Making Pretty (12 page)

It doesn't matter as much, when I'm so busy falling in love with him.

Besides, Arizona left me first.

Dad wasn't that sad after Mom left.

“It's for the best,” he said when I curled up next to him in bed the first few nights after. I hated the way that sounded, like I was never meant to have a mother at all. I'm pretty sure he'd already met Janie, because she was on the scene pretty quickly. Her dark hair curled perfectly at the ends. Her nose was so small I was worried she wouldn't be able to breathe through it. Her body shifted so much in the first year of their marriage that I believed Arizona when she said Janie was an evil monster and not a real person. That her magic power was changing shapes and that we had to be careful.

So I was very, very careful around Janie.

But when Janie started getting melancholy and strange a few years later, Dad freaked out.

“I did it again,” he said to Arizona and me late one night, in the basement. I was eight and Arizona was ten, and we were watching movies and eating popcorn and asking to call Mom, which we still did
once a month even three years after she left.

“Daddy? Are you okay?” Arizona said.

“I wanted Janie to be around forever,” he said. “I wanted her boys to be your brothers.” Dad leaned his head back so that it rested on the top of the couch and he stared at the ceiling.

“She's gone?” I asked. Dad wasn't very good in those days at telling us when things were ending. We'd learn in abrupt moments like this. We'd learn by accident. We'd learn by eavesdropping.

“She's gone,” Dad said. “She left. I can't seem to keep anyone.” I was pretty sure dads weren't supposed to be this sad in front of daughters. Something felt bruised and wrong, but I couldn't identify what. I hid my face in a couch cushion.

Arizona was better than me, even then.

“We won't leave you!” she said.

“I hope not,” Dad said. “You're my girls. I need you.”

He pulled us in for hugs, each of us under one of his arms. I brought the couch cushion with me. I liked the title. His girls. Arizona did too, I could tell from the way she hugged Dad back, so forceful he coughed a little, her arm too strong around his middle.

We'd been wondering who we were, I guess. Trying to piece together all the strange bits of our lives and not liking the results. Kids at school made fun of my dad's job. Said it was gross and creepy. Counselors at school felt bad for us. We weren't sure who was right.

Being his girls, being needed, watching movies from the crook of his arm in a room that smelled like popcorn and aftershave felt right.

“Do you want to live with your mom?” Dad said then. His
forehead never really wrinkles, but there were lines that wanted to pop out at that moment. His eyes were sad. I wished he could have lines around them. I wished his face moved like other daddies'.

Arizona and I didn't answer.

“You look so much like her. Both of you.” I took the cushion away from my face then and wondered what I could do to look less like her. Dad sounded sad when he said it, and I didn't want any more things making Dad upset. “You must miss her,” he said.

We still didn't reply. Even Arizona couldn't come up with a perfect thing to say. We knew we weren't supposed to lie, and saying we didn't miss her or didn't sometimes want to live with her in the house with the big tire swing that she sent us pictures of the year before would be a lie.

“Girls?” Dad said. His voice was so small. The little tears in the corners of his eyes that never came out were streaming down his face. “Would you rather be with her? Sometimes she thinks she wants you back. And if you hate it here, if you want to be with her, I can make that happen for you. I can try.” He sniffed. It was awful. Worse than Mom leaving and the side of the closet without her clothes in it. Worse than the sad birthday cards that came in the mail, the kind that were from CVS and not even a nice stationery store. The fact that she wrote our names and her name and let the Hallmark message in the middle be her note to us, instead of writing her own.

“You're my girls,” he choked out, the words making us nod with recognition.
Yes! Yes, we are! That's who we are!
“You know how lucky I feel that I got to keep you.”

Arizona and I looked at each other over his stomach. We'd talked before about running away to find our mother.

It's terrible and strong, the pull toward a mother, even if she's not the mother you deserve. Even if she's across the country or across the world or telling people you don't exist. Even if you have a father with strong arms and soft pajamas and an easiness with the words
I love you
.

“You still want her more,” Dad said. “Even though I'm right here.” He stopped asking it as a question. And that's when we both snapped to it and realized we had to answer him.

“No!” Arizona said. I mimicked her.

“No, no!” I said.

