Faking Perfect Page 6

  Teresa never had to follow through on her threat because Keith never came back, but it didn’t matter. My mother was so insulted by her best friend’s words, she stopped speaking to her altogether. They hadn’t exchanged a civil word since. In the years following that night, Mom had worked her way through a parade of skuzzy boyfriends, but there was never another one as volatile as Keith Langley.

  Maybe this Jesse guy will be different, I thought as I wiped the kitchen table and inhaled the scent of those perfect, fragrant roses. Maybe he’ll be good for my mother. After years of kissing frogs, she was long overdue for a prince.

  Chapter Seven

  I showed up early at the Bruces’ house on Sunday afternoon and was greeted by Gus, their hyper rat terrier. After sniffing me for a minute, he took off in the direction of the living room, where he curled up on his bed and started gnawing on a rawhide bone. Their cat Hugo, a plump black and gray tabby, dozed on the back of the couch. The house smelled amazing, like roast turkey and onions frying in butter. I wandered into the kitchen, salivating.

  “Hey there, Lexi.” Nolan’s dad stood at the counter, pouring beer into a tall glass. “How goes it?”

  “It goes good,” I said. We had this exchange every single time we saw each other, which wasn’t too often. He was a field service technician for a heavy equipment company and traveled a lot. “How goes it with you?”

  “Oh, can’t complain,” he said, curling his thick fingers around the beer glass. Nolan and his father were nothing alike, aside from their height. Malcolm was big and burly, his forearms thick with muscles after years of working on heavy machinery. He’d played football in college and dreamed of doing it professionally. Instead, he married Teresa, took a steady job, and transferred the dream to his sons. Nolan had zero interest in sports, but Landon fortunately inherited enough of the jock gene to keep their father satisfied.

  Teresa breezed into the kitchen, tossing me a “Hi, sweetie” as she made a beeline for the oven. She opened it a few inches, peeking inside at the delicious-looking bird. Pleased with its progress, she shut the oven door and adjusted the timer on the stove.

  “Can I help?” I asked, watching her dart around the room like a flea on crack. Strands of light brown hair stuck to her forehead and she had what looked like grease stains all down the front of her jeans.

  “Sure.” She nodded toward the pile of produce by the sink. “Peel carrots.”

  I went to work on the carrots while Malcolm took his beer and fled the scene. I felt like dragging him back and sticking an apron on him. He was one of those gruff, old-fashioned types, the kind of guy whose only contribution to a dinner like this was to sit at the head of the table and carve the meat. Nolan didn’t get along with him all that well, mostly because they had no common ground. Artistic talent, according to his dad, wasn’t nearly as impressive as a good defensive tackle.

  “Where’s Nolan?” I asked as I dug around in the bottom cupboard for the cutting board.

  “I sent him to the store for milk.” She dried her hands on a dish towel and looked at me sideways. “He mentioned something the other day about your mom having a new boyfriend.”

  I heard that familiar undercurrent of concern in her voice, the one she’d adopted way back in the Keith Langley days. Do I need to worry about you? it said. I told her everything I knew about Latte Guy so far, leaving out the whole creepy vibe thing. For all I knew, I was just imagining that. She visibly relaxed when I mentioned that he didn’t drink.

  “Well,” she said, hauling the turkey out of the oven. “Let’s hope this one’s a winner.”

  Nolan returned with the milk, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. His hair was sticking up and he wore torn sweatpants and a black T-shirt that claimed I SEE DUMB PEOPLE. He attempted to shove the carton of milk in the fridge and leave, Malcolm-style, but I ordered him to stay and help me with the veggies. I was slowly training him to be well-rounded husband material for the future Mrs. Nolan Bruce.

