Keeping Up With Piper

by Amanda Adair

  I don’t want her to be here either. “It’s okay, I understand,” I say. “I’m just gonna stay here and wait.”

  Without another word you disappear behind a door. You’re delusional if you think I’ll just wait here. I get closer to the door. Through the slit I see you and your mother. I see your backs but not your face. I can’t tell what’s going on in there, but I hear the doctor say, “I don’t think this is an option.”

  “What do you mean?,” Andrea says snappishly and steps forward, so that I can see Sander lying there. He still looks pale and exhausted. “You should give it a try.”

  “There is no chance we can stop this,” the doctor says. “I am sorry.”

  “We pay a lot for our insurance,” Andrea says, “so just do it. If there’s any chance it can help...”

  “There isn’t,” he stops her. “The tumor progression can’t be stopped. At least in this case. We’ve tried everything. It was discovered too late.”

  “You’re giving us stupid excuses,” Andrea says, then suddenly turns around.

  Before she reaches the door, I hop aside and pretend to look at a painting on the wall. It’s by far the ugliest painting I’ve ever seen. This doctor has less taste than Paola. I even miss Paola. It feels like I’ve been stuck in Maywood forever. It feels like I’ve never left. Maybe it’s true what they say. You can remove yourself from a place, but you can’t remove the memories from your brain.

  “Mom,” Tessa shouts.

  “It’s okay,” you say. “Stay here.”

  I hear you leave the room and walk down the short corridor. Every one of your steps makes a dull sound on the linoleum. There are only three doors in this practice. Two of the rooms are for staff only. The painting I’m staring at features three women and a man who hold hands and dance around in a circle. They’re in the woods, and wooden baskets stand on the grass behind them. I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

  I hear a voice behind me. “Blair, can you just walk home?”

  It’s Tessa.

  32

  I know I’m not the best mom ever. When I was at the doctor with you and your family it didn’t occur to me that Andrea is no longer watching my son. Not for a second I thought about him. I didn’t ask who’s watching him. Andrea wouldn’t let her grandchild and playmates unattended, I know that. She might be evil as hell, but she’s not stupid. She’d called their seventeen-year-old neighbor Raelyn. Only when I walked home, opened the door and saw him running towards me, I remembered I’m not alone. Not anymore. I still feel like a daughter rather than a mother. I still feel like teenage Samantha who wants to marry and have kids in her mid-twenties. I am in my mid-twenties now. There is no wedding, no marriage, no loving and caring boyfriend, but a teenage pregnancy.

  Tessa’s dad is dying but here she is, dancing with me like life’s never been better. When we arrived at Alison’s party she told me she wasn’t in the mood for drinking and partying, but she must’ve changed her mind. I miss New York. I miss Manhattan. I’m used to actual parties at clubs and not those small-town get-togethers. I want good music, champagne, people like Bruna, lots of fun and a picture of your gravestone on my phone as proof that you’re gone. As proof that you can’t walk around hurting people anymore.

  “Blair,” Tessa shrieks. “Come on, girl. You’re too pretty to sit around.”

  I’m not going to dance and sing along to the sounds of a rapper whose name starts with Lil. It’s just not going to happen. I smile and shake my head. I sit on a stool in the kitchen. In front of me there are cigarette packs, empty shot glasses, half-empty wine glasses and bottles of beer. It’s a hodgepodge of drugs. It’s no secret that you and your friends tried out weed and acid in school.

  “Where are you from?,” a guy asks. It is one of the boys that attend Maywood High. He smiles, and I have the odd feeling that he’s about to touch my arm or leg. Great, a pimply teenager is hitting on me.

  “New York,” I say and get up. I’m tired and annoyed, but I’d rather dance with your little sister than flirt with a kid.

