Making Pretty (11 page)

I don't remember much about Mom, except that she dressed me and Arizona in matching outfits and told us how jealous she was that we would get to be best friends forever. She's also the one who introduced us to Washington Square Park and people watching and sticking our feet in the dirty fountain water, picking up pennies with our toes.

On my fifth birthday, a few weeks before she left, Mom bought us a dozen cupcakes and said we had to try each of them. We sat on the edge of the fountain, balancing on the curved stone surface. I kept kicking water at Arizona and she kept laughing. Cupcake crumbs fell into the fountain, but I didn't care.

“I love that you don't get mad at your sister. You respond with joy,” Mom said. I didn't understand at the time, but I memorized the words, loving the singsongy way Mom said them and the seriousness with which Arizona nodded her head in response.

“She likes splashing,” Arizona said with a shrug.

“You'll be an amazing mom someday,” Mom said. She sounded
sad. She'd been sounding sad more and more often.

“Can I be Montana's mom?” Arizona said. Even at seven, her voice had a deep, adult quality. Grounded. Mom took her seriously. I kept splashing water and licking icing off my fingers and the sides of my mouth. I couldn't get a single bite in without a huge mess.

I guess I never really tried to eat it neatly. Licking it up was half the fun.

“What about me?” Mom said. Arizona shrugged and put her hands in the fountain. Her cupcake floated for a moment, then sank. She used her hands to splash the water at my face, and I laughed so hard that cupcake sputtered out everywhere.

“Can we go to the pet store today?” I said, like I did every time Arizona and Mom and I were having fun. I was sure that someday Mom and Dad would agree that I could get a puppy or a kitten or even a hamster or lizard. It didn't occur to me that it might never happen. I was positive that if I found the right moment, I'd get what I wanted.

“We can go inside, but we're not getting anything. But if you'd like to pet some puppies, we could do that,” Mom said. She didn't let me pet the puppies all the time, but on special occasions I could convince her. “Is that what you want to do with your birthday?”

Arizona sighed. She didn't like puppies or kittens. She didn't like the ruckus of the pet store or the smells: pet food, feathers, dog breath, and kitty litter. But for me, she'd go. She'd even help me pick out the cutest puppy to snuggle.

“What if we find a really nice one? A special one? The best dog ever? Then can we get him?” I could barely control the words as they tumbled out. I wanted to ask the question one hundred times, over
and over until I got the answer I wanted. I needed Mom to understand how desperate the need was, and how logical too.

For some reason, that day, on my fifth birthday, Mom seemed to really hear me. She looked at me with a brand-new smile, one I hadn't seen before, and gave a half nod.

“I'd like you to have a puppy,” she said. “It helps, to have a puppy.”

Looking back, I have to assume she already knew she was leaving. Like a puppy is a consolation prize for a mother.

I thrilled at her not-no response and started jumping up and down in the fountain. The water was past my knees, and when it splashed it had enough force to cover my hair, my arms, my sister. I couldn't stop smiling. I looked right at Mom, to thank her.

“Your eyes are weird,” I said. Something was different about them. I should have noticed it earlier, but my birthday and cupcakes and puppies and fountains full of water made it hard to spend much time looking at the details of my mother's face.

“My eyes?” Mom touched her eyelids, touched the delicate lashes, the soft skin around the edges. She looked like she was about to cry. I felt like I was going to cry too, either from seeing her so upset or from the unrecognizable shape and texture of her face. What I would later come to easily recognize as a face-lift.

“Make them go back to normal,” I said. All of her looked different, but especially the stretched, smooth skin around her eyes.

The cry started then. An unstoppable thing. Rocky and young and raging.

“Shhhhh,” Arizona said, part sympathy, part terror.

“I want Daddy!” I wailed while Arizona patted my back and Mom
looked around like she might get in trouble for having a crying child.

“Can you walk your sister home?” Mom said to Arizona. She put on big sunglasses to cover her eyes, and I felt immediately calmer. I wiped away tears and snot, but it was too late to save the day. Arizona took my hand and gave a big, solemn nod.

“Yes. Take a left on Christopher. I know the way,” Arizona said.

