Better Than Picture Perfect

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  “Last time I came over here, some guys tried to jump me and take my little cash, so I’ve got to let you out here, senorita. You’re on your own,” the driver said, being an obnoxious, smart guy.

  I didn’t appreciate his tone or the racial profiling. Yeah, he was a white guy in a high-end cab, and one time he’d been in a Hispanic neighborhood, and probably not even this one, where he’d gotten jacked. However, that didn’t mean it was going to happen again, but whatever. I just opened the door, paid him his money, and started walking.

  As soon as he sped away, I panicked, wondering how in the world was I going to get home? I didn’t get the cab driver’s cell number for him to come pick me up again. Not like I wanted to get in his car again anyway, but still the option was gone, and I knew Hugo didn’t have a car. Maybe his mother did, but on the real, it wasn’t like I wanted to go home anyway.

  My phone started ringing. I clicked it off so I didn’t have to hear it, but soon it started up again. I looked at the phone, and it was Shelby’s number. I knew if I didn’t answer it, she wouldn’t stop calling. She was persistent that way.

  “Yes? What?” I said.

  “You’ve got Mom and Dad worried like crazy. Where are you? We saw you getting into that cab, but we have no idea where you went. Do you have money to pay?”

  “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me, and I’m not coming home tonight.”

  “Dagon-it, Ansli! You are coming home! Let’s just talk about this. Where are you?”

  When I reached Hugo’s door and saw a sign that read, “Eviction Notice,” and a big padlock prohibiting someone from entering, I said, “I’ve got to go, Shelby. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Don’t hang up!” she begged.

  But I hung up. What in the world happened to Hugo? What was going on? What was up? There was no need to bang on the door. The blinds were up, and I could see through the window that the place looked deserted.

  “That family is down the street at the shelter,” this older African-American lady using a cane said.

  “Ma’am? Are you sure? My boyfriend lives here.”

  The woman sized me up and must have decided I was a decent girl because she began talking to me. “He’s in the shelter with his momma and his cute little brother. That nice young man you’re calling your boyfriend done went up there to that homeless shelter. I felt so bad for him. I would’ve let him live here with me if my grown kids didn’t have to stay here. That landlord knows he could have given that woman more time to find a job, but he said after four months without no pay he couldn’t do it no mo’.”

  She pointed me in the direction of the homeless shelter, and every step I walked, I felt even sicker than I had before, like I needed to be on a ventilator or something. Life in me was just gone. Hugo, his mom and little brother homeless? It just wasn’t right.

  When I got to the homeless shelter it was closed. There was a big sign on the door that said, “Come back tomorrow. You must be here by seven o’clock to get in.” Now it was nine, but I didn’t want to stay.

  Actually, I needed to stay. I didn’t have a place to go either. I just wanted to talk to Hugo. Maybe if the two of us got away, we could figure this thing out. So I rang the doorbell and pounded on the door until someone came.

  “Can you read young lady?” a plump, older, blond-headed woman said to me.

  “I’m sorry I’m not here to come in. I need to speak with Hugo Green. Please, please.”

  She opened the door a little farther, and there he was holding his little brother’s hand.

  “Go on with Mom,” Hugo tapped the little boy and said.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said.

  Hugo came to the door and said, “Can I just speak with her for a second? For her to be all the way here, something has got to be wrong.”

  “Okay, but we can’t take anybody else,” she told him.

  “Her dad’s running for mayor, she wouldn’t need to stay here,” he laughed and said.

  The woman’s whole demeanor became nicer. “Oh my gosh! I thought you looked familiar. Well, go on out. The last thing I want you to do is report that things aren’t great here. I’ve seen your dad with all the state officials, even the director of my center. Take all the time you need. Just come around to the back door. I’ll leave that open for you.”

  “Why’d you tell her about my dad?” I scolded him when we were alone.

  “Why’d you track me down here? You’ve been texting me. I hadn’t replied. There’s a reason for that you know,” he said back in a testy voice.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that everything’s so messed up. I just needed to be with you. Can we go somewhere?” I said, trying to rub his chest.

  He stepped back. “I’m in a homeless shelter. No guests aloud. Didn’t you hear the lady?”

  “I found out how my parents really died. It was horrible. I need you.”

  “Go home, Ansli. Talk to your folks about it. I don’t know what you’re saying, or I don’t understand it all, but right now I’m no good for you.”

  “But you’re my boyfriend.”

  “Alright, well let me help you out. Let’s end that.”

  “What?” I said in disgust, like I’d just been slapped again.

  “You’ve got to go. I’ve got to help my mom figure out our lives. Everyone isn’t born with a silver spoon.”

  “Like I was either? Aren’t you listening to anything I have to say?”

  “Okay, everyone wasn’t adopted into a family that can give them a silver spoon. Quit being a brat! Dang! We’re through.”

  Hugo went back inside the place and shut the door in my face. I couldn’t believe that when I needed him most, he broke up with me. What audacity!

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANXIETY

  “Okay, so don’t ask any questions. Just come and get me!” I said into the receiver to my sister Shelby.