  When I start moving to the music I think of Andrea. I suddenly have an image in my head, of her babysitting Kye and Dana. She’s doing the laundry downstairs while they’re playing with dolls and toy cars in the living room. Kye suddenly decides to stand up and get one of the cupcakes that stand on the kitchen counter. He reaches out for them and lets his hand slide over the hard granite countertop. Instead of a fluffy chocolate chip cupcake he accidentally pushes a bread knife to the edge of the counter. It falls down and… I shake my head and stop dancing. I need a break. No, what I need is a shot. I walk past a bunch of drunk guys and girls and fill a cup with rum. I fill another one with tequila. In case I find you I’ll serve you your favorite drink. I’m just such a good friend, aren’t I? All the actual glasses, which I prefer, are used by now, and I honestly don’t want to get herpes.

  I sit down on the sofa, empty my cup and put the other onto the ground. When Tessa sees me, she stumbles towards me and sits down so close to me that our thighs touch. I look down and see that your cup’s fallen over. Thanks, Tessa.

  “I’m so hungry,” she says. She looks over her shoulder at the guy who’s going to get her some more champagne. She keeps eye contact with him as she comes closer to me. For a second our eyes meet. Her eyes, her face, her hair color, it all seems so familiar. She looks at him, then at me, then she leans forward to kiss me. It’s a short kiss, lasting not more than a few seconds. She turns around to her chosen one and licks her finger. The feeling that I might like her suddenly vanishes.

  “Do you think he likes me?,” she asks.

  “It seems like it,” I assure her. I couldn’t care less about their little romance. “How come he’s here? He isn’t in school, is he?”

  “He is,” she says. Wow, I think, your twenty-year-old sister is really wanting to date a minor. “It’s not what you think. He’s nineteen actually. My boyfriend Lucas and I took a break.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “It’s alright,” she says and lays her head onto my shoulder. “Are you currently dating?”

  “No,” I say.

  I want to leave this party. Now. “You are hungry, right? Let’s grab a pizza.”

  “Oh my gosh, yes,” she says cheerfully and jumps up. Where does she get all the energy?

  “Wait,” I say when I realize that she wants to leave without you, “we should look for Piper first.”

  It takes a few minutes of asking until a guy tells us you went upstairs. We find you where I’ve never expected you. You sit inside the bathroom upstairs. The door’s locked.

  “Piper,” I say and knock. “We wanna go get pizza.”

  “What?,” a guy behind us asks. We’ve met him earlier, but I forgot his name. I’m not interested in any of those people. I’m interested in nobody but you. “You can just order one. Let me order one for you.” He taps on his phone, but Tessa lays her hand onto his.

  “It’s okay,” she says, “we’re about to leave anyway.”

  The guy puts on a sad face and says, “too bad, Tessa.”

  After he’s gone we knock on the bathroom door once more.

  “Piper,” she says, but there is no response.

  “What is she doing in there?,” I say and try to look through the keyhole. I can see the toilet seat and a window above. “Are we sure she’s even in here?”

  “Hey, uhm,” she says, “I’m gonna go call the pizza place and tell them what we want, so we can just pick it up.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. We should first get you out of this bathroom. I knock on the door again.

  “New York-style,” I hear Tessa say. “With extra cheese. Well, and… a California pizza.”

  I open my mouth to say your name again, but then I freeze. Instead, I step back and kick against the door. It didn’t work.

  “Blair,” Tessa says reproachfully.

  I kick again, harder this time. I expected the door to swing open. It’s still closed, but the lock is
broken, so I just push, and the door finally swings open.

  “You’re hilarious,” Tessa says and appears next to me. She pushes past me, then suddenly holds her hand in front of her eyes.

  33

  „Why are you naked?,“ Tessa asks. She doesn’t sound surprised. It sounds like any other less awkward question. How are you? What do you want to drink? Why are you naked? She puts her hand down, but she avoids looking at you. She looks at the ground. I don’t. There’s nothing I haven’t seen already. I’ve seen your body lots of times. You only put on clothes when our children are around. You’re some sort of a hippie, but you’re missing the part on tolerance, composure and peace.

  When I enter the room, I see you sitting on the countertop next to the white wash basin. Tessa hands you a towel, so you can cover up your upper body. Someone else is in the shower. I can hear him, and I see his reflection in the puddle on the floor. The burbling of water suddenly stops, and a guy appears from behind the tiled shower. You smile.

