Analee, in Real Life

by Janelle Milanes

  “Hey, ladybug, come inside,” she says. “I need your help with something.”

  “Fiiiine,” Avery says, dragging her feet past us and toward the door. Once there, she turns around. “Sorry if I was mean before,” she says to us, then quickly shuts the door behind her.

  Harris and I look at each other.

  “Consider yourself lucky,” I tell him. “An apology from Avery is a rare phenomenon.”

  “Nah, she’s cute,” Harris says with a flick of his hand.

  “She gets attached to people easily,” I remark. Sometimes I envy Avery for that. The ability to latch on to someone despite the fear of getting hurt.

  “I think everyone gets attached,” Harris says. “It’s part of being human.”

  “Were you always this wise, or is this a new facet of your personality that I’m just discovering?” I ask.

  “Always. You just don’t pay close enough attention.”

  “Really? I feel like all I do is pay attention.” I get up from the step and bend down to touch my toes. I can only reach my shins.

  Harris rises too, wiping some imaginary lint from his jeans. “So, what the hell do we do now?”

  I look longingly at the ice cream truck, then back at him.

  “You’ll spoil your dinner,” he warns.

  “Harlow’s making raw zucchini pasta tonight.”

  Harris makes a gagging sound. “Okay, then. Let’s get us some ice cream.”

  “Did I mention I’m glad you came?” I ask him.

  “You did now.” He smiles at me. “And I’m glad too.”

  We hold hands as we walk down the street. It’s totally friendly and unromantic, but more important, it feels really, really nice.

  Seb texts me later that night: Interesting day today?

  I respond: Why would you give my address to a complete stranger???

  Don’t worry. I put him through a rigorous interrogation process before he got anything from me, he texts back. So . . . what’d you think?

  He was nice.

  Nice? Seriously? That’s all you’re gonna give me?

  He wasn’t a hideous Internet troll. He was Harris. But in person.

  There’s a pause, and then Seb’s next response comes in.

  What does that mean? Are you guys dating now?

  No, I text back. I think we’re better as friends.

  I stare at my phone. Seb’s response to this development might tell me everything I need to know. Do we go for this? Is our relationship real on any level, or was it truly all for show?

  Hmm, he writes back.

  Argh. He is as elusive as always. I throw down my phone in disgust, and it buzzes right away. Against my better judgment I pick it up.

  Am I still your wedding date tomorrow? he asks.

  If you want to be.

  This time he responds right away. I do. Not gonna lie, I’m excited . . .

  Despite the fact that tomorrow is a celebration of my father marrying someone who isn’t my mom, I can’t help but be a little excited too. Like it might be the start of something real for me and Seb.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  ON THE MORNING OF DAD and Harlow’s wedding, I open my eyes to find the sun bursting through my window, and to find . . . my dad. Sitting freakishly still by my bed. I bite my lip to keep a scream from slipping out of my mouth.

  “You’re awake,” he observes calmly.

  “What?” I check my cell. It’s two minutes past seven. “How long have you been sitting there?”

  “Only about a minute.”

  “Um . . . why?”

  “You snore very loudly, did you know that?”

  “I did not.” I sit up, rubbing the exhaustion out of my face. “Did I miss something? Is there a reason you’re watching me sleep?”

  “Let’s go for a drive.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “On the morning of your wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  This can’t be what I think it is. I had plenty of reservations about Dad marrying Harlow, but . . . this isn’t right. Not today.

  “You’re going to be a runaway groom?” I whisper.

  Dad rolls his eyes. “Monga. Of course not. Go get dressed and meet me by the car.”

  Because Dad gives no indication of where the hell he’s taking me, I put on my standard—jeans, tank top, and flip-flops. The house is quiet. No sounds of Harlow clanging around the kitchen or Avery dancing around the house to her tween pop songs.

  The car’s engine is already running when I get outside. I open the door and flop into the passenger seat. Dad doesn’t say a word to me. He backs out of the driveway, and then the car presses silently onward. Dad is always careful to stay just slightly above the speed limit. Enough to pass by a cop car with the confidence that they won’t stop him.

