Goodbye, Perfect

by Sara Barnard

  Ivy

  We couldn’t find anywhere to stay and anyway we felt a bit exposed. Jack figures we should hide in plain sight. So we’re in Glasgow! Jack found us this great place on Craigslist. Takes cash, no questions asked. All good :)

  Yeah, sounds all good, I think, rolling my eyes. None of this is surprising me any more, but still – Glasgow?! I thought being on the run was meant to be romantic.

  Me

  Great.

  Ivy

  Sorry I didn’t message you for a while. Couldn’t charge my phone!

  Me

  That’s OK.

  Bonnie sends me the zipped-mouth emoji, followed by a smiley face, and it’s all I can do not to throw my phone across the room.

  God, this time last week we were making rocky-road fudge in her kitchen. She was quizzing me on the Periodic Table and letting me eat a marshmallow for every right answer. Was she planning all this then? Did she already know?

  Forget it, I tell myself. Stop thinking about it for one tiny hour. Do some revision.

  And then the doorbell rings.

  I hear voices drifting up the stairs, one Carolyn’s, the other . . . Oh, God. It’s Bonnie’s mother. What if she’s here to see me? What if . . . Wait. What if they’ve found out where Bonnie is and the police are on their way to get her right now? I start to climb off the bed, then stop, one foot on the floor. That’s not very likely, is it? It’s not like I’m the first person she’d want to tell.

  I’m still in that awkward half-on-half-off-the-bed position when Carolyn comes into my room. ‘Matilda’s here,’ she says. ‘She’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Have they found Bonnie?’ I blurt.

  She shakes her head. ‘No, love.’

  So why is she here? It’s not like we had a constructive conversation last time we spoke. Oh God. I really don’t want to be yelled at right now.

  Seeing my face, Carolyn smiles reassuringly. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘I think it will be good for both of you to talk to each other. Remember, you both love Bonnie. You both want her home.’

  She’s right, of course, and I hesitate but don’t move.

  ‘Come on, Eden,’ Carolyn says, more firmly this time. ‘She’s waiting.’

  I clearly don’t have much of a choice whether to follow her or not, so I do, slowly. When I go into the kitchen Mrs Wiston-Stanley is sitting at the kitchen table.

  ‘Hello, Eden,’ she says, smiling. It’s not a full smile, or even really half of one. There’s too much sadness on her face to lift it properly, and I feel instantly, horribly, guilty. She’s lost a lot of the fierce anger she’d had on Sunday, like it’s all drained out of her and all that’s left is this sad, strained woman who’s just missing her daughter.

  The thought whispers: am I on the wrong side of all of this?

  ‘Hi, Mrs Wiston-Stanley,’ I say, hearing how it comes out in a mumble. It’s hard to even look at her properly.

  ‘Matilda,’ she says. ‘I’ve told you that before, Eden. You can call me Matilda.’

  I half nod, half shrug, and sink on to one of the kitchen stools.

  ‘How was the exam?’ she asks.

  I shrug.

  ‘Eden,’ Carolyn says, a little warning in her voice. It’s gentle, but it’s there. ‘Now is the time to verbalize.’

  I clear my throat, but it doesn’t really help. ‘It was fine,’ I lie.

  Matilda’s mouth twitches in a would-be smile, and there’s an awkward pause. She shifts a little in her seat, leans forward as if to speak, then changes her mind. Finally, she says, her voice crackly with hope, ‘Have you heard from Bonnie today?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Oh.’ She leans back again and looks away. ‘I hoped, what with the exam, that maybe . . .’

  ‘I thought that too,’ I say, because I did, and if no one else understands that, she does.

  Matilda looks back at me, her face much softer than usual. Oh God. This is worse than the police. Worse than journalists. Worse than Carolyn and Bob’s gentle, searching questions. She looks so broken.

  ‘I want you to know,’ she begins, looking at Carolyn and then back at me, ‘that I won’t be angry with you. None of us will be. Not if you tell us now.’

  My head goes, Wait, what? It goes, Careful.

  ‘Angry with me?’ I manage.