“Will Arizona take me to the pet store?” I said. “Will Daddy?” I wanted to apologize, but also make sure she kept her sunglasses on. I wanted a puppy and my mother and the safety of knowing my mother's face wouldn't change day to day. I wanted it all.

“Another day,” she said. “We'll do it very, very soon.”

Arizona held my hand all the way back to the apartment, like she was supposed to, but I still felt scared of the blinking orange
DON
'
T WALK
signs and the strangers who asked if we were lost and even the familiar sound of traffic. We'd never been alone on the street before, and we both knew it was wrong.

“I messed up,” I said. I didn't know how or why, but I knew I'd changed the afternoon, I'd made it bad when it was supposed to be good.

“No way,” Arizona said. I had never loved her more.

Mom came home with more cupcakes, and I was sick of them by then, but we ate them anyway. Dad, me, Arizona, and Mom in the kitchen, singing
Happy birthday to Montana
so many times I couldn't get it out of my head for days after.

She left us not long after. I don't eat cupcakes anymore, not even on my birthday.

Dad takes us to the diner, which is a terrible sign, because diners are where we go for difficult conversations.

“Get grilled cheese!” he says, and that means it is extra bad and we should jump ship immediately, because shit's about to go down in a serious way. Grilled cheese is code for total drama.

“Mom's coming back,” Arizona says. This is what Arizona always says. It is absolutely never true and Mom probably never will come back, but for some reason Arizona lives in a state of fear that Mom will come back and a slightly greater fear that she never will. So anytime Something's Going On, that's her first thought.

“Mom?” Dad says like he's never heard of her.

The waitress comes by and I take his advice and order grilled cheese and a milk shake, because I don't like the look on his face. A combination of nervousness and sappy happiness that I've seen before. The look he gets when he knows he's doing something I will hate, but it's making him happy so he's going to try to justify it.

“Yeah. Our mom. Is she coming back or something?” Arizona says.

“Of course not,” Dad says. “Did she say something? That's extremely not true. Unless she's coming back without telling me? Did she say she's moving to New York?” Something about my mother unnerves my father too. We are all disasters from even the mention of her.

“I haven't heard from her since my birthday,” Arizona says. “You know that. We have a birthday mother. The end.” She looks shaky, my sister. Mom would hate the way Arizona looks now. I know almost nothing about the woman except that she thinks plastic surgery was the biggest mistake of her life. That it ruined her and ruined her marriage and that she thinks it will ruin us.

It's hard to take advice from a mother who left you.

I almost get it. Almost.

“This isn't about your mother. This is about Karissa,” Dad says. The waitress brings our food out, and Arizona starts scarfing her sandwich and sucking down the milk shake. I can't bring myself to eat yet.

“She's twelve,” Arizona says.

“You don't ever like the women I date,” Dad says. He has this calm way of speaking that makes it impossible to fight, even though that's all Arizona wants to do.

“They're not really worth having any feelings about,” Arizona says. Dad clears his throat, which is his version of yelling at us.

The red seats are stickier than Natasha's leather couch. They're not
real leather, for one, and they're gross from whatever jam and syrup and ketchup has landed on them in the last day.

“You're breaking up?” I say, because he usually takes us to the diner when he's either breaking up with a woman or deciding to marry her, and I know, I
know
he is not deciding to marry Karissa.

She is practically my age. She lets her hair air-dry. She wears cheap jewelry and makes terrible martinis. She never had braces. Her chin is a little like mine. She makes me feel like I'm important and wild.

“Karissa means a lot to me,” he says.

Fuck.

He tries to say these speeches differently every time, but they're so stale and familiar that they physically hurt. Muscle memory or Pavlov's dog or whatever. I hear the words and start to ache in all the familiar places.

Except worse this time.

“And Montana, I'm so glad you and she have such a strong relationship already. I think that makes this very new. And very unique.”

I have been hearing some version of these exact sentences my whole life. Everything is always new and unique in my father's head. But in reality it is monotonous and the worst kind of boring. Recurring-nightmare boring.

Except this time with a twist.

Arizona grips my knee under the table and is already scraping the bottom of the milk shake, slurping at the last few sips. We both stare at the salt and pepper shakers.

