Making Pretty (20 page)

When I get home, Karissa is on the couch, blitzed out of her mind and holding her phone in one hand and a lit cigarette that she's not even smoking in the other. I don't tell her I saw her uptown with my father. I don't tell her I saw the way he looked at her face for flaws.

She doesn't notice my eyebrow, but she cuddles into me on the couch.

“My agent dumped me,” she says. She shows me an email from the agent who signed her in the fall. Someone fancy and skeezy.

“No way,” I say. Karissa isn't a little bit good. She is a lot good. She is arresting.

“He says my look isn't selling,” she says. “He says after auditions the feedback is that I'm really good but I don't look the way they need me to look.” She's crying not only from her eyes but from her chest.

“But you're gorgeous. He's insane. That's literally insane.”

“I'm all wrong,” Karissa says. She doesn't move from the couch, doesn't let me move. “Thank God I have you guys,” she says after a
while. I think she means my dad and me, and the sentence makes me tense up. She doesn't have me. She probably doesn't even really have him.

My shirt's wet, soon, from her crying. She is getting messier and stranger and more and more a part of my life.

I touch my eyebrow ring, like it's a portal to a better place. To Bernardo. To the place I actually now belong.

Dad gets home an hour later. My arm is falling asleep from holding Karissa, and I want to be anywhere but here.

“She needs you!” I say.

“Sean!” Karissa says, and Dad comes right to the couch before putting down his briefcase or pouring himself some water like he usually does.

“What happened here?” he says, and takes her from my shoulder to his own.

“Agent stuff,” I say. I get up to go to my room and let them do this alone, because I don't want to see love and kindness and warmth between them. Even if that's what I've always wanted for my father and what I want for Karissa, I hate seeing it between them.

Then they're kissing, and it's even worse seeing it up close and not through a window. I take another few steps away.

“I can't do this all,” Karissa says. She is soft and scared. Her voice shakes.

“Sure you can. We're here for you,” Dad says. “Right, Montana?”

I don't respond. I can't. I notice a new lamp on the table next to the couch. It gives off an orange-pink light through a thick glass shell. It's
odd and shadeless and totally from Karissa's apartment. It is the first new addition to our home.

Soon there will be vintage floral armchairs and gold sheer curtains and beaded pillows and ironic coffee mugs and framed posters instead of original prints.

“I want to be married to you already, you wonderful man,” Karissa says.

“Do you now?” he says. I'm going to be sick. I need to leave the room, but I'm compelled to stay. It's an awful thing I can't stop looking at.

“I do,” Karissa says, then laughs. “Like
I do
, I do, you know?” She's giggling and my dad's giggling and the sound has the approximate effect of nails on a chalkboard.

“I do,” Dad says, all mock serious like he's in his own wedding and yep, that's what he sounds like when he's getting married. I know it well.

“That sounds good,” Karissa says. I should leave. I need to leave. I've watched sickly sweet moments like this before, but always with Arizona and always when I didn't know everything about the woman, and always when it was funny instead of terrible.

It's bizarre to think my dad carries this baby-talk-using, skin-crawlingly cutesy side of himself all the time. That it lies dormant in him except when it pops out, surprising me every time.

“Well then, let's do it,” Dad says.

Every part of me stops—my brain, my heart, my churning stomach, the world around me.

“What do you mean?” Karissa says, but her voice is so glee-filled I'm sure she knows exactly what he means.

“Let's get married soon. Now. We don't need to wait. We don't need to plan a whole thing. You want to be married already, let's be married already.”

“Really?” Karissa says. Her tears are gone, but the mess they made on her face is not. I'm sure she still smells like cigs and maybe wine and me too, from staying against me for so long.

“Really,” Dad says. He sounds proud, which is how he always sounds when he feels like he's fixed something. Every time he gets married. Whenever he buys us something expensive and useless when we're sad. When he has news from our mother, like it's an accomplishment for us to get to hear she exists.

This is one of those moments where he thinks he's solving a problem, but he's making it worse.

“You got engaged five minutes ago,” I squeak from my place at the bottom of the stairs. “I think that would be a little . . . hard . . . for us . . . to adjust to.” It's impossible to piece together a statement explaining something that should be obvious.

I was wrong, the lamp's not the only addition to the apartment. I notice for the first time paint samples on the wall. Coral and violet and mustard yellow.

