The Almost Truth (15 page)

My mind tried to process what he was saying. “I know I asked you to help, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted you going off and calling people without talking to me. Chase told me that the McKenna family feels that she used their tragedy to be some big media whore. He said they’re really upset that she’s coming.”

“I thought we covered the fact that the McKennas aren’t your long-lost real family.”

“It doesn’t mean that I want anyone to get hurt.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s not like I’m hooking their body parts up to a car battery. They don’t even have to talk to her.” Brendan ran his hands through his hair. “You asked me to help you with this. Now you’re pissed because I did. I don’t get it. I don’t get you at all. You were the one who wanted to be with me,
and then when we slept together, you started avoiding me. Then you tell me that you don’t want to be with me and that I should move on, and when you think I’m hooking up with Rebecca, you’re ticked. You ask me for my opinion on your princess fantasy, and when I give it to you, you’re angry with that. I don’t know what the hell you want anymore.”

“I don’t know either,” I said softly.

“Tell you what, call me when you figure it out.” Brendan turned around and headed back the way we came. He got a few feet away and stopped. “Goodall is coming in a couple days. She’s prepared to pay up. You want to go to California, you want to have your life do-over, then she’s your chance.” He didn’t wait to hear what I might say. He spun around and walked away.

M
y dad stood over the grill, supervising the steaks. He was wearing my mom’s apron with the outline of a woman’s body in a pink bikini on the front. My mom had insisted on a tablecloth for the picnic table and was pouring glasses of iced tea for her and me. My dad was already on his third beer. He looked out over the yard like he was king of the castle. A trailer castle.

It would have been easier for my dad if we had moved a lot. Most con artists move towns frequently to avoid being known by the local cops, but for whatever reason my dad wanted to stay here and put down roots. Well, as rooted as you can be when your house has no foundation.

“How do you want your steak?” Dad asked when I came out carrying the potato salad and a stack of napkins.

“Medium rare,” I said.

He wrinkled up his face. “How can you eat that? Pretty soon you’ll tell me you like your steak still mooing. If you’re going to eat meat, make sure it’s dead first. I’ll cook it well done like your mom’s and mine.”

I slid the potato salad onto the table. I had no idea why he bothered to ask me what I wanted if he wasn’t interested in the answer.

Mom looked down at the table. “Oh, Sadie, can you put the salad in a serving dish? It’s so much nicer that way.”

I glanced down at the plastic tub of salad I’d picked up from the grocery store. “If I stick it in another dish, it’s just going to be more to wash up later,” I pointed out. “I didn’t think we were exactly going for Buckingham Palace standards.”

“Your mom wants a serving dish, get her a dish,” Dad instructed in a don’t-argue-with-me voice. “And bring me back another beer.” He looked at my mom. “And a glass.” He tapped his deck of cards on the side of the grill and flipped over the top card. “Queen of hearts. I should have known.”

My mom giggled. Parents could be disgusting. I ignored them and went back inside to get the dish, a beer,
and
a glass. Of course they didn’t care: I was going to be the one stuck doing the dishes later.

My phone was sitting on the kitchen counter. I took a quick peek. There was another call from Chase. He’d left a few messages. I didn’t want to call him back until I’d figured out what to do. I didn’t need any other information from him to make
the con work. Goodall was already on her way. The only reason to stay in touch with him was because I liked him. And what was the point? He didn’t know the real me, and if he did, he wouldn’t be interested. It wasn’t exactly a relationship with a big future. It sounded perfectly logical, but it didn’t change how I felt. I wanted to call him back because I liked him. As much as I wanted to pretend it was just about the con, I knew that wasn’t true. I needed to figure out either how to use the information on Goodall or how to get him to like the real me before I called.

Brendan hadn’t called. My fingers ran over the keypad. I could call him, but I wasn’t sure what to say to him, either. No wonder Brendan didn’t think I was making any sense lately. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing, let alone how to explain it to anyone else.

“Dinner’s on!” Dad called out. “That beer isn’t getting any colder, so you might as well bring it out.”

