Becoming Us

by Allie Everhart

  “Hi, Katherine. It’s Jade.”

  “Jade, what a surprise.” Katherine uses a tone that sounds like the witch who pretends to be nice as she offers you the poison apple. “Are you enjoying California?”

  “Yes, I love it.”

  “How are your classes going?”

  “Fine.” Jade shakes her head. She knows this small talk is just Katherine’s stall tactic to keep us from talking to Lilly.

  “I was just out in Malibu last week at your little friend’s house.”

  Jade rolls her eyes at the condescending comment. “You mean Harper?”

  “Yes. I stayed there a few days. Kelly and I are co-chairs for a fundraising event in LA later this month.”

  “Okay, well, anyway, I was calling to talk to Lilly. Is she around?”

  “It’s a shame you don’t come see us more often. You’re my daughter-in-law and yet we’ve spent no time bonding. We should really plan some girl time.” She says it all fake-nice but it’s clear she’s being sarcastic.

  Enough of this shit. “Katherine, put Lilly on the phone.”

  “Garret, I didn’t realize you were there. And how is my son doing?”

  “I’m not your son. Would you put Lilly on the phone, please?”

  “She’s in her room reading a book she was assigned to read for school. I can’t disturb her.”

  “Katherine, I don’t have time for this. Just put her on the phone.”

  “I told you, she cannot be disturbed.” Her tone switches back to the evil bitch Katherine I know so well. I knew she couldn’t keep that fake nice thing going for much longer.

  “Do I need to call my dad? It’s a work day. He won’t be happy if I interrupt him in the middle of a meeting to tell him his wife won’t let me talk to my sister.”

  “He won’t answer your call during a meeting.”

  “Then I’ll text him. My father and I have become quite close the past few months and he responds to all of my messages.”

  She sighs. “How long are you planning to talk to her?”

  “You’re not setting a time limit, Katherine.”

  She finally agrees and goes upstairs to Lilly’s room.

  “Garret?” Lilly’s voice fills the car.

  “Yeah, it’s me. How’s it going?”

  “I miss you.” She says it every freaking time we talk. I thought she wouldn’t miss me so much when she started school, but she still does.

  “I miss you, too. So I hear you’re reading a book.”

  “What book?”

  “Your mom said you were reading a book for school.”

  “No, I was braiding Maggie’s hair.”

  Maggie is the name Lilly gave to the doll we gave her for her birthday.

  So Katherine lied. What a shock.

  “Lilly, Jade wants to talk to you.”

  “Hi, Jade.”

  The two of them talk for the rest of the 45-minute drive. Jade loves talking to Lilly, but they never talk for this long. I’m sure Jade dragged it out just to piss off Katherine. Another reason I love Jade.

  She ends the call as I park the car. The fair is packed and it’s only 10 a.m. I had to park a half mile from the entrance.

  “You ready?” I stand there with her door held open as she puts her phone away.

  “Why was Katherine being so weird?” Jade gets out of the car and takes my hand as we walk to the ticket booth.

  “It’s Katherine. Do you really need to ask? She’s a psycho bitch. And a liar.”

  “Why was she putting on that fake nice act?”

  “Who the hell knows? I don’t give a shit. I’m not going to waste energy trying to figure out Katherine’s motives.”

  “I didn’t know she was such close friends with Harper’s mom.”

  “She’s not. They’re just on a committee together.”

  “But she stayed at their house, like they’re good friends.”

  “Jade, that house was like a hotel. There were so many rooms, Katherine could stay there without them even noticing. Besides, Kelly probably just offered to let her stay there to be nice, not expecting Katherine to take her up on the offer.” I squeeze Jade’s hand. “We’re here to have fun, which means no talking about Katherine. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She steps in front of me. “Can we go on the rides first?”

  “I thought we’d walk around first, but okay, we can go on the rides.”

  “And we’re still getting those wristband things?” She’s just as excited about this as Lilly would be. It’s so damn cute.