I don't like any of them. I like the almost-green-but-mostly-gray walls Dad's had forever. He's never let anyone paint.

“You don't get engaged unless you're ready to get married,” Dad says.

“Karissa,” I say. I think I don't need to say more than her name for her to understand me.

“Montana,” she says back. I guess I was wrong.

“This is a lot. At once.”

It is the gentlest way I can think of to say it is not okay, it is unacceptable, it is ridiculous. I even say it with a little smile, something warm and easy, a smile I would have given her after a hard scene in class or when we were standing on the corner and she lit my cigarette. It is a smile she knows.

She bursts into tears.

Dad shakes his head at me. At my insensitivity.

Karissa cries even harder, moaning a little. “Even my best friend doesn't understand me,” she says, and I try to calculate how very wrong I might have been about her and how truly scary that is.

“I know,” Dad says, and I wish I couldn't hear. “I know, I know.” He shoos me away with his free hand. Doesn't even look at me.

I take the paint samples off the wall and go upstairs. The tape was too sticky, and some color tore off when I pulled too hard, leaving behind tiny squares of white.

It's a little bit ruined, our home.

Bernardo goes home to Brooklyn after the Fourth of July finale is over—dozens and dozens of fireworks toppling over each other in the sky until the whole thing is so lit up and crowded that we can mostly see flashes of light, smoke, and nothing else.

Arizona, Roxanne, and I head to our place and have a sleepover after, all of us bundled in the basement like the old days. Karissa's upstairs with my father and doesn't wander down all night, and Arizona, Roxanne, and I stay up forever with a six-pack and cigarettes, so it's a mellow end of the night and Arizona doesn't even make me defend my eyebrow ring.

“How soon is soon?” Roxanne says when I tell them about the conversation Dad and Karissa had on Saturday in front of me. It feels so effing good to share it with them that I don't even wonder what kind of fallout it might have. I couldn't hold on to it all by myself.

“Like a few weeks, I think,” I say. “She has a dress already.” I
don't tell them how I know that.

Roxanne shivers and rubs her goose-bumped arms. She used to do the same thing when we'd tell each other scary stories with flashlights under our chins. She scares easily. We scare her.

“I'm talking to her tomorrow,” Arizona says before we fall asleep.

“About what?” I say. I didn't drink enough beer to make me drunk, but I'm close to sleep with one toe in a dream about a forest and a bear and a chandelier.

“If she would leave, everything would be okay,” Arizona says. “With Dad. With us. With me. We'd all be okay. I'm sure.” Or it could be the bear that says it. It's hard to tell.

“Be careful,” I say, because I've seen something unhinged in Karissa that is too hard to explain when I'm half-asleep.

Arizona scoffs, misunderstanding. “Everything with Dad would be fine without these women,” she says. I think. Maybe the bear in my dream said it, not Arizona at all, because it sounds like something that would be said in a dream. Something we want to be true but probably isn't.

When we wake up in the morning, I don't have time to try to discern dream from reality. There's a lot of noise and smells and Top 40 pop music coming from the kitchen, so we wander up without the proper transition from sleeping to waking. We emerge from the basement in our clothes from the night before and reeking a little of the things we did. Karissa practically attacks us with friendliness.

“You're finally up! Been waiting for you so we can have a girls'
afternoon!” she says. Arizona recoils from the sound, and I back off from the smell on Karissa's breath—sour margarita mix. It's past noon but not by much, and she has that shiny-eyed look she did the morning she came into my room and kidnapped me. “My mom and dad always used to do margaritas the day after the Fourth of July! It was a total family tradition,” she says.

Of course. There's always a corresponding family memory whenever things are awkward for her. I wonder if it's the same for Arizona when she's at college. If everything reminds her of me. I hope that's the case.

I rub my eyes and try to adjust for the hundredth time to Karissa in our kitchen. I wonder if it will ever feel normal. Seeing her now I want to shove her back into her own kitchen, her own space.

“You are getting so punked out!” she says, touching my eyebrow ring. “I've always wanted to do that. Stupid acting.”

“Stupid acting,” I repeat like a robot.

“I love you,” she says, and it's light, with a giggle, the kind of
love you!
I've written at the ends of text messages or said when hugging someone good-bye even if I haven't meant it.

But still. I don't want to hear it.

Arizona looks like she is getting strangled, and I guess she sort of is.