  ‘For not telling the truth earlier,’ Matilda says. ‘I understand you feel . . . loyal. To Bonnie. And that you feel like you should protect her somehow. But it’s very wrong to do that. What’s more important than anything is that she’s safe.’

  But she is safe. I don’t understand. I’ve tried, but I just don’t. If Matilda had said ‘home’ instead of ‘safe’, that would make sense. Or even ‘found’. But ‘safe’? What does ‘safe’ even mean?

  She’s watching me, waiting for a response, but I have no idea what to say. I look at Carolyn, who attempts a smile that doesn’t quite land. There’s a strain on her face she doesn’t usually let show, her forehead crinkled in a frown.

  The silence drags on, and finally Matilda breaks it. ‘I just don’t believe that you haven’t been in contact with her,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, Eden. I wish I could believe you. But I think you’re lying to me.’

  Carolyn opens her mouth, then closes it again. I swallow, trying to sort through the feelings crowding my head. It’s the weirdest mix of guilt and resentment, shame and anger. OK, I’m lying, but why is it such a given for her that I am? Why does she think I’d ever want to open up to her when she’s always treated me like I’m untrustworthy?

  ‘Why do you think I’m lying?’ I ask.

  ‘Because I know Bonnie,’ she says. ‘And I know you.’

  Both of these statements are so obviously wrong that I have to bite down on my lip to stop myself saying so. Now is not the time to start a fight, I tell myself.

  ‘Bonnie told Rowan,’ she adds, surprising me. I wonder when Rowan caved and confessed. ‘If she told Rowan, she told you.’

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything,’ I say. ‘I had no idea about Mr Cohn until the police told me. You were there, remember?’

  Matilda lets out a frustrated sigh and looks at Carolyn. ‘Can’t you help?’

  I feel my head whip round to Carolyn, bracing myself against the tide of betrayal. They’ve talked about this, haven’t they? Discussed what a little liar I am. Strategized about how to get me to confess.

  Carolyn doesn’t even flinch. She just gives me a reassuring nod across the table. ‘Go ahead,’ she says gently. ‘You’re doing just fine.’

  What does that mean? Is she on my side or not? Does she believe me or think I’m lying? I usually like Carolyn in this mode – totally unflappable, calm and reliable – but right now it’s really not helping. And I am not reassured.

  ‘I just want to know,’ Matilda says, shaking her head with what looks like defeat. ‘I just want to understand how this could have happened. All of this . . . it’s just not my Bonnie. There has to be an explanation.’

  ‘If there is, I don’t have it,’ I say.

  ‘The thing is, Eden,’ she says. ‘The thing is . . . I can’t help but think this is your influence.’

  The words are such a shock it takes me a moment to register them. ‘My . . . influence?’

  ‘Well, you’re no stranger to trouble, are you?’ Matilda has squared her shoulders a little, making her seem suddenly a lot taller than me, even though we’re both sitting down. ‘I always worried what Bonnie might be convinced to do, with a friend like you.’

  ‘Now, hang on a second—’ Carolyn begins, half standing.

  But I’ve found my voice and I am mad. ‘Bonnie runs off with our fucking teacher and you think it’s my fault?’

  ‘Eden, don’t sw—’

  ‘I think you’ve had an influence, yes.’ Matilda interrupts Carolyn with a look that says, This is exactly what I mean. ‘Oh, Eden, don’t make that face like you’re some kind of saint. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the things you’ve
done. Practically arrested at fourteen, for Christ’s sake.’

  I was never ‘practically arrested’. Being brought home by the police and given a stern little lecture in my living room maybe once or twice is not ‘practically arrested’. And that was fucking years ago and things are different now and anyway—

  ‘What’s that got to do with me and Bonnie?’

  Carolyn’s face is tense with anxiety. ‘Please, can we all just—’

  But Matilda ignores her. ‘Everything!’ She almost spits this at me. ‘How can I protect her and guide her and keep her safe when she’s around someone like you?’

  For one horrifying second I think I’m about to cry, but what comes out is rage. ‘I’m still here!’ I yell, all of my frustration exploding out of me. ‘I didn’t leave, and I didn’t know anything, and I didn’t tell her to fuck our teacher—’

  ‘Eden!’