  “Yes, we’ll each get a wristband.” I stop as she walks ahead of me. “Hey.”

  “What?” She turns back and smiles and I get that warm feeling in my chest that I get every time she smiles.

  “Get back here a minute.”

  I wait until she’s right in front of me, then take her face in my hands and kiss her. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” She’s still smiling. “Was that it?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, that’s it. I just wanted to say it, you know, in case we die on one of those carny rides.”

  “That’s not gonna happen.” She yanks on my hand. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  “It’s only 10 in the morning. They’re open until midnight, Jade.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve got a lot to do before then.”

  She wasn’t kidding. The rest of the morning she drags me on all the rides, then we eat our way through the food stands. After that, we walk through the exhibit hall, which has stuff for sale, like fall crafty stuff. Then we tromp through the pumpkin patch that’s next to the fair and Jade picks out two pumpkins.

  We drop them off at the car, then it’s back to the midway for more rides. I don’t mind going on rides but one time each is enough for me. Not for Jade. She wants to go on them as many times as possible. She said the last and only time she was on rides was in fourth grade when her class went on a field trip to some amusement park in Des Moines.

  Now that I know how much she loves rides, I’ll have to take her to Universal or Six Flags or one of the other big theme parks so she can go on some real rides. I can’t do it now because I’m still too well known from that reality show, but in another year or two I’ll take her.

  For dinner we get corn dogs, then stroll down the midway. It’s dark now and everything’s lit up.

  Jade eyes all the cheap prizes dangling from the game booths. “Do you think you could win me something?”

  “I know I could. What do you want?”

  “Are you serious? You could really win me something?”

  “Yes.” I point to one of the booths. “You want that giraffe?”

  It’s a huge stuffed giraffe. I hope she doesn’t want it because it’s really ugly.

  “No, I don’t want the giraffe.” She scopes out the other booths. “How about that?” She points to a brown bear wearing a red bow tie.

  Jade doesn’t seem like the teddy bear type. She seems like someone who wouldn’t like stuffed animals of any kind, but she always surprises me. “You really want the bear?”

  “Yeah. It’s cute.”

  “Okay.” I go up to the booth. It’s the ring-toss game. You toss rings and try to hook them around the neck of the bottles. It’s a tricky game because the bottles are so close together but I have a strategy for this one.

  I buy three rings for a dollar. I toss the first ring and miss, but the next one I toss lands on the bottle.

  Jade kisses me. “Garret, you won!”

  “Yeah, I’m not done yet. I’ve got one more ring.” I hook it again, then say to the carny guy, “She wants the bear.”

  He hands me the medium-sized bear, which is what you get for two wins.

  “Thank you!” Jade takes the bear and kisses me. “You’re really good at that.”

  “I’m good at most of these games. I practiced a lot when I was a kid.”

  “You practiced playing carnival games?”

  “In seventh grade I wanted to i
mpress this girl by winning her stuff at the carnival. Before I asked her out, I wanted to make sure I could actually win. My dad gave me a hundred dollars and I spent the whole day there, practicing all the games along the midway. By the end of the day I got good enough to win some stuff.”

  “So was she impressed?”

  “She never went out with me. After all that, she said no.”

  “How could she say no to you?”

  “Back in seventh grade, I wasn’t the tall, muscular, handsome man you see before you.” I smile. “I was about 5’7 and hadn’t developed all these manly muscles. I had to rely on my charm and carnival game skills to woo girls, although my carnival game skills didn’t do me much good.”

  “Well, they do now. Winning me this bear means you’re getting lucky tonight. And if you win me that pink heart, you’ll get really lucky.” She’s pointing at a booth that has pink stuffed hearts. They have red ones, too.

  “Pink heart, coming right up.”

  To win it, you have to knock down bowling pins with a baseball. I’ve played this game a million times. I swear the pins are weighted so they don’t fall down, but if you hit them at just the right angle, they’ll knock over.

