Perfect You (24 page)

She'd invited everyone in our class, but I was the only person who showed up. We'd ended up having fun though, because Anna's mom let us eat all the cupcakes she'd bought and then we sat outside on the chairs and waved sparklers around, me and Anna writing our names in the air, watching the letters flare and then disappear.

Diane was in the chair next to hers, pointing at her feet and then at a picture in some magazine. Her car was parked a few feet away from me on the street, gleaming in the sun. As I stood there, staring at them, a car drove by, the guys inside yelling hello to Diane and Anna. They didn't seem to see me even though they passed right by me.

Diane looked up, grinning, and waved at the car. She saw me and her smile faded for a moment, then sharpened into the kind of grin that makes your stomach hurt. I watched as she turned to Anna and said something.

Anna, who'd been looking at the magazine, looked up. Looked at me. I smiled and waved, and then said, "I was just walking by," because I didn't want to embarrass her in front of Diane.

She didn't say anything. She didn't even wave. She just looked at me and then turned back to Diane, pointing at something in the magazine.

"Hey, you," Diane said, and I looked at her. "Tell your father my mom doesn't want any more Perfect You catalogs, okay? She says the notes he puts in talking about his stupid store are pathetic." She giggled, and after a moment, Anna did too.

Anna laughed at me. Again.

"Anna?" I said.

"Oh, look, Kate's upset," Diane said. "Sorry, sweetie, I didn't realize you were into vitamins too." Her voice was gleeful, pure honeyed evil. This was who Anna wanted to be with?

I looked over at her again, hoping she'd look at me. Hoping she'd say something to show she was my friend. Anything.

But she didn't, and as I stood there, I remembered something else about Anna's eleventh birthday. She'd cried. She'd cried because none of the girls everyone wanted to be friends with had come, then wiped her eyes and said she hated them before sobbing,

"Why don't they like me?"

She'd always wanted to be where she was now. I just hadn't seen how much or for how long. I hadn't seen how unhappy she was. I hadn't seen her.

She wasn't going to look at me. She wasn't going to talk to me. She might say she still wanted me to be her friend, and maybe she even meant it, but she didn't really want to be mine. I didn't think she'd say anything when I turned around and walked away, and she didn't.

And that was it. Our friendship was over.

I wanted to feel free, wanted to feel proud of myself for finally seeing what had been so obvious. But I didn't feel free or proud. I wanted to go back, I wanted us to be friends the way we used to be. I wanted to know why things had to change.

I wanted to know why she didn't need me. Why I was so easy to forget.

I went home.

The house was empty, but Mom had left a note. I didn't read it. I didn't care where she was. I didn't care where Dad was. I didn't care where Grandma was, where Todd was, where anyone was.

I went home and got the picture I used to have on the back of my door out of my desk and tore it into tiny pieces. I took the stuffed monkey out of my closet and threw it against the wall. It sagged limply to the ground, staring up at me with its stupid stitched-on smile.

I picked it up and yanked its arms as hard as I could, and when they popped free and I was left holding them and the monkey dropped back onto the floor, still smiling up at me, I started to cry.

I cried because Anna didn't want to be my friend. I cried for all the times I hadn't in the fall, for all the moments when I'd hoped things would change and they hadn't. I cried because I thought maybe they'd had and I was wrong.

I cried for my best friend, who I was no longer sure I'd ever known at all.

I cried because even though I hated Anna for not liking me anymore, for laughing at me, for not caring about all the memories that meant something to me, I would have given anything for her to call and say she was sorry.

I cried because I knew she wouldn't.

And when I couldn't cry anymore, when my eyes were sore and my head hurt, I picked up the monkey. I told myself to throw him away, to forget that Anna had given him to me and that I loved him.

I couldn't do it. I put him back in the closet, leaning his arms against his sides so he looked almost whole. And then I lay on my bed, looking around the room that wasn't going to be mine for much longer.

Everything was over. Anna. Mom and Dad. Our house, our family. Everything.

I was still in my room when Mom got home.

"Hello?" she called, and I managed to sit up and say, "I'm here," before I sank back into my bed, tugging my comforter up so I could tuck it around me.