  ‘And maybe the problem is the person who thinks that’s all OK, not the one she left behind.’ The words hang in the air, both Carolyn and Matilda staring at me, so I add, ‘We’ve been best friends since we were eight. That was before everything you’re talking about. You don’t know her without me. You can’t know that this is anything to do with me, or if it’s just the way she is. Unless you think I somehow corrupted her when I was eight?’

  Matilda’s chin juts. There’s a look on her face that’s pure ugliness, the kind of face adults aren’t supposed to show to children or even teenagers. I think, She won’t say it, but then she does. ‘Well, we all know what you came from.’

  ‘That’s enough.’ There’s such fury in the words that for a bizarre moment I think they’re mine, but it’s Carolyn who’s standing, shaking her head. I glance down and see that her hands are clenched into fists. ‘How dare you speak to Eden like that? How dare you?’

  ‘Carolyn, that girl is—’

  ‘That girl is my daughter, and you need to leave.’ Carolyn is trying to hold it together, I can tell. I feel both touched and scared, all at once. ‘I told you that you could speak to her, not insult her. I know you’re frustrated, and I know you’re scared, but that’s not Eden’s fault.’

  ‘What did I come from?’ I ask.

  ‘Eden, stop it!’ Carolyn snaps, reaching a hand out towards me. ‘Don’t make this worse, for God’s sake.’

  But I really want to know ‘what’ I came from. Does she mean a council estate? Or does she mean my real mother? My living, human, made-some-poor-life-choices mother. She’s not a ‘what’. Her name is Lina.

  ‘I’m sorry, Carolyn,’ Matilda says, because of course she apologizes to her and not to me. ‘This is just a hard . . .’ Her voice breaks. ‘A hard time.’

  ‘You should go,’ Carolyn says. I can tell she’s still struggling not to lose it. ‘We can talk another time.’

  Matilda must be able to tell that she’s blown it because she doesn’t argue, just collects her things and leaves without another word to me.

  I follow Carolyn into the hall as she sees Matilda out, then hover awkwardly as she stands there with her back to me, staring at the closed front door.

  I begin, ‘Thanks for—’

  She rounds on me, all that pent-up energy suddenly coming at me. ‘Why do you have to do that?’ she demands, not quite yelling, but not quite not-yelling, either. Her face is scrunched and red, her eyes shiny with . . . Those aren’t tears, are they? ‘Why do you have to always try to get a rise out of people?’

  I falter, opening my mouth and then closing it again. I don’t know what to say, so I just shrug, which by the look on her face is the wrong response.

  ‘Matilda is dealing with an unimaginably stressful situation. Her daughter is missing, Eden. It’s like you don’t understand that.’

  ‘So you think I’m stupid, too?’

  She closes her eyes for a moment, like I’m just too much to deal with, like she’d rather not even look at me. ‘No,’ she says, the word ground out from between her teeth. ‘I think your lack of empathy is disappointing.’

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘I guess that’s just what I came from.’

  And Carolyn loses it.

  ‘Don’t you throw that in my face!’ she yells. Actually yells. Carolyn. ‘I am on your side. I’m trying to do right by you. Why can’t you just try and make this easier on me? On all of us?’

  Carolyn has never yelled at me before. It turns my insides cold.

  I could yell back. I could crumple and cry. I could apologize.

  I turn and walk out of the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t walk away from me, Eden!’ It starts out fierce, but Carolyn’s voice breaks on ‘from’ and it falls apart. I hear the hitch of her breath come out in one defeated exhale.

  I go upstairs and into my room, closing my door behind me and climbing up on to my bed. The mattress sinks underneath me, comforting and familiar, and I press my face into the sheets.

  My heart, I realize, is going a mile a minute in my chest, and I concentrate on the beats for a while, eyes closed, trying to calm down. God, that was horrible. That was really horrible. I’ve never seen Carolyn lose it like that. Not with me, not with anyone. Even when I was at my wildest worst, she never lost her calm Carolynness.

  I curl myself into a ball on the bed and rest my face against my knees, trying not to cry. But my hands feel all tingly and I can hear that my breath is doing that scratchy thing it does when tears are on their way. I’m thinking of Carolyn alone in the kitchen, of Valerie coming home and asking her what’s wrong, making her a cup of tea, listening quietly. Mother–daughter sharing time.