  I have a lot of questions, but Dad isn’t exactly inviting any conversation. I want to know where we’re going. I want to know why he’s bringing me along on this mystery detour, hours before his impending wedding. I want to know why he left his fiancée asleep in bed. Is he having second thoughts? Is he in a state of crisis? What do you say to your dad in this situation? I have no wisdom to offer him. I’m barely holding it together as it is. My thoughts bounce from my toast to Seb to an entire future with Harlow and Avery.

  Then Dad pulls into the cemetery.

  Despite the wide scope of my imagination, I never would have thought he’d bring me here, especially not today. We’ve been here only once together. I’ve made separate visits on my own, to sit and talk to Mom and just . . . remember. I have no idea how many times Dad has visited since the funeral. It’s not something we talk about.

  He parks the car and steps out without saying a word. I watch him for a second through the windshield. He’s wearing his pre-Harlow clothing. He does that occasionally, when he’s out running errands or cleaning the house. His back is turned to me, stiff and upright, as he gazes over the headstones.

  When I get out of the car, he starts walking with urgency. I know I’m supposed to follow him to Mom, so I do.

  My hyperactive mind has finally quieted. Visiting Mom is painful. Every time. It’s reopening a wound to experience the pain all over again. I wonder why I choose to subject myself to it. Is it obligation? Maybe a little. But it’s more than that. I need to hurt sometimes, when I can’t pretend to be Kiri or the Invisible Girl. There’s a strange relief to leaving yourself open and raw, to letting yourself hurt instead of blocking yourself from it.

  Mom is located next to a droopy elm tree. It provides a sliver of shade over her headstone. Usually I sit in the grass, next to that sliver, talking out loud in my best normal voice, pretending we’re sharing a carton of french fries. Today I hover over Dad while he kneels in the grass.

  It seems like we should have brought flowers or something, or whatever the proper etiquette is on the day when your dad is marrying another woman. Dad and I aren’t very good at that stuff. Ironically, Harlow is. She knows instinctively what to do in almost any social situation. She would bring the perfect bouquet of flowers for Mom.

  Dad doesn’t say anything for a while, and I figure this is it. We’ll be here and have a moment of silence for Mom. But then he speaks, still staring at her headstone.

  “I love Harlow very much, but your mom . . . ,” he says. His voice, usually loud and booming, is so soft that the slight breeze almost overpowers it. “I’ll never love anyone else the way I loved her.”

  I didn’t know until now how badly I needed to hear those words. I didn’t know how badly I needed Dad to just mention her. I think I get it, what he’s saying. Once someone close to you dies, you can never love quite as openly and carelessly as you used to.

  “Is it okay to feel like that on the day of your wedding?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know. But it is what it is.”

  I crouch next to him, the two of us and Mom forming a triad. The original Echevarria family.

  “Dad?” I say. “I
’m okay with you marrying Harlow.”

  He looks at me, guilt pulling at his features. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” For the first time, I can say that I’m sure I want this wedding to happen. “I’m glad you won’t be alone anymore.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” Dad says. “I had you.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” I hesitate. How do I explain that physically we lived in the same house but emotionally it felt like we’d each moved to a separate corner of the world?

  “I know I can be hard to deal with,” Dad goes on. “Especially after your mom died. . . . Harlow says that I tend to ‘retreat.’ ”

  “You do. But so do I.”

  “I’m your father, though. I should have—” His voice catches, and he leaves it at that.

  “I think,” I say slowly, “that we both were doing the best we could.”

  He nods, staring down at the grass. “You’re so much like her. I see it more and more, especially as you get older.”

  “Really?” I always found more similarities between me and my dad than me and my mom. Mom was better than the two of us. She was on a different playing field.

  “It hurt, back then. I would look at you, and I would see only her.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say instinctively.

