“I know. Hard to believe.” He smiles, but there’s a tension around his mouth, a sadness in his eyes. “You know the deal. Her mom is friends with our mom, her dad, same circle, blah, blah, blah.”
“We need to talk to Ken,” I say.
He presses his thumb into his temple. I’ve never seen him look so tired. “All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”
And so Sadie, in a way, still sealed the deal.
* * *
• • •
We head out of town to our town. I sit back, looking out the window at the lake, the mountains, these large and silent things that have been here forever.
Jay texted me an article to read while we drive, and I skim it over and feel like I’m reading something about someone I don’t know.
“What’s this Delaware stuff even about?” I ask, and his grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“I’m not completely sure,” he says, oddly formal. “I guess we’ll find out.”
We go through the Eisenhower Tunnel. The other side is bright and sunny, and the simple and familiar black-and-white landscape—black rocks, white snow—fills me with affection.
“Do they know we’re coming?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I called Ken. He said we’d have a late lunch.”
We head down, down, then through the narrow canyon. Rocks shed their snow, revealing their browns and reds. After the small tunnel, the homes on the mountain appear like castles. I never realized how fairy-tale-like our neighborhood is, guarded by a herd of buffalo, perched above the city like a kingdom. Jay is driving more carefully than usual. When we get closer to home, I sit up, almost nervous, like I don’t belong here anymore.
“I can’t believe we start school in a week,” Jay says.
“I know, and we’re still . . . not here. You think they’ll be done with the trial and everything?”
“You’d think,” he says. “And if not, I guess we’ll be making this drive more often.”
“Sucks,” I say, and yet it doesn’t seem so bad.
We turn into Cee’s neighborhood, which is quiet and a lot different from our own, where houses are sometimes a ten-minute drive from one another.
Jay parks at the curb. I look at Cee’s house, this staple in my life. It’s funny that I was the one with the castle, and this was the home we preferred. We walk to the front door.
“I don’t think I’ve ever gone through the front door,” I say.
“Where do you usually go?” he asks.
“Garage,” I say, but this seems like a front-door moment. I use the lion knocker, and soon after, Ken opens the door.
“Ah! Annie and the good brother.” My instinct is to jump up and put my arms around him. How I love Ken Rush and his funny ways, but I just utter a weak hello.
“Come in,” he says. “How nice of you to stop by.” We walk in, and I just want to collapse on the slippery leather sofa and watch Netflix while Ken makes us variations of popcorn. Chile lime was one of my favorites.
“It truly grieves me that things have turned out this way,” he says immediately, before I can take off my coat.
I look down, not knowing how to respond. He’s not on our side. It’s kind of awkward, to put it mildly.
“But, Annie,” he says, “you and I—we want the same thing. For your friendship with Celia to remain intact.”
“Thank you,” I say, relieved he still wants me in their lives, that it’s possible.
“And I’m pretty fond of both of you,” he says, including Jay. “We all go way back.” He smiles, contemplating something pleasant. “Now, I hope you don’t mind, but I haven’t told Celia you’re coming. I didn’t think she’d stick around.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Don’t worry. We’ll work things out. Ceci!” he calls. “Ceci. Look who’s here.”
I stop breathing, so nervous, as if I’m about to sing an aria. I stand close to Jay, and then there’s Cee, her good ol’ self, in her gray leggings and black sweatshirt. She hasn’t grown since she was twelve. I just want to lift her up and spin her around. She pauses at the top of the staircase and shakes her head. I automatically raise my hand.
“Hi,” I say, high-pitched, too thrilled to hold back. I should be defensive, nervous, but I can’t help but go back to what it’s always been. She quickly walks down the steps.
“C-Rush,” Jay says. “What is up?”
I walk to meet her halfway, then notice that she isn’t coming in for a greeting. Cee is about to fuck me up.
“Whoa,” I say. “What the—”
“Celia!” her dad says, right as she tackles me to the ground.
“What is happening?” Jay says.
“What are you doing?” I yell. She’s always had this temper, but she’s acting like a two-year-old.
“You’ve fucked up my life,” she says, pinning my arm over my head.
“Celia, we’ve talked about this,” her dad says. “That is false. And this is not why we fight!”
Jay is trying to pry her off me, but Cee, being a state karate champ, swipes his legs out from under him. Jay lands awkwardly and bumps into a table.
“Ow!” he says. “My back!”
I try to roll her off, but she knees me in the side, then holds me under my arm.
“Celia, halt!” Ken says, and I start to laugh a little.
“That tickles,” I say, a big mistake, because I get kneed again.
“Ow, come on!” I say.
Her face hovers above mine, her hair hitting my face.
“My dad’s taking me and my sisters out of school,” she says. “I’m moving to my mom’s in frickin’ Kansas. Kansas! Your dad’s a crook. He stole our money.”
“So pin him to the ground!” I yell. “I’m sorry! Why do you think I’m here?”
Cee gives me a last shove, then stands.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
I catch my breath, rise up on my elbows. Everyone seems to be waiting for my answer. “Because I miss my friend,” I say. “And I want you to talk to me.”