“We're in it together,” Arizona said. She sounded twelve. She sounded eighteen. She sounded a hundred.

“I don't know what I'd do without you two,” Dad said, coming back to life. “You're everything to me. You are. We can do this. We can survive this together, okay?”

We nodded, and I was unsure of what exactly we were agreeing to.

Dad wiped his eyes and cleared his throat, and we tried not to ask questions about Mom maybe wanting us back. We tried not to care about that.

Later that night, Arizona snuck into my bed.

“We made Dad cry,” she said.

“We can't ever do that again,” I said. We gripped pinkies. We kissed our fists. We slept in the same bed and tried and tried and tried not to miss our mother.

As promised, I'm invited to Brooklyn to meet the parents.

“I'm scared,” I say on the phone. I hate the phone. It reminds me of claustrophobic conversations with my mother on my birthdays, and I don't want to associate Bernardo with anything like that.

“Well, what would make you less scared?” he says. Bernardo is a guy who likes to solve problems. Or at least likes to solve my problems.

“Don't know.”

“When are you least scared?”

“When Roxanne and Arizona are in charge,” I say. What I mean is that I'm least scared when I'm barely there, when I'm background noise.

“Well, bring them,” he says. “We're a ‘the more the merrier' kind of family.”

“If you mean that, you're my hero.”

“Then I guess I'm your hero,” he says.

Arizona says no.

Arizona says she is reaching her capacity for crazy requests from people, and she's going to get a tan in the park instead.

Arizona says I've known this guy for a week and there's no reason to bring the whole crew to some crazy Brooklyn dinner.

Arizona says I have no idea what I'm doing.

Roxanne says okay because Roxanne is down for adventures. Plus, she likes the idea of Bernardo, or at least the idea of me getting wilder and dreamier and sexier.

Roxanne also says okay because she's bored in New York this summer. She misses Bard. She misses her roommate. She misses college.

I try not to hear her when she says it. I want to be enough.

Roxanne and I wear dresses that seem like the kind of dresses parents would like. I think Dad's annoyed when he sees me flounce downstairs. He wishes I'd wear something like this for his dinners, for meeting Karissa, for the diner even.

He's doing work at the kitchen counter. There are pictures of women's faces and he's drawing on them and it's depressing. He has manila folders with before and after photos from old cases, and he brings them too close to his face, making a
humph
noise every few seconds.

When he looks up at us, he still has his doctor glasses on and a face-lifted “after” picture in one of his hands. If I had a couch cushion I could use like I did back when I was little, I'd hide my face in
it now, not wanting to be seen by him.

“Wear that Friday, to the park,” he says, envisioning a perfect proposal where not only does Karissa say yes, but his youngest daughter has her hair back with a headband covering the pinkest parts and a navy polka-dot sundress flaring out over her hips and making her look almost like she has curves on top too. “Don't you feel good and confident all dressed up like that?” he says. I don't answer. “It makes me happy to see you so happy. This is what I've always wanted for you.”

I know what he's always wanted for me. If I were a different girl from a different home, I'd ask him about the gift certificate right now. I'd take the opening and make him apologize for it or at least acknowledge its existence.

I am not that girl. I shrug.

“Such a pretty girl,” he says. It should sound nice and complete, but as usual I hear everything that's wrong with me too. I hear
such a pretty girl, but
. I hear
wouldn't you like to use that gift certificate as soon as you turn eighteen in a few months?
I wonder if he'll ask, on my birthday, what I plan on changing about myself. “You and Arizona. Both so pretty,” he says, and I hate that too.

It's possible I would hate anything he said right now. We haven't made up since the day at the diner. We haven't even spoken about it.

“I'm meeting my boyfriend's parents,” I say, ignoring the rest. “It's a whole thing.” I grab his coffee mug from him and take a few sips.

“That should be interesting,” Dad says. He doesn't ask follow-up questions. He traces the jawline of one woman's picture. She's not old
or young. She's not pretty or ugly. He adjusts his glasses before drawing a line near her ears. “You want Karissa to do your makeup?”

“I'll do it!” Roxanne says. Dad likes that she sits around our house like it's part hers. He pours her a coffee too and offers to make her some toast.