When I sat back at the picnic table, I could tell my dad had cooked the steaks past well done and into charcoaled shoe leather territory. I pushed mine around on my plate, hoping if I coated it with steak sauce it might be moist enough to be swallowed without sucking all the saliva out of my throat. What a shame we didn’t do more of these family dinners. I’d forgotten how much fun they could be.

“Eat up,” Dad said. “We don’t want leftovers if we’re leaving.”

I dropped my fork. “What do you mean, leaving?”

My mom lightly punched my dad in the shoulder. “It was
supposed to be a surprise. I thought we’d take a family vacation this weekend, pop up to Lake Roosevelt. They have that Coulee Dam there, and your dad can do some fishing while you and I sit on the beach and soak up some sun.” My mom was as excited as if we were planning a posh European vacation instead of planning to sleep in a tent being consumed by mosquitoes. She and I had completely different ideas of fun.

“I can’t lie in the sun. I burn,” I reminded her. Both of my parents are the kind of people who turn a nice golden brown in the time it takes them to walk from the trailer to the car. I, on the other hand, am the kind of person who tends to turn bright lobster red unless I slather myself with SPF sixty million.

“My first plan was Portland, but your dad isn’t allowed to leave the state.”

“The probation officer I pulled this time is a real dick. He’ll only let me take the weekend as a break, and then I’m supposed to be doing a job search.” Dad shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the injustice of the justice system.

“I guess he figures you’ve sort of had a two-year break already,” I said. My dad and regular employment were not very well acquainted. “I can’t go away this weekend. I’ve got plans.” My mom’s face fell and I could see my dad’s expression starting to harden. “I promised to work that big party at the hotel,” I lied. “I can’t back out on Thomas.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through with the scam on the nanny, but I at least wanted to stay in town so I had the option. Chase would also leave town after
this weekend. I wasn’t prepared to accept the idea of never seeing him again. I might not have any idea how we would make a real relationship work, but that didn’t mean I was ready to give up on the idea. “Maybe we could go some other time,” I suggested. Some other time, like after I was enrolled in school and living far away.

My dad shifted in his seat. “I don’t want to be around this weekend.”

“You could go without me,” I offered.

“If the whole family doesn’t go, it doesn’t much count as a family vacation,” my mom pointed out. “We could go next weekend, I guess.”

“I really didn’t want to stick around this weekend with all those people arriving,” my dad grumbled. “Stan was telling me on the ferry that a bunch of TV types have already started arriving. The whole place is going to be thick with them.”

I raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like my dad tended to hang out at the hotel beach, where he would have to jockey for a place to lay his towel. Not to mention I didn’t think the media was going to be hounding him for an interview. “I’m looking forward to it. They say some celebrities might show up. I think it will be fun.”

“You always did love a party,” Mom said. “I remember how excited you were for your first birthday. You were crazy for that Dora the Explorer. When she would come on the TV, you would squeal. We did a whole Dora-themed party. Do you remember that?” she asked.

“No.” I couldn’t recall having any interest in Dora, let alone a full-on girl crush on her.

“We had paper hats and paper plates with her face on it. Your dad made sure we ordered a giant sheet cake that had Dora and . . . what was that monkey’s name?”

“Can’t say I recall,” my dad said, scratching his chin with his beer.

“Something Hispanic, I think. Diego, maybe? Or was that the name of her other friend?” I could see my mom searching her mental database for the lost monkey name. “I remember that he wore those giant red boots. So we stuck that sheet cake down in front of you, and before I could snap a picture, you slammed your hands right down on that cake. I think you wanted to hug Dora.”

“That, or she hated the monkey,” my dad suggested.

Mom laughed. “You smeared that frosting all over everything. You had it in your hair and nose. I think I found some cleaning out your ears like a day or two later. I can’t believe you don’t remember that.”

“I was only one.” The more my mom talked about the party, the more nervous it made me. It was too Disney Technicolor perfect. “Do you remember that party, Dad?”

He jumped slightly and his eyes slid away from mine. “Not sure.”

“It was my first birthday, and it sounds like Mom threw quite the party,” I said. Mom was nodding at him.

“Course I remember. Frosting everywhere.” He looked down
at his steak and then attacked it with his knife and fork as if he was afraid it might be about to make a run for it. The poor thing had already been cremated; I couldn’t imagine the steak had any chance of getting away.

