Faking Perfect

by Rebecca Phillips

  “Why don’t we show her where she’ll be sleeping?” Renee suggested.

  Jonah bounced ahead to the next door and pushed it open. “This is the guest room,” he said, catapulting himself onto the queen-size bed. “You sleep here because you’re our guest.”

  The room was small, but like the rest of the house, it was pretty and tastefully decorated. In addition to the bed, which was covered in a velvety gray comforter, there was also a dresser and a decent-sized window facing the backyard. I looked outside and caught a glimpse of the deck and the big round swimming pool I’d noticed when we were upstairs in the kitchen.

  Turning away from the window, I caught all four of them staring at me. “Um, is there somewhere I can freshen up?” I asked, directing the question at the wall because I wasn’t sure who to ask.

  “Oh! Of course!” Renee said, waving a hand for me to follow her. “There’s a bathroom right across the hall.”

  Eric brought me my suitcase, and I shut myself up in the bathroom while the three of them headed upstairs. Evidently, both my father and Renee sensed my need for a few minutes alone.

  All of it was just too much. Only three short months ago, I’d found out I had a living, sober father, a stepmother, and two siblings—a whole other family I’d known nothing about. And now I was three thousand miles from home and standing in their house. It was extremely weird and overwhelming.

  After a shower, a change of clothes, and a hefty dollop of mousse in my hair, I felt somewhat better. Unable to stall any longer, I headed back upstairs.

  “You’re looking more awake,” Eric said when I appeared in the kitchen. He and Renee stood at the counter, transferring different foods from Tupperware containers to serving dishes. Willow was in the adjacent dining room, sitting at the big cherry wood table and shyly watching me as she pretended to read a book. Jonah sat cross-legged by the door to the deck, slamming two action figures together in what looked like an ultra-violent wrestling match.

  “Your natural curls are so pretty, Lexi,” Renee said, smoothing down her own sleek bob. She looked like the women Nolan sometimes referred to as “soccer moms.” I could picture her behind the wheel of a minivan, Venti latte in hand as she transported her kids to their various activities.

  “Thanks,” I said in response to both their comments.

  Lunch was an interesting mix of salads and multigrain breads, all fresh and unrefined. Apparently, they were a healthy living kind of family. Afterward, I helped clean up, even though I’d been told to relax. But I couldn’t relax, not yet. Possibly not ever. So instead, I helped my father store leftovers.

  “We’re not total health nuts,” he assured me as if I’d complained about our all-natural lunch. “We started cutting out sugar and processed stuff a couple years ago because of Jonah. Our family doctor suggested we change his diet to see if it would help with his hyperactivity.” Eric chuckled. “It didn’t, as you can see, but by then we were sort of hooked.”

  I watched him as he cheerfully spooned leftover cucumber tahini salad into a container. I felt a surge of frustration. I wasn’t there to discuss health food or my curly hair or where I used to go to daycare; I was there to get answers. The truth. All my life, I’d assumed my father was dead, in jail, or living on a street corner somewhere, begging for spare change. Seeing him in his nice, big house with his nice, normal family, laughing and eating quinoa, made me feel like I’d been deceived. Not only by my mother, but by him, too. All along, he’d been living a brand new life. And he’d never once tried to make room in it for me.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  My first day in Alton was the longest. By the end of it, I was more tired than I ever remembered being in my life. So tired, I assumed I’d fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow. But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, I lay awake for hours, listening to the thunder that had been shaking the house on and off all day and wishing I was home.

  I’d left Oakfield less than a day ago, but it felt like I’d been gone for weeks. I missed Nolan and Teresa. I missed Trevor. I missed my bed, even though it was slightly less comfortable than the one in the guest room. I missed almost everything about home, missed it so much my entire body ached with it.

  But more than anything or anyone else, I missed Tyler.

  Our relationship had been changing and evolving for weeks, and the incidents with Ben and Jesse seemed to have altered it even more. We were no longer just two people who used each other for release. I wasn’t entirely sure what we were. All I knew was that during the past week, the subtle shift between us had become a radical transformation.