  An hour later, the five us were seated around the kitchen table, plates loaded with turkey and all the trimmings. Hugo wove his fat body around our chair legs, hoping for scraps, while Malcolm and his youngest son discussed the upcoming NHL playoffs, Nolan yawned into his mashed potatoes, and I enjoyed the first peaceful moments I’d had all week. Usually, during Sunday sit-down dinners, Teresa would spend the entire time asking me questions about school and my life in general, but she seemed distracted. In fact, she barely even looked at me, focusing instead on her food and glass of chardonnay. I had the distinct feeling I was missing something.

  After dinner, Malcolm and Landon took their dishes to the sink and retreated to the family room to watch a game. Nolan looked like he wanted to escape, too, but fearing my wrath, he helped load the dishwasher.

  When it was full, Teresa shooed him out of the kitchen. “Lexi and I will finish up.”

  Nolan shrugged and went off to draw something.

  Teresa filled the sink with soapy water and submerged one of the pots that hadn’t made it into the dishwasher. Feeling so stuffed I could barely move, I stood next to her with a dry dish towel. We worked in silence for a few minutes, her washing and me drying, the lemony scent of the dish detergent rising up between us.

  “Lexi,” Teresa said as she rinsed the turkey roaster under cold water and then passed it to me. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Going by the weightiness of her expression, it wasn’t going to be good. A nervous jolt shot through my stomach. “Okay.”

  She dunked another pot and attacked it with the scrubber like she was trying to scour the stainless steel coating right off. When she looked at me, I saw something similar to fear in her eyes. “I have this friend named Josie,” she said, focusing again on the pot. “We went to high school together and she still lives in Alton, where your mom and I grew up.” She paused for a moment and glanced at me.

  I nodded to show I was listening, even though I had no clue what her friend Josie had to do with me.

  “Anyway, Josie and I have kept in touch all these years. We talk on the phone once a month or so and she keeps me updated about the goings on in Alton. Not that anything exciting ever happens in that boring little town, mind you. Still, I like to hear about what my old friends are up to and who died and who—”

  “Um.” I gently cut her off. “Is that what you needed to tell me?”

  She studied me for a moment, her mouth slightly open as if she hoped the right words might tumble out on their own. “Sweetie, it’s about your father.”

  Ice water surged through my veins. “Is he dead?” The question came out on a whoosh of breath.

  “Dead?” Teresa asked, surprised.

  “Well, Mom said . . . “ My voice cracked like an adolescent boy’s. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Mom said he probably was by now. Dead. From the drugs and stuff.”

  Surprise flickered in Teresa’s eyes. “No, sweetie. After you and your mom . . . after you came here, he stayed in Alton for a couple months and then moved away. No one seemed to know where he went, but rumors were going around that he was staying in a rehab center in Vancouver.”

  I nodded; she’d mentioned that before, years ago, back when I’d been curious enough to pester her for information. My father had made it to rehab, apparently, but the rumors stopped there. It was as if he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. I’d always assumed the stories were either false or he’d relapsed after rehab.

  “Your father isn’t dead, Lexi.” Teresa dropped the scrub brush into the water and turned toward me. “He’s back.”

  “Back?”

  “In Alton.” She placed her dripping hand on my forearm. “Josie said he moved back in January after his father—your grandfather—passed away and left him his backhoe company. Your father took over. He owns the business now.”

  All I could do was gape at her. My father . . . alive . . . living in Alton and running a backhoe company? This Josie woman had to be mistaken. “But”—I shi
fted away from the moist heat of her hand—“but the drugs. He’s a drug addict. How can he . . . ?” I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. How can he be back in Alton? How can he run a business? How can he be alive and thriving and still forget he has a daughter?

  “Josie says he’s sober as a judge now. And . . . “ She let out a sigh and my entire body tensed, bracing for more. “He didn’t come back alone. He’s got a wife and two kids. Josie said—”

  A roaring sound filled my ears, blocking out the rest of her words. I threw the dish towel down on the counter and brushed past her to the door. Her fingers skimmed my arm as I passed, trying to hold me there, but I dodged them and kept going. When I reached the doorway, I turned around to face her. “When did you find out about this?”