Something terrible is happening right now
, I text Bernardo under the
table, and I'm elated to have him to report to, a way to escape the moment a little. I let my mind remember that there will be a whole life with him outside of this.

I take a huge bite of grilled cheese at last, and it's perfection, but there is not enough grilled cheese in the world to make what Dad's about to do less painful. He reaches into his jacket pocket. He's the only person wearing a suit in the crowded diner.

“You are not serious,” Arizona says. “If you take a ring out of your pocket right now, I am going to lose my fucking mind.” Her voice is cut up and jagged. She sounds like an animal, not like herself.

My throat's dry and I close my eyes, willing the diner and the milk shakes and my dad's earnest face and the velvet box away.

Inside my head I'm screaming. Actually screaming. But on the outside I'm straight-faced and mute.

He brings it out even after Arizona's threat. He looks sheepish but determined.

“Don't make a mountain,” Dad says. He is known for saying one half of famous phrases without saying the other half. “In group we talk about moving forward, and it can be hard for the kids, but you girls move forward too. Arizona, you don't even live here. And soon Montana won't either. And I need someone to share my life with.”

It sounds so reasonable, except when you factor in how many times he's been married and how young Karissa is and how they only just met and that she is my friend and not meant to be his wife.

She cannot be my stepmom.

Cannot.

The black velvet box flips open with a practiced flick of his wrist. Personally I'd never marry someone who looks so comfortable proposing. The ring inside is enormous, like the rest of them. It glints even under crappy diner lights, and I swear some of the customers nearby are straining to catch a glimpse.

I scarf down french fries and pickles and the delicious remains of melted cheese still stuck to the plate. I decide not to cry.

“You can't do this,” I say. I put my shoulders back and my head up, like if I can posture myself correctly, he'll change his mind. “This is not okay. You know this is so absolutely not okay on any level.”

“You'll understand when you're older,” Dad says. “I know this is hard.” He smiles all wise and kind and insane. Arizona's whole body tenses up. She rubs her temples and can't stop fidgeting. She sips the last of her water since the milk shake is gone. Even the water is mostly ice now—we are vacuums when we're upset about Dad.

“This isn't a normal situation,” Arizona says. “Your friends at your support group thing are talking about normal situations. This is a fucking shitshow.”

“Please don't swear in public,” Dad says. It's the
in public
that kills me.

“Why are you doing this?” I say. I want to say
why are you doing this to me
, but I stop myself before the last part comes out. I know it will only make me sound young and difficult and whiny.

“Come on, Montana,” he says. It is the worst possible answer.

“Why are you doing this now?” Arizona says. We are in a competition for who can be the first to get Dad to say something real.

“The thing about love,” Dad says, starting a sentence I don't even want him to finish, “is that you don't answer those kinds of questions about it. It's unanswerable. It simply is.”

I am feeling so, so sick.

“Can you wait? Please? Wait a few months? Or a year?” Arizona says.

“I'm ready now,” he says. Defensiveness is creeping in, and his voice is rising and people are listening to us. New Yorkers have a knack for knowing when an interesting conversation is happening. I'm sure once the ring came out, most of the diner started only half listening to their companions so that they could mostly listen to us.

“I need to get out of here,” I say, and Arizona nods and we start sliding out of the booth, but Dad stops us.

“I'm doing it next weekend,” he says. “Washington Square Park. I expect you to be there.”

Arizona laughs. “Dude, come on,” she says. “You have got to be kidding. You are not proposing to a teenager this weekend.” She says it loudly on purpose. She wants everyone to hear, to judge, to know.

Dad clears his throat again, and I bet he's wishing we had more grilled cheese and milk shakes to fill the awkwardness.

“Do not say things like that,” he says. “That's inappropriate.”

Arizona laughs again. She can't stop laughing. She is grabbing her stomach and having trouble breathing. There are tears running down her face. She's officially lost it.

“You are inappropriate!” she says, so loud the waiters jump to attention and start printing our check. “You! You!” There's this edge
to her voice that I've never heard before, and even her perfect outfit can't save her from seeming unhinged.

“That is enough,” Dad says, in one of those yell-whispers that parents are so excellent at. “This is happening. And you're going to get behind it or at least act civil. And it is not up for discussion. I expect support from my girls. The end.”