* * *
• • •
Cee and I are on the couch. Jay is lying on his back with pillows propped under his knees. Ken is in his recliner, telling us, more or less, everything we want and don’t want to hear. I catch Cee looking me over, wary, like she sees me as someone changed for the worse. She and her father are inextricable to me—my memories of her have traces of him, and I wonder if she links me in the same way to my dad. But of course she doesn’t. He couldn’t be in her memories. He never took us on hikes, or snowboarding, or picked us up from school. He never took us bowling or to his office. Ken even took us to see Twenty One Pilots in Park City for my fifteenth birthday. He later thanked us for exposing him to a “rather delightful band.”
Ken makes sure I’m paying attention, then continues. “Your father was using everyone’s deposits to pay an outside company registered in Delaware—consulting, architectural, engineering fees—”
“Which happens all the time,” Jay says. I look down at him on the floor. I’m always surprised by how much he knows. You’d think the popular guy in school wouldn’t be the brightest, but nope.
Ken shakes his cocktail glass. “Yes, it does happen,” Ken says, “but I believe, as do others, that this Delaware company is . . . well, not a company at all. It’s his personal bank account.”
Ken looks over his glass, as if measuring our capacity to hold all of this. I try not to blink. Jay’s eyes are closed. A long blink. I do the same and let Ken’s words move around me. Some ping off my skin, and some sink down to my core.
My father used people’s money for himself. People’s money and savings that they thought were going to a future home. According to Ken.
He continues. “As the majority owner of Tripp Land and Development, your dad has co
mplete control over everything. He secures the financing, chooses the contractors, decides his bonus, et cetera, et alia.”
I smile with my eyes closed. Ken always uses Latin words. I open my eyes, and he makes his footrest pop up.
“Everything he did was approved by two, quote, independent, end quote, directors on the board, but we think this was a rubber-stamp committee. They took excessive fees from your father—well, from our investments—to approve whatever he wanted. Are you following?”
“Yes,” I say. Kind of. While I don’t get all of the terms he uses, I do understand that what my dad has done is awful and deceitful. According to Ken.
Jay looks irritated, maybe because he understands. It wasn’t supposed to unfold this way. I was prepared to hear things I didn’t want to hear, but I guess I thought I could dismiss them more easily.
“But,” I say. “He wouldn’t intentionally take things from people.” I don’t dare look at Cee. I’m afraid she’s smirking. “He worked all the time on this. He was so proud—”
“Of course he worked hard,” Ken says, and takes a sip. “The problem is that when units weren’t selling, his lifestyle—the one you’ve always had—didn’t change, because he was hoping presales would keep coming and that the general ledger line items would blend in. Following?”
I nod, thinking of our life, my coach and private skating time, the jet we take to Hawaii, or random football games in California or Seattle. Our maids, our chef, our parties, our clothes. What money was his to use and give away?
“I don’t know what ledger line means,” Jay says, “but I think I get it.”
Unfortunately, I do too. If I’m going to take Ken’s word, what he’s saying is that my dad messed up, and when he knew he’d messed up, he didn’t admit or fix it. He made it worse. My dad worked very hard, but when things went wrong, all he did was work hard at hiding it.
“Look,” Ken says. “I’m no Leo the Great. For a long time the money was flowing like water—Blue Sky, Eagle, Ore Lofts—they did remarkably well. With this one in Denver, we expected even more, so I understand your dad got carried away, thinking he’d get it all back. I liked your father, but he was under a lot of pressure, and he got himself into a bear garden. These are criminal charges we’re talking about, as you know, which will most likely be followed by civil charges. Annus horribilis.”
“You’ve got to stop saying that,” Cee says, and when I look at her, we both can’t help but smile, but just a little bit. A brief forgetting of where we are.
“But it’s apt,” Ken says.
“Do you have any proof?” Jay asks.
My stomach grumbles, and I push down on it.
“I have what I know,” he says. “And at the trial I’m going to use it.”
He must see my brief look of hostility. Part of me just can’t believe it.
“I’m very sorry,” Ken says. “But we’re fighting. I’m fighting. These aren’t just his rich friends or wealthy investors who took a little loss—these are hardworking families and employees who had hope and faith. And it’s not just investors. There were contractors, builders like Desjarlais Construction, who never got paid. The owner had to cover the cost, fire his crew. Some people are in a very grave bind. All are belching smoke from the seven orifices of their heads.”
Cee rolls her eyes.
“But it could get cleared up,” I say. “I mean, he could at least give you back what he took.” As soon as I say this, I hear how naive I sound, how in denial.
Ken looks amused. “Okay, kid,” he says. “Let’s go outside. We are grilling for lunch. Get you a hot dog.” He stands up, emitting a big groan. “You deserve a hot dog immensus.”
“God, Dad, seriously,” Cee says, and hearing her say this feels like old times, even though it’s nothing like old times and never will be. Cee and I get up, and she walks over to Jay, extends her hand, and pulls him up to standing.
* * *
• • •
Going outside is like stepping into my old room—so familiar and nice, even though it no longer feels like it belongs to me. Ken is wearing his customary apron, which says I’M NOT OLD I’M JUST MARINATING. Jay turns on the heat lamps. Cee and I light the wood in the fire pit. After, we sit staring at the flames.
