FIFTY-NINE
BECK
He sprawled on the green sofa, looking out the front window, sipping some instant because nobody’d bothered to clean the coffee machine in weeks. The position afforded him a good view of the spot along the curb where Azra had pulled up five minutes before. Charlie in the passenger seat, gesturing wildly, Aidan in the back with his arms folded across his stomach, Azra turned around with her spine to the steering wheel.
His ex-wife leaned through the gap with her head pushed forward on her swanlike neck. She was pressing the boys about something and waving her phone around. Finally a hand bladed between the seats, a that’s enough gesture. The twins unbuckled and they all popped out, and Azra walked them up to the door.
The boys hustled inside without looking at their dad. “Hurry up and don’t forget your cleats and shin guards,” Azra called after them.
Beck frowned at her. “But I have them this weekend.”
“No you don’t,” said Azra. Now she wasn’t looking at him either.
“What’s going on?”
Azra sniffed.
“What?”
She said nothing.
“What were you guys talking about in the car?” he demanded.
She leaned against the doorjamb, big sunglasses perched on the neat gloss of her hair. Beck hadn’t seen those shades before. Probably a present from her new boyfriend.
“Look, Azra, do you want to come in?”
“I’ll pass.” She waved a hand in front of her nose. “Hurry up, you guys,” she hollered inside.
Beck looked over his shoulder at the kitchen. Unwashed dishes lined the counter. A half-empty KFC bucket from last week hulked on the microwave.
Azra put a hand on her chest and forced in a deep breath. When she turned back, she said, “You need to talk to someone, Beck, and soon. It scares me what you did, pushing a woman like that over a soccer play.”
“It was a red card.”
“Red card, green card, purple card, who gives a fuck. Charlie takes out another kid’s legs on purpose, then his dad goes after some poor lady on the sidelines? Amy Susskin thought you were about to strangle her. And she told me you said something racist and mocked the woman’s weight. Real nice.”
“She was white.”
“Thank God for Wade.”
“Look, Azra—”
“There’s more.” She stopped him with an open palm. “I’m worried about your judgment right now. Charlie said he saw you with Tessa up at Breckenridge. That you were both naked in the Jacuzzi?”
Beck felt short of air. He breathed in sharply, thinking of Charlie’s question in the car, and for a second or so he felt sorry. But then he realized that in this case, at least, for once in his goddamn life, he had nothing to apologize for.
“Yes, I was naked, Azra. She was topless.” He said it slowly, as if explaining something to one of the twins. “We were in a Jacuzzi.”
“Have you told Sonja?”
“No, and I’m not going to. I mean, Christ, we were in a hot tub, okay? She got in with me and we talked for a while. This is Colorado, for god’s sake. Why is everybody making a big deal out of this? Gareth, Charlie, now you.”
“Gareth?”
“I told him about it, guy acted like I’d molested somebody. Smug fucker.”
She waited before responding. “Beck, you have to know how this looks. If there’s nothing to this, then—”
“If? Did you seriously just say if?”
“Look. You need to tell Sonja. Right away, I’m warning you. Before—”
“It’s none of her goddamn business, yours either. We’re divorced, remember?”
“And thank God for that.”
He turned away seething, the taste of snot on the root of his tongue.
She slowed her breaths. “Beck, you need to be careful. You’re off-kilter right now. Your house reeks, honestly you reek. Sonja tells me you’ve been canceling client meetings, bouncing checks. And St. Bridget’s says we’re late again on tuition?”
He crossed his arms. His heart pumped against his right wrist. “I just need to straighten some shit out. It’s fine.”
The boys hustled up with their soccer bags. Beck leaned down to give them hugs but they dodged away from him, from their own dad, like cars swerving around roadkill.
“Guys, what the hell?”
Azra looked right at him, finally so he could see her eyes, the gravity in them. There was something she wasn’t telling him. That she was afraid to, maybe.
“Azra—”
“Think about it,” she said, cutting him off. “Seeing someone.”
She looked about to turn for her car when Roy let out a big squawk from upstairs.
“Wait, is Sonja here?” She glanced toward the stairs.
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “So it’s Tessa who’s with him?”
Beck nodded.
“Get her down here.” A spit of words.
“What?”
“Now.”
He went to the foot of the stairs and called up. A minute later Tessa came down with the baby on her hip. “Hi, Azra,” she said with a glowing smile—then saw Azra’s face. “Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s not,” Azra snapped.
“Well, what—”
“Did you think my sons would enjoy it, Tessa? Seeing their father humiliated like that?”
Tessa frowned, stared at Azra, then her eyes widened and her face fell. “No. No no no, please, Azra, that wasn’t supposed to—that was just—for my friends.”
“Your friends?”