  I give the guy enough money for six balls even though I’ll probably only need three. I throw the first ball straight on and the pins just wobble. I did it on purpose. I want to build some tension here. It’s more fun. I can tell Jade thinks I can’t do it and she really wants that heart. I throw the next one the same way and the pins wobble again.

  “I don’t know, Jade. This is harder than it looks.”

  Her shoulders droop in disappointment. “It’s okay. At least I got the bear.”

  I hate seeing her disappointed. It’s time to break out my carny game skills. I take another ball and line it up at just the perfect angle, then throw it hard but with control. The pins come crashing down. All three of them at once.

  “You won!” She hugs me.

  “Actually, you won. Pick your prize.”

  “I’ll take the pink one,” she says to the carnival guy.

  He uses a long pole to take it down off the wall, then hands it to Jade.

  “I’ll just finish throwing the rest of these.” I throw the fourth ball and knock all the pins down.

  “You won again!” Jade yells. “How did you do that?”

  The carnival guy looks at me, annoyed. He grabs his pole again.

  “I played a lot of baseball in high school,” I say, loud enough for the guy to hear.

  Jade picks a red heart this time, and as the guy’s getting it down, I throw another ball and knock the pins over.

  The guy sighs and turns to Jade. “Three wins means you can trade the small ones in for a bigger prize.” He reaches under the counter and pulls out a pink stuffed heart that’s twice as big as the one she already has.

  “Hmm. I don’t know. I like them both. What do you think, Garret?”

  “Let me finish up here.” I throw the last ball and win again.

  The guy’s onto me. He gives me a dirty look, but he sees how excited Jade is and says, “Since he just won again, you can have the big heart and one of the small ones.”

  “Okay, I’ll take the pink ones, please.”

  He gives her the hearts and we walk over to the ferris wheel.

  “You were amazing!” She hugs me while trying to hold on to her winnings.

  “You should thank 13-year-old Garret. That was all him.”

  She laughs. “I’m thanking both of you, but I’m taking 20-year-old Garret home with me. He gets an extra-special thank you.”

  “You want to ride the ferris wheel again?”

  “Yes. I love going at night when it’s all lit up.”

  We wait in line for 10 minutes, then get in the cart and wait some more as each cart’s loaded. This is why I’ve never liked the ferris wheel. You wait longer than you actually ride the thing. But Jade likes it, so I’ve gone on it five times today.

  Once everyone’s loaded in carts, we go around a few times and then the unloading begins. We’re at the very top. Jade leans her head on my shoulder and within a minute she’s asleep, her hand intertwined with mine, hugging her stuffed hearts and bear against her chest. She looks so cute I have to get a photo. I use my free hand to grab my phone and get a shot of Jade, then one of the two of us. I put my phone away as the ferris wheel moves us down a little.

  Jade wakes up. “Was I sleeping?”

  “Yeah.” I kiss her forehead. “We’ll go home after this. It’s been a long day.”

  She yawns and lays her head on my shoulder again. It’s only 10:15, but we have an hour drive back and Jade’s worn out.

  I look down at the crowd of people. My eye catches an older man in a dark green jacket standing by one of the food stands. I caught him staring at me, but as soon as I saw him, he turned and started walking the other way. Now he’s on the phone and headed toward the exit.

  I only got a quick glance at his face but he kind of looked like that fake police officer that came to our house. I need to follow that guy. I need to find out if it’s him. If it is, I’m going to make him tell me why the hell he showed up at my door impersonating an officer.

  I get my phone out again to take a photo of him but just as I’m doing that, the ferris wheel moves and I can’t see him anymore. Since he was heading for the exit, I’m guessing he left. I’ll never make it through this crowd fast enough to reach him. But that had to be him. Why else would he be watching me and then just leave like that when he realized I’d seen him?

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t him. Ever since I found out that guy wasn’t a real cop, I’ve been looking for him. I thought I saw him one other time, too, but when I caught up with the guy, it wasn’t him. So maybe I’m seeing what I want to see instead of what’s really there.

