Tell Us Something True

by Dana Reinhardt

  “Take a lap of shame, River Dean,” Will said.

  I climbed down from the tower and ran toward the horizon, my friends cheering me on.

  The next night, Saturday, I walked to a dreary stretch of midcity Pico, to a building with a faded, tattered white awning onto which the words A SECOND CHANCE were painted in black.

  I waited across the street until the meeting let out, dying for a glimpse of Daphne, even the shortest one would do, though she wasn’t the person I’d come here to see.

  Christopher stepped outside and lit a cigarette. Mason kept him company. Everyone else dispersed to idling cars or around corners and I started to wonder if Daphne had skipped out on the meeting, but then, finally, the doors opened and there she stood.

  Somehow I expected her to look different, because it felt like a lifetime since I’d seen her. I wanted to call her name, but I hid in the building’s shadow and watched as the three of them climbed into Christopher’s car and sped off to the east.

  A few more minutes passed, and then the lights turned off and Everett stepped out with his ring of keys and started to lock the glass doors.

  I jaywalked across Pico. Someone slammed on his horn just as I reached the safety of the curb. Everett spun around.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi, River.”

  A long silence followed.

  “Are you here to tell me why you’ve missed the last few meetings?”

  “Daphne didn’t say anything?”

  “About you? No.” He secured the ring of keys to his belt loop, folded his arms across his chest and eyed me from beneath his bushy brows. “This looks serious.”

  “It is. Can we, like, go somewhere? Can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?”

  He gazed at me in that way he did that always made me want to look away. “I don’t drink coffee.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “I drink tea.”

  —

  We walked to a restaurant two blocks away: an old steakhouse with red leather booths and filthy green carpeting that both time and customers seemed to have forgotten. Most of the tables were empty, and the man who greeted us in his white dinner jacket seemed neither bothered nor thrilled to serve us tea and nothing else.

  “I really appreciate you hearing me out. I know your time is valuable and that you already give it generously.”

  “Thank you for recognizing that.”

  “So I’ll just cut to the chase.”

  “Please do.”

  “I’m not addicted to marijuana.”

  He sipped his tea and said nothing.

  “I lied. About that and about pretty much everything else. And I kissed Daphne and kinda fell in love with her.”

  He didn’t react, so I continued to talk. Faster and faster.

  “I wish I’d known how to tell the truth that first night, but I was too embarrassed. I wandered in because I saw the sign and I felt lost and alone and dumped. How lame is that? Everyone else had real problems and mine seemed so small and stupid. And then, somehow, being there just…helped, but more than helped, it became important and…meaningful, I guess. So maybe it wasn’t just getting dumped that brought me to the group, maybe I really did, or do, need help with other things. I know this probably doesn’t make much sense. But anyway, I wanted to apologize. I messed up. Daphne hates me now and I’m guessing everyone else will too. I violated the rules. All of them.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  I didn’t understand the question, so I pulled an Everett and stared back at him without saying anything.

  “Why didn’t you just stop coming to meetings? Why didn’t you disappear? You wouldn’t have been the first person to stop showing up. Why bother admitting everything to me? Why bother buying me tea?”

  “Because I feel bad. Terrible, actually. And I wanted to try in my own stupid way to make things right, even though I know I can’t. But still I wanted to try. Because I don’t want to let perfect be the enemy of good. I’m trying to do good by telling the truth.”

  “So…honesty. That’s why you’re here. To deliver a dose of honesty.”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s a start.”

  He sipped his tea again. “So Mason was right about you all along. You’re full of shit.”

  “Yes.”

  Everett laughed a little. “Don’t be so quick to agree. Defend yourself.”

  “I can’t, really.”

  “I believe that you came to the group in the midst of a struggle, I could see that about you. You were in some pain. That was real. I don’t know what it is and I don’t know if you do either, but you should figure that out. Just…not with us.”

  “Okay. But I still want to make it right. To tell the truth and say I’m sorry. Maybe people will forgive me. Mason won’t, I know, but maybe the others will?”

  He refilled his cup from the pot between us. “River, when you apologize you acknowledge that you’ve caused someone hurt. That’s it. You can’t do it with the expectation that you’ll be forgiven. You have to apologize simply because you want to.”

  He was right. Obviously. That was why he was the group’s leader and I was the group’s impostor.

  “So it’s okay if I come to the meeting next week? I don’t want to intrude. I’ve done enough of that already.”

  He cleared his throat. “River…” He stopped. “Wait a minute…is River even your real name?”

  “Improbably, yes it is.”

  “River, you are cordially invited to attend next Saturday night’s meeting of A Second Chance group for teens. Your presence is kindly requested at six-forty sharp.”

  “But the meetings start at six-thirty.”

  “I’m going to do you a solid and put them all on notice.”

  —

  What I didn’t tell Everett was that by the next group meeting, the following Saturday, I’d be eighteen years old. My actual birthday was on Thursday, but Mom and Leonard had planned a dinner at the house Saturday with my friends to celebrate. I asked if we could switch the party to Friday instead. Natalie looked disappointed.

  “But we already planned it for Saturday. I picked out the paper plates.”

  “So? Friday is even sooner. The paper plates you picked will be just as awesome on Friday.”

  “I’d have to switch around a work thing…,” Mom said. “But what’s wrong, suddenly, with Saturday?” I could tell she was aiming for curious rather than suspicious.

  “Well, it’s just that I want to go back to A Second Chance.”

  Mom shot Leonard a look. Something along the lines of: See? I told you the kid was a pothead.

  “Christ, Mom! I swear. Read my lips: I am not addicted to drugs. I don’t know what else to say. Do you want me to pee in a cup?”

  “Why would you pee in a cup? Gross. And why would Mom think you like drugs?”

  I’d momentarily forgotten that Natalie was in the room, and that she was only eight.

  “I’m just joking around, Nat. I’d never pee in a cup. At least not in any of the cups you use.” I made a goofy face at her. “And Mom teases me about drugs just because I like to go to these meetings to help kids with their problems.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Mom’s weird.”

  “Hey!” Mom protested.

  “But River,” Natalie said. “You have other problems you could talk about in your meetings.”

  I reached over and put my hand on Natