The Ruining (3 page)
“I’d better let you get some rest,” I told her. “I can try on the others tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “Here, why don’t you just take them to your room? You can throw out whatever doesn’t fit.”
“Is there a donation center nearby? Maybe I can just do that.”
“Sure,” Libby said carelessly. “Whatever. We’ll look one up in the morning.” It was odd, the way she’d so easily forgotten how it felt not to have enough. How something cute from the thrift store could be enough to light up a whole afternoon.
Libby turned from the closet room, waiting to flick off the overhead light until I’d gathered up all of the clothes. She didn’t offer to help. But why would she? I chastised myself. She was being so generous. And I was being critical. Too critical. Just because she knew a little more about me than I felt comfortable with? I took a deep breath and followed her into the hall.
Libby turned to me, a strange expression on her face. “Is everything okay, Annie?” I had to tell her about Lissa.
“There’s something you should know,” I said to her.
“Okay.” She waited. We’d reached the end of the hall that led out of the master wing; it was now or never. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fine.”
“I had a sister,” I said finally, my words spilling out in a rush. “She died.”
“Yes, I know.”
“How could you know?” Her words stung me. I felt a cold panic sweep over me; my legs were suddenly weak. “What do you know?”
“Annie, relax.” Libby’s voice was all honey, warm and soothing. “Lissa’s obituary popped up during an Internet search, when I was researching you. It was right there; it wasn’t that hard to find. I’m so sorry,” she told me, pulling me into a hug. She wrapped her arms around me, and she felt strong and protective, in a motherly way I hadn’t felt in a long time. “I didn’t want to bring it up, because I know how difficult it must be for you.”
“But you don’t know everything,” I said into her shoulder, struggling out of her grasp.
“Then what?” She looked at me expectantly, her eyes bright and concerned.
“It was my fault,” I whispered. I’d never said the words out loud. “She asked me to come play with her, and I brushed her off. I wanted to keep reading. And then fifteen minutes later, she was dead. If I’d gone, it never would have happened.”
“It’s not your fault,” Libby said. I nodded, swallowing hard. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t make Libby think I was weak or unstable or anything other than capable. I couldn’t ruin the best thing I had.
“No,” she said, more sharply then. She tilted my chin up, forcing me to look directly at her. “It is not your fault. And if I think you’re thinking otherwise, I’m going to be very angry. Self-pity is a vice, Annie. It will only weigh you down.” I blinked. I’d never expected this reaction. It was something like anger, but not the kind I was expecting. I felt weak and drained. My whole body felt limp and feverish. All of a sudden I craved sleep with every ounce of me.
“Don’t you see how wonderful this is for you, Annie?” Libby asked, her hands still resting on my shoulders. As the kindness in her voice wrapped itself around me, I felt my panic subside, little by little. I felt the blood returning to my brain, my vision clearing. I registered her face, perfect even in its concern, in my line of vision. She gently placed one palm on my cheek. “Walk and I know all your worst things,” she said, “but we still thought you’d be a great fit for our family. That should be a relief to you. You have nothing to hide.”
“I want to leave all that behind me,” I managed finally. “That stuff—I didn’t want to bring it here.” I felt tears welling up in my eyes despite my efforts to keep them in. I didn’t want to cry—I was making such a mess of things, such a horrible mess on only my second day. I couldn’t trust myself for even twenty-four hours not to screw things up.
“And you will,” Libby said firmly. “We are very discreet, Walker and I. You can trust us with your secrets. We would never say anything about your family—about what happened to Lissa”—she paused—“to anyone. So quit crying, darling. This is a very good thing.”
“Okay.” I nodded, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie.
“You don’t wear crying very well,” she noted critically. “Some girls look all vulnerable and sweet when they’re crying, but you look pretty horrendous.” I choke-laughed into the handkerchief, blotting at my eyes.
“Good thing Zoe’s out cold,” I said through my sniffling. “Wouldn’t want to freak her out.”
“No, definitely not,” Libby said with a smile, tightening her sash. “Now go ahead, you’ve got to get some sleep! We both do. By the way, did you finish picking your classes yet?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “I’ll have to get up a little early tomorrow to do it.”
“No way. Let’s get it done now. We can do it quickly if we work together. Where’s the catalog?”
“It’s in my room,” I told her.