  “We spilled our drinks,” you say as soon as we sit inside the car.

  “And you had to shower together?,” Tessa says.

  I forgot how small Maywood is. After only a few minutes we arrive at the pizzeria. We burst into laughter when we leave the place with four huge pizzas. They’re not large, they’re extra-large.

  “When I’m hungry I tend to order food for a whole football team,” Tessa says.

  “And still she’s skinny like a runway model,” you say to me. “I’m jealous.” It’s true. Tessa is a lot skinnier than both of us, but she doesn’t have as many curves as you. She definitely has an A cup, not a C cup. She has skinny thighs, even when she sits. “I can only be a model on Insta.”

  You’re not a model on Instagram, Piper. You just aren’t. Should I give in and role my eyes? We’re sitting on the back seat. Your head is lying on my thigh. You’re unbelted. For a second I imagine us having an accident. I think of the accident years ago. I am reminded of how my life was turned upside down. How I lost the life I knew and enjoyed living. I hear tires squeak and a loud bang. I wince, and you spring up.

  “What happened?,” you say and put your hand on your chest. “I though you have a seizure.”

  It’s all in my head. Just an imagination. Just a memory.

  “I thought there was a spider,” I quickly make an excuse for my odd behavior. Therapy didn’t work out for me. I still suffer from nightmares and flashbacks, especially since I know what exactly happened the night I got pregnant. Lately I’ve been having a lot of flashbacks.

  Compared to other parties with you, this evening went well. No one is dead. You’re just naked and drunk and you probably had sex with the guy in the shower.

  “A spider?,” Tessa asks.

  “No, false alarm,” you say and sigh.

  We took Tessa’s car, which is an old silver Volvo with black leather seats. Tessa seems like a younger version of you. She acts like you, she even talks like you, but her style doesn’t always match yours. You are obsessed with brands and the newest trends while her style is more individual. You both own a black leather jacket, but you would just combine it with plain jeans, a simple unicolored shirt, silver jewelry and sneakers. Tessa would wear a woolen pullover underneath, a blood-red or royal blue pleated skirt and some white dad sneakers. You’re just a less fashionable version of Blair Waldorf, Veronica Lodge or Hanna Marin. You’re trying to look like them. You even attract drama like those TV show characters. Back in school you filled a Pinterest board called outfit “outfit inspiration” with photos of Blair and her fellow fictional fashion icons. You were obsessed with them, almost as much as I am with you now.

  You get out your phone, and I see you scrolling through Instagram. You basically follow every female fashionista with more than half a million followers. And people you know, of course, either so you can comment things like “gosh, you look stunning, girl” and attract more people to your own account or so you can laugh at them and judge them. The people you judge the least are family members or your clique from high school, which includes Penelope, Tammy, Axel and Jason. But you would definitely talk shit about them, too, if you feel like it. Let me prove it.

  As soon as one of Tammy’s photos pops up I say, “isn’t that the girl we met in L.A.?” I try to sound arrogant. Tammy rarely posts anything these days, but today she was confident enough to post a picture of her and Jason.

  “That’s her,” you say. “She used to hang out with me and my bestie Penelope in school.” You zoom in on her photo. “She’s fat now.” There you go. You really only say nice things about your so-called friends.

  “Who?,” Tessa asks.

  “Tammy,” you say. “Tammy.”

  “Ah yeah,” she says. “I think I remember her. “Blonde hair, curls…”

  “That’s Anna,” you say. “I mean Tamara. She had bangs and medium blonde hair. I mean she still does.” You look at the photo. “Her face looks chubby.”

  “Did you tell her that you’re back home?,” I ask. It’s not like the town already knows. Once one of them knows anything they all get to know it within hours. She already knows you’re here. As soon as we arrived, maybe even as soon as your mother told you to come, she knew. We should visit her.

  “Not exactly,” you say. What a vague reply.

