Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (16 page)

“I work so hard for you—all of you …,” he tells Kate. “This is a really good move for me. Less travel. More money. I get out from under that lunatic Dave.”

Kate is watching my father with complete attention. She is interested in the way he does everything.

“How much more money?” Kate asks.

“Well, more. Let’s leave it at that.” My father smiles. He loves this.

“Do they have Wells Fargo in Connecticut?” Kate asks.

“I’m not sure,” my father says.

“Because I can’t go if I have to change banks. When you have to change banks, there are fees. They told me that when I opened my account.”

“I’m leaving,” I say. “None of this really concerns me, anyway. I’m not a part of this family. I never have been.” I look straight at my dad.

“Jesus Christ, Antonia, can’t you think of a better game than that?” my mother says. She is holding her head, like it hurts.

I walk past the tortilla machine that is stamping air because no one has fed it any of those dough balls. I walk past the sombrero filled with peppermint candies. I walk out the door.

In the parking lot I find our blue Honda with my dad’s suitcase in the back. Elizabeth is sitting in the backseat. Her face is buried in her hands. She is sobbing like I have never seen her cry before.

I don’t say anything. I sit there watching a man load his groceries into the cab of his metallic green truck. I am angry—angry at myself. I should never have believed my dad. Never.

When we get home, Elizabeth goes straight to her room. I scoop up Pistachio, walk into the hall, and knock on Elizabeth’s door. She has her Do Not Disturb, Dancer in Training sign on the door.

“Who is it?” she calls out.

“Me,” I say.

“Enter,” she says.

I open the door a crack and poke my head in. Elizabeth is sitting on her bed, needlepointing. She is working on a screen that has two pink satin ballet slippers painted on. The ribbons from the slippers spell the words “Strive for Excellence” in curvy pink handwriting. “Can I bring Pistachio in?” I ask.

“Just don’t put him down,” she says without looking up from her work. I stare at her room. It is so
pink, it makes me feel as if I’m looking through pink-tinted glasses. When Elizabeth likes something, she likes it all the way.

“Think Mom will stop him?”

Elizabeth blows air out of her mouth. “Has she ever?

“No. But I don’t think she wants to move.”

Elizabeth shrugs. “She’s sick of rentals. She wants her own house.”

“We need to do something,” I say.

She shrugs again.

“Any ideas?” I ask.

Elizabeth shakes her head. She doesn’t look up.

I look at Elizabeth. She is sad, but there is something else. Something fishy. It isn’t like her to give up. “What’s going on?” I ask.

She jerks the needle through the screen, but says nothing.

“Come on!”

She looks up at me. “If you tell Kate, I’ll kill you,” she says.

“Tell Kate what?”

“Promise on Pistachio’s life. Touch him and say it, but don’t let him down. I don’t want him stinking up my room,” Elizabeth commands.

I put my left hand on Pistachio’s back and my right hand up in the air. “I promise on Pistachio’s life,” I say.

“I’m going to stay with Miss Marion Margo until after
The Nutcracker
and then maybe the next year. And then who knows, maybe I’ll stay with her forever!

“What about me?”

“You don’t need to stay here the way I do.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, please…because of Harrison? I’m sure there are people who smell like salami sandwiches in Connecticut, too. Maybe you’ll even find someone better. Someone who smells like bologna.”

“Shut up,” I say.

“I’m sorry, but I have a career to consider,” she says.

“A career?”

“I’m going to be a ballerina.”

I groan and shake my head. “Your neck’s too short.”

“Shut up,” she says.

“Shut up yourself,” I say. I know I should leave now, but somehow I don’t want to. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe she’s serious. “When are you going to tell Mom?” I ask.

“I’m not going to. I’m going to have Miss Margo do it.”

This makes me crazy, mostly because I see how clever it is. My mom will never say no to Miss Marion Margo. She thinks Miss Marion Margo is an utterly perfect human being. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need you, anyway, because my real parents are coming any day now,” I say.

“Oh, right. Just like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny,” Elizabeth says.

