ECR. My new school. It’s north, but not my kind of #north. This is Valley north. Too north. So north, it’s rank.
I start tomorrow and it might almost be a good thing because I’m pretty sure I heard Merrick mention Kai goes there, except then there’s all the things I don’t think about.
Not until they’re right up in my face.
Chapter Seventeen
So, Emily is batshit crazy.
She’s a mess of frizzy blond hair a la Taylor Swift circa 2006. It’s a little daunting, all that frizz. It could almost be sentient, I’m pretty sure. But she handles it well, which makes sense since she’s a hair stylist, according to Merrick.
Her blond, though. It looks like mine. Or, I guess technically mine looks like hers.
“Look at you!” she says. She comes at me like I’m a rescue dog she’s about to save from the pound. “Oh, my God, I’m in love with your hair. It’s so … bushy.”
She did not just …
At first I think this might be the thing that makes it easier to interrogate her.
I’m wrong.
She piles on hard, that woman. So hard, it’s difficult to get a word or a thought or a blink in edgewise.
The thing about Kai thinking she’s awful is that now I think she’s awful and I can’t see any way around her awfulness.
But if I hadn’t known how Kai felt, it would have been solidified after this first meeting. Because now I have my own proof. Tristan once told me that it only takes seven seconds to form an impression of someone upon first meeting them.
Within those seven seconds, three things happen in quick succession.
She stains my face with wine by kissing me on the cheek.
She compliments me by complimenting herself. “Oh, she’s gorgeous, Merr. She’s got our eyes”—then to me—“You’ve got eyes like mine.”
And, third, her hands go to my hair. “You know. I could do a thing or two with this. Fix you up a little. Bone-straighten it out. You’d have so much length, beautiful.”
Merrick tries to divert by offering to cook, but Emily says she has “bags and bags” of organic foodstuffs in her car. I don’t know what she’s planning to make, but Kai has already said he has no plans to eat it.
“Girl, I ain’t eating whatever you got in those bags.” He’s been vocal. Loudly. Multiple times from the couch across the living room.
And though he “ain’t touching that mess,” he does still somehow see fit to volunteer us both to retrieve the groceries. Emily pulls a bottle of red out of her purse and asks Merrick where the corkscrew is.
Oh, thank God she managed to bring the wine in.
“Don’t leave,” I say to Kai once we’re downstairs and unlocking Emily’s car. I wonder if he’ll at least stick around long enough for me to question Emily.
“I can’t stay here. I’ll strangle Emily before she even makes it to the bottom of the bottle—and that’s going to happen very fast, Taze. Very fast.”
I groan and we carry the bags back up to the garage apartment.
We’re in there five seconds before Kai decides to be a traitor and says he’s leaving. I trail him to the door, he hugs me and presses his lips to my ear, whispers, “Don’t let her touch your hair,” before he’s gone.
I shiver from the remnants of his whisper, and then again at the thought of being alone with Merrick and Emily together. That second trail of goose bumps is entirely different and unwelcome near the first.
But it’s the peripheral sight of the box in the corner that gives me purpose. The little kick of can’t stop, won’t stop that I need.
Dinner is mostly bread and cheese and a mixed medley of sautéed vegetables, which Emily says is “a Frenchman’s way.” I don’t know what this means, but I thank Merrick repeatedly for stepping in and taking over most of dinner. I wind up having to remind him about my peanut allergy two separate times as he cooks.
We’re having after-dinner drinks—I’m having water—when I finally build up the courage to say something to Emily.
There’s a running loop in my head about balancing grace and politeness with curiosity, and then there’s an even wider loop around that first loop that’s basically screaming, GET YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED AND SEND YT FEMINISM BARBIE ON HER PINOT NOIR WAY. It’s an effort not to gulp my water but to sip it slowly. “So how long have you been living in the city, Emily?”
Okay. That definitely feels casual. Right?
Jesus.