“My rehab group.” Roy, sensing Tessa’s upset, batted at her face. “We were all supposed to journal with each other this year, and this one girl, Jessica, she set up a vlog. But it’s a private thing, I swear it’s not—”
“That’s not a journal, Tessa, what you did,” Azra responded. “It’s a goddamn TV channel. Do you realize that all the things about your mom you put up there—and about your brother, about the Emmas, the Zellars, Rose and Gareth, about me and Beck and the twins, about all of us—that all of that is now out there, that everybody’s been watching it? And I mean everybody.”
“But it’s private.”
“Tessa, for god’s sake, I saw two of them on my phone just now, in the car. Charlie showed me. Talking about people’s children that way? Hacking into Kev’s computer?”
“It wasn’t hacking, it was—”
“You assumed nobody would see your vlog when it was on YouTube? Surely you’re not that naïve. The vlogs tell you how many views they have. Some are in the thousands already.”
Tessa’s mouth widened. She held the baby between them, like a shield. “I guess—I mean I just didn’t think—Are you mad at me, Azra?”
The question hung there, and Beck saw how important his ex-wife’s approval was to this once-fucked-up-but-recovering girl. The expectation on her pretty young face. The sad hope.
“I’m disappointed, that’s all,” Azra said calmly. “Just—very disappointed.”
Beck knew that tone and those words, what it was to be the object of this woman’s disappointment. He’d endured it so often when they were married, especially near the end of things. And he felt it now, like a weight on his shoulders or a fog around his head that he could never quite swim through.
Tessa’s face had gone a shade of beige. She whirled on Beck, handed him his son, and dashed out the open front door with a hand over her mouth.
“Tessa,” Azra called, but the teen was already at the curb. The twins gawked at her from Azra’s minivan. Tessa got in her car and zipped off down the cul-de-sac toward North Main.
Meanwhile Beck felt like he’d been watching a scene in a German opera Sonja had dragged him to see one time in Denver, a bunch of screeching Teutonic women speaking a language
he couldn’t understand—except in this case he had a horrible inkling.
Vlog? YouTube? Everybody’s been watching it?
“What the hell is this even about?” he demanded, going for tough because he felt so weak right now. “This is insane.”
Azra nodded at his flat-screen. “Can you open YouTube on there?”
“Hell yeah, it’s a smart system, top of the line,” Beck boasted. “It has a browser and all the apps and—wait, why?” he asked suspiciously.
She bent over and grabbed the app remote and started tapping buttons. “How do you—how do you fucking—?”
Beck put his hand over hers and opened the YouTube app. He pressed the enter button, and a search box came up. Azra used the arrow keys to enter the phrase “touch of tessa.” A YouTube page appeared with a still image of Tessa smiling from the top and a long line of videos stacked along the right-hand side of the screen. Azra scrolled down until she reached the one she wanted.
Episode 138: Breck with Beck.
Beck swallowed and his skin prickled everywhere. A sense of vertigo came over him, a feeling of abandonment.
“Prepare yourself,” Azra said, then hit Play. She handed him the remote and left him there alone.
SIXTY
XANDER
Tessa shook him awake. “Hey, little brother.”
His sister almost never came into his room. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“I’m quitting school.” She handed him his glasses.
“You are?”
“Yeah.”
He sat up and looked at the clock: 2:17 a.m. “Why?”
“I’m moving to New York. Like Williamsburg maybe, or the East Village.”
“How will you pay for food?”
“I’ll find a job.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, probably. I just came to say goodbye.”
“Aquinas will miss you,” said Xander. Saying it felt like a giant hand squeezing the middle of him.
“Well he’s like the only one who will.”
Xander started crying. Which was actually quite unusual.
“You can come visit me, you know.” She patted his head.
“Do you have a house there yet?”
“People in New York don’t have houses, dumbass. I’m getting a sixth-floor walk-up. They have them in the East Village.”
His face was hot and already sticky. “I want you to stay.”
“Sorry, I like literally can’t stand being here one more day. That’s how much I hate it.”
“Well, um.” He wiped some snot off his lip with a wrist. “Well if you leave, you won’t get to see my science project.”
“Um, no offense? But why would I want to see your lame-ass science project?”
“It’s not lame. It’s an original, life-changing discovery that’s going to get me into Crystal Academy.”
“Fuck that school,” she said.
“Mom says maybe I’m just a weird kid with a nut allergy and a big head.”
“She did not say that.”
“Yes, she did.”
“That’s messed up.” Her eyes narrowed. “God, I hate these people. All of them. They hate me too now, which is fine, I mean what else is new. But they’re such fakes, you know? So hypocritical. It’s just—pathetic.”
“Yeah,” Xander said, and in the silence that followed he thought about his sister’s observation. “Do you know the etymology of hypocrite?”
“No, Xander, I don’t. Would you like to tell me?”
“It’s Greek. Hupokritēs, which means ‘actor.’”
“So?”
“A hypocrite is a really good actor. Someone who pretends to be one person but who is, in actuality, another person.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that—I think you might really like my project.”
“So show it to me.”
He shook his head. “It’s already turned in.”
