by Minka Kent
Nine
“I think someone was in my phone,” I say to Lauren Monday night. We’re both seated in the living room, noses buried in our homework. Up until tonight, I hadn’t seen her since Saturday. Ever since getting back together, she and Thayer had been glued to each other’s sides.
“Wait, what?” She glances up from the pale gray laptop resting on her thighs. “What are you talking about?”
“The other night. When we went out,” I give her context. “Some stuff was deleted off my phone.”
Her expression relaxes. “Oh. Jeez. You scared me. You probably bumped some settings or something. You were pretty wasted.”
I start to respond but then stop. I don’t buy it. I don’t think even in my drunkest of stupors, I’d specifically delete the location data on my phone.
“I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve found my phone in the fridge after a night of drinking. Or my keys in my shower. Weird stuff that makes no sense.” Her gaze returns to her screen and she begins clicking away at the keys. “Anyway, don’t you have a passcode on your phone?”
I nod. That and my thumbprint, which could easily be used if I’m passed out drunk.
“Did you update your iOS recently? Sometimes when I do that, I lose stuff or my settings get changed,” she says.
“Nope.”
“Was it scandalous, what they deleted?” she asks. “Pictures? Texts? Emails?”
“Nope. It was …” I exhale. I don’t want to seem dramatic or like I’ve seen too many episodes of Dateline. “It was nothing.”
“Okay, so don’t stress.” She glances at me once more, smiling, before shoving an earbud in her ear and returning to her assignment. Yanking it out a second later, she shoves her laptop aside and searches for her phone. “Crap. It’s seven thirty. I was supposed to call my mom an hour ago.” Lifting her phone to her ear, she covers the mouthpiece for a second. “Hey, I’m going home tomorrow night to grab a few things. You want to come with me? It’s a forty-five-minute drive. I’d love the company. Gets boring.”
Yet another first.
Meeting someone’s parents.
There’s a swirl of nervous energy in my middle, but my ego is flattered that she likes me enough to introduce me to her family. If nothing, it solidifies the fact that we’re becoming friends. Actual friends. You don’t take someone home to meet your parents if you don’t like them, if they mean nothing to you.
I mean something to her.
“Mom? Hey.” Lauren rises from her spot before I have a chance to answer. “Didn’t forget you … the night just got away from me … Yep, it’s all going well.”
Her voice trails as she shuffles down the hall and a moment later, she’s in her room, door closed. Returning my attention to Elisabeth’s book—which I’m choosing to read out of equal parts enjoyment and guilt at this point—it isn’t more than fifteen minutes when Lauren emerges, all smiles.
“My parents are so excited to meet you,” she says. “We’ll leave around four, if that’s okay?”
“Sure.” I try to inject a bit of enthusiasm into my tone, but I’m sure my apprehension is broadcasting via the worry lines spreading across my forehead. What if they don’t like me? What if they think I’m awkward, weird? What if they can sniff out the fact that I’m dirt poor and they don’t want me hanging around their daughter because our kinds don’t mix? “Did you tell them I live here?”
Lauren’s crystal eyes widen. “No. They have no clue. I just told them you were a new friend.”
“Got it.”
Lowering herself into her chair, she grabs her computer and returns to her music and gets back to work. I try to think of the last time I talked to my mom for no reason other than to catch up, but I can’t remember. My freshman year, I’d call her to say hello every once in a while, on nights when I was feeling homesick for some insane reason and wanted to hear a familiar voice and she was the only real option I had except for my grandma, who was never much for talking on the phone. My mom would never make more than five minutes for me, always telling me she was on her way out the door with her man or meeting some friends for drinks at the square.
I didn’t call her at all my sophomore year, thinking maybe she’d wake up one morning missing me and start making the effort.
Never happened.
Life never goes to plan for people like me. Only people like Lauren. It’s like they’re a magnet for good fortune, dreaming up whatever it is they need out of life and not blinking twice the second it manifests.