  Her hand, still dripping with dish water, returned to her side. “Josie called me shortly after he came back.”

  “You said he moved back in January. So you’ve known for two months?” Acid stung the back of my throat as my dinner fought its way back up my esophagus. I swallowed it down again. “Why would you keep this from me?”

  Teresa blinked a few times and then dropped her gaze to the floor. “Because I knew it would hurt you. It wasn’t my place to tell you, Lexi. Your mother would be furious if she ever found out I spoke to you about this. As if she needed another reason to hate me.”

  “But it’s not about her. It’s about me. He’s my father, and I had a right to know.” My stomach gurgled and I inhaled deeply, willing its contents to stay put. “Why tell me now if it’s not your place?”

  “It’s been eating me up for weeks. I had to tell you.” Her eyes found mine again. “You’ll be eighteen in June. An adult. Old enough to contact whomever you want, and your mother can’t do a thing to stop you.” She walked over to the big oak cabinet that sat along the far wall in the kitchen, opened one of the drawers, and removed a small piece of paper. The kind people wrote grocery lists on. After a moment of hesitation, she handed it to me. “His information,” she said softly.

  I looked down at the paper. My father’s name was written there along with the words Davis Excavating Ltd. And a phone number. His phone number. As if I’d call him, this stranger who existed only in photographs stuck between the pages of Corn Snakes: An Owner’s Guide. As if I’d give him another opportunity to reject me.

  “Keep it.” I tossed the paper across the kitchen. It floated in the air for a few seconds and then landed, writing side up, under the table.

  “Lexi, sweetie, I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I just . . . “ She put a hand over her face and started to cry. Under normal circumstances, her tears would have immobilized me, but right then her betrayal was like a sharp poke between my shoulder blades, spurring me forward. I bolted out of the kitchen and ran smack into Nolan’s I SEE DUMB PEOPLE shirt.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I ignored him and continued on to the front entryway. Gus shot ahead of me, whimpering to go outside. I ignored him too, grabbed my jacket, and got the hell out of there.

  Going home and facing my mother wasn’t an option, so I just started walking.

  “Lexi!”

  I heard Nolan’s voice behind me as I strode past Grace’s house at the end of the street. Their driveway was empty, and I vaguely remembered Grace mentioning something about going to visit her grandmother this weekend.

  “Lex! Wait up!” Nolan’s voice was closer and wheezy in that I-really-should-quit-smoking kind of way.

  I didn’t want him to pass out in the street on top of everything else that had already happened, so I stopped walking and turned around. He was just a few feet away. Gus trotted along ahead of him, straining against his leash in his eagerness to reach me.

  “Thanks,” Nolan panted when they finally caught up. Gus circled around me, binding my legs with his leash like he was trying to prevent me from going any farther. “Holy shit, it’s cold out here.”

  He was right; it was freezing outside, but I’d been walking along with my coat wide open, barely noticing the weather. The icy air felt good on my puffy eyes. I untangled myself from Gus’s leash and started moving again. Nolan walked beside me, a foot or so of space between us.

  “Did you know, too?” I asked after several minutes of silence.

  “Know what? I have no idea what happened back there. Mom was crying and then you ran out the door and the next thing I knew, she was telling me to take Gus for a walk. I’m pretty sure that was her way of saying go find Lexi and make sure she’s okay.” He stepped over a slick patch on the sidewalk. “So are you? Okay?”

  I shook my head. “My father’s alive.” I could feel Nolan staring at me, perplexed, so I told him the rest of it. My voice faltered when I got to the part about my father’s new family and, oh my God, the fact that I had half-siblings. “You really didn’t know anything about it?”

  “No,” he said.

  I believed him because Nolan never lied to me.

  “I would’ve told you, Lex. You know that. Mom shouldn’t have kept it from you for so long. It was shitty, but you know her. She always means well.”

