Kiss n Tell

by Suzy McCoppin

  I never faulted my mom, exactly. In a way, she had earned her right to be selfish. After all, my dad left her when she was pregnant with me, but not before he spent all their savings on a ridiculous platinum and diamond Rolex. When he announced he was leaving over the phone from some skeevy motel room (where he was probably with another woman), my mom, furious, retrieved his Rolex from his bedside table and put it in a safe-deposit box. He turned the house upside down looking for it, but eventually gave up, announcing that his new woman would buy him a better one.

  For as long as I could remember, she’d kept that Rolex next to the bathroom sink. She said it reminded her of what an idiot my dad was, and looking at it every morning after she’d splash cold water on her face made her feel better. I tried countless times to get her to sell it, put it toward my college fund or her retirement fund or something, but she didn’t want to live her life knowing that he had bailed her out. That watch reassured her before she headed off to work, killing herself to make ends meet for me, this little girl who didn’t even resemble her. Who probably resembled him.

  See, my mom was beautiful. Not just in a pageant queen way, in a movie star way. People used to stop her in the grocery store to tell her how much she looked like Kim Novak in Picnic. You know, the one where the small-town girl’s exquisite good looks cause a kerfuffle and turn the whole neighborhood upside down? I, on the other hand, was pretty plain looking, and always a little bit aware of her disappointment in my appearance. It wasn’t anything she ever said; she was very supportive verbally. It was these little flickers every now and then, like a really poorly-executed cut in an old movie, flaws in the masquerade of her motherhood that exposed the truth: she was sad for me because I wasn’t pretty like her.

  That’s why I made a point not to dwell on it or anything else that wasn’t perfect in my life; if it didn’t bother me, maybe it would stop bothering her that I wasn’t the popular ingénue she’d hoped for.

  But Vaughn was different. Vaughn should’ve been my compadre, my equal. She should have been sensitive to my lowly status at Cranbrook. Instead, she seemed hell-bent on turning her whole existence into a circus freak show for the Shrew Crew, and making me her opening act.

  * * *

  It was my birthday. My sweet sixteen, to be exact. Now, I don’t normally make a big deal out of these things, but my birthday is—I can’t deny it even in my proudest moments—a day I relish. Every year since I was ten, my mom, Vaughn, and I have played hooky on my birthday, watching a movie marathon expertly curated by yours truly and feasting on Cool Ranch Doritos and a log of raw cookie dough.

  When I got the text message from Vaughn—I have the best birthday present ever!!!!!!!!!!—I was putting the finishing touches on my movie list, tuning out Ms. Goldenblatt’s lecture on Dostoevsky. I’d decided months earlier on an existential theme. Movies about angsty kids just trying to get by. Some people call them coming-of-age films, but that expression makes me want to barf. I was really looking forward to sitting back for hours, absorbing classic tales of miserable young people just waiting for their time to shine. We would start with Working Girl, a shout out to my mom, who pretty much starts bawling her eyes out at the first few bars of “Let the River Run,” followed by Pretty Woman, which features Vaughn’s favorite shopping montage of all time, followed by Carrie, for obvious reasons, and rounding out with a classic I couldn’t resist: Sixteen Candles. Because it was my sixteenth birthday and I figured I should commemorate it somehow, for posterity’s sake.

  “Xander. Carrington,” Vaughn said, pausing between Xander’s first and last name, as if he was the Dalai freaking Lama. She then shouted the rest of her thought like Oprah announcing a celebrity guest, “Has invited us to his party this Saturdaaaay!” She jumped up and down, squealing. A couple of elder patrons on the bus gave us sideways glances. I tried to arrange my face into a smile.

  “But,” I started carefully, “Saturday’s my birthday.”

  Vaughn cocked her head, confused. “Anais,” she said, shaking me by the shoulders sternly. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to us! And it’s your birthday! Tell me that isn’t a sign.”

  I nodded, biting my lip. “But, I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would he invite us out of the blue? Don’t you think it’s a little… I don’t know, suspicious?”

  Vaughn shrugged. “He didn’t seem weird or anything,” she said, flashing her eyes out the window. “He was nice.”