“I should go home,” Roxanne says. They see the strangeness in Karissa's eyes too—something in between elation and depression—a sparkle that could be tears or joy. It's uncomfortable, not knowing where someone is on that spectrum.

“I'm not really in the mood for drinking,” Arizona says.

“I can make a virgin!” Karissa says. She's plastered. The wedding gowns we bought are hanging from the curtain rod by the fridge. She's unzipped them so they are on full display, and I wonder if she wants Arizona to be pissed, or if she's actually that naive.

I'm a little bit terrified about the possibility that Karissa is going to tell them all about our shopping trip and that the extra wedding gown is mine.

“Look,” Arizona says. “If we talk, will you remember what we talked about when you sober up?” She's looking at the dresses but talking to Karissa. “Or are you too blasted? Are you, like, blackout right now? Or can we do a conversation?”

I'm vibrating inside, like my stomach and heart and spine are leaning against a washing machine on a heavy cycle.

“You don't want to start the day with serious talk, do you?” Karissa says, making her eyes wide and licking salt from her fingers. “I am not in serious talk mode right now, ladyfriend.” She pours herself another margarita and slides one across the counter to me too. With Arizona and Karissa both looking at me, it's impossible to decide if sipping is a good idea. I roll the glass between the palms of my hands instead. Seems like a compromise. “My dad had a saying—margaritas and bad moods don't mix,” Karissa says. I cringe.

“Please don't call me ladyfriend,” Arizona says. When she and I shared a room years ago, she drew a line in thick black marker across our light-green rug. One side was mine, one side was hers, and we weren't allowed to cross the line. I feel like Arizona has her marker out
again today, and she's drawing another thick, uncrossable line.

“It can be a really good idea to talk things through,” Roxanne says. I think she and Arizona have rehearsed versions of this scenario. They seem to be unsurprised by the twists and turns.

Roxanne takes another step toward the door, and I wonder when her cue to leave is.

And why I don't know the script.

“Well, okay then,” Karissa says. She makes a big show out of emptying her margarita into the sink. “We can talk, but I won't go against my late father, as I'm sure you understand.” She pouts. I don't like it. I can't stop cringing. I'm getting hiccups in my stomach, a new sensation that feels a lot like nervous anticipation for something awful.

“We need to zip the garment bags up first. And you really need two?” Arizona says, gesturing to the gowns. “You already planning the second wedding? With husband number two?” She puts a hand on her chest to stop herself from saying more. “Shit. Sorry. I want to talk nicely. I'm sorry. Okay. Let me start over, but can we zip those up first, because they're distracting me.”

Karissa blinks and gets this funny Zen look on her face.

“Sure. Let's start over. Arizona, can I get you a drink?” she says. She has the beginning of a smile on her lips, but she doesn't let it come through fully. It's a power move, like she'll forgive Arizona if Arizona will take one.

Arizona is desperate to say no, but yes is easier.

“Thank you. That's nice,” Arizona says, and Karissa pours her a margarita. Pours herself one too, even after the whole show of
pouring it out. She crosses her arms and watches Arizona take a sip. Roxanne clears her throat, and I look at my phone and try to think of a succinct way to alert Bernardo to the massive power struggle quietly going down in my kitchen. Arizona sort of sputters on the alcohol or the salt or the lemon-lime sourness of the drink. Karissa zips up the dresses, and Arizona relaxes a little in spite of herself. Something bad is happening.

“You wanted to chat about something?” Karissa says, like all is right with the world. There's a glimmer of the person she was before. Cool. At ease. Open and wounded and pretty and wild. She pulls up a bar stool, offers one to Arizona. Leans in too far, aggressively far, to hear her speak. Their faces are inches away from each other. She puts a hand on Arizona's skinny arm. “Let's have a conversation. You liking your drink?”

Arizona takes another strained sip. Nods and musters a weak smile. Probably silently hates herself.

“Don't marry my dad,” Arizona says.

Roxanne lets out a huge exhale and I drink, a long painful suck on the rim. Karissa nods and leans forward one more precarious inch like she's super, super interested. She knew this was coming.

“I see, tell me more,” she says. I've seen Karissa plenty drunk before. But I've never seen her like this.

“Don't do it,” Arizona says again. “It will destroy my relationship with him, and the marriage is gonna last, like, two years tops anyways, and you're going to hate yourself and he's a terrible husband, and I will make your life hell if you do. So I'm asking you. Girl to girl.
Like, honestly. For your own good. Because he has only had terrible marriages. Don't do it.”

I keep going on my margarita and pour myself another as soon as the first one is done. Karissa doesn't say anything but stares at Arizona until she drinks more. The silence is excruciating.

“Maybe we should go out?” Roxanne interrupts the quiet. “We could just, like, walk? Around?”

“Keep drinking, Arizona,” Karissa says. I don't know why my sister's still listening to the command, except that maybe she thinks if she obeys everything else Karissa says, Karissa will give in and leave my father. It's terrible logic, but Arizona has a desperate, delusional look on her face, almost as desperate and delusional as Karissa's, which begs the question: Is this how my father makes women feel?

I feel a little desperate and delusional this summer too.

“You don't need him,” Arizona says. “You're . . . look at you. You're some goddess. Who should be with, like, a puppeteer. Or a poet. Or a merman. You don't need to be with my father. He'll ruin you. You've lost so much in your life. And you will lose him too. I don't want to see that happen to you.”

“Don't pretend to give a shit about me,” Karissa says. “Don't say awful things and pretend it's because you're such a nice person.”

Arizona picks at her knuckle, even though there's nothing there to pick.

“Don't pretend you know what my relationship with Sean is simply because you don't like it. I don't know about these other women. But with me he's kind. And accepting. And my life has been a mess.
I lost my family. And I can't book a fucking acting role to save my life. And I've hated who I am when I look in the mirror, even when other people are looking at me or wanting me or whatever. I sat in an old apartment with no working heat, drinking two-dollar wine with coked-up friends who have no direction. Then I found Sean. And we met halfway. And look at him! Do you even look at your father? He's happy. You can't tell me he's not happy!”

“He's happy now,” Arizona says. She's getting a little sloshed. Drinking too fast on an empty stomach is a bad idea. “Being happy now isn't the same thing as being happy forever.”

“News flash. No one's happy forever,” Karissa says. It's something true and terrible. It takes my breath away. It makes me take a long sip of margarita. In the cross fire between Arizona and Karissa there's no right and wrong, only horribly depressing. “We're all trying not to be lonely. And you, Arizona. You are fucking lonely.” She pours herself more margarita and smiles the smile of someone who is winning.

“Hey now,” Roxanne says, which is nothing really.

“Arizona has me,” I say, because it finally clicks that I have to pick a side this morning. And it's no contest. I pick her.

Karissa looks back and forth from me to Arizona like she's trying to see what's between us. I hate myself for ever telling her about missing my sister, about not feeling close to my sister, about wondering if my sister and I will ever feel the same way again. I hate so many things I said when I didn't know Karissa was dating my father. It was such an unfair place we were in. She was in one relationship, and
I was in a whole other relationship, a different reality. And I guess that's what betrayal looks like.

“I'm not like you,” Arizona says. She puts down her margarita and gets back in Karissa's face. “I can't compete with someone like you. I get that now. I thought I could maybe, but obviously that's not in the cards for me. I don't have my dad, I guess, and I don't have some Bernardo loving every tiny thing about me.” She's getting choked up, and it's so strange she'd even bring him up, because even though it feels like he's existed for me forever, he's barely been around. “We can't all be strange and lovable and quirky and free, okay?” She stops herself, realizing she's said too much. She's given Karissa power in the very moment that she was supposed to be taking control of the situation.

The words Karissa said—
you are fucking lonely—
echo in the kitchen. They did something to my sister.

“You're great, Arizona,” I say. It's so quiet and small and pointless. It's so much tinier than the things I should say to her. I wonder if she has a friend at Colby who could say something more powerful. Someone who knows her better these days. Someone who isn't a little bit angry at her still.

“You're sad,” Karissa says. It's cruel and cutting. It gets worse. “Your father loves me in a way that makes you jealous, and I get that. I so, so get that. You wish he loved you more. Loved you enough to do whatever you say. He doesn't.”

Me, Arizona, and Roxanne inhale together. A sharp sting of a breath. Karissa has a wicked look on her face, like she's won something none of us understood was up for grabs.

“My father would have done anything for me,” Karissa goes on. She sees the looks on our faces, and instead of them holding her back, they propel her forward. “He told me to stay home the day they died. Said it was too dangerous to drive. He protected me. That's love.

“My father said I was the most beautiful girl in the world,” Karissa continues. I can't believe she's not stopping. The air in the room is thick with heat and shock.