“But don't you dare put that crazy stuff on my daughter's face,” he says, pointing at Roxanne's thick eyeliner and the little star sticker on her cheek.

“I'm good. No makeup necessary,” I say. Dad laughs like that is a great joke I've made.

“Well, it's up to you, I suppose. Will you bring him to the park Friday?” Dad says. He is officially obsessed with the park Friday. He tells Roxanne to come too, and to bring any boys she might be dating. “Or girls!” he says, because he is nothing if not accepting of people who are not his children.

“I'll be there, Dr. Varren,” Roxanne says. And I very nearly hate her for pretending it's fine, but she'd never let me down like that. “I'd hate to miss one of your epic proposals.” Dad hears and reddens but doesn't drop his mug or fight back or anything.

“I freaking love you,” I say when we're out the door.

“For so many reasons,” she says, leading us to the subway. She's a subway wizard, so she gets us to Bernardo's little pocket of Brooklyn quickly. It's all trees and brownstones out there. The dogs are bigger, too. I don't see Duane Reade or any banks for a bunch of blocks in a row. It's a whole new world.

Bernardo meets us outside his apartment building. It's a cute little walk-up and they have two floors of it, but it feels small with all five
kids and two parents and now me and Roxanne here too.

“Montana!” his mother says when she sees us. Her eyes flit back and forth between Roxanne and me, and I wonder which one of us she is hoping belongs to her son.

“That's me,” I say, stepping forward. She's small and solid. She has an apron and curly brown hair that's graying at the roots.

“Of course it's you,” she says, gesturing to my hair.

“Oh,” I say, self-conscious so quickly I can barely stop myself from stuttering. I've never met a boy's parents before. I don't know why I didn't think of that earlier, but this is a big first. “I'm sorry about this. About his—”

“Of course he did it for a pretty girl,” his dad interrupts, lumbering over. He's tall and dark, with a heavy beard and unreadable eyes. His accent is so strong I almost don't hear what he's saying, and I'm not sure whether to laugh or nod or look over at Bernardo, so I sort of do all three.

“Our Bernardo, always impulsive,” his mother says. Bernardo cringes so hard I mistake it for a seizure for a moment.

“Thank you for having me. This is Roxanne, my best friend.” There's all kinds of hand shaking, and I wish I looked like Arizona, only for today. Bernardo's brothers and sisters swarm around us and show us sock puppets they made and drawings they're working on and their mom's purse and the family gerbil.

I don't fit in, in the deepest way. I wonder if Casey did.

“This is the girl,” Bernardo says, when one of his sisters asks him why I'm having dinner there.

Bernardo's parents make a Mexican feast, with homemade tortillas
and very hot chicken and the most excellent guacamole I've ever had. There's some kind of spicy mac and cheese that's green and decadent and so eatable I almost forget I'm trying to impress people.

“Honey, be careful with the spice,” Bernardo's mother says to him after he's put extra sauce on his chicken and scooped a few jalapeños onto his pasta. “You know it upsets your tummy if you have too much.”

Bernardo goes red.

“I know how to eat,” he mumbles. His shoulders slump, and behind his head I can see a picture of him when he was little. He doesn't look very different.

“How do you like the food?” his dad says. He's beaming over his work. My mouth's full and so is Roxanne's, so we both nod enthusiastically, and Roxanne squeezes my thigh under the table, telling me she's happy for me and this new bit of life I'm getting to have.

“Good. That Casey girl hated Mexican food. Bernardo tell you that? What kind of person doesn't like spice? Or cheese? Or cilantro?” He shakes his head, and I wonder how many times Casey ate here and how well she knew the kids. Whether she brought them presents on Christmas. What exactly he loved about her. “She was a little uptight. Bernardo doesn't need any more uptight in his life. You uptight?”

“She is super not!” Roxanne says. She beams and takes a huge bite of chicken.

“I guess not,” I say.

“I'm so sorry,” Bernardo says. “My parents get a little—”

“We're your parents,” his mother says. “We have a say.”

It's one of those conversation-stopping sentences.

“Not really,” Bernardo says. The words sound tired, and I'm sure he has said them so many times before that they are reflex more than argument. I don't know where I fit into this conversation, so I smile and try to seem agreeable and not uptight and into the food.