  Vaughn anxiously thumped her foot on the rubber floor. She was pleading with me, I could tell, though she desperately wanted to appear casual. I thought about what it would feel like if it had been me Xander had approached, if I had been the recipient of his kindness. I had to admit at least a small part of me would have wanted to go to the party.

  I sighed. “Fine,” I relented. Vaughn gasped and proceeded to jump and squeal. “Let’s just break it to my mom easy, okay?” I added.

  “Your mom?” Vaughn asked, her eyebrows raised. “Your mom will be more excited than we are. It’s my mom we’ll have to deal with!”

  * * *

  I had a bit of a gift for reading people’s emotions. My mom always thought it was spooky, but I’d like to think it also makes her proud. Most of the time it came in handy, but sometimes it was painful. For instance, when I broke the news to my mom that I would not be spending my sixteenth birthday with her—that we would not be eating cookie dough and watching Working Girl like we did every year because we had an important party to attend at the water polo goalkeeper’s parents’ Beverly Hills estate—the first thing that passed over her face was relief. Like something about me had been bothering her, and this invitation to a rich boy’s party quelled it.

  I know it’s not surprising, but I guess I wished she felt validated, like she knew all along I was a special person whose moment to be admired and appreciated had finally arrived. Or ambivalent, like in the movies when parents drop their kids off at college—proud, on the one hand, of the person their child has become, and devastated, on the other hand, that they’re leaving the nest, that it all went by so fast. But most of all, I wished at least some part of her wanted to spend my birthday together.

  Instead, she kind of just flinched, astonished, then clapped her hands together once like she was trying to wake herself from a daze, smiled broadly and shrieked, “Fantastic!,” pulling us into an awkward group hug.

  * * *

  I don’t know what was going through my head. I got swept up in my mother and Vaughn’s girly frenzy: “styling” outfits from a combination of all three of our wardrobes, trying out hairstyles, and speculating dreamily about Xander’s reaction to Vaughn’s “look.” They were having so much fun. Was I some kind of defective female for wanting to sit in front of the TV eating all day on my birthday instead of going to a party? At the very least, it explained why my ass was twice the size of their asses. I just couldn’t get over the fact that no matter how done-up I looked, no matter how pretty I felt, I was going to have to spend my birthday with Stella Beldon, Odette Abberley, Ava Goldmann and all the other people who had done their best to make my life miserable for the past year and a half.

  This would have shocked Vaughn and even my mother, but I liked my life, despite my unworthy status on the cool chain. Sure, it would have been nice to have more friends, to be prettier, thinner, and richer, but I wasn’t about to complain to myself or anyone else when I had a roof over my head, food on my table, an excellent education, a great best friend, and an amazing mom. There were so many people with so much less. AIDS orphans in Africa sprung to mind, but I didn’t even have to take it that far. Dwight Dawson, another scholarship kid in Film Society who introduced me to the early works of Spike Lee, lived with his grandma in South Central because his parents were crack addicts. He didn’t even know if they were alive or dead.

  As Vaughn and my mom briskly tore images from NYLON and Teen Vogue for “inspiration,” another thing gnawed at me. Even if Xander’s intentions were pure and he really did wa
nt us at his party, what would Odette think? She and Xander had been together for over a year, flaunting their disgusting lust for each other on every surface of Cranbrook Academy. Even an accommodating girlfriend would be unhappy if her boyfriend quietly invited two of her nemeses to his party, and let’s just say Odette made most selfish assholes look accommodating.

  My mother sighed. Glossy magazine scraps were strewn around her lap. “You know,” she said, surveying all the pretty pictures, “I think we’re gonna have to go shopping.”

  Vaughn gasped, clapping wildly.

  My mom grinned, nudging me a little. “I finally get to take you to Rodeo Drive Resale!” she gushed.

  “Um, you mean the shopping Mecca?” Vaughn exclaimed. “I’ve been dying to go there.”

  I tried to smile. My mom had been talking about taking me there for my birthday ever since my boobs were an A-cup. I guess, even at a consignment shop, I always felt a little unworthy.

  “By the way,” Vaughn gushed, “This is so you.” She tossed a jagged image of Christina Hendricks from Mad Men into my lap.