“Fine.” I shrug. “Don’t believe me, then. But they are coming tomorrow morning at ten,” I say. My heart
is beating in my head. I am shaking, I am so angry. Even so, I know this is the stupidest thing in the world to say.

Elizabeth makes a rapid fire
hut-hut-hut
sound in the back of her throat. “That’ll be the day.”

“They are…so just shut your ugly face!” I storm out of her room and slam the door so hard her Dancer-in-Training sign falls off. I go to my room and blast my door, too. Then I put Pistachio on the bed. He is shaking and looking at me. He hates it when I get angry. It is the one thing in the world that terrifies him. I whisper to him and pet him over and over in the same spot. When he is calmed down, I get out my real parents’ book:

Dear Real Mom
,

I don’t get it. Why do we move so much more than other people? Why? It’s not as if Dad works for the army or something. How come his jobs never last long? How come he gets a job and then decides it isn’t THE ONE? Why are they always wrong? And how come my mom always goes along with it? How come she never says no? And why didn’t my dad tell me the truth in the first place? Why did he lie about where the job was? That was lousy. It was.

Love
,

Ant and Pistachio

P.S. I told Elizabeth you would be showing up tomorrow. I know you’re not going to be there because you don’t exactly exist to anyone but me. But Pistachio thinks maybe you will come. You know how he is.

I
am sitting on the front steps of my house. My two books are in my lap. The one full of photos of me and artwork. The other with letters to my real parents. They are covered in a patchwork of rickrack, buttons, and lace.

I also have a backpack full of stuff: my orange jumper with all the zippers, my plaid pants, my green toothbrush, and my blown-glass deer babies. Plus I have food for Pistachio because he’s supposed to have this special kind that’s hard to find. And I have Pistachio’s leash and a chew toy for him. He’s asleep in a patch of sun over by the mailbox. He is like a lizard. He loves to sleep in the sun.

It is Sunday morning. My dad and my mom are sleeping late. Kate is watching TV and Elizabeth is in the kitchen. I want to say good-bye, because I want them all to know I am leaving. But I haven’t yet.

I don’t have a watch, so I go peek in the kitchen to see what time it is. It is ten minutes until ten o’clock. Your Highness is at the counter eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. She seems to have forgotten I said my real
parents are coming this morning. I don’t remind her. I don’t want her hovering, waiting to make fun of me. Besides, I haven’t exactly figured out what I’m doing. Maybe I’m running away.

“Have you even talked to Miss Marion Margo about going to live with her? Does she even know about this plan?” I ask.

Your Highness’s head jerks up from her bowl. “Will you shut up about that? God, you have a big mouth!”

I shrug. “Kate’s watching TV, she couldn’t hear if I screamed in her ear,” I say.

“She better not find out. You swore on Pistachio, and that’s all I have to say.” Your Highness shakes her cereal spoon at me.

“So, have you?” I whisper.

“Why do you care?”

“Just curious,” I say, though I am more than curious. I can’t stand that Elizabeth has figured out a way to stay and I haven’t. It drives me nuts that she is even finding a new family better than me. I go back outside and sit on the steps. They are hard cement and my butt is tired of sitting here. It’s so stupid that I am doing this. But I can’t get myself to get up and go.

The lady across the street is planting flowers. She is wearing a floppy green hat that ties under her chin and stretch shorts. She waves at me. I wave back, though I hope she doesn’t come over and ask a lot of questions. I don’t feel like coming up with some big story to explain what I’m doing.

How long am I going to wait? If I’m going to leave, I should do it now. I pull my jacket out of my backpack
and sit down on it. The step is a little softer this way.

The lady across the street goes inside. I’m glad she hasn’t asked me what I’m doing, but I’m sorry she’s gone inside, because now I have nothing to watch.

Now my dad comes out. He’s carrying a couple of golf clubs, a tee, and two balls. He will probably practice his swing on the lawn. He doesn’t get to go golfing very often, but he practices his swing a lot.

“It looks like you’re at a bus stop there, Antonia,” he says. He slips a golf ball in his pocket. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’ve been waiting for the last hour for nothing?”

I nod. I’m surprised he knows I’ve been here that long. But I’m happy about it, too. I hate to be invisible.

My father sets a tee in the grass, places a ball on it, then practices hitting the ball without ever actually touching it. I wonder why he does this. If I were him, I’d want to give the ball a good whack. I’d want to see how far it would go.

Now he’s putting down one club and picking up another. He goes back and forth between clubs, still not hitting the ball.

“Are you going to hit that thing or what?” I ask.

“Antonia,” he says, looking over at me. He shakes his head and groans as if he’s sick of me. “If this is some kind of running-away theatrics …” He waves the golf club at me.

“If I were running away, why would I be sitting here?” I ask. This is a good question. I haven’t exactly figured this out myself.

He tips the metal end of his golf club against the ball and seems to try to forget I am here.

After a few minutes, he sighs and looks up at me. “You know, I came out here to hit a few balls and clear my head. I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now, Antonia.”

“Take vitamins.”

“What?”

“Take vitamins, then you’ll have more energy.”

“Very funny.” His eye tracks the ball.

I watch him as he taps the ball. Once, twice, three times until it settles in the little dirt hole he dug.

“Not bad, huh, Antonia,” he says, then seems surprised to see me sitting with my bag of stuff on the front step of our house.

“I’m going to get your mother.” He sets his club against the tree and begins to walk toward the house.

“Wait, Dad! No! Please wait,” I call.

He stops. His shoulders move as if they have heard what I said. He turns around.

“Why do you take Mom’s side all the time now?” I ask.

“It’s pretty clear the problems are yours, Antonia. Not hers.”

“Well, that’s because you hear everything from her. Don’t you ever want to know my side?”

His chin gets stiff. His shoulders tighten. He flips his hand at me as if I am onstage and he is introducing
me. I hate the way he does this. But I don’t want him to get Mom, so I keep talking.

“She doesn’t treat me the same as Elizabeth and Kate. She doesn’t. It’s like she loves being their mother and she hates being mine. She’d be happier if I didn’t live here. She would.”

When I say this last my nose feels tight and prickly. I’m not crying, but tears seem to have backed up into my nose.

He shakes his head. “You know, Antonia, you get what you put out in life. Elizabeth and Kate don’t give trouble, so they don’t get trouble. You give your mom trouble, she gives you trouble. You stop giving her trouble, she’ll stop giving you trouble. It isn’t so complicated as you make it.”

“What about the opposite? What about if she stops giving me trouble, I’ll stop giving her trouble. What about if she loved me, I’d love her. Why do you assume the problem starts with me?”

“Look, Antonia, I don’t want to debate which came first, the chicken or the egg.”

“How come everything I think is too much trouble for you to talk about?”

“I
am
talking about it.”

“You just said you didn’t want to have this discussion with me.”

“What do you want from me, Antonia?”

I think about this. “Remember that time you took just me and Kate camping, and then in the middle of the night you saw a spider and got really scared and I had to hold your hand, and then we got to go to the
Holiday Inn and eat French toast with boysenberry syrup?”

“Yeah.” He smiles a little. Not the smooth, charming smile. The funny smile I love.

“That was fun. When can we do that again? You’re always working now. It’s like you only have energy for me if I do exactly what you want. You only have space for a perfect daughter. You don’t have room for me.

“Antonia, I do the best I can.”

“Why do we have to move again, Dad? Why don’t you get a new job here?”

My father makes a short angry noise, part groan, part grunt. “Antonia, I’ve been through this a hundred times with Elizabeth already. I’m not talking about the move anymore. I’m just not.”

He heads toward the house. The door bangs shut behind him.

Inside, I hear him call my mother. My mother says something, but I don’t hear what it is. “I tried to ignore her,” my father says. I strain to make out the rest. I can’t, but from the tone of it I know my father is telling on me. His voice sounds just like Kate or Elizabeth when they report to my mom about me.

Now my mother appears. She is dressed, but she hasn’t fixed her hair or put on her makeup. She doesn’t usually go outside looking this way. Not even to the front yard.

“What in the world are you doing, Antonia?” she asks.

“I’m waiting.”

“Yes, I can see that, but what for?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t go to the zoo today, do you?”