Faking Perfect Read online

  He didn’t answer. His fingers tangled in my hair as he lowered his mouth to my neck, seeking out the sensitive spot under my ear. I clutched the back of his shirt, bunching it up in my fists and pulling until my palms met warm skin. He did the same to me, yanking my T-shirt up and over my head like it was on fire and I’d burn if he didn’t get it off me right this second. Then his hands were on my waist, lifting and twisting me until I was splayed out on my back on the bed. He hovered over me and I closed my eyes, skin tingling, impatient to find out where his lips would land next. I felt them brush against my stomach, feather-light and familiar.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled against my hipbone.

  Was he was sorry because he’d said those words or sorry because he’d meant them? Right then, I didn’t really care.

  Chapter Six

  A few days later, Nolan appeared at my locker as I loaded up my backpack after school. He pressed his shoulder against the locker next to mine. “Hey, Lex. Mom wanted me to invite you over for Sunday dinner.”

  I smiled up at him. “Oh? Since when do I need an invitation?”

  He shrugged and scratched at his chest. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the words I never finish anyth across the front in white letters. “Beats me. She told me before I left this morning to invite you. I just remembered five minutes ago.”

  “Well, tell her thanks and I accept.” I turned back to my open locker. I’d eaten more meals at the Bruces’ table than at my own, but formal invitations were typically reserved for holidays and birthdays. As far as I knew, there were no special occasions happening at the end of March.

  “She said to come over at around four and—what are you doing with that?”

  I glanced down at the bottle of red poster paint in my hand. Quickly, I stuffed it into my backpack. “Nothing.”

  Nolan crossed his arms and leaned over to peer into my locker where a box of markers and several more bottles of paint sat in plain sight on the top shelf. “Since when do you paint?” he asked with a snicker. He knew as well as I did that I could barely paint my nails without making a mess, let alone a decipherable picture. When we were little, my drawings and crayoned masterpieces looked like chicken scratch next to his. Even now, when I colored with Grace, I went outside the lines.

  I moved my locker door until it blocked his view inside. “I, um . . . I’m helping one of my friends with some posters.”

  “What kind of posters?”

  I spotted Amber at the other end of the hallway, heading toward us. Relieved, I waved at her. Nolan looked in the direction of my gaze and I used the distraction to sweep the rest of the art supplies into my backpack.

  “What’d I miss?” Amber said when she reached us. Her purple-streaked brown hair was twisted into tight knots on either side of her head.

  “Lexi is making posters,” Nolan said in the same tone he might use for Lexi is murdering kittens.

  “What kind of posters?” Amber asked.

  “Hey, I’m sorry about your grandmother,” I told her. I hadn’t seen her since Nolan told me about her grandmother’s death. She’d been out of school for a few days.

  “Thanks.” Her mouth quivered and I instantly regretted bringing it up. Grandparent-grandchild relationships were totally foreign to me. My mother’s parents had been dead for years and I didn’t remember my paternal grandparents. All I had of them was the quilt on my bed, made for me by my father’s mother and one of the only items from his side of the family that made the move with us across the country. That and my middle name.

  Nolan reached over to squeeze Amber’s hand and she glanced up at him, her lips curling into a tiny smile. In spite of being total opposites—or maybe because of—they looked really cute together. While Nolan was over six feet tall and wore mostly black, Amber barely skimmed the five foot mark and everything about her was colorful. Her hair, her makeup, her clothes, the dozens of patterned bracelets she wore up each arm. She was a walking rainbow. Even the bands on her braces changed color every few weeks.

  “So what kind of posters?” she asked again, smile back in place. “I didn’t know you painted.”

  Nolan snorted and I gave him a quick jab to the shoulder. “I don’t. It’s just posters about food donations. Student council is collecting non-perishables for the food bank.”

  “You’re not on student council,” Nolan pointed out.

  I shut my locker and slung my backpack over my shoulder. “I know. Someone I know who is on the student council asked me if I wanted to help with the posters. That’s all.”

  “Lex, you can’t even form intelligible letters with a ballpoint pen. Why would you agree to make an entire—”

  “Ready, Lexi?”