  “No,” he says. “I’m glad for that now. Now when I look at you, I can remember her.” He taps his hand against his thigh. “Harlow and I talked a lot about death. She liked to quote this Buddhist monk. He said something about how we’re not just bodies, we’re elements outside of our bodies too. And if we stop looking at people as only made up of their bodies, we don’t completely lose them when they die. They’re all around us. In their kids, in the earth . . . bueno. I’m not explaining it right.”

  “No, you are,” I say. “I get it.”

  I like this idea. My grandparents like to talk about Mom in heaven, looking down at us, but I could never let myself believe it. What was she made of? Vapor? Was she a floating body in another dimension? Did she look the way she did before or after the cancer ate away at her? Did she have 24/7 access to our daily lives? Was she watching me and Seb in the broom closet? I never thought the concept held up when examined under a microscope.

  But I can picture Mom as part of me, as part of the earth, and the air, and the water. I press my palms down into the grass, like I can soak up even more of her.

  “We should go,” Dad says after a few minutes. “They’re going to wake up soon.”

  “Okay.”

  He gets up first, then grabs my hand to pull me along. You’d think we would leave the cemetery feeling sluggish and depressed, but I feel completely renewed. I feel ready for today. Seb, the toast, Dad and Harlow exchanging vows. I can handle this.

  “I wanted your thoughts on something,” Dad says as we walk back to the car. “Would you be okay if . . . we brought Harlow and Avery here sometime?”

  The thought never occurred to me. I’ve always considered my life to be split into two parts—before Mom died and after. Some people, like Harlow and Avery, have been placed neatly in this “after” box, never to be mixed in with the “before” box. Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe I need to stop defining my life by Mom’s death. Maybe I should think of my life as a series of connected people and events.

  “I just think she should know them,” Dad continues.

  I picture all of us, together, here. I want Mom to know that we’re not abandoning her, that we’re taking her with us.

  “I think she should too,” I say.

  There’s no time for quiet reflection when we get home. Harlow and Avery are up, breakfast is served, dresses are steamed and ready. Liz comes over to do our makeup. When she sees my nose, she lets out a bloodcurdling scream.

  Welp. There goes my self-esteem today.

  “I thought it was getting better,” I say, poking it with my thumb. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.

  Liz composes herself, then says, “It’s okay. I have tattoo concealer. I’ll make it look normal.”

  Liz gives Avery a touch of mascara and sparkly lip gloss. Then she sits me down on the kitchen chair next to the window and cackles. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone cackle, outside of a wicked witch in a movie. “I can’t wait to get my hands on you.”

  She opens a giant toolbox filled with eye shadow and foundation and piles of makeup brushes.

  “Not too much, okay?” I say. “I don’t wear a lot of makeup.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re gonna look fab.”

  And then my face is prodded and brushed, poked and dusted, even sprayed. I follow her instructions, looking up when she wants me to, closing my eyes when she asks.

  Harlow comes over, barefaced at the moment but still naturally beautiful.

  “Wow . . . Analee,” she breathes.

  I know she must want to follow that up. It’s not a good wow. It must be a, Wow, Analee, you look like garbage. There have been too many unidentified substances slathered onto my face. I’ll have to wash it all off.

  When Liz whips out her handheld mirror, the girl who stares back at me is not Analee Echevarria. This is a girl you’d see having lunch with Chloe, taking Instagram pictures in a dimly lit bathroom. I didn’t know I could look like this. I don’t know that I like looking like this, but I guess it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to. Liz is beaming with pride, so I say, “Oh my God. I love it!”

  She shrugs, like how could I not? “I knew you could be gorgeous with a little help from Dior.”

  “Oh, she was gorgeous even without Dior,” Harlow says, giving me a wink.

  “You should really be wearing some makeup every day,” Liz advises me. “Just the essentials—primer, foundation, bronzer, highlighter, brow gel, eyeliner—”

  “Liz, you do that to your face on a daily basis?” Harlow cuts in.

  “Are you kidding? At minimum!”