  “I’m already in the car driving towards where I think Hugo lives,” she said.

  “How’d you know I was at Hugo’s?”

  “’Cause if all that happened to you today happened to me, I wouldn’t want to be around my family either. I’d want to be around my man.”

  Just hearing her say that was comforting. Not because it was true but because she understood me like only a sister could. I texted her the address, and when I saw a McDonald’s a few blocks away from the homeless shelter, I told her to meet me there.

  I could hardly breathe. It was like a pit from a plum was stuck in my throat or something, and I couldn’t get it out. I wasn’t choking, but I couldn’t ask for help because my body was in trauma. Hugo had dumped me. This was so odd because I agreed to be his girl before I ever physically laid eyes on him. That’s just how close we were. Talking to each other, encouraging one another, being there for the other, and now that was gone. I took deep breaths to calm down, but that wasn’t helping.

  Shelby had been my best friend for years, but Hugo had taken her place. She didn’t mind because she was spacey trying to get her clothing designs noticed by the world and blushing everywhere over this Spencer guy, who was actually Mr. Brown’s stepson. My sister was living in such a tangled web, but she was working it and weaving it. I hadn’t even gotten to tell her my great news that I had a boyfriend because she dropped the bomb first. As soon as I wanted to be all giddy with her, excited with her, and say we could double date or something, I didn’t have a man anymore.

  Shelby had always been stronger than me, and I admired that so much about her too. I didn’t want to cry, but as soon as she pulled up twenty minutes later, I couldn’t hold back the tears. She quickly parked the car, got out of it, and gave me the tightest embrace like we hadn’t seen each other in years.

  “I know this is hard. I know you feel alone, but Mom and Dad are going crazy. Mom was ecstatic when I told her I was on the way to get you.”

  She just kept talking. I was ready to get in the car and go home, get to my room, close the door, and have none of th
em say anything to me. However, when I got to the house, my mother rushed outside to Shelby’s car, opened the passenger door, and apologized profusely for slapping me, for hurting me, and for breaking me.

  “Thank you for coming home, Ansli. I have daughters that I’ve birthed, but I couldn’t love them anymore than I love you. You know that right?” my mom cupped my face with both of her hands and gently said.

  It was so funny because it was the exact opposite of how she touched my face hours earlier. Thinking back on the hit, I don’t think she was trying to hurt me. She was trying to slap some sense into me. Deep down I knew that it was easy for me to hug her. She was my mom. I didn’t want to be emotional though. I didn’t want to care, but the tears didn’t care what my mind wanted. They were connected to my heart, and they started flowing like rain falls from the sky during a monsoon.

  “I can’t blame your father. I’m not going to say any of this was his fault. I just didn’t want him to keep the truth from you guys. It always felt so wrong, but as the days turned into months, and months turned into years, it just seemed easier for you to continue thinking of your biological dad as a hero because we loved him.”

  “Mom, please … don’t.” Frustrated, I walked into the house.

  My dad was in the family room, and he stood to his feet when I came in. I’d never seen him cry. Big bad Stanley Sharp wasn’t crying then, but his eyes were misty.

  “You’re okay. You’re safe,” he uttered with relief upon seeing me, but I wasn’t smiling. “I know you’re angry with me, Ansli, but I was doing what I thought I should. I was trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me from the truth though, Dad? When you preached to me to always tell the truth? What’s the lesson in all this? How could you justify what you did? How was what my father did okay? I don’t understand any of it. And worse, I don’t understand me.”

  “What do you mean?” he said in a tone that was a little impatient.

  “Letting all this information circle around in my head, it feels like it’s going to explode.” I said to him as my mom and Shelby came inside. “Where’s Yuri? I’ve got to see my sister.”

  “She’s asleep. She understands,” my dad said, suggesting I should hear him out. “Now I need you to as well. We can’t prove it, but we think it was the steroids your dad was using. So you understand, he loved your mother, and he loved you girls, and I knew him. No way he would have done this in his right mind. No way.”

  Processing it all, I shouted, “So then I could just go crazy.”

  “No, Ansli, don’t say that,” my mom said as she put her arms on my shoulders.

  But I stepped forward so her arms would drop.

  My dad said, “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you anything, Ansli, until you’re old enough to understand. What happened to him was unfortunate. It’s not hereditary. It was the drugs.”

  “So you admit what my dad did was crazy?”

  I don’t even know why I said that. Of course it was crazy. The man who brought me into this world killed my mom. Guess I wanted my dad to stop defending him.

  “I just need you to grow up in this situation right now. You think I should have told you, then act like you should be able to handle it. Quit going around here making up reasons as to why you should have known when you’re acting juvenile, making my point that you shouldn’t have known.”

  “Alright, just calm down, Stanley,” my mom said to him.

  “I’m frustrated right now. Brown shouldn’t have opened his mouth.”

  “At least he had the balls to tell me the truth,” I boldly stated, not caring that my dad wasn’t my peer.

