale. I'd wanted to keep whatever I had with Will quiet. Mine. I'd wanted the ending I knew was coming to be private.

I knew what Wills silence meant, and I hated that tomorrow everyone else would know what it meant too. Just once, I wanted to lose something without the whole world watching.

In the morning, I saw Anna. And she saw me.

I know she did, because she looked right at me. Then she looked away, like she'd forgotten me all over again.

For a second, I hated her. I mean, really hated her. Anna and I had talked, and I thought things had been fixed--or at least sort of fixed--between us. So why was she doing this?

I went to my locker, tossing my books inside and ignoring everyone around me. I didn't want to know if people were looking at me or talking about me, and when the warning bell rang and emptied the halls, I ignored that too. Anna could have her new perfect life for all I cared. It was her loss. Really.