  Jesse never showed his face at my house again, but Tyler stayed with me on Sunday night, too, stroking my back while I drifted off to sleep. And sleep was all we did. But the next night, when he once again wriggled through my window and curled up in bed with me “just in case,” I turned to him, laced my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, and pressed my lips against his. He returned the kiss for a minute and then pulled back to ask me if I was sure. Instead of answering with words, I sat up, yanked my T-shirt over my head, and tossed it on the floor. After that, he forgot about being cautious and restrained.

  Alone and restless in the cozy guest bed, those were the moments that kept coming back to me. Not the whispers or the gossip or the painful humiliation of losing half my friends. Not the bitter smell of Jesse’s alcohol breath or the loathing and betrayal on my mother’s face. Just that last night with Tyler, his hands slow and gentle on my skin as if he was afraid he might break me. As if it was my first time. Our first time. In a way, that was exactly how it felt.

  Those moments, those memories, were the main reason why I chose to pick up my phone instead of escaping out the window, stealing a car, and hightailing it back to the airport. If anyone understood the allure of robbery and fleeing a scene, it was Tyler.

  “Yeah,” he answered on the first ring. Even though it was three a.m. in Oakfield, he sounded alert and capable, a skill he’d perfected during his two years of dealing with random phone calls from “clients” in the middle of the night. He’d stopped selling, but old habits die hard.

  “It’s me.” I kept my voice down, even though I was pretty sure everyone was asleep and no one would hear me all the way downstairs anyway. “Did I wake you?”

  “No. Yes. Kind of. But I don’t mind. What time is it?”

  I told him. “I’m sorry for calling you so late. It’s just . . . I needed to hear a familiar voice.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said again. He sounded a bit more awake, conscious enough to detect the sadness in my tone. “How’s it going? What are they like?”

  I ran my hand over the smooth comforter, wishing for the dips and grooves of my quilt. “They’re . . . I don’t know. Nice. Normal. They’re trying to make me feel comfortable and welcome and everything but it’s all so weird. I . . . I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Do you want to come home?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut but it was no use; tears leaked out and dripped onto the pillow beneath my head. The pillow that smelled like lemons and sunshine instead of dryer sheets and Tyler, like mine did at home. Nothing felt right. “Yes,” I said, wiping my eyes. “But I won’t. I’m staying. I have to.”

  “Okay,” he replied, and we fell silent for a while. Just as I was starting to wonder if he’d nodded off again, he said, “I miss sleeping beside you.”

  I rolled over on my side and snuggled into the comforter, the phone pressed to my ear. Outside, the storm was finally beginning to wind down, the lightning weakening to an irregular flicker. “I miss it too,” I said, letting my body relax and my eyes drift shut. Seconds later, I was out.

  I woke the next morning to the sounds of giggling and splashing. For a moment I wondered if I was in the middle of some weird dream, then I heard Jonah.

  “Cannonball!” he bellowed, and another huge splash followed. I turned toward the open window and caught the scent of chlorine and warm air. The air smelled di
fferent, dry and sharp, nothing like the fresh, salty ocean air I took for granted back in Oakfield.

  The position of the sun, bright and far up in the sky, told me I’d likely snoozed the morning away. My watch— still set to Oakfield time—said ten after two, so it was after eleven. Oops. I slipped on a pair of shorts and a tank top, washed my face, and headed upstairs to the empty kitchen. I could see Jonah and Willow through the glass door, zipping around the pool and squealing. My father sat a few feet away at the patio table, facing the pool and talking into his cell phone. Work, I assumed. He and Renee had taken time off for my visit, but owning the business meant being on call, even during vacation. I pushed open the door to the deck and stepped outside.

  “Hi, Lexi!” Jonah called, waving at me as he attempted to mount an inflatable alligator. I waved back at him and went to join Eric, who was still sitting at the glass-topped table with the phone glued to his ear. Seeing me, he quickly wrapped up his call and hung up.

  “Sleep well?” he asked as I sat across from him. Luckily, the giant umbrella above us provided lots of shade because my skin always burned in about ten seconds and I wasn’t wearing any sunscreen.