  My mom picked it up and studied it, wide-eyed. “She is gorgeous,” she marveled. She looked at me. Her eyes were full of pride. They killed me. “She’s the spitting image of you,” she said softly.

  I tried not to cry when she shook my knee contentedly and sighed at what a “great time I was going to have.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them this was the last way I wanted to spend my birthday.

  3.

  POPULARITY, HERE WE COME

  Vaughn

  I had to pee, sitting there on the bus with Anais, even though I had, like, just peed before we left for our first Cranbrook party ever. My leg wouldn’t stop jumping. And I couldn’t stop playing the same scene in my head: Xander opens the door, his blue-gray eyes brimming with joy and relief that I made it there, to his party, which he had personally invited me to. He takes me in his arms in a lingering embrace, and whispers softly in my ear, I’ve been waiting all night for this moment.

  I had been waiting my whole life for that moment, which is exactly the level of hype that could erase all foresight and pragmatism—if I even had any to begin with.

  Whatever, I looked ridiculously hot. Pam, also known as Anais’s mom, was a fairy freaking godmother. Channeling boho-chic Nicole Richie, she swept my bowl cut into a messy bun, leaving my bangs shaggy in front. She christened my typically beady, some might say “creepy,” eyes with smoky, charcoal shadow. She stuffed inserts in the sad A- cups of my wilting training bra to fill me out a bit. Then she decked me out in this insane Pucci-inspired caftan thing she found at Rodeo Drive Resale; it was multicolored paisley, she said, and it was very 70s, which meant very “in” right now. At first I thought it would make me look shapeless and dull, but as it turns out, I am shapeless and dull, and apparently two shapeless and dull elements repel or something because the combination of me in it was unbelievable. I looked even taller, even leaner. Sophisticated.

  In the same store, Pam found a Rebecca Taylor cream-colored, georgette silk babydoll dress for Anais. It had an empire waist that cinched her where she was smallest, a Peter Pan collar, and little buttons down the front. She emerged from the powder-scented dressing room tugging awkwardly at the hem. I almost choked on my gum. She looked insanely beautiful.

  Pam gasped instantly, then toned it down a bit to gauge Anais’s comfort level. “Well?” Pam asked encouragingly.

  Anais shrugged, her head dipped toward her thighs. “It’s…short,” she managed to say.

  Pam scuttled to her side, brushing a dust mite from the back of the dress. “But it isn’t too short,” Pam said, studying Anais, who I would’ve known was miserable if I hadn’t been preoccupied with the fashion show starring me parading through my brain. “Is it?” Pam finished, her voice an octave higher.

  Anais shifted her weight. “You tell me.”

  “I think you look beautiful,” Pam said.

  I nodded enthusiastically. Anais turned to look in the mirror. Her reflection clearly pained her.

  “Aren’t chubby girls supposed to wear black or something?” she asked. Pam and I exchanged a look.

  “The fact that you think you’re chubby is seriously disturbing me right now,” I said, examining my nails.

  “You are anything but chubby!” Pam echoed, scolding her. “You’re womanly.”

  “I would kill for your boobs,” I added.

  Anais returned to the dressing room and pulled the curtain shut.

  She let her mother buy the dress, though she didn’t seem to really want the dress, or anything else on the agenda, for that matter. She had a let’s just get this over with kind of attitude that I did not get at all. It was her birthday. We were going to an amazing party. She should have been ecstatic! I looked over at her. She gazed out the window biting her lip. Pam had set her hair in hot rollers and brushed it out so she had that sixties, Brigitte Bardot look. I had to Google “Brigitte Bardot,” which made Pam feel old. I know she was a French bombshell and all, but I couldn’t help taking notice of her yellow teeth, leathery skin, and brassy hair. I was left sort of underwhelmed. Anais was clearly prettier with her strawberry blonde mane, perfect ivory complexion and full lips. In times like this, I wished she could appreciate her looks like I did. Instead, she was totally killing my buzz.

  “Are you okay?” I finally managed to ask. “I’m fine,” she murmured.

  I nodded, my knee still bouncing away. “I feel like I’m on crack. I’m so nervous,” I said, chuckling a little.