  All three of us spun around to see Ben standing a few feet away, his arms loaded with poster paper. My face started to burn and I hoped with everything in me that he hadn’t heard the last exchange.

  “Ah,” Nolan said, all caught up to speed. He cleared his throat and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. My interest in poster-making suddenly made sense. That’s the problem with lifelong friends—they know you far too well.

  I turned back to Ben. His eyes skimmed over Nolan like he blended into the lockers before coming to rest on me.

  “Yeah, I’m ready,” I said, walking toward him. As I passed by Nolan, I shot him a withering glare.

  Ignoring me, he lifted his chin at Ben in that ’sup gesture guys do and then he and Amber headed in the opposite direction, hand in hand.

  “I got the supplies from the art room,” I said as Ben and I made our way to room 216, the ad hoc spot for the student council meeting.

  “Great.” Ben sounded distracted and harried. He transferred the paper to his other arm and sighed. Practically running the school really stressed him out sometimes, no matter how capable he tried to appear. “I never would have asked you to do this if half the reps weren’t out sick with that flu.”

  “It’s no problem.” However, it might become a problem when he saw my shoddy posters. I knew Ben liked things done a certain way, meaning adequately. “Um, why can’t you use the computer to make these posters?”

  We reached room 216 and Ben held the door open for me. “Poster paint and markers are way cheaper than printer ink.”

  I should have guessed. Our school board was notoriously stingy. I went into the room ahead of Ben, inhaling his soapy-clean scent as I passed. He always smelled like a cross between clothesline-dried bed sheets and fresh-cut grass. Like summer.

  “So,” Ben said, plunking the paper onto a table with a swift bang. “We want the posters to say something like Oakfield Food Bank needs donations. Drop off your nonperishable items in the main office by April fifth. You can get creative too, if you want. Paint some soup cans or whatever.”

  Seeing as how any soup can I painted would resemble a giant blob of nothing, it was best not to get too inventive. Stick with the words, I told myself. I could spell, most of the time. Nolan was right, though . . . my handwriting was barely legible.

  Ben left me to my posters and went to join a large group of students gathered together in one corner of the room. From where I was, it sounded like they were deep in discussion about the upcoming talent show. The only other people making posters besides me were two freshman girls who were doing more giggling than working and one pimply sophomore guy whose poster already looked like cool graffiti art. Nolan would have loved it.

  Speaking of Nolan, I could have used his artistic talents right then. My poster was starting to resemble a kindergartener’s art project. My letters didn’t seem to want to go straight. Still, every time I asked myself why I was sitting there, breathing in stuffy school air and cheap paint, I’d peek over at Ben. Because he was student council president, he spent most of the afternoon presiding over the group’s discussions. When he wasn’t presiding, he was working the room, speaking to individual people and conferring with Mr. Isaacs, the teacher advisor. I could totally picture Ben in politics someday, but he had even bigger
dreams. He planned to major in economics in college so he could someday make a living helping people in impoverished countries. Like I’d said—perfect.

  At one point, he came over to check on us. He put his hand on the back of my chair, leaning over my shoulder to inspect my progress. His summer scent surrounded me and I felt a fluttering in my chest. Being around Tyler did things to my stomach, but Ben affected my heart.

  “Not bad,” Ben told me, and he sounded like he actually meant it. He was nothing if not diplomatic.

  “Thanks,” I replied, frowning at my poster. Bad was the only part of his comment that applied.

  He moved on to the pimply guy and I noticed the two freshman girls watching his every move, their hands fidgeting anxiously with their markers. I remembered being their age, ogling senior guys and thinking they looked so old, like men. When it came to Ben, I understood their nervousness. Not only was he good-looking in a wholesome, slightly nerdy kind of way, he also gave off an air of authority that made people want to please him. Even me. Especially me, as evidenced by the splotches of red marker on my hands.

  An hour and several lopsided lines later, it was time to go home. Ben came over to thank me for my help and to ask me if I’d be available to finish the posters tomorrow at lunch.

  “Sure,” I said . . . because he was Ben and I was a sucker for punishment.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Lexi.”

  I shrugged modestly. That was me, Lifesaver Lexi to the rescue.