“Well, after finishing college—”
“Dropping out,” Merrick coughs out.
“Whatever! After dropping out of college, I moved back here and stayed with Merr awhile.”
Interesting.
“So you two are pretty close, then?” Close enough that you’d know he had a secret daughter.
She laughs. “God, no. We’re not close. Merrick is just too nice to tell me no.”
“I see.”
Merrick, who is studiously ignoring us, grunts.
“What were you studying in college?”
“I wasn’t studying, really, but it definitely says biology on my transcript.” Emily laughs too loud as she takes in a mouthful of wine.
“Biology?”
“I wanted to be a doctor. Can you believe that? Me. A doctor.” More laughter. More wine. And more wine again.
“Oh, wow,” I say. I am very clearly the picture of innocent and interested. “I’ve got a friend doing an internship at Cedars-Sinai. Ever been there?”
“Tasia,” Merrick warns.
But Emily bulldozes forward. “Nah, I hate hospitals. Probably the only reason I haven’t gotten plastic surgery yet.” She turns to Merrick. “Think Mom and Dad are pretty pleased about that one.”
Mom and Dad. Grandparents. “I see.”
Emily giggles.
“What?”
“Nothing, just … when you say ‘I see’ like that, I can totally see how you’re Merrick’s kid.”
“And that wasn’t apparent before?”
“Not like that, but, I mean. Merrick owns one pair of jeans and they’re covered in paint.”
“I own more than one pair of jeans, Emily.”
“Mm-hmm. I just can’t really see him being somebody’s dad. When he told me about you, I laughed, like, totally just laughed in his face.” She turns to him. “Still totally sorry about that, Merr. I’m an asshole. Anyway, he got all serious and then I had to get serious back and finally I believed him when he said you wanted to meet me.”
She makes it seem like I was begging to meet her. Like she’s that important to me.
Her answers? Those are important—or, they were. Not anymore.
It’s obvious she had nothing to do with the box. I even left it out on top of the bookshelf and she hasn’t glanced at it once. I don’t even feel that sad about it. I think I kinda knew it wasn’t her dig. If I’d taken my time and sat down and really thought about it, I’d have realized that. Just based on what Merrick has said about Emily.
Also, I mean, okay: Emily hasn’t even been in the country the past two months.
Plus, like, Emily is one sandwich short of a picnic basket. There’s no way she schemed all this and sent me that box. There’s no way in hell or heaven.
And I’m not, like, the queen of reading people or anything, but this doesn’t seem like an elaborate lie or a cover-up. She seems more invested in her split ends or how her wineglass suddenly somehow got empty again.
“Yeah, yeah, I was real stoked to meet you. And my grandparents.”
Merrick, who is mostly not paying attention to us, speaks up again. Another warning. “Tasia Lynn.”
He almost sounds like a dad. Huh. Interesting.
“Oh, Mom and Dad will love your stupid guts, I promise.” Emily tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and then, after pondering the risk, she does the same to mine.
I flinch away but not quick enough.
“So, my grandparents. How lovely, what are they like, when can we meet?” All of this
I say louder than is necessary. I enunciate every syllable and make sure to death stare at Merrick for the last part so he knows the ball is, ultimately, in his court.
“Soon, Tasia. Soon. Just give me some time. We have time, let’s take it.”
I recline, bang the back of my head against the rocking chair I’m sitting in. And then I do it again, because I can and because it makes Merrick uncomfortable to see me simmering with a little bit of anger.
Mamma would have snapped her fingers and given me A Look. Would’ve cleared that up right away.
Daddy would have kissed my forehead and walked away from me without another word or acknowledgment.
“Fine, fine. Ix-nay on the meeting the and-gray-arents-pay.”
“Well, I mean. I’m sure you’ll get to soon,” Emily says. She stands, searches the floor for her other very ugly strappy sandal heel, and ultimately finds it under the couch. “Anyway, Mom and Dad will probably flip once they find out.”