  “A little too well,” I said, glancing at the kids. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off them. Growing up I’d always wanted a sibling, and now I had two of them. Just like that. “I didn’t mean to sleep so late.”

  “It’s okay,” Eric said, folding his arms on the table.

  Since yesterday, I’d been furtively examining his tattoos, trying to make sense of the designs. So far I’d picked out a skull, some flowers, and some kind of tribal pattern. Most of them, I’d already seen in the old pictures I had of him. I wondered how long it took to get full sleeves like that, and if he regretted them.

  “So,” he said, and my eyes flicked up to meet his. “Are you looking forward to college?”

  Just as I was about to answer him, a sprinkle of cold water hit my ankle. “Daddy, I need help,” Jonah said from the side of the pool. “My alligator is leaking.”

  “Sounds like a serious dilemma,” Eric said, standing up. “Bring him over and I’ll check him for holes.”

  As Jonah doubled back to retrieve his leaky gator, Eric crouched by the edge of the pool, waiting. It wasn’t until he stood up again, alligator in hand, that I noticed the tattoo on the outside of his left calf. It was a red and black cobra snake, its head rising above its tightly coiled tail, forked tongue protruding. Seeing it, something in my brain went ping—an ancient, long-buried memory fighting to emerge.

  “When did you get that?” I asked, trying to sound casual. Instead, I ended up sounding alarmed, causing Eric to glance back at me. “The snake tattoo on your leg,” I clarified.

  “Oh.” He looked down at it. “Let me see . . . I got it right around the time I joined my band. So . . . about twenty-one years ago, I guess. Why? Are you terrified of snakes, too? Renee is. Come to think of it, so was your mother.”

  “I like them,” Jonah piped up. “I think they’re cool.”

  “I . . . I love snakes,” I said. “I have one. A corn snake.”

  “No way!” Jonah said, gazing at me in awe.

  Eric handed the re-inflated alligator to Jonah and returned to his chair. “It’s funny,” he said to me. “When you were little you used to love that tattoo. As soon as you could crawl, you’d come over and sit at my feet and sort of pet my leg like the snake was alive. I just thought you liked the bright colors, but maybe it was the snake itself.”

  Was it possible, I wondered, for a single image to implant itself in a small child’s brain and then remain there, in her subconscious, for the next several years? Or was it just a coincidence? My whole life, I’d felt inexplicably drawn to snakes. For me, they represented grace and peace and beauty. Holding Trevor in my hands gave me a feeling of comfort. Security. But after seeing Eric’s tattoo and hearing that story, I couldn’t help but wonder if the comfort and security I got from snakes were somehow connected to how I’d once felt around him. Those same feelings emerged whenever my mind flashed on that crystal clear memory of us walking in the woods together, hand in hand. At one time, we’d shared a bond.

  It didn’t make any sense, but I knew without question he’d loved me back then. It was like I carried it in my bones, or in a tiny corner of my heart. And I’d loved him back. Our connection was evident in the one picture of us that I owned, blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. We’d been close. The same kind of closeness he shared with Willow and Jonah, the kind that made them want to run to him for scraped knees and closet monsters and deflating alligators. The kind that made me want to crawl to him and sit at his feet as a baby or walk with him beneath the trees and hunt for bugs. Despite everything I’d heard all my life, despite the inexorable hold his addiction had had on him, he’d once been my dad.

  What had changed? Why had he decided letting me go was easier than getting well for me? Being with him and his happy, much-loved children allowed me to see exactly what I’d missed out on—a loving, involved parent who put his children first, a priority. Clearly, I’d never been a priority to him. Instead of choosing me, he’d withdrawn into his addiction, shattered the bond between us, started all over again with a brand new family, and become the kind of father he’d never been strong enough to be for me.

  I’d loved that tattoo not because it was a snake, but because it was a reliable, permanent part of him. A benchmark. And that image—along with the feelings it evoked—had stuck with me, long after he’d tried to rip it away.

  “Lexi, are you coming in?”