  This sets Harlow off on the amount of chemicals contained in makeup. She tosses around some scary words like “parabens” and “phthalates,” and waxes poetic about the importance of buying organic, cruelty-free brands. I get up from my chair and text Seb.

  Well, after ten pounds of makeup on my face, I’ve finally achieved the elusive goal of looking like Latina Barbie. Hope you’re excited.

  Seb usually answers my texts right away, but this time there’s silence. Huh.

  I wait a couple of minutes, then try again. Meet you at the ceremony?

  Radio silence.

  An hour later, still nothing. Liz, Avery, and I have our bridesmaid dresses on, and we wait, all decked in pastels like a window display of French macaroons, for Harlow in the living room. Dad is already at the venue because he was set on not seeing Harlow until the ceremony.

  “Do you need help?” Liz hollers.

  “I’m good!” Harlow calls down.

  Moments later I hear the bedroom door open. Our heads whip around to face the stairwell. As Harlow descends, Liz instinctively grabs my and Avery’s hands.

  Harlow looks angelic. She’s wearing the first dress she loved that day in the bridal shop, and I can’t imagine anything else looking more perfect on her. Pieces of her hair are weaved into small braids, while the rest tumbles down her shoulders in perfect S-shaped waves. Her makeup is light, but the mascara makes her eyes pop, more blue than green today, as if they want to match the ocean.

  Liz and Avery let out matching squeals, jumping up and down, telling her how beautiful she looks. There is no mention of the bedazzled dress, because it’s a hideous distant memory compared to this one.

  Harlow entertains her adoring fans, striking a silly Vogue-like pose, then looks at me. “What do you think, Analee? I need your brutally honest opinion.”

  “In my brutally honest opinion,” I say, “Dad is going to lose his mind when he sees you.”

  Weirdly enough, I can’t wait to see this happen. I can’t wait to see him happy again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Analee’s Top 5 Reasons Why I Can Handle This
Toast

  1. Experience reading aloud to kids.

  2. Fake dated Seb in front of the entire school.

  3. Faced fear to meet Harris in person.

  4. It would make Dad, Harlow, and Avery happy.

  5. After what happened to Mom, I can do anything.

  UNDER A CANOPY OF WHITE flowers near the edge of the ocean, among yogis, WASPs, and Cubans, Dad and Harlow are making things official.

  Predictably, Dad did lose it when Harlow made her way down the aisle. His eyes got big and watery, and while Dad hates crying in front of other people, he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. I was grateful to see him cry happy tears in this case.

  Before Harlow’s grand entrance, I successfully walked down the aisle in a pair of four-inch heels that I’ll never wear again. I didn’t trip on my dress or sprain my ankle, so as far as I’m concerned, I was a rousing success. I could even ignore the eyes that followed me along the way, thanks to all the practice I’ve had in East Bay’s halls.

  The best part about this wedding is that pretty much everyone is focused on Harlow, not me. She’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her. No peaceful yogi smiles today—this one is beaming and bright.

  The worst part of this wedding is that Seb isn’t here. I officially haven’t heard from him since last night. After walking down the aisle, I scanned the assortment of characters sitting in white folding chairs, and Seb wasn’t one of them.

  I try to focus on the vows being exchanged in front of me, but I have an unhealthy amount of anger coursing through my body. Am I being stood up? Last night Seb said he was excited to go to the wedding with me. How could that change over the course of eighteen hours? And if it did, why the hell didn’t he text me?

  Unless . . . did something awful happen in those eighteen hours? Something truly awful, that would render Seb incapable of making it to the wedding or even texting me?

  When one of the worst things in life has happened to you, you have a tendency to assume worst-case scenarios. This is how my brain operates, tossing out all positive outcomes and moving straight to the most horrible what-ifs. If it happened once, it can happen again. The question is, what exactly happened? A car accident, maybe. I could call his house, ask the scary stepmom if he’s okay. Or maybe he was taking a shower to get ready for the ceremony and he slipped. Oh God. What if something’s really wrong?