“You haven’t told them about me yet, Merrick?”
It’s as though he’s been caught in the middle of some playful mischief. He is a boy, chastened.
Tristan and I used to watch The Andy Griffith Show with our Poppa. His reaction reminds me of it. All big exaggerated gestures and forced nonchalance. It’s just not the kind of response you expect from an adult man meant to be your dad, TBH.
I don’t exactly have any reason to doubt his word, so when he says, “Not yet. But I will. Patience, young Padawan,” I accept the fact that he just changed the subject.
Head cocked to one side, I say, “Is that a rapper?”
“Oh, my God.”
Emily laughs behind her hand. “You’d call them Mémé and Pépé. That’s what Kai calls them. That’s what all the neighborhood kids call them. I mean,” she rushes to add, “you don’t have to call them that. They’re your grandparents. You call them whatever the hell you want.”
“I see. So, where do they live?”
“Porter Ranch,” Emily says.
So not far from Merrick’s side of the Valley. It wouldn’t be difficult to get to their place for dinner or coffee or a quick HERE’S YOUR LONG-LOST GRANDDAUGHTER drop-in.
Just before Emily leaves, she stretches, promises Merrick she’s “good to drive,” and then whispers, “Welcome to the family,” in my ear as she hugs me goodbye.
And just when I think she’s not so bad, she turns around and yells from her car, “I always wanted a little sister!”
Jesus Christ.
Kai definitely owes me reparations for this.
Chapter Eighteen
That night, after exactly three minutes in the shower before the water goes cold thanks to Merrick’s marathon shower prior, I sit on my bed and text Josiah about what happened. Tell him I’m leaving Westview, that I am no longer on the team.
That part, the part where I’m going to lose what I think are all the best pieces of me, is the thing I hate most. I’m giving up so much to escape all this hurt my parents have practically covered me in, and it’s finally occurring to me that escape comes at a cost. That there is a fee for answers. For untangling the headphone cord of lies Mamma and Daddy have let me live.
My phone starts to blare in my hand. It’s Siah on FaceTime, so I answer quickly.
I hold the phone in front of me. “Hey—”
“Is this a joke?” he says. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Kidding about which part?” I didn’t tell him about my parents, but I’m sure he’ll find out.
“All of it, Taze. Obviously. You pulling out of school and not being on the team? What are we supposed to do in the middle of the season!”
“Would you please stop yelling like this isn’t also a thing that affects me?”
He’s sitting in the massive computer chair I know is meant to accompany the desk in his room but somehow always ends up not near that desk. He pushes off against the wall and goes rolling across the room. “I know. Sorry.”
His phone beeps and he pulls it down to look at the notification.
My hair is starting to air-dry. I should really pineapple and wrap it before that happens. “Who’s that?”
“Nobody,” he says. Then, “Kat.” But it’s a lie. I know it is, because Kat got grounded last week for failing that Trig test and her parents took away her car and her phone. Savages. He continues, “Wanna Skype the guys? I know they wanna talk to you about this too.”
“I guess.” I readjust so that I’m hanging upside down on my bed.
“You guess?”
“Jeez, Siah. Yeah. I guess. I just don’t need any more people yelling at me for something that isn’t my fault.”
He rolls his eyes. I almost don’t catch it because he spins himself in a circle again.
We end our FaceTime call just before his spinning makes me dizzy enough to vom, and switch to Skype.
I hate this. I hate this, I hate this, I hate—
“Yo! Teez, is this for real?” Israel says. From where his camera’s positioned, I can tell his bedroom is a mess. It always is. “You’re really leaving Westview?”
I shrug. “I’m sorry.”
“Jesus, don’t apologize, T. Just … what’s going on? You’re leaving right at the brink of senior year. That sounds sus to me.”
“I know.”
“So, not gonna tell us what’s going on, then?”
“Is it money?” Josiah says.