“Great. Let’s get moving then. So what do you think of interior design?” She followed me down the hallway until we reached my room, settling herself on the white comforter that covered my elevated bed frame. I brought the catalog up beside her, and she rifled through it until she found what she wanted. She tapped at a black and white course description with her pointer finger. “That’s what I studied, and I loved it. You know I run my own business, right?”
“Yes, from home. You mentioned that in your letters.”
“Well, if you’d researched us as well as we researched you,” Libby said with a grin, “you’d know that my business is incredibly lucrative. Plus super fun. I basically read House Beautiful every day and dillydally on my sketchpad. I mean, okay, there’s a lot more to it than that. But it’s pretty great. And talk about the perfect career with kids. Not that you’re there yet, but someday,” she said with a conspiratorial grin. “I could definitely mentor you, if you wanted. That would be huge on job apps later on.”
“I’d love that,” I told her, genuinely touched. “I really would.”
“Okay then, sign up for your freshman requirements and any interior design courses that leave you free in the late afternoons and evenings; remember, I need you here. It’ll be fun!” she said happily, a glint in her eye. “I’ve never had a protégée. Makes me seem pretty important, right?” I laughed at this—it was fun to see Libby let down her perfect veneer. She was sitting rumpled and cross-legged atop my bed, her hair falling messily from its knot on her neck. I imagined she didn’t let herself relax very often. It felt good to be let in so early.
“Thanks, Libby,” I said carefully. “I really don’t know how to thank you. For all of this.” I gestured toward the pile of clothes that completely covered the arm chair in the corner of my bedroom.
“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Every now and then, you need someone to believe in you. I had someone like that when I was your age. She saved my life. She gave me opportunities. . . .” Libby trailed off then, her face darkening. “Otherwise you wilt. I’m not going to watch you wilt, okay? Not under my roof.”
I couldn’t help it then; I leaned in and hugged her, gripping her awkwardly over our Indian-style perches on the bed.
“All right, all right, I’m outta here,” she laughed. “It’s got to be one o’clock by now.” And then she swept out of the room grandly, as if I hadn’t just been snotting all over her shoulder. As if she hadn’t just told me that the biggest secret of my life, the thing that had weighed on me every day for four years, was forgivable. Something about what she’d said had made me feel lighter. And that was the best gift I’d ever received.
THERE wAs A pARTy my first night at SFSU. “Disorientation” is what they called it, a joking play on the seven-hour freshman orientation we’d had that morning. Normally my weekends would be spent working for the Cohens, but Walker had convinced Libby that I needed a night off to “assimilate.”
“What about assimilating here?” she’d asked a little petulantly, but Walk just smiled a little and kissed her on the forehead, and she let it drop. I was grateful for Walker’s laidback attitude. I was grateful for the way he wrapped his arms around Libby until her type-A tenseness visibly melted away, shedding itself under her husband’s salve. I thanked him inside my head every single time he did it, because it meant more for me than just a night off with my would-be college friends; it was a promise that these relationships, these happy couplings, did exist and might exist for me.
So there were Libby and Walker, nested up in domestic happiness, and there I was, setting off toward the first party of my college career.
“Be careful,” Walk had said when he dropped me off near Main Circle. Just make sure you take a taxi home, no crashing on campus, okay? We need you in the morning by ten. I nodded and waved as I stepped out of the car, wiggling the fingers in my right hand in a semiflirtatious manner that surprised even me. I heard a long whistle behind me as he pulled away, and I turned to meet the sparkling eyes of a girl I vaguely recognized from that morning—she’d smiled broadly at me from near the coffee booth outside the enormous seminar room where orientation had been held.
“Who’s that?” she asked admiringly, tapping one red, patent leather–clad toe on the sidewalk. “You sweatin’ him?” The girl was wearing a black sequined tube top with tight jeans and the patent red heels. She had big gold hoops in her ears, and she wore her blonde hair flipped out at the ends. Her arms were thin and muscular where they folded across her chest, and her shoulders were thrust back confidently. She made me feel simultaneously admiring and painfully drab from where I stood, wearing a simple black tank dress and flip-flops.
“Even better,” she said, whistling. “They don’t make ’em like that anymore, not where I’m from.”