  A cute blond girl who I recognized as one of the eleventh grade council representatives walked up to us then and bumped her hip against Ben’s. He turned to her, smiling for possibly the first time all afternoon, and wrapped an arm around her waist. I struggled to keep my reaction from showing on my face. Of course, I thought. Of course he has someone else already. Kyla had been history for over a week, after all.

  “Have you guys met?” Ben asked, glancing at me for a second and then returning his gaze to the beaming girl beside him. She was exactly his type.

  “You’re Ben’s friend Lexi,” the girl said, nodding at me. “I’m Tori.”

  “Hi,” I said, stretching my lips into a credible version of a smile.

  Tori smiled back at me the way most of Ben’s girlfriends did—with a hint of a warning simmering underneath. Watch your step.

  Don’t worry, I wanted to assure her. “Ben’s friend Lexi” was a permanent position.

  Ben offered to drive me home, of course, but I wasn’t in the mood to sit in the backseat of his car and watch him and Tori make googly eyes at each other in the front. So I lied and told him a friend was picking me up. Then, first making sure the happy couple was long gone, I walked home in the early spring drizzle.

  By the time I reached my house, it was starting to get dark and my stomach gurgled with hunger. I found my mother in the kitchen, dumping spaghetti noodles into a colander. Steam rose up, half-obscuring the expression of annoyance on her face.

  “Is it too much to ask that you be here on time to start dinner?” she asked, shaking the colander in short, jerky movements. “The last thing I want to do after nine hours on my feet is come home and cook.”

  Like boiling pasta and opening a jar of sauce is difficult and time-consuming, I thought, opening the fridge to get the parmesan. Barer-than-usual shelves greeted me, and I tried to figure out what was missing. It hit me as I sifted through the jars of condiments in the door. Mom’s ever-present box of wine was gone, along with the several bottles of beer we always kept on hand. Interesting. I found the cheese and shut the fridge door, studying my mother as I did so. She didn’t seem drunk.

  “I had something to do after school.” I turned to place the bottle of parmesan on the table and noticed a pink vase filled with a dozen red roses sitting by the salt and pepper shakers. I ran my index finger over a silky petal. “Where did these come from?”

  The irritation on her face melted into a sort of dreamy glow. “Jesse sent them to the spa today. For no reason at all. Isn’t that sweet?”

  An image of those eerie colorless eyes flashed through my mind and I held back a shudder. “So you like this guy?” I extracted a couple of plates from the cupboard. “Don’t you think he’s a little, uh . . . young?”

  The spoon she’d been using to stir the sauce slammed down on the counter, sending red drips flying. “Spare me the judgmental attitude, Lexi, okay? He’s thirty-two. I’m not one of those . . . what do you call them . . . cougars. God, you just have to find something wrong with everyone I date, don’t you?”

  “But it’s so easy,” I shot back.

  Her eyes narrowed into slits and she yanked one of the plates out of my hand. Turning away from me, she grabbed the pasta spoon, scooped a clump of noodles onto the plate, and ladled on some sauce. She carried it to the table, where she sat and began to eat, ignoring me. Calmly, I fixed my own plate and sat down across from her. The cloying scent of the roses tickled my nose.

  “Where’s all the booze?” I asked, cocking my head toward the fridge.

  Mom twirled some spaghetti onto her fork and shoved it into her mouth. She chewed slowly, making me wait for her answer. “Got rid of it,” she said after a minute. “Jesse doesn’t drink. He’s . . . he’s a recovering alcoholic.”

  I covered my dinner with parmesan and dug in. “Better than a practicing one, I guess.”

  She opened her mouth as if to chastise me some more, but realizing what I’d said wasn’t a dig, she shut it again. We ate in silence for the remainder of the meal.

  “I could stand to cut back a bit on the wine, anyway,” Mom said as we cleared the table together.

  I just shrugged noncommittally. It was far from the first time she’d vowed to stop or cut down on drinking. Nor was it the first time she’d tried to change for a man. She always went back to her old self, eventually.

  “Jesse’s great. Really. He has a stable job, he doesn’t drink, no kids. I’m telling you, he’s not like the men I usually date. He’s different.”