  We finally get off the ferris wheel and there’s a huge line of people waiting to get on it. The midway’s jam-packed with high school kids. I wonder if they all came from Friday night football games. Seems like something I would’ve done at that age. I was always looking for shit to do after the games so I wouldn’t have to go home.

  Jade and I make our way through the crowds. It’s really loud now with the music playing and kids screaming. But through the noise I hear some girl yell, “Katie, look! I think that’s Garret Kensington!”

  I turn my head to see who said it, and hear another girl say, “Oh my God, it is! It’s totally him!”

  Jade’s so out of it, she didn’t even hear them. “Jade, we gotta get out of here.”

  “What?” She rubs her eyes.

  “These girls recognize me. We have to get out of here. Fast.”

  She looks around. “What girls?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just walk fast. Head to the parking lot.”

  “Garret!” Several girls yell it at once and a swarm of them come racing toward me.

  “Shit!” I keep hold of Jade’s hand and walk faster.

  Two blond girls in cheerleader outfits step in front of me. “Can we get a picture with you?”

  “No, I’m in a hurry.” I go around them but more girls block my path.

  “What are you doing in California?” It’s another cheerleader, wearing the same uniform as the two blond girls. I got the whole damn squad after me. “Don’t you live in Connecticut?”

  I don’t answer her. I push Jade in front of me, keeping hold of her so we don’t get separated. She hasn’t said a word. This whole thing’s probably freaking her out. The crowd around us has grown as people try to figure out what’s going on.

  “Why aren’t you with Ava?” some girl yells. “I heard you were back together with her.”

  Seriously? Where do they get this shit? I haven’t looked at the tabloids or those celebrity websites for months so I have no idea if they’re still talking about me. But obviously somebody’s spreading rumors about me.

  I spot an opening in the crowd and steer Jade toward it. She sees it, too, and walks even faster. The gate
is just up ahead and once you go past it you can’t get back in, so I know the girls won’t go past that spot.

  “Garret, wait!” one of the cheerleaders says.

  The girls continue to yell stuff at me as they chase after us.

  “Who’s that girl you’re with?”

  “Garret, marry me!”

  “Does Ava know you’re with that girl?”

  “Can I get your autograph?”

  The questions keep coming, but as predicted, the girls stop following us once we reach the gate, their voices fading as we get closer to the car.

  “I didn’t think we’d ever get out of there,” Jade says. “Where did they all come from?”

  “Some high school around here. They probably just left a football game.”

  “I guess this is why we never go anywhere. People still know you.”

  “They always knew me. It’s the curse of being a Kensington. That reality show just made it worse.”

  As we walk through the parking lot, I search for that guy but there’s nobody around. It probably wasn’t the fake cop. I couldn’t see him that well from the ferris wheel.

  We get in the car and as I drive off, Jade sets her giant stuffed heart against the side window and lays her head on it. “Garret?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sleepy. I know I said you’d get lucky tonight for winning me all this stuff, but could it be tomorrow night instead? Or tomorrow morning?”

  “You don’t owe me anything.” I reach over and hold her hand. “I liked winning that stuff for you. Too bad you weren’t around when I was in seventh grade.”

  I don’t think she heard me. She’s already asleep and she sleeps the whole way back.

  Once we’re home and in bed, she says, “Thanks for a perfect day.”

  “You’re welcome. Goodnight, Jade.”

  A perfect day. It’s funny. To most people, hanging out at a crowded carnival would not be the perfect day. And to most guys, Jade would not be the perfect girl. But to me she is. Even with all the issues she still struggles with, and even though she frustrates the hell out of me sometimes, she’s still perfect. At least to me.

  7

  JADE

  I wake up to bright sunshine and check the clock.

  “Garret, wake up.” He’s on his side with his back to me. I tug on his arm. “Garret, we need to get up. We have to be at lunch in an hour.”