My father thinks he's going to marry K
, I text to Bernardo.

I can't stop thinking about Karissa drunkenly dancing on the basement couch or flirting with the bartender or handing a lit cigarette to me. She will never be my mother.

I'm sure she'll say no.

I'm sure none of this is real.

I'm sure in a few months he will be with a new woman with a big shoe collection and lots of makeup and a love of furs and dinner parties and French toile. Karissa is not marrying my father.

“Dad. Seriously. We're not coming,” I say. “Don't make us come.”

“It would mean a lot to me,” he says. “I need my girls there. We're a team. The three of us.” It breaks us both, when he says
my girls
. And
need
. And
team
. When someone leaves a family, the ones left behind pull together and form a thing—a strong, necessary, desperate thing—and even in the worst moments, it exists. Because no moment is worse than the moment when we were all left behind.

The worst thing that happened to us keeps us together in this overwhelming way.

“Please, Dad. Don't say that,” Arizona says. She's still laughing, but it's the terrible kind that comes from her ribs and the pit of her stomach.

“You're my girls,” Dad says. He has tiny tears in the corners of his eyes. They probably won't ever come out, but they sparkle there, much smaller than any ring my father would ever buy for anyone, and make it impossible for us to say no.

“Wanna come to my place tonight?” Arizona says. Dad's left us on the sidewalk so that he can go and meet up with Karissa at some swanky bar that is probably the opposite of Dirty Versailles.

There's need written all over her face. We would usually spend all night together after Dad's done something messed up. We like to make lists of women who would be more appropriate than whoever he's picked. Mary Poppins. Hillary Clinton. The mom from the Berenstain Bears. That therapist he made us go to when Mom left. My sixth-grade teacher. We can do it all night long. It's one of our rituals.

But Bernardo is texting back and asking me to meet up at this fondue place he knows, where we can dip pretzels in chocolate and bread in melted cheese and we can play footsie under the table and make out by the bathrooms. Or, he says, we can go to his friend's place and play video games and drink beer and be a Couple in that capital
C
kind of way. Or we can make out in my basement.

“Oh, I think maybe not tonight?” I say. I know she knows I'm probably going to see Bernardo, but she doesn't ask about it.

“Right. Got it,” Arizona says. She swallows, and I watch the nothing that she swallowed travel down her throat.

“Tomorrow maybe?” I say.

“Yeah, I don't know, probably not. I have plans, I think.” Arizona starts applying lip gloss and looking at the archway across the park.

The funny thing is, I'd love to spend the night with Arizona being Arizona and Montana, doing the things we used to do. But doing something new is less painful than trying to do something old and familiar and having it feel all wrong and foreign.

Bernardo doesn't remind me of all the things I miss or wish I had.

“This is messed up, right?” I say, trying to do a compressed kind of rehashing of the night, like we'd usually do. We aren't so far from what we used to be that I can't see it anymore, but far enough that I don't know quite how to get back there. Like sometimes walking around Manhattan I can see the Empire State Building, and I know it's north of where I am, but I can't be sure if it's four blocks away or fifteen. I'll try walking there from where I am and end up unable to find the actual entrance. It's tricky.

“I mean, whatever. I give up,” Arizona says. “You've obviously checked out of this whole thing.”

She keeps shrugging and rolling her eyes. It reminds me of Arizona at eleven, when she was really into passive aggression.

“I don't know what that means,” I say. “You chose not to be around this summer. You chose . . . all the things you chose. I'm following your lead. And whatever. It's not like I want Dad to marry my friend. I'm not exactly psyched here.”

“But you have Bernardo. So.”

“You'll meet someone.”

It's the wrong thing to say. I know it immediately, even though I can't put my finger on why.

“You're so much like him,” Arizona says. She sounds sad more
than angry, but she walks away without hugging me, and I don't call after her.

Later that night Bernardo and I dip things in chocolate over a white-tableclothed table, and I feel like I'm in some idea of a romance that I should hate but it feels so, so good. I even forget about the diner and the way Arizona looked at the archway instead of at me and that more and more things are shifting, making this summer a kind of earthquake instead of a vacation.