  Look what Bonnie has brought into my house and my head. This is her fault. She didn’t just run away – she lobbed a great big hand grenade behind her as she went and blew everyone else’s lives up. So much for steady. So much for reliable. So much for bloody perfect.

  I should have just told them about her messages, about Glasgow, about the whole damn thing. Because that’s where this is all going, isn’t it? How much longer can I carry on like this?

  I don’t know how long I lie there before there’s a soft knock at my door and I tense but don’t move. I hear the door open and footsteps on the carpet, followed by the bed sinking slightly and then the light pressure of a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘I’ve brought you tea.’

  I sit up, brushing my hair out of my eyes, and reach for the cup. Carolyn smiles, but her face is still tense and I can see there’s red around her eyes, like she’s been crying. I am the worst person alive. But still I just take the tea and sip it so I don’t have to talk.

  ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you. I shouldn’t have done that. But you have to understand, this whole situation . . . it’s stressful. As a parent, it’s very stressful. I’m not excusing Matilda for how she spoke to you, but I expect more from you than how you behaved.’

  I open my mouth, but she shakes her head.

  ‘I’m trying to convince her that you’re trustworthy, Eden. That her prejudgements of you are unfair and baseless. But when her daughter is missing and she asks for your help, you just give her attitude.’

  ‘I don’t!’

  ‘It doesn’t help anyone. You have to be gentler with people. You can’t just choose people you like and push everyone else away.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because people change, in both directions. Because at some point a person you like will do something you don’t like and it will pull the rug right out from under your whole world,’ she says pointedly. ‘And that sort of thing is a lot easier to deal with if you have a wider network around you, instead of just a chosen few. Valerie came all the way down here to be here for you, and you’ve practically ignored her since she arrived.’

  How have we got to Valerie?

  ‘I didn’t ask her to come,’ I mutter, but very quietly, because even I can hear how childish I sound.

  ‘Eden,’ she says warningly. ‘You’re not covering yourself in glory, here.’

  I shrug, twisting my hands to
gether and squeezing my fingers.

  ‘I’m going to ask Matilda to apologize to you,’ Carolyn says. ‘Once she’s calmed down. And I’d like you to think about doing the same.’

  ‘She basically called me trash, Carolyn. I’m not fucking apologizing.’

  ‘Eden.’ My name comes out like a groan.

  ‘Well, I’m not. And she’s blaming me for Bonnie going. Like it’s not bad enough that my best friend’s disappeared, I have to get the blame, too?’

  ‘Eden, she’s just frustrated. Any mother would be.’

  ‘Well, it’s a lot easier to blame me than herself, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Carolyn says, so simply that I start in surprise. ‘Yes, it is. It’s not right, and it’s not fair, but it’s easier. Sometimes that’s all a person can manage.’ She sighs. ‘Look, I have to go out to meet a client in about an hour. How about I make you some lunch before I go?’

  I know that this is her way of ending the conversation, even though nothing’s actually been resolved and I don’t know whether she expects me to apologize to Matilda or not, but it’s not like I’m invested in carrying on an argument. So I shrug and nod and follow her downstairs.

  She makes cheese toasties with brown sauce and tells me about her client’s tiered garden until her face has loosened and the stress has drained away. I eat and smile, and neither of us mentions Matilda again.

  Somehow, the evening arrives and I haven’t done any Chemistry revision. What I have done is messaged Rowan on Facebook – So you told? Are you OK? xx – and talked to Connor on the phone. And painted my toenails. And watched a video of Daniel Radcliffe singing the Periodic Table song.

  After dinner, Carolyn drives Daisy to her friend’s house, and I go to my room to actually try and revise, but the words all tangle together into a meaningless mass of letters and symbols, and I almost feel like crying again. It’s so unfair that I have to deal with this on top of everything else.

  I try to concentrate for about half an hour before I get up off my bed, tuck my revision guide under my arm and pad across the hall to Valerie’s room. The door is closed and I can hear the sound of her talking on the phone, cheerful and chatty. I knock softly and poke my head around the door.