“Where’s that?” I asked shyly. I found the energy she exuded, which seemed to me all hot pink and gold, a little intimidating.
“Kentucky,” she said, pronouncing it like “Kin-tuckee,” emphasis on the kin. “I’m Morgan. You’re that girl who’s into skating, right? I loooove figure skating. Did a little myself ’til I got into gymnastics.” Just then a group of guys in baseball caps and jeans walked by with beer cans in hand. One of them turned and gave Morgan a long stare from head to toe. She grinned at him, and I folded my arms beneath my chest more protectively.
It was true; we’d had to introduce ourselves at freshmen orientation, and for some reason the fact I chose to share was my childhood obsession with figure skating. I’d wanted to be Katya Gordeeva; I’d wanted to have a tragic love story that paralleled hers. But I’d never actually been on the ice, other than in my daydreams. I guess it had been easier than sharing real facts. It was part of my reinvention.
“I haven’t skated in a while,” I told Morgan, shaking her hand. “It was more of a thing I did when I was little.”
“What’s your name again?” she asked distractedly as we began walking side by side toward the apartment complex where Dis-O was being held.
“Annie,” I told her.
“How cute,” she grinned. “As in, Little Orphan?”
“Not too far off.” Maybe she sensed my reluctance to talk, or maybe she was hyped up on the energy of the place, but she pulled out a little leather flask, monogrammed with what looked like her initials, and detached from it two small cups. She poured clear liquid into one and passed it my way, filling the second as I took it. I sniffed the little cup; it smelled like nail polish remover and all the things it burns. It smelled like my mother’s breath in the midafternoon.
“Vodka,” Morgan confirmed for me. “Gordon’s. Cheap ’n’ easy. Only thing I had in my suitcase. Cheers!” We clinked shots and took them. I felt the alcohol searing my throat and felt my muscles tighten against it and worried for a second that I’d throw up. For all of my mom’s habits, I’d never tasted much alcohol myself, other than beer. But this is what college kids do, I told myself as we took a second shot, and then a third, and then walked into a narrow alleyway lined on one side with a fence and on the other with brightly lit apartments, each packed with SFSU students who were dancing on tables, drinking beer upside down from kegs, sipping out of red plastic cups.
“That’s what I’ve been looking forward to,” Morgan yelled, gesturing to a group of shirtless guys in the corner, their sixpacks marked with different letters of the Greek alphabet. “They didn’t grow ’em like that in Kentucky,” she told me.
They hadn’t grown them like that in Detroit, either. The guys I’d grown up with were city-hardened, backward-capwearing, jean-slouching types. They were the kind who idolized Eminem and Proof. Not that I minded; there was something about a bad boy that I found appealing.
Thinking about Detroit guys naturally provoked thoughts of Daniel, the only guy I’d ever kind of dated seriously. Daniel could have been my boyfriend, but about four months in, I didn’t want him to be. I did and I didn’t: I wanted him to kiss me in the front seat of his car, his tongue tasting like Lucky Strikes. I wanted him to cradle my face in his hands and look straight into my eyes the way he did when he was trying to make a point he was especially passionate about. I wanted to walk the ten blocks to his house after school and crawl under his sheets for the brief hour we had alone until his mom got home from work.
But then about four months in, he wanted to come to my place, to learn more about me, to hear about Lissa, to meet my mom and Dean. And it all came crashing down. It had been a fantasy until then: bringing him into my life would never have worked. So I broke it off, wandered through the halls for the last few months of school pretending like I didn’t see him, like I hadn’t once blanked on an American History speech midline, just because his ice-blue eyes had locked on mine.
“Come on,” Morgan said impatiently, tugging me through the crowd on an outdoor patio. She was weaving expertly across the garden area, her tiny frame easily dodging elbows and drinks. She paused and held out her hand for me, and I took it. I felt heady and light and a million times more confident with Morgan’s hand tugging mine along and her magic potion working its way through my blood and into my brain. The chaos was alarming; it was beautiful. Morgan and I shouldered our way into an apartment, and it seemed like the eyes of a dozen guys turned our way, not just hers. It seemed like the first step in my metamorphosis.
Morgan screamed something over the music. I smiled as though I knew what she was saying—it didn’t matter that I didn’t, because in that moment I would have agreed to anything she suggested. We finally found a little open spot near the kitchen, a place to stand without being knocked around. A tall, broad-shouldered guy with pink in his eyes where there should have been white came up to us, handing us each a red cup by way of a greeting.