  I made a grunting sound and zipped up my jacket to my chin. The cold was starting to penetrate. “It’s not that I even want to contact him, you know? I mean, he let my mother take me halfway across the country and then never tried to see me or talk to me again. So screw him for that. It’s just . . . I guess I wanted the option.”

  Nolan nodded. “Makes sense.”

  We paused for a few moments to let Gus water the snow beside a telephone pole and then kept going. We practically had the neighborhood to ourselves at that time of the day. All the families and dog walkers and middle-aged joggers were relaxing in their warm, cozy houses, eating Sunday dinner and watching sports on TV. No one in their right mind would be out in the cold voluntarily.

  “I wonder how much my mother knows,” I said as we passed by the desolate playground, basketball court, and soccer field area. “Maybe she really did think he was dead.”

  Nolan contemplated that for a minute. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s been keeping tabs on him. I think she probably knows more than she lets on.”

  I thought of all the times I’d tried to ask her about my father, who he was, where he was, what kind of person he’d been. Each time I pressed her for info, she’d say something like, “He was a drug addict and a drunk, Lexi, and he didn’t give a damn about either of us. Forget him. We’re better off without him, trust me.”

  I did trust her, at least on that topic, and after a while I stopped asking about him altogether. My father was no good, a deadbeat, a loser. Good riddance.

  But, unfortunately for me, I’d always had trouble staying away from no-good losers. Just like my mother.

  “You must be at least a teensy bit curious about him, though,” Nolan said, tucking his un-gloved hands into the sleeves of his jacket. “Don’t tell me you’ve never Googled him.”

  “Of course I’ve Googled him,” I admitted, cracking a tiny smile. “Willpower isn’t exactly my strong suit. I searched his name a few times over the years, but it’s so common, I got like a million results. I hardly had any info about him, so it was like finding a needle in a haystack.”

  “Well, now you know where he lives and works.”

  My still-full stomach tilted again and I slowed my pace. Nolan slowed with me, but Gus, oblivious, dashed ahead until he met resistance and almost strangled himself. He looked back at us, tail wagging impatiently.

  “Right.” I’d only looked at that paper for a second before hurling it back at Teresa, but the name of his company was burned into my brain. I could Google that and possibly find his email address and maybe even a current picture of him. If I ever wanted to—which I most definitely did not. He’d let me go once and probably wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Why give him the chance?

  Nolan and I walked Gus until the streetlights flicked on and we were all too frozen to go any farther. We turned and retraced our steps along the snow-cr
usted sidewalks, passing Nolan’s last cigarette back and forth in an attempt to restore circulation to our hands.

  “I’m quitting after this one,” I said, exhaling a lungful of smoke into the bitter air.

  “Me too.”

  “I’m serious this time.”

  Nolan tossed the butt on the pavement and ground it out with his boot. “Me too. Amber said she’s sick of my ashtray mouth.”

  “We’ll quit together then. Deal?” I paused to hold out a partially numb hand.

  He transferred the leash handle to his left hand and shook with his right. His skin felt even colder than mine. “Deal.”

  When we reached my house, Nolan dug in his pocket and brought out a small piece of paper, carefully folded in half. “Mom told me to give you this.” He pushed it into my hands. Before I could react, he turned and jogged across the street to his house, Gus loping cheerfully behind him.

  I didn’t even glance at the information. I knew exactly what was written there. I just slid the paper into the back pocket of my jeans, intending to throw it away or perhaps even flush it down the toilet the first chance I got. But it stayed in my jeans for the rest of the evening, perfectly undamaged.

  Sometime near dawn and still half-asleep, I got out of bed, fumbled around for my discarded jeans, and tucked the paper in between the pages of my snake book.

  Chapter Eight

  Pregnancy had granted Shelby the title of permanent designated driver. It also had granted her the right to erupt into hormonal rages over every little thing that annoyed her, like the way her seatbelt dug into her stomach and that she couldn’t indulge her occasional vodka cooler craving.