In the past eight days, it’s almost as if my life is becoming a magnet for good fortune. I’ve landed a quiet rental in a nice neighborhood that doesn’t break the bank, I’ve inherited a killer wardrobe, and I’ve amazingly been accepted into a group of friends who, so far, don’t seem like snotty bitches.
And on top of that? I’m happy.
I’m truly happy. And I don’t know that I’ve ever been truly happy in my life until now.
Maybe that’s how these things work. You rub elbows with the lucky ones and some of their magic dust rubs off on you?
Whatever it is, all I know is I don’t ever want to go back to the way things used to be.
Ten
“Welcome to Brunswick Cliffs” is chiseled into a rock next to an iron gate. Lauren swipes her card at the entrance and the doors swing open, my first foray into a gated community.
I try not to gawk at the mansions. They’re ostentatious, over the top. They scream wealth and whisper secrets. Rich people always have secrets. But god damn is this place beautiful.
Even covered in a blanket of snow, I can tell the landscapes are manicured and equipped with circle drives and elaborate water fountains which have been winterized. Naked trees line the streets, and I can only imagine how lush and full they look in the summertime, providing the local residents with cool shade as they zoom past in their imported sports cars and gas-hungry SUVs.
Lauren’s car rolls to a stop at the corner of Primrose and Beaumont. Even the street names here are pretentious and upscale, at least to someone who grew up at fifteen-thirty-four West Twenty-Eighth Street South.
“We’re here,” she says as she turns into the circle drive of a massive white house on the corner. A covered porch spans the entire front of it and yet another porch rests on top of that one. It’s like one of those Southern manor houses, only modern and updated with a million lights strategically placed to give it that ‘wow’ factor the moment the sun goes down.
Lauren parks behind a dark gray Aston Martin with plates that say DOC W. Her father must be some kind of doctor. Probably one that specializes in weird shit and charges an arm and a leg for a basic consultation.
Climbing out of her car, I make my way between her Lexus and her father’s Aston Martin where she’s waiting to slink her arm into mine and lead me inside. Before we make it halfway down the brick-paved front walk, her mother is already standing in the doorway, arms outstretched like she hasn’t seen her daughter in ages.
Lauren releases her hold on me and runs toward her mom’s open embrace. I’d give anything to know what that feels like—to be missed, longed for.
“Mom, this is Meadow,” Lauren says. “She’s my friend from World Lit.”
“Meadow, it’s so lovely to meet you.” her mother’s voice is warm bread and sweet honey. “I’m Suzette. Come on in.”
We follow Suzette into a sweeping, two-story foyer, and I promptly remove my shoes at the rug. Grand crystal chandeliers cast shadows on the pale gray walls that lead down a hallway to the backside of the house.
Passing through the hall, I find rows upon rows of family portraits, watching the evolution of Lauren from a newborn baby to a high school graduate. The girl couldn’t take a bad picture if she tried. Shiny flaxen hair. Sparkling blue eyes. Perfect smile. As far as I can tell, she never had an awkward braces-and-baby fat phase.
No one ever said life was fair.
Suzette leads us to the kitchen, where three small boxes rest on the
table, and she removes the lid of the first one. “I hope you have enough here.”
Lauren reaches inside, retrieving a handful of photographs before turning toward me. “It’s my grandmother’s eightieth birthday next month. I’m putting together this video with music and pictures for her party. It’s a surprise.”
Suzette beams, admiring her daughter the way everyone who ever comes around Lauren tends to admire her. “We can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
“Full disclosure, Thayer’s helping me,” Lauren says, placing a palm out. I recall how Thayer said he was a graphic design major the other night. It surprised me. He didn’t seem like the type content to sit behind a computer monitor for hours on end, but then again, maybe I was comparing him to League of Legends-addicted Bug. Night and day, those two. Astroturf and crab grass. “I don’t want to steal all the credit.”