  At that point, I quickly exited and went to my room. Last thing I wanted was for either of my parents to slap me again, which I probably deserved for being a smart mouth. It had been a heck of a day. I honestly had the right to explode, but I stood there on pins and needles behind my door, hoping that they’d forgive me. Because some lines, just shouldn’t be crossed.

  I didn’t know what a heart attack felt like, but if chest palpitations that were becoming more intense by the second were any indication of the onset of a heart attack, then I needed to get to the emergency room. I knew the Sharps loved me, but now there was a distance between us. My belief that the parents that I lost and took comfort in knowing were now angels in heaven looking down on me was now only half true. Surely if my dad killed my mom and himself, he was in hell.

  The boyfriend who had my heart broke it. Though it had only been a short time, he meant a lot. I never had a boy take interest in me, care about me, and desire me. People would always comment on how cute I was, but my body was not like Shelby’s. She had curves in all the places boys liked. I was just a pretty yellow face, but Hugo thought I was sexy and special. But now, he’d severed ties. How could I calm myself down when my thoughts of my world being shredded like it was paper being destroyed by a paper shredder were making me feel anything but comforted?

  When Shelby knocked on my bedroom door and called out to me, I was reminded that I had another problem. The girl I was supposed to love, who was supposed to trust me with her life, now had me envious. I always wanted her parents to really be mine. That was never going to happen. And though they wanted me to believe they loved me the same, I never would. She now had a boyfriend, and I didn’t. To make matters worse, she had a dream. She had goals. She had a career, and she was still in high school. She had it going on, and I had nothing.

  “Just, just go away, Shelby. Mom and Dad … URGH, I can’t even believe I keep calling them that. If your parents can leave me alone, then you can too.”

  “Not okay, I’m about to break down this door, Ansli, if you don’t quit pouting and open up! Straight up girl! So we won’t both be in trouble. Let me in, please.”

  Against my better judgment, I let her in, but I didn’t want to play nice with her anymore. I didn’t want to act like it was all okay. I didn’t want her to think I was fine when I wasn’t. Yeah, she said she knew I wasn’t okay, but the entire ride home she kept on talking. She never really wanted to know what was going on with me. Why should I think she wanted to hear me out now?

  “Okay,” I said when I opened up the door. “You see I haven’t killed myself. Now can you leave?”

  “Why are you joking like this?” she said, like she was disgusted with my comment.

  “I meant it.”

  “Please don’t talk like that,” Shelby said. “I want to make sure you were okay.”

  I stepped back, and she entered. She put her hands on her head as if she were in pain. Then it dawned on me that, now that we knew about my biological father’s final actions of taking his own life, my comment that I didn’t commit suicide wasn’t funny.

  “You see I’m okay. Please get out, Shelby,” I said, as my hand touched a water globe on my desk, further upsetting me. The water globe that my dad brought back to all five of us from a trip to England years ago held a princess in her house. I wanted to take it and chuck it at Shelby’s face. My world wasn’t perfect anymore, and I was angry.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said to her.

  “Hurt me? What are you talking about?”

  The only thing I could do was tell her the truth. “You have everything.”

  “We have the same things. My parents are your parents if that’s what you’re talking about.”

  “You know I don’t see them that way anymore, so quit pushing that down my throat.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “Life is just all messed up.”

  “What are you talking about? With Hugo?” she asked, having intuition that I had to be upset in the romance department. “I don’t know everything, Ansli, but I know that like girls have menstrual cycles, guys do go through some type of crisis monthly too, if you ask me.”

  “What are you saying? Hugo has a period?” I asked her because I didn’t know everything there was to know about guys.

  I mean, I knew he didn’t bleed or anything like tha
t, but still, what was she saying? What did Shelby mean? She was having trouble spitting it out, so I wondered: was she talking smack to be close? Sometimes when we got mad at each other, Shelby would say anything until we laughed and forgot what we were fussing about.

  Seeing me squint, she cleared her throat and explained, “No really, I’m saying that they’re moody. Just like we are. And while he’s tripping today, tomorrow it’ll probably be a different story. But you got more going on for yourself than wallowing and being frustrated with stuff going on with a guy.”

  “No I don’t. I don’t have anything else going on. You’ve got your creative brain. You can sit there with a sketchpad and come up with the next greatest design. Instantly, when I see your work, I want to put on your clothes. You’ve just begun being a designer for real, and you’re already going to grand levels.”

  “Exactly, and I need to take it to another level. I need to brand my stuff. I imagine two S’s side by side or crisscross or something, but I don’t have skills with all that. I’m talking to Spencer about it because he’s great with design, but at the same time, I need to have my work photographed. I need to have myself looking picture perfect. Sydney sent me a list of things that I have to have done. One thing is getting a press kit. She sent me all these photographers’ numbers to call. Why should I choose any of them when my sister is the best photographer I know? You’re sitting here saying you don’t have a talent. You envy me because I’m doing something. Well, we just need to turn what you’re good at into a business as well. Because once I see the gorgeous pictures that you’re going to create of my clothes and see how good you’re going to make me look, because I’m not as beautiful as you, let’s just admit it … ”

  “Oh hush,” I said, batting my eyes and feeling really appreciative that she saw something special in me too.