“Thanks,” I managed, sipping from the top of the cup after Morgan did the same.
“Sure. You ladies freshmen?” But he was looking only at Morgan as he said it, inching his way closer to hear her response. I watched as he leaned his ear toward hers, then moved his hand to the small of her back. She curved close as if she were his partner in some instinctual, choreographed mating dance. I drank my beer, warmish and watery and flat, casting my eyes around the room in an effort to give Morgan space with her new guy. How was I going to make friends? Everyone else looked like they knew what they were doing—like they’d grown up knowing how to walk into a room full of strangers and own it. I wanted to go home. I shocked myself by thinking of the Cohens’ like that—home—so easily. I wanted to curl up on the sofa next to Zoe, cradle little Jackson in my arms, laugh with Libby as she recounted tales of her own misguided, awkward youth, the days before she blossomed.
I tried looking at everyone around me from an anthropological perspective. I tried turning them all into monkeys, to see if my old trick from high school would still work, and it did. They had all turned into primitive creatures in heat. The girls were all dressed in practically nothing, bending their bodies to the music in an effort to entice the boys, who stared and stalked and approached and claimed. It was that easy and that weird, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the college party scene. Morgan and her guy had long since slipped away, and I was starting to feel exhausted and dizzy and invisible, thirty seconds away from calling a cab, when I felt a hand on my own back.
“You need more?” the guy asked, gesturing to my cup. I was so relieved someone had acknowledged my existence that I felt myself smiling eagerly. Pathetic, I told myself, feeling the familiar flush spread toward my hairline. But at the same time, it was nice to be noticed, and the guy in question was objectively hot. He was easily six feet tall and muscular. His broad shoulders tapered into a narrow frame, and his orange T-shirt showed off tanned muscles as he worked the pump at the keg. He glanced over at me as if confirming that I hadn’t left. I shot him a smile that I hoped was flirtatious and not just completely awkward, and he grinned back, revealing a square jaw and a dimple in his right cheek. He motioned for me to come his way, so I followed him into the filthy, linoleum-tiled kitchen.
“Want to head upstairs?” he shouted. I felt myself blushing harder. “Just to talk! I promise!” he laughed, noticing my discomfort.
“How can I be so sure?” I teased lightly. “You don’t strike me as very trustworthy.”
“I’m horribly offended.” He dramatically put a hand to his chest. “I’ll give you a chance to make it up to me. Upstairs.”
“Ok, now I definitely don’t feel safe,” I laughed, but I didn’t resist when he took my hand in his broader, rougher one and led me up the stairs to a little bedroom on the left side of the hall. He knocked twice and then pulled me in, shutting the door gently behind him.
I perched on the edge of the bed and tried not to focus on the pillows, on his body next to me, or on the dizziness that was beginning to feel way heavier than a buzz. The walls were lined with pictures of Charlie Brown.
“What’s with the Peanuts obsession?” I wondered aloud. “There’s, like, eight posters of Charlie Brown in here.”
“Three of Woodstock,” he corrected. “And the obsession is born from a long and accursed history with the name ‘Charles Brown.’”
“This is your room?”
“Guilty. And now that you’ve insulted me twice in five minutes, I think it’s time for your penance.”
He leaned toward me and kissed me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close. He wasn’t a bad kisser, and I supposed in any other situation I would have enjoyed it, but all I could focus on was the taste of his tongue (pizza?). It was prodding and insistent and a little aggressive, not to mention a little awkward with all the Charlie Browns and Woodstocks staring down at us. There was a flash of silver from his bedside table. . . .
I pushed him away.
“Is that a necklace?”
“Where?”
“Right there,” I said, pointing toward the little nightstand.
“Yeah,” he admitted, pulling me close again. I locked my elbows against his chest.
“Wait, like a girl’s necklace?”
“Yeah, my girlfriend’s,” he said. “I mean, whatever, my exgirlfriend’s. She’s kind of a bitch.”
Things weren’t adding up in my head. The clock on his bedside, the one that had illuminated the pieces of silver that were carelessly tossed as though the owner were totally confident she’d be back to claim them—as though she did this all the time—read four A.M.