"Are you all right?" Mom asked, peering into my room. Her eyes were red and swollen, like she'd been crying. I could tell from the way she looked at me that mine were the same. "Did you have a fight with Anna?" "She doesn't like me anymore," I said. I thought I'd cried myself out but I felt my eyes sting as I spoke, and my throat felt thick, clogged.

"What happened?" Mom said, and started to come into my room, then stopped as we both heard footsteps heading toward us.

"Steve?" Mom said, a smile breaking across her face. "Steve, is that--?"

"Darling, it's me," Grandma said. She sounded worried. "I was just picking up the folder you left in the car. Remember that the papers need to be signed--"

"I remember," Mom said, staring at the folder. "I don't know why I thought you were Steve. The mall hasn't even closed yet. I should go get ready for when he gets home."

"Sharon," Grandma said, and tentatively put a hand on Mom's arm. "I think you--"

"I know what you think, Mother. You want me to decide where to live right now and then move there tomorrow. You think it's all over, but you don't know Steve like I do.

He's going to come home and when he does, we'll talk and everything will be fine."

"All right, darling," Grandma said, moving her hand away. "I'll put the papers in the front hall. Why don't you go rest a little? It's been a long day."

"I'm not a child, Mother. I don't need a nap."

"Well then, at least lie down with a washcloth over your eyes for a few minutes because I'm sure that if Steve does come home, you'll want him to see you looking your best."

"First, he is coming home, and second, Steve isn't like you, Mother. He'll care that I've been crying instead of trying to get me to cover it up."

Grandma took a deep breath, hands clenched tight around the folder she was holding.

"Would he? Because from what I've seen, he's shown a singular lack of interest in anything you've had to say that requires him to think about his actions."

Mom shook her head. "It's so easy for you to judge, isn't it? But you have no idea how my marriage works. Steve isn't like Daddy. He'll always put our family first. He'll always respect me."

"Oh, Sharon, I hope he does," Grandma said, looking up toward the ceiling and blinking hard, like she was trying to fight back tears. "You have no idea how much I want that for you."

Mom sniffed twice and then let out a shaky breath. "Thank you, Mother."

She looked at me again. "Kate, honey, can we talk about what happened to you later? I need to get ready for your father."

"Sure," I said, the word coming out slowly, my mind still reeling from what had happened with Anna and from what I'd just seen.

"Well," Grandma said to me as Mom's bedroom door closed, "I think I need to sit down for a moment." Her voice was shaking a little. "Are you willing to scoot over, darling?"

I nodded, moving so Grandma could sit next to me on my bed. "Dad's really coming back?"

Grandma stared at the folder she was still holding. "Your mother thinks he will." "You don't?"

"I think--I think I'm angry at your father, and let's just leave it at that."

"You could fix this," I said.

"What?"

"You could fix this," I said again, sitting up as the idea washed over me. "You can buy the house or give Mom and Dad money. Or both. Then we wouldn't have to move and Mom and Dad wouldn't have to worry about things so much. Everything would be fixed."

Grandma shook her head.

"You won't do it?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"How long?" Grandma said.

"How long what?"

"How long would things be fixed?"

"Forever," I said. "We'd have the house and Dad and Mom would be happy again.

Things would go back to normal."

"That's a lot of work for money to do," Grandma said, standing up. "And Kate, you know what? It can't do it. I know that better than anyone."

"It'd be different for us. We're not you."

Grandma flinched, but didn't say anything for a moment. When she finally did speak, she simply said, "I'm sorry," and left my room, closing the door behind her. I threw a pillow at it. When Dad came home and he and Mom made up, I hoped the first thing they did was kick Grandma out.

Except Dad didn't come home.

Todd did, though. An hour after the mall closed, I was out in the living room, waiting for Dad and ignoring Grandma, who was sitting in the recliner, when I heard the front door open. I raced out to say hi to Dad, but saw only Todd, standing just inside the doorway flipping through the folder Grandma had left there.

"Oh, it's you," I said.