  I looked over at Jonah’s bright, freckled face and then beyond him to Willow, who was watching me with an insightfulness that was well beyond her years, as if she could read my innermost thoughts, the way Emily used to do. Obviously, the real me wasn’t concealed as well as I’d always thought.

  “No, I think I’ll—” I stood up quickly, banging my shin on the table leg. Ignoring the pain, I started toward the doors. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let myself love him or get close to him again. Couldn’t let myself get attached to his family. It was too much of a risk. “I need to go to the store,” I said, not looking back. “I forgot to pack something.”

  Luckily, Renee was nowhere to be seen as I passed through the kitchen to the basement stairs. In the guest room, I grabbed my backpack and carried it upstairs and through the front door. I didn’t care that I wasn’t entirely sure how to get downtown. I didn’t care that my skin would surely fry on the way there. All I cared about was getting away.

  As it turned out, the main street was only a ten-minute walk from the house and easy to find. I could leave, I thought as I passed a vacant taxi parked alongside the curb in front of a convenience store. I pictured myself in the backseat of that taxi, following the same route I’d taken almost fourteen years ago with my mother. I wondered if she’d looked back as we left Alton, or felt a pang of regret during that two-hour drive to the airport, or questioned her decision as we stepped onto the plane that would take us to our new home. I wondered if she’d been like me, waffling between trying to make it work and giving up entirely. Knowing my mother, the choice to leave had probably been an easy one. She held grudges, she didn’t forgive, and when life got too hard, she bailed.

  But I wasn’t like my mother, not anymore. So instead of finding the taxi driver and blowing what was left of my babysitting money on cab fare, I found a fast food joint and ordered the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger on the menu. Then, feeling fuller than I had in days, I went back to my father.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  On Sunday night, after the kids had gone to bed and I was watching TV alone, I received a text from Shelby.

  Piper Olivia was born at 6:25 this evening. 6 pounds, 14 oz. Healthy & perfect. We’re both doing fine. Miss you. Call me when you get home.

  Relieved and teary-eyed, I sent her my congratulations and promised to visit them when I got back. A few minutes later, she answered with a picture. Their very first fam
ily portrait. Shelby and Evan, both looking like they hadn’t slept in weeks, smiled into the camera as baby Piper lay in her mother’s arms, fast asleep. The three of them together seemed untouchable, like the only thing ahead of them was joy.

  But that was the tricky thing with pictures—those images, those captured memories, were incomplete and fleeting.

  I shut off the TV and headed for bed. But instead of going into the guest room, I continued down the hallway and stopped outside the door right next to it. My father’s music room.

  He’d been shut up in there for the past hour, strumming his guitar and reliving his band days. I didn’t know much about guitar or bass or any instrument, really, but he sounded pretty good for an old guy. During a pause in riffs, I knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” he said, and I peeked inside to find him sitting on a leather stool with a bright red guitar in his arms. He brightened when he saw me, then leaned over to turn off the amp at his feet. The room instantly became quiet. “I wasn’t keeping you awake, was I?”

  I shook my head and stepped farther into his sanctuary. I hadn’t been in there since the day I arrived, and at the time I’d been too overwhelmed to give the room more than a cursory inspection. Now, I took the time to really look.

  “Are all these yours?” I asked, taking in his collection of guitars. I’d never seen this many strings outside a music store. Two guitars hung on the wall behind him, and three more—two bass guitars and another six-string—rested in stands on the floor. “What else can you play?”

  “I can handle a simple beat on the drums, but mostly I stick to guitar and bass. Can’t sing to save my life, either.”

  Something else we had in common. Dogs howled whenever I tried to sing. I turned away from the guitars and approached the opposite wall. Every inch of it was covered in autographed pictures of bands I’d never heard of and a few old, wrinkled flyers promoting a band called Rust, which I had heard of. It was Eric’s old band, the one he’d played bass for in his twenties, when he was with my mother. He’d told me a bit about them over the phone a few weeks ago. They were together for eight years, during which they played in bars and small arenas in cities and towns all over this side of the country. “We even did a few shows in Seattle,” he’d told me proudly. I had no idea why this was a big deal, but I’d tried to act impressed.