  We’re all a little drunk, so I might as well mess around. “Let’s visit her. You told her she should visit you in New York.”

  “NO,” you say a bit too quick and energetic. “Not now. It’s in the middle of the night.”

  I don’t care at all. “Tessa?”

  Tessa turns around. Please don’t, look at the road. “Yeah, sure,” she says.

  “Okay, guys,” you say. “Why not. But I should warn you. Tammy is always a little boring and clingy.”

  Tessa turns up the volume, and we’re singing along to Billie Eilish’s new song. You navigate your sister to Tammy’s house. She lives in her grandmother’s house. It has a blue front and white porch with a white rocking chair. She basically took over her granny’s life. She married at a very young age and moved into a house in her home town, which she’ll probably never leave. Her grandma died a couple of years ago. I occasionally read the local news, so I know everything about this town and its people even though I fled. At some point I need to stop doing that, so I can forget this chapter of my life. Erase it out of my memories. After I’m done with you I want to live life like nothing bad happened to me.

  We enter the porch, and you knock on her door. There is no doorbell. After a few minutes you say, “maybe she isn’t home.”

  When we turn around Tammy appears in the driveway. “Hey,” she says. She doesn’t look so happy to see the three of us. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tammy,” you say and hug her when she enters the porch. “We have pizza. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been studying for my Pilates teacher training,” she says. A nutritionist and a Pilates teacher. I’m impressed. I can see her future very clear now. She’s going to open up a Pilates studio and give the housewives of Maywood advice on how to lose ten pounds. Then she’s going to have her own kids and break up with Jason a few years later because he’s cheating on her with a less chubby Maywood bitch. I’m sure of it. I would bet on it if I could.

  Once you enter the house you realize Tammy followed IKEA hacks YouTube videos to upcycle the old furniture. I guess most of those pieces belonged to her, Jason or her grandparents before. I must admit she did a great job. It looks like a typical mommy blogger home. Actually, it looks like most of the Maywood interiors, but on a budget.

  “We forgot the pizza,” Tessa says and grabs my arm.

  We go back outside. Only now I realize how cold it is tonight. Tessa opens the trunk, hands me two cartons and carries two herself.

  Back inside Tammy says, “have a seat.”

  Each of us grabs a piece of pizza, just Tammy doesn’t want some. “I can’t,” she says. “I’m trying to follow a macrobiotic diet.”
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  “Macro… what?,” you say and squint.

  “Macrobiotic,” she repeats. “It’s Ariana Grande’s diet.” She turns to Tessa and me. “I’m a certified nutritionist.” As if it’s important that you’re certified.

  “Okay,” you say before biting into your piece of pizza.

  “You mainly eat whole grains, vegetables, beans…,” she explains. “It’s based on Buddhism.”

  “Are you Buddhist now?,” I ask and stare at the Buddhist statue near the window.

  “Who are you again?,” she asks.

  I forgot we don’t know each other. I mean you and Blair don’t know each other. Sure, we met in L.A., but you don’t remember me. And officially Blair doesn’t know anything about you. I need to be more careful when talking to people like her. I’m still guided by Samantha’s memories.

  “Blair,” I say.

  “She’s my coworker,” you say. “At lalamilan. She was with me in L.A.”

  “Oh, I remember. You both work at that lifestyle blog?,” she says. “It must be exciting to work with Paola in New York City.”

  I forgot Paola’s quite famous due to her activity as a blogger. She started her blog many years ago back in Italy, took photos, wrote posts and shot videos. Now she has a whole team that does that. The blog still looks like a very personal blog. No one would think there’s a whole company behind it. We’re fooling our readers and followers. Her name, Paola’s name is under every article, so basically our editors are ghostwriters.

  “Is it?,” you say skeptically and look at me.

  “In a way,” I say.

  Tessa grabs another piece of pizza. She can eat a lot without gaining any weight. “I wouldn’t want to work for her.”

  “She’s a diva,” you say. “And she’s a little crazy. I saw her putting Baileys into her coffee in the morning. It’s no wonder she’s so hysterical.”