“Sorry,” he whispers to me while his parents ask Roxanne about college. “They think I'm seven still.”

“You're not, right?” I say, and Roxanne overhears and laughs. Everyone loosens up.

We spend the afternoon at the table. No one moves to get to work or to vanish into their rooms. The kids sometimes grab toys from their bedrooms or chase one another around in a precarious indoor tag situation. But otherwise there's the feeling that this could go on forever. There's simply the changing of light as afternoon moves to evening moves to night.

“You should bring your family here sometime soon,” Bernardo's mother says. No one so normal has ever liked me so quickly. She keeps asking if anything is too spicy and refilling my water glass, which I'm really only drinking because I'm nervous.

“Maybe!” I say. I want to get off this topic as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what Bernardo's told them. Hopefully not too much.

“What do they do, your folks?” his dad says. He keeps rubbing Bernardo's mom's back, and she doesn't stop smiling. They are happy in this easy way. Maybe that's what it looks like to be together for decades. Maybe that's what it looks like to stay with someone.

Bernardo cringes.

“Don't interview her, Dad,” he says. I wonder if maybe I'm not supposed to answer.

“It's a normal question that we'd ask anyone,” his dad says, looking at me with eyebrows raised. “We talked to Roxanne about her teacher parents. Sound like lovely people.”

“Oh, my dad's a, um, plastic surgeon?” I say. I find if I say it like a question, as if maybe they won't even know what a plastic surgeon is, I hate myself less.

“Huh. Interesting,” Bernardo's dad says. He nods seriously, and I try to see how much he's judging me. “A doctor, then!”

“Yes!” I forget I could say doctor and be done with it.

“There was a very nice plastic surgeon down the street who worked with kids who'd been burned. Very important work,” Bernardo's mom says. She wants this to be where I come from. I hate lying, but nodding isn't the same thing as lying. So I nod.

“Totally!” Bernardo says. His face is a mess of emotions I haven't seen on him before. I'm so used to him one way, it pinches to see him this other way. It's the first time I realize he hates something about me.

He doesn't look my way.

“Montana's father is really respected,” he says. Every extra word that comes out of him hurts me more. I'm allowed to be embarrassed by my father, but I'm not ready for my boyfriend to be covering for him too. Covering for me. Making sure no one knows how shameful I actually am.

I'm That Girl from That Family. I didn't know Bernardo sees me that way.

“And your mother?” Bernardo's dad says. He's so nice it doesn't sound like grilling me, but that's what he's doing. My mouth is dry and not working right. I don't want to admit any more things about how flawed and broken we are.

“Montana's mom's not around,” Roxanne says, saving me from having to say the words myself. “But her sister is a sweetheart, and they're all very close. They're a really cool family. I spend, like, all my time there.”

The moment of panic and shame shrinks.

“Montana's kind of the best,” Bernardo says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Roxanne. Not saying anything more about my family. “We get each other.”

“You're always saying that, honey,” his mom says, not hearing until it's too late that she's said something mean. I keep reminding myself Bernardo and I have something different than Bernardo and Casey did. He said she made him feel like he was supposed to be more. And I know I make him feel like he's enough. I want his parents to see that. I change my posture and my smile, hoping to make it somehow more obvious.

His mom goes to get the dessert. Profiteroles with ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce.

“I'm in charge of dessert around here,” she says. I like that their family isn't all one thing or another. That a Mexican feast is followed by French pastries and Ben & Jerry's. That sometimes his parents say the wrong things.

“I don't always say that,” Bernardo says a few minutes later, when we should have already let it go.

He pouts and looks like the kid in the frame above him again. So strongly I think it's no wonder his parents treat him like he's a baby.

Luckily, the profiteroles are perfection, and the chocolate sauce is the buttery kind that hardens when it hits the ice cream, and the little kids zoom cars over the dining room table like it's a racetrack. Things here are flawed and brilliant, all at once.

Like love, I think, knowing I'll write it later on my List of Things to Be Grateful For.

We kiss outside his home and I worry about his family seeing, but he doesn't seem to be thinking of that. Roxanne sings “I Will Always Love You” when she gets sick of watching us and says it's time to get to the subway.