Westview is a pricey school, but no. Even if my parents went bankrupt today, they’d still have enough in assets and property to milk for a while.
Merrick could never afford Westview.
“No,” I say. “Jesus. I just. I moved in with some other family in the Valley and they’re too far for me to commute all the way to Westview.”
Is scratches the back of his neck before saying, “The Jeep would never survive that trek daily.”
“‘Zactly,” I say.
“All right. So why’d you move in with this family, then, if it’s gonna upset your whole dig? Senior year, football. Friends who actually put up with you.”
“Bite me, Josiah, you love me like the little sister your impotent dad will never give you, so take that to the bank.”
Siah grumbles, “My dad’s not impotent.”
Israel laughs. “There is literally no other group of dudes on the planet who would get that kind of joke from you, Tasia. You’re making a huge mistake by trading us in.”
“I know I am.”
I make some dumb excuse about having to end the call because Merrick wants me to take the trash out. It’s a flimsy cop-out and I don’t even care very much. There’s just not really room in our friendship for me to unload something like this on them.
Girls are only accepted as “one of the guys” in a group of dudes so long as said girls swear never to feel emotions out loud around said dudes.
But I feel so bad about lying to them that after we end the Skype call, I actually do take the trash out. Once I make it down the stairs of the garage apartment, around the side, I swing the bag up and into the big blue dumpster.
On the way back, I find Tristan standing in front of the stairs that lead to Merrick’s.
“How’d you get here?” is the first thing I say to him.
He doesn’t answer.
“How’d you get Merrick’s address?”
Still nothing.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Great, just. Why are you here, Trist, if you’re just going to ignore every question I’m asking?”
He shakes his head, and I can feel it—literally feel the anger and the frustration. Can see the disappointment coating his entire self.
I abandoned him. That’s why he’s here. He said nothing had to change and I went and voluntarily changed everything.
“Trist. I’m sorry, ‘kay? C’mon.” I reach for him but he steps back.
And then, without saying a single thing, he turns around and walks down the street.
I know exactly what this was. I abandoned him
first, and so he needed to have the final word. He needed to be the one to abandon me.
And this feeling, I hate that I did it to him first. That I maybe made him feel like his name sat in my stomach, left there to rot.
I’m on the phone with Slim as I park my car in the ECR High parking lot. I shouldn’t be, because this school is huge and it’ll be like I’m a lost little friendless freshman all over again; I need to focus so I don’t end up walking into a classroom thinking it’s a bathroom, or get trapped in a custodial closet, which is an actual thing that happened to Tristan once.
“I don’t understand why you can’t just drive here. Westview High isn’t that far.”
Yeah, it is. “Merrick doesn’t want me to have to commute for that amount of time just to get to school every day.” The Jeep definitely couldn’t handle too many months of that. It’s two freeways and I’d be driving during peak rush-hour times. Early morning and right after football practice, around five p.m.
Football. Jesus. That reminds me, I gotta talk to the coach or the athletics director or whoever.
“The guys here are way better-looking.” Here they seem to understand girls don’t appreciate the hair-like-2010-Justin Bieber look.
“… Really? Like, better-looking how?”
“Yeah. Like, I don’t know. They all have that heroin-chic redness under the eyes. That’s probably it.” I lock my car and then look around for signage or a map or something to tell me where I’m going. First stop, admin office for my class schedule.
“Totally your type,” she says.
I’ve never really had “a type.” In the past, I’ve been able to appreciate aesthetic here and there, but never enough of one kind to label A Type. My thoughts stray to Kai’s fractured, two-toned eyes and wonder for the span of a second if my type is just … Kai.
My shoulder bag is pretty much empty, but I heft it as high on my shoulder as it’ll go. “My type? Dudes who don’t sleep a lot?”
“No. Drug addicts.”
“Fuck off. I have to find the office. I’ll call you at lunch as I eat my sandwich from a lonely bathroom stall.”
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