Faking Perfect (23 page)

“And down here,” my father said, veering off into a residential section of town, “is our house.”

Obviously, it was the newer, more elite part of town. The houses were all big and modern, each of them endowed with a one or two-car garage. Less than a minute later, we pulled into the wide, paved driveway of a large, two-story brick house. Wordlessly, we climbed out of the truck.

Thunder rumbled in the distance as Eric carried my suitcase to the front door. I stood off to the side as he turned the knob and nudged open the door with his hip. The moment we stepped inside the airy foyer, a small figure darted past and I heard a loud whisper.

“Mommy, she’s
here
.”

Eric placed my suitcase on the floor and laughed. “That would be Jonah.”

Before I had a chance to process it all, a thin, blond woman emerged from the hallway in front of us, her hand resting on the shoulder of a cute brown-haired boy. The boy—my little brother Jonah—stared at me unabashedly for a moment and then presented me with a wide, gap-toothed smile. I couldn’t help but smile back.

“This is Lexi,” my father said just as a little blond girl inched into the foyer and sidled up to her mom, half hiding behind her.

Willow.
I smiled at her, too, but unlike her brother, she preferred to hold back and assess me from afar.

“Lexi, this is Renee, Willow, and Jonah. They’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”

Renee squeezed her son’s shoulder and walked over to me. “It’s so nice to meet you, Lexi,” she said, hugging me briefly and then pulling back to stare at my face.

It had to be weird for her, seeing her husband’s features on some girl she’d never met. Some girl who had previously existed only in his past. And a sordid past, at that. Still, she seemed genuinely happy to have me in her house.

“Will we give her the tour?” Eric asked, and Jonah started jumping up and down.

This one’s a little firecracker,
I thought as he grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the hallway. He was the tour guide, apparently.

We covered the main floor first, trekking through each room as if the house was for sale and we were prospective buyers. The inside was just like the outside—neat and tasteful and modern, yet comfortable and homey. Next, Jonah led us downstairs to the finished basement, which was less neat but still impressive. The family room was a total kid zone, toys and video games and beanbag chairs scattered everywhere.

“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

M
y 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 different, 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.