"Nice to see you too," he said, closing the folder and putting it down as we both heard Mom's bedroom door fly open, heard her call out, "Steve?"

I went into the living room and saw her standing there, a huge smile on her face.

"Steve," she breathed, and then Todd walked in behind me and her smile vanished.

"Sorry," Todd said. "I didn't think--I'm sorry, Mom."

"It's all right," she said, her voice faint. "Do you want something to eat?"

Todd shook his head. "I just came by to let you know I'm moving out. There's a girl at work who's going to let me crash at her place until I find my own. I need to grab a few things and then I'll get going, okay?"

"You need to tell your father about this," Mom said. "When he comes home, we'll talk everything out."

"So now you don't want Dad to leave?"

"I never wanted him to leave," Mom said. "I wanted him to realize that Perfect You can't be his main priority right now."

"But the mall closed a while ago, so if he's coming home, shouldn't he be--?" "Todd," Grandma said, her voice sharp, "why don't you tell me about your day?"

"Coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Oh, and Kate, I saw Anna this afternoon. What's up with her?"

My stomach clenched. "What do you mean? Did she--did she ask you to tell me hi or something?"

Todd shook his head. "Nope. She acted like she didn't know me, which was weird, and then she seemed a little freaked out when I introduced myself to her hot friend, Diane. Is she eighteen? She said she was, but--"

"She's my age, and she's the one who made sure everyone at school found out about Dad and his stupid Perfect You party." The words came out in a rush, my throat and eyes burning. I knew what today meant--what Anna had done made that obvious-- but part of me, a small stupid part, had still held onto a tiny bit of hope.

It was gone now. Anna hadn't said anything. She wasn't going to say anything. She didn't feel bad, didn't miss me, didn't ever want to be my friend again.

"Oh," Todd said. "Sorry."

I shrugged, not quite trusting myself to speak.

"Diane wasn't that pretty, actually," he said. "The coffee fumes just get to me sometimes, you know."

I smiled at him. He wasn't so bad for a brother, especially one who was moving out.

Mom made a strange keening sound, a noise that made my skin prickle with anxiety.

"Mom?" Todd and I said at the same time, and Grandma got up and moved toward her. Mom backed away, and Grandma sat down again, her expression tense and frightened.

"He's not coming back, is he?" Mom said, and made that noise again, like a sob but deeper, more broken.

"Sharon, darling, come sit down," Grandma said, gesturing for Todd to move toward Mom. "There, why don't you let Todd take you over to the sofa? Kate, go sit next to your mother too."

I did, and so the three of us sat on the sofa. We sat there for a long time, Mom watching the door, waiting, her expression so sad it made me want to cry again.

Todd and I finally escaped to the kitchen, where we made sandwiches and wolfed them down.

"I can't believe Dad's not coming home," Todd said when he'd finished, dropping his plate in the sink. "Why can't he see how stupid those vitamins are? And how could he pick them over Mom?"

"Maybe he just needs time to think. Everything's changed so much--"

Todd snorted. "Like he hadn't known what was coming? Please. Dad's not stupid, Kate."

"Well, now what do we do?" I knew Todd was right. Dad wasn't coming home. He'd made the choice Mom had asked him to, and he hadn't picked her. Hadn't picked us.

"Remember that folder I was looking at in the hallway? There were a bunch of papers in them, and I think the house sold."

"What?"

"I know," he said. "It's . . . it's done. The house is gone. And I think Mom wants to tell us, or should tell us, and we need to go out there and get her to do it so she can get it over with, you know? I think it'd make things easier for her."

"You mean, you want her to get it over with so you can get out of here."

His expression tightened. "That's it. Turn me trying to help Mom into me being an asshole. It's no wonder you have no life, the way you automatically assume the worst about everyone and everything."

"Hey!" That hurt and worse, I couldn't help but wonder if he was right.

Maybe he was. But hadn't this year taught me that the worst was always what happened?

I glared at him. He glared right back.

"Fine," I said. "Let's go back out there and--" I took a deep breath. "You really think this will help her?"

"I think anything that will get her to stop staring at the front door would be good," Todd said. "And look, about before--"