“Either way, we can’t wait. Nonna’s going to love it,” Suzette says, striding toward the oven and checking on a chicken roasting under the broiler. “Hope you two are hungry.”
We seat ourselves at the table in the dining room, where her father, whom I’ve learned is a pediatric neurosurgeon by the name of Dr. Jay Wiedenfeld, joins us. He’s friendly with young eyes that crinkle at the sides, a thick head of dark gray hair, and a dimple in the middle of his chin.
Suzette serves us an overabundance of food—roasted chicken and root vegetables, truffle risotto, honey butter croissants and French silk pie—all of it made from scratch. If this is her way of showing off her kitchen prowess, she’s awfully humble about it, chuckling off my praise before transitioning the subject.
I eat like royalty and she and Jay treat me like their guest of honor, asking dozens of questions and gushing over every answer I give, as if the most fascinating things in the world are coming out of my mouth.
It’s the strangest sensation—being treated like you’re special. It’s like someone wove a blanket out of everything that’s right in the world and then wrapped it around you like a hug.
It’s almost addictive.
And it explains so much. People with money don’t care so much about being perceived as rich as they do about being perceived as special.
I get it now.
When we leave, I’m buzzing. My entire body is humming with an electric charge. Already I can’t wait to come back here, to dip my toe in the Wiedenfeld waters all over again. Maybe one of these weekends I can stay the night? I’d die. I’d literally die. I want to know what it’s like to spend a day with this family.
I bet it’s magical.
I bet they play tennis and watch golf and have cocktail hour and tell country club jokes and share pictures from their latest trip to Cannes.
I bet nothing bad ever happens behind these doors, and if it does, their housekeeper is on standby with a broom and dustpan to sweep it up and toss it outside where it belongs.
Lauren starts her car before my seatbelt is fastened. And then she yawns. It’s dark out now, the sky starless, and we’ve got a little under an hour until we get back to Monarch Falls.
We stayed way longer than we’d planned, but her parents are expert conversationalists and it’s like they knew how to draw me out of my shell. Once they got me talking, I couldn’t stop. That’s never happened before. It’s like we just clicked.
Lauren sat there in silence most of the night, checking her phone under the table, completely bored with our conversation. Maybe she and Thayer are fighting again? I don’t know. Or maybe she was jealous that her parents were fawning all over me? Hard to tell. I’m still getting to know her, still trying to figure her out.
“Your parents are amazing,” I tell her once we hit the interstate. I can’t stop replaying the night in my head, trying to record it like a movie, embed it into my memory.
She smiles, lips tight and tired eyes and blinking as she focuses on the road.
“They’re perfect,” I say. Reaching for her radio, I twist the volume knob until her favorite band—which I’ve recently learned is Hooverphonic—begins to play, in hopes that it’ll bring her out of her funk. “They really are. You’re so lucky.”
My words are met with zero response at first, and then she exhales. “There’s no such thing as perfect, Meadow.”
“You know what I mean,” I say.
“Sometimes,” she says, voice soft, “when you look close enough, you can see the cracks. And I think people who seem perfect are the ones with the most flaws. They just do a better job at hiding them.”
I’ve never heard Lauren go so deep before, and I’m stunned into reticence.
“What you didn’t see tonight,” she says, “is the bottle of Riesling my mother downed before we got there or that the second we left, my father made a beeline to his study where he’ll play online poker until one in the morning.”
I’m not sure what to say, though I appreciate her openness with me, her honesty. She didn’t have to tell me those things, but I love that she trusts me.
We’re friends.
Lauren Wiedenfeld is my friend.
It never gets old, reminding myself of this new fact.
“Anyway, tell me about your family.” I detect a hint of embarrassment on her end, the tiniest quiver in her voice. “Tell me your family proves my theory wrong.”
Exhaling, I rest my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window. “Wish I could.”
“Really?” She takes her eyes off the road for a split second, long enough to look at me. “You seem so … normal. Like the daughter of a schoolteacher and an accountant, the kind of girl who grew up with a normal house and normal friends and a dog and parents that didn’t put an insane amount of pressure on you to be exactly who they wanted you to be.”