“I should probably go.”
“Don’t be lame.” His warm breath tickled the side of my face. “It’s a rite of passage. All the freshman girls hook up at Dis-O. And I’m kind of a good catch,” he informed me. “Did you know I’m a senior? I mean, look at me.” He craned his neck in order to admire himself in the full-length mirror that adorned the back of his bedroom door. Sensing my opportunity, I struggled to my feet.
“I have to work in the morning,” I said, feeling strangely guilty, “and it’s going to take forever to get a cab. . . .”
“But you’re so pretty,” the guy slurred, sensing his mistake. “You know why I like you?” He ran his hands from my hips to the waist of my dress. “You’re not, like, stick-thin. That’s why I like you.” I jerked away from him and moved toward the door. The backhanded compliment stung. The whole night was a mess. I needed to get out of there. But I felt so, so dizzy. I wasn’t entirely sure I could make it home.
“What are you, a lez?” he wanted to know.
“No.” I yanked open the door, my face flaming from intense anger and my body trembling, partly with nerves and partly with drunkenness. “But I would rather chop off my ovaries than mess around with you.”
“Whatever,” he shouted after me as I moved down the stairs. “You’re missing out on the hottest lay of your life!”
I wanted to throw up.
So I did—all over the backyard, which was blessedly emptying out.
I glanced around for Morgan for a few minutes before realizing she wasn’t worried about me, so what was the point of worrying about her? She’d only been my friend for a total of twenty minutes anyway. She was probably following through on the apparent “freshman rite of passage” even as I stumbled around looking for her.
The cab took fortyfive minutes to come. I fell asleep on the curb with my arms resting on my knees and my head resting on my arms. I woke to the sound of the horn blaring from less than a foot in front of me.
When we finally pulled onto Belvedere Island, the sun was beginning to peak over the horizon in a brilliant display of early-morning yellows. I had to be up to babysit in only four hours. I decided to sneak in the back way rather than through the front. I’d make less noise that way, and the back door, which led out onto the terrace and the pool, was furthest from the master bedroom. Walker and Libby weren’t my parents, but I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about me stumbling into their house at six A.M. reeking of cigarettes and booze. I felt a weird sense of role reversal as I realized: now that my mom wasn’t around, I’d started acting like my mom. I shook off the uncomfortable feeling that accompanied that thought and slipped my shoes off, opening the gate as quietly as possible.
I followed the long path to the pool, feeling the tiniest bit revived by the sunrise despite my raging headache. It really was beautiful; the house sat on a hill overlooking the bay, and the reflection of the sun on the water was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen. Returning to the Cohens’ was beginning to wash away my night of hell.
Leaning out over the guardrail next to the pool, I sensed movement from my periphery. I turned just in time to notice a sandy-haired guy on the second-story deck of the house next door, which sat atop a hill and hovered just over the Cohens’ estate. Most of the mansions in Belvedere were hidden behind artful landscaping, but the house next door was the exception. It was set a little higher on the hill and towered above the Cohens’ place like a watchdog. From my vantage point on the deck, I could easily see the neighbors’ more elevated, multilevel decks beyond the property.
The neighbor guy was wearing a T-shirt and boxers, like he’d just rolled out of bed. His back faced me, and I saw him struggling with the latch on a sliding door before slipping back inside. Then he turned, and I ducked quickly. But my knee crashed into the grill in the process, causing it to clang loudly against the side of the iron fence. Several grill utensils fell off the side tray, clattering to the pool deck. “Shit,” I muttered. I knelt behind the grill, my heart thumping. My knee hurt like hell. And he had probably seen me.
Okay, he had definitely seen me. Anyone would have seen me.
I sat there awkwardly, my back against the grill, clutching my aching knee. I’d definitely have a bruise from this one. My instinct was to run back inside and hide in my room, but I was afraid to move in case he was still looking out toward the Cohens’. Maybe he’d think I had already slipped back inside. I was just beginning to relax again when I heard a door open and close next door, and a set of footsteps jogging up the walkway toward the pool gate. I barely had time to register what was happening before he was standing by the gate to our pool area, grinning at me.
“Hey,” he said. “Taking a rest?”
“Um . . . yes?” I could feel my cheeks heating up. This was one of the absolute worst, most awkward nights-slashmornings. Ever.