“Well what’s it about?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“You have to tell me or I’m definitely leaving tonight.”
So he told his sister everything.
When he was done, she stared at him. “No,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Xander.” Tessa’s eyes enormous in the darkness of the room.
“Think about it,” Xander said. “Just think about it.”
And he could see his sister thinking, with him on his bed.
A Touch of Tessa:
One Girl's Survival Guide to Junior Year
A Video Blog
Episode #201: TOMORROW
. . . 879 views . . .
TESSA [whispering]: So, guys, I hope I can get this to work. I’m doing it on my mom’s computer, since she took my phone away, and I don’t even know if the camera’s on, and I’ll have to find a way to save it somewhere or else I’ll DM it to you guys. Anyway this may be my last vlog for a while, and I just want to say, if I don’t post again for a long time, it’s because of that, because my mom found it. She found everything. They all did, and right now they’re probably looking at my whole life, everything I’ve said about them for, like, the last nine months, since I left Sweet Meadow. I warned you guys we were getting hits. But you know what? I don’t even give a fuck. I want them to see it all, hear it all. Because maybe that way they’ll finally get a clue about who they are. Who they really are. Speaking of.
[Looks over shoulder, leans closer to camera.] My brother told me something tonight that blew my fucking top. I don’t even know if it’s true, I mean I doubt it, but part of me’s like—like, did he really figure it out? Really, Xander? Maybe so, and anyway it’ll all come out tomorrow, supposedly. Yeah, tomorrow. [Sighs.]
There’s this thing my dad always said to me every night, when he kissed me before I fell asleep. It’s basically the main thing I remember about him. He’d say, “See you tomorrow, my little rainbow.” Then he’d whisper part of a poem in my ear, and it went something like, “Be the rainbow in the storm of life, the evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.” I googled it a few years ago and turns out it’s by Lord Byron, this sweet-ass poet who also died way too young, and I’ve always wondered if my dad knew somehow that he’d get sick like he did. But that poem really used to make me feel like a rainbow. Like I was his rainbow, his sunbeam. That I could light up anything, you know? And now . . . god. Now I’m just the storm.
PART V
THE FINAL CUT
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
—MARIE CURIE
YOU’RE INVITED!!
It’s An Open House
On behalf of the City of Crystal School District, you are cordially invited to attend a Community Open House to celebrate the “soft opening” of Crystal Academy!
After a nine-month renovation project, our newest magnet school will soon be opening its doors to teachers, administrators, and staff, who will spend this summer preparing the building and all it contains for our first cohort of students this August. But first we are opening our doors to you, our community members, in hopes that you will join us for a festive afternoon featuring tours of the renovated school, displays of student work, entertainment for younger siblings, and a variety of foods (including vegan and gluten-free options) for all to enjoy free of charge.
Please join us on Sunday, April 22, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in the playground and courtyard of the Crystal Academy Lower School (formerly Maple Hill Elementary School), 243 Fourth Street, Crystal, Colorado.
SIXTY-ONE
ROSE
The shot comes in from
above, distant and blurred at first, angled down from a great height before panning right and panning left, then focusing on a single spot below.
The face of a boy, staring out from a dark blue field, wide-eyed with hope and ambition. A familiar face, visible for only a moment before its features flicker, then fade into the background.
Now the navy plane brightens through other shades of blue—azure, royal, sky, turquoise—and slowly starts to throb, then pulse, then flicker, and the oscillations grow in frequency and intensity until their beat drums at the darkness like the siren on a police car. Blaring, flashing, screaming—
Rose woke with a start, seeing it all at once. She sprang up in bed, threw her feet over the side, and leapt, catlike, toward the door.
“You okay?” Gareth grumbled sleepily from his side, but Rose ignored him. She turned the lights on in the kitchen and over the dining room table. She slapped at every surface and her head turned wildly from side to side as she searched half her house for the pulsing object in her dream.
She found it on an end table in the living room, covered with a pile of Gareth’s papers. She brought the whole stack to the kitchen and let it all sit there on the counter, the binder still hidden from her full view while she brewed a pot of coffee.
She glanced at the microwave clock: 6:42. The open house at Crystal Academy started in less than seven hours.
The shame settled in like a flu.
* * *
—
The last few days had been one long gut punch as Rose’s friends, their husbands, and their children absorbed the impact of Tessa’s vlogs, parsed privately and among themselves.
Aside from her withering words for Lauren, there were revealing tours of the Holland-Quinn house (including lovely shots of Rose’s underwear drawer and some old sex pictures Gareth had kept since Palo Alto), some choice words about Samantha and her moneyed lifestyle, covertly filmed interactions with several of Azra’s customers at BloomAgain (one featured the president of Darlton University grousing over the price of a used blouse), and, worst of all, the humiliating and disturbing footage of Beck smoking a joint with a sixteen-year-old girl, then pushing his naked, bearish body out of a Jacuzzi.
The Gifted School Page 33