  “Okay,” I said flatly. I was still unable to shake my first impression of him. That icky vibe.

  Mom’s mood seemed to improve as she loaded the dishwasher. “I’ll have to invite him over for dinner one night. So you can get to know him better. It’ll be fun.”

  I scrubbed hard at a patch of burnt tomato sauce on the stovetop and thought about how getting to know Creepy Latte Guy wasn’t high on my list of fun things to do. “I guess so. Just don’t make it for Sunday. I’m going to the Bruces’ house for dinner.”

  “Oh.” Her face contorted the way it always did when I mentioned them. Nothing dampened her mood faster than the thought of me across the street, bonding with her ex-best friend, the woman who almost succeeded in taking me away from her. I’d never blamed Teresa for that—she did what she felt she had to do—but Mom was a different story altogether. Five years later, she still blamed her.

  My mother and Nolan’s mother had grown up together, just like he and I did. The only time they were ever apart was when Teresa decided to go east for college. Mom stayed out west in Alton, the same town in which they’d both been born and raised, and skipped college for a series of minimum wage jobs. Two years later, she met a tattooed bass player named Eric Davis and got caught up in his wild cyclone of bar gigs, liquor, drugs, and partying. . . until she got pregnant a couple years later, that is, and put a stop to it all. My father stopped too, for a while, until the music scene—and everything that went along with it—beckoned to him again.

  Through all this, my mother kept in close contact with Teresa, who’d married Malcolm Bruce, a local guy, and settled down with him in his hometown of Oakfield. Despite their distance and contrasting lifestyles, my mother and Teresa’s friendship was as solid as ever. So when Mom called her up one day, crying, saying she needed to get as far away as she could from Alton and the horrible man who’d fathered me, it made perfect sense for us to go and stay with Teresa and Malcolm for a while. Until we got back on our feet, they said. They’d even p
ay for the plane tickets.

  We lived with the Bruces for two years. During that time, Mom took a massage therapy course while I stayed home with Teresa and quickly became attached to her and to Nolan, who was only a few months older than me. He and I did everything together, even though he was bossy and pushy at times (qualities he still possessed). I didn’t remember much of those years, but what few memories I had were all happy ones. We were a family.

  One of my sharpest childhood memories was the day my mother found a stable job and told me we were moving out of the Bruces’ house. I remember throwing myself on the floor in an epic tantrum, and I didn’t shut up until I heard where we were moving. Not back to “that place I was born” like I’d feared, but to the house right across the street with the pretty lilac bush in the front yard. Teresa, who was a realtor by then, had received some inside info on when it would go up for sale. When it did, we grabbed it.

  Having our own place was fun at first, but I hated not having my best friend beside me full-time. And my mom wasn’t sweet and fun like Teresa. She didn’t cook chicken nuggets for me or remind me to brush my teeth. She didn’t give me hugs at bedtime or praise me when I cleaned up my toys. I wanted to live with the Bruces again, but I knew I couldn’t because my mother needed me way more than they did.

  Even though Teresa didn’t agree with many of Mom’s life choices or her parenting style, she tried not to interfere. But when I turned twelve and Keith Langley exploded into our lives, all bets were off. Keith was a nightclub bouncer with a fondness for Jack Daniels and a hair-trigger temper. The first time he beat the crap out of Mom, I cowered in my room with the lights on, too scared to react. The second time, I threw a can of mixed vegetables at his head and ran across the street for help. Teresa called the police while Malcolm stomped over to break it up and I huddled in the family room with Nolan, shaking under the blanket he’d gently wrapped around me.

  Teresa and my mom had a screaming fight in my house that night, one I did not witness. I stayed at the Bruces’ house overnight, and in the morning, Teresa told me what had happened. When she’d arrived across the street, Keith was being led to a police car while my mother sat in the living room, a dishcloth packed with ice pressed up against her swollen lip. The cops came back inside and Mom declined to press charges, which sent Teresa into an uncharacteristic rage. “If he ever comes back,” she’d warned Mom, “if he ever so much as shows his face around here again, I’ll call Child Protective Services and have that beautiful little girl taken away from you for good. She deserves better than this, Stacey, and so do you.”