Making Pretty (27 page)

Arizona and I stay for the reception. Bernardo stands next to me in a black suit. He doesn't have his scarf on.

“It doesn't go with my tie,” he says.

His tie is yellow and paisley and his father's, I'm sure. It's the first time I've seen him in something that isn't wholly his.

We dance to old Frank Sinatra songs that my dad loves, and Bernardo says he loves them too. “Oh,” I say. “I don't.”

He looks taken aback, like he didn't know I could have my own opinions on love songs. Or love in general.

“I love you in your dress,” he says instead of discussing the relative merits of old-timey love songs. Arizona and I are both in pale sundresses instead of our bridesmaid gowns. It's better this way.

My dad looks so uncertain I wonder if he crossed his finger behind his back for the vows. I wonder if he's already contacted his divorce attorney, probably the busiest lawyer in the city given my dad's record, to discuss getting out of this whole thing ASAP.

He wasn't made for unconditional love, maybe. Maybe none of us are, really.

“Do you want cake?” Bernardo says. I keep not telling him I can't run away with him. I don't know how to tell him about the in-between place I want to be. The different kind of love I want to have.

If I were from a different family, I'd ask my dad about his uncertainty and what percentage of love is supposed to be about doubt and what percentage about sureness. But we are not that family, and my dad can take a half step closer to being what I need him to be, but in his tux and red tie and red boutonniere and shiny gold wedding band, he is still mostly the old dad.

And he's given me all the answers I need.

“I hate wedding cake,” I say.

If he loves me the way I want to be loved, I can make a mistake and be a different girl from the one he imagined, from the ideal one in his head. If he loves me the way I need him to, it will be okay that I'm not running away with him, that I'm going away with Arizona.

And if he doesn't, that's okay too.

“Bernardo and I were going to go on the train too,” I say.

“Romantic,” Arizona says. She has a duffel bag and I have the tiny wheel-y suitcase Tess left behind. We brought them to the wedding and stored them in the special room at the Ritz that Karissa got ready in.

She didn't even notice them. Or us at all.

We'd clinked champagne glasses, and Karissa said she hoped we could all move forward as a family. I conducted some kind of physics experiment with the glass flute. How hard could I squeeze it without it shattering?

Karissa looked pretty but not good.

“You're next!” she said, filling our glasses and making us toast again. I think some small part of each of us, Karissa, Arizona, and me, thought this wasn't going to happen after the last few days. So it felt more like a dream than a wedding, and we weren't really there at all, in some ways. We were already on the train, across the country, trying
to fix the broken parts of ourselves.

“We'll come back, right?” I say, watching the city behind us from the train. Because New York City can't possibly continue on without us. We are the ones keeping it alive, I think. With our cigarettes and dyed hair and cursing and stoop sitting and coffee inhaling, aren't we the very essence of the city?

There's no reason to say any of that to Arizona, who doesn't smoke enough cigarettes or have cool enough hair to count. But she's New York too, with her little heels and perfect outfits and sturdy boobs and sad eyes.

“Don't think about next,” Arizona says, “when we're still doing now.”

It's possible she's a prophet or a Buddha or something truly special and Important. But it's also possible that she's a little drunk from the open bar at the wedding and the promise-making shots we took and the champagne with Karissa, who I guess I don't really know at all, and the way adventure feels when it's moving through your veins.

I write down one more List of Things to Be Grateful For, to send to Bernardo.

“Do you think Mom will look like me or you?” Arizona says, like those are the only two options. We're on the train, side by side in a sleeper car, and I sort of can't wait for night to fall so we can go to sleep to the shaky, grumbling movements.

I shrug. Maybe I don't care who she looks like. What she looks like.

I don't want to be my mother, but I want to be a little like her. I don't want to be my father. But I want to be a little like him too. And a little of Arizona. And a little of something else.

I don't know exactly what I want.

I want Bernardo, but not the way it's been.

I take out my eyebrow ring but decide to keep my hair pink. I hope he keeps the parts of what we did together that he likes best too.

I hope that includes keeping me.

Bernardo's initial is on my finger, and I wonder what else it could stand for. I want us to be together, but not engaged. I want us to be something but not everything.

Beautiful
.

Branded
.

Bystander
.

Breathe
.

Blip
.

Becoming
.

Or maybe it stands for the summer I fell in love so hard my whole world changed. Maybe that's enough, even if it doesn't end in forever.

Belong
.

It doesn't mean what I thought it did.

Thank you as always to my agent, Victoria Marini, and my editor, Anica Rissi, for making me feel understood, heard, capable, and strong. And for brilliantly locating the hearts of my books long before they are even books. I am so lucky to have you both in my life.

Thank you of course to my family—especially to Ellie and Amy for giving me adorable writing breaks with their video chats.

Thank you to Caela Carter, Alyson Gerber, Amy Ewing, and Alison Cherry for your amazing insights, the care you take with my characters, and all the little and big ways you make book-writing (and person-being) more possible.

Thank you Brandy Colbert for the way you understand my words, listen to my fears, share my joys, and push me to be better. Also for being an excellent Life Twin.

Special thank-yous to lovely, smart, and patient superstar and pal Alexandra Arnold, to Katherine Tegen, Rosanne Romanello, Valerie Shea, Bethany Reis, Amy Ryan, Erin Fitzsimmons, and the rest of the
Katherine Tegen Books team, who have all been so supportive of my books and me. I am incredibly proud to call Katherine Tegen Books my home.

Thank you to booksellers and librarians, who have been wonderful these past few years.

Thank you Julia Furlan for helping with this book, but more importantly, helping with every other aspect of my life. And to Anna Bridgforth, Honora Javier, and Pallavi Yetur for Being There.

Thank you Frank Scallon for listening to a lot of writer-talk, a lot of book-talk, and for being the best.

I have been blessed with so many amazing writer-friends who are now also friend-friends. Thank you for making this journey legitimately fun even when it is also terrifying. Most especially Jess Verdi, Mary Thompson, Kristen Kittscher, Lindsay Ribar, Mindy Raf, Dahlia Adler and Caroline Carlson.