  Anais studied me. “We don’t have to go if you’re not comfortable,” she offered.

  My knee froze. Was she out of her freaking mind? Of course we had to go! This could be our ticket to social ease and bliss!

  “Anais. You’re kidding, right?” I asked sternly.

  Anais shrugged as the bus slowed for a red. “I just—I have a bad feeling about it is all,” she said quietly.

  It was too much. I couldn’t believe it. She turned absolutely everything into a negative. Even this! A proper invite from my crush! It was almost as though she didn’t want to be happy for me. My throat clenched.

  “What’s your problem?” I urged. Suddenly, I was fuming. I couldn’t control myself.

  Anais shot me a look, aghast. “What’s my problem? You’re the one who suddenly has amnesia about everything the Shrew Crew has ever done to us!”

  “This isn’t about the Shrew Crew. This is about Xander finally asking me out and you can’t seem to be happy for me!”

  Anais scoffed. “Oh, so now this is a date? I’m tagging along on your date on my birthday. Awesome.”

  “You were invited, too,” I offered lamely.

  She shook her head. She was laughing at me on the inside. She thought I was an idiot.

  Naïve. Pathetic. As usual. She narrowed her eyes. “I just ask that you remember this conversation when you’re crying on my shoulder later.”

  “I don’t need your fucking shoulder,” I spat.

  Anais bit her lip. She was trying not to cry. I couldn’t believe this was happening. We never fight.

  “Happy Birthday to me,” she murmured.

  But I was too pissed to feel sorry for her.

  * * *

  We had to walk a long way from the bus stop to the Carrington’s Beverly Hills address. Fifteen minutes to be exact. Fifteen minutes of stomping in three-and-a-half-inch heels and incredibly awkward silence. I tried to drum up my former enthusiasm about the impending party, but I just couldn’t. Not with Anais mad at me. And she didn’t look like she was about to apologize anytime soon. Maybe she didn’t owe me that. Was I being unreasonable? Selfish? It was her birthday. The whole thing blew my mind. How could she not want this for us? Popularity, freedom from harassment, maybe even a boyfriend?

  Before I could obsess any longer, we were at the driveway. The iron gate was propped open with a perfectly worn sneaker. Perfect, because it was most likely worn by him, Xander. I shakily slipped through, wit
h Anais sulking close behind. The house—make that effing mansion—was a spectacular white stucco building with a tile roof I’m pretty sure you could see from space. Olive trees lined the pink stone driveway, which displayed a modest collection of antique cars. Well, as modest as a collection of high-priced motor vehicles could be. It was classy.

  When we reached the door, Anais just stood there with her arms crossed over her chest—exactly the pose her mother coached her not to take. She glanced at me. “Are you going to ring the bell?” she asked meekly, breaking the silence.

  I had been waiting for this moment for so long, and now that it arrived, I couldn’t enjoy it. Anais had sucked the enjoyment out of the whole night. Sounds of laughter and music carried from somewhere behind the house.

  “You’ve kind of ruined this for me, you know?” I said, absently kicking my strappy sandal against the front step.

  Anais sighed. “I’m sorry. This just isn’t me,” she murmured, motioning to the palatial entrance to Xander’s family’s mansion.

  “But why can’t it be? Sometimes I feel like you’re afraid to even dream,” I whined.

  She nodded, at least somewhat acknowledging my point. “I guess I just wish you could have lived your dream on a day that wasn’t my birthday, that’s all,” she said, staring at the ground.

  I didn’t know how to respond. I suddenly felt like a complete tool standing on Xander’s doorstep all dolled up, not knowing how to move forward.

  Anais nodded toward the bell. “Ring it,” she said flatly.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Anais shrugged. “We’re here,” she resigned.

  I took a breath. As my fingertip approached the button, I wondered if Anais was right. If we didn’t belong here. If this whole thing—partying with Xander and Stella and Odette—was just a stupid fantasy that, even come to life, would never be they way I wanted it to be. But then Xander’s angelic face flashed through my mind and I found the will to press the button. My heart pounded. My knees shook like crazy. I could have peed all over my caftan when a shadow appeared under the door. The latch clicked and my heart lifted in my chest as the door swung open.