“How’s your back?” Cee asks Jay.
“Fine,” he says.
“How are your ribs?” she asks me.
I feel my rib cage. “You woke ’em up,” I say. “Is there a good dojo in Kansas?”
“Fuck if I know,” she says. She tucks her hair behind her ear and bites her lower lip.
“Good barbecue, I bet.”
She smiles, though it’s just to be polite.
“What about getting a scholarship or something and staying here?” I feel stupid for suggesting this, and she doesn’t bother to answer or hand me a polite smile.
“Okay, children,” Ken says from the grill. “Young adults. Get it while it’s hot.”
* * *
• • •
After we eat, Jay and Ken clean up, leaving us to ourselves.
“So how’s Breck going?” Cee asks. She looks ahead, her legs propped on the table.
“It’s actually good,” I say. “I’m having fun. It’s weird. A lot has happened.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “Like?”
I start to tell her about the kitchen, about Rickie, Nat, and even Brose, but I can sense that she’s only pretending to be interested. These are strangers to her, and she must think it’s annoying and unfair that I’m not having an absolutely horrible time. I can imagine Mackenzie and the others being the same way—not caring about things that don’t involve them. I can also imagine her reporting to them on all of this—“She works as a dishwasher now!” she’d say, and the other girls would be delighted. But it’s more than that, I realize. Even now, despite it all, here I am, telling her good news as she’s about to pack up and move from everything she has known.
I switch topics and stick to asking questions about her, which makes things okay again. She talks about parties and who hooked up with who, and the new drama between Mackenzie and Kate. The anecdotes are both a relief and an irritation. I guess everyone’s the same—once you leave, you’re gone.
“So you’re not even going to be at school on Wednesday?” I ask. Five days from now.
“Nope,” she says.
“So weird. I don’t know if I’ll be home by then either.”
She gets up and walks over to the mini fridge by the grill. She looks back toward the house, pulls out two beers, then walks back to the couch. “Here,” she says. “A last hurrah.”
She hands me a beer and sits back down. We scoot forward on the couch, preparing to shotgun our cans with our thumbs, something we learned from YouTube. We hold the beers at arm’s length, then press our thumbs into the lower part of the cans, puncturing the metal. It took me a while to master this, Cee always telling me that it requires fortitude, calm, and thirst. But now it’s easy. I get sprayed in the face, and for the first time today, Cee laughs. We put our mouths on the cans, crack open the tops, and let the beer flow into our mouths. A lot spills out, as usual, but it’s more about the process than the brew.
We wipe our mouths with our sleeves and look at one another.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s not your fault,” she says. “It’s not you.”
It feels so good to hear her say that, but then it doesn’t. Isn’t my father a part of me? I’ll always carry him in my blood and bones, just like he’ll always carry me.
“My dad could go to jail,” I say, for the very first time believing it. My father, who art in jail.
“Makes my problems seem not so bad,” Cee says, “when you put it that way. I always think of him screwing us over, but he’s screwing himself over worse. I’m sorry I just said that.”
I put my empty can back on the table. “Is it wrong that I hope he wins?”
She shrugs. “You’re looking out for him. And for yourself.”
“That’s not it—”
“Of course that’s it. It’s what we’re supposed to do.”
I sigh and look toward the mini fridge.
“Another?” she asks.
“Yeah, but I want to go slow.”
She gets one beer for us to share. “Not too slow. My dad will freak.”
The heat lamps make me feel like we’re sunbathing. Cold beer, hot sun, her yard of snow like a sea of whitecaps. We take it slow.
* * *
• • •
From the front seat I watch Ken put his hand on Cee’s back and lead her into the house, a small gesture that brings tears to my eyes. I know we won’t stay in touch, and unexpectedly, the thought of our friendship coming to an end makes me feel free. I buckle my seat belt, relishing the silence before Jay opens his door, a flush of cold shooting in. We drive out of the neighborhood, and I look upon it as if it’s an old childhood place that I haven’t seen in years.
There’s where Cee and I would cross-country ski—where we found twenty dollars and spent it all on candy. There’s the house where Cee and I had to pick Jay up—he was asleep in one of the bedrooms, so drunk he was passed out with his arms sticking up in the air like a zombie. The homes get larger and larger—Zippy’s house, Connor and Jax, Arianna and Bailey. I see our house high up on the hill in the distance, overlooking it all. It’s strange that I don’t even have the urge to drive by. I just want to get home. To our other home.
“What’s a bear garden?” I ask, thinking of Ken’s explanation. Our dad got himself into a bear garden.
“Beer?” Jay says.
“No,” I say. “He said bear.”
Jay doesn’t answer. We drive in silence, passing homes still lit with Christmas, and then no lights. Just music.
“Dad made the hearing sound routine,” Jay says. “This is fucked up. I’m so embarrassed.” Jay says this as if just realizing the shame he feels and how much more is in store for us. “This is horrible, Annie.”
Testimony from Your Perfect Girl Page 11