I looked around the table in search of an excuse to leave. I seized my mom’s iced tea glass. “Let me get you some more.”

I slammed the screen door behind me and scooped up my phone. I typed Dora the Explorer into the search engine and pulled up the Wikipedia link. All I needed were the basics. First off, the monkey’s name was Boots. Secondly, Dora first went on the air several years after I was born. No way I had a Dora-themed first birthday unless I was psychic. No Dora, no Boots the monkey, and no frosting in my nose. The whole thing was a lie. My mom tended to make up stories when she didn’t like the truth, which made me believe that whatever type of first birthday I’d had, it hadn’t gone well.

What really freaked me out was the way my dad reacted. Usually when Mom was in the middle of one of her history revisions, he would meet my eyes and wink, letting me know he knew better. This time he went along with her without a look. I wasn’t sure what he had to hide, but there was something.

T
here is something very depressing about storage units. They’re crammed full of stuff that people don’t want to throw away but don’t usually need. We’re a nation of people who love our stuff, even stuff we no longer use.

We’d lost the key to the padlock on ours so many times that my mom finally hooked it to a giant troll doll key chain. Now we never lost it, even though it was ugly enough to want to. The lock clicked open, and I slid the corrugated metal door up. I sighed when I saw the stacks of dusty boxes. I had the feeling this idea was going to be a huge waste of time, but after my mom’s latest lie, I had to at least try.

The storage facility boasted how everything was temperature controlled and well maintained, but I still wished I’d brought some rubber gloves. If I were a bug or mouse, this is where I
would live. A giant mouse box high-rise. I kicked the bottom of the boxes to see if anything would scurry out.

“I come in peace,” I called out to any hidden creatures. “If you leave now, we won’t have any trouble. But if you wait and then run across my bare hands, I will kill you.” I kicked the box again to show any possible rodents that I meant business. When nothing happened, I pulled the first box down and peered inside. It seemed to be full of kitchen gadgets, a blender that I was pretty sure didn’t work, chipped measuring cups, cookie cutters, and a stack of recipes torn from the paper and, as far as I could remember, never made.

The next box down was full of books, including one on top on cultivating roses. There were two more boxes up front full of various car parts and tools. The entire storage locker was a fossilized version of our lives. If the box I was looking for was in here, then it was going to be buried at the very back on the bottom. I started stacking boxes in the hallway to clear some space. The dust from the boxes stuck to the sweat on my arms and face. I could taste the grit in my mouth. The last layers of boxes were taped shut.

I peeled the tape off the next-to-last box. Folded on top was the fuzzy bear costume I’d worn for Halloween when I was four or five. Underneath were more of my clothes. As I rustled through the items, I noticed that while my mom had saved a lot, there didn’t seem to be any tiny baby clothing. Everything seemed to be toddler sized. I pushed that box to the side and
peeled the tape off the last box. The first thing I saw was a giant box of Legos. I couldn’t help smiling. I’d been a complete Lego junkie as a kid. Apparently my architect dreams had started young. I pulled open the lid and let my fingers run through the plastic blocks. There was something very satisfying about Legos, the feeling when they locked together. Under the Lego box there were a couple worn picture books. And then I saw the blue fur.

I shoved the books to the side and stared down at Bun Bun. He looked the way I remembered. He was clearly a well-loved stuffed bunny. His white paws and belly were a bit grimy, the powder blue fur had held up a little better. His right eye was loose. I pulled him out of the box. His left ear was nearly smooth. The nap of the fake fur was worn down from the near constant habit I had of rubbing it against my mouth. Clearly I was a kid with anxiety issues. My parents probably should have given me some Xanax instead of a stuffed toy.

I sniffed him. There was a hint of a peanut butter smell, but that appeared to emanate from a crusty patch on his back that quite likely was an ancient smear of Jif. I sat down on the concrete floor of the storage locker. It had seemed important to find Bun Bun, but now that I had, I wasn’t sure why. He had been a long-standing, faithful friend, but at the end of the day he was still a stuffed rabbit. It was unlikely he was going to spring to life and whisper the secrets of my childhood to me.