“I’d trade childhoods with you in a heartbeat.”
For a moment, I think about opening up to her. Every story, everything I’ve ever resented my mother for … it’s all bubbling to the surface, begging to come out. To be shared. I’ve never told anyone anything, ever. I’ve kept it all inside. Buried. Hidden like some shameful secret that defined the darkest parts of me.
“Okay, so what’s your family like?” Lauren asks.
Pulling in a deep breath and feeling my self-control teetering, I begin. “I grew up with a single mom named Misty, and we lived in a two-bedroom rental that backed up to train tracks …”
I start at the beginning—which for me is when my dad left just after Christmas in first grade.
And I don’t stop.
For forty-five minutes, I ramble on. I tell her everything. I tell her about all of my mother’s boyfriends, the forgotten birthdays, the ignored Christmases, the empty kitchen cabinets, the stale bread and expired milk, the parties my mother would throw on school nights, the mean girls at school …
I hold nothing back.
I leave nothing out.
By the time we get home, I’ve bared my soul and it’s terrifying.
But I’m liberated.
For the first time, I have hope. I have friends. I have a life. There’s no sense in dwelling in the misfortunes of my past. From here on, I’m only looking up. I’m shedding this awkward and uncomfortable skin—no matter how painful this metamorphosis may be—in favor of something better.
And I’m never looking back.
Eleven
The smell of dog piss and cigarette smoke smacks me in the face Saturday afternoon the moment I step inside my mom’s house. I haven’t even been here three seconds and already I can’t wait to get back to my new place with its spot-free floors, flower-scented air, fluffed pillows and made beds.
Let me make it crystal clear—I don’t want to be here and this isn’t a friendly visit.
I’m here on a mission.
I need money—more money—and this part-time Sparkle Shine Cleaning Co bullshit job isn’t cutting it, not since my tastes have shifted.
And let’s be real. I’m not some idiot buying Louis Vuitton and Chanel. More like shopping the clearance rack at Nordstrom. Bu
t still. I can’t keep recycling the same five outfits for the next three months. And I need shoes that actually fit, shoes that don’t pinch my toes and blister my heels.
Mom and Bug don’t acknowledge me when I walk in, their glassy gazes fixed on the TV where they’re watching some 1970-style Western, the kind where the actors look orange and the cowboys shoot at everything that moves. Mom never liked this shit before. It’s all Bug. But that’s Misty Cupples for you. Tofu. Always morphing into whatever she needs to be, absorbing the likes and interests of the man keeping her bed warm at night.
Standing in front of the TV, I cross my arms until I get their attention.
“Contrary to what you might think, you are not made out of glass, Meadow Rain,” Mom says. She still hasn’t met my hardened stare. “Move it. Go find something to do.”
Ah, that old sentiment.
Go find something to do.
If I had a nickel for every time she said that to me growing up, I wouldn’t be here right now preparing to scrounge through my old belongings in search of things to pawn.
“Just need to know where you put my stuff,” I say, keeping it brief and keeping my eyes from roving all over this junk cluttered excuse for a living room.
Bug’s fat Doberman growls. He hushes her with the wave of his hand and she lies back down.
“You know,” I continue, “since you converted my bedroom into your computer room.”
Bug squints at me before standing up. His pants fall a little, and he yanks them into place before walking to me.
“Misty, you better tell your daughter to watch the way she speaks to me in my house,” he says, looking straight into my eyes. At least I think. One of them tends to wander, and I can never tell what he’s looking at half the time.
“Your house?” I scoff at him.
He yanks his pants again before hooking his thumbs through the belt loops. “Damn right it’s my house. You haven’t lived here in years. Isn’t yours anymore.”
I begin to say something, but I stop myself. I don’t need to get into a pissing match with a guy named Bug over who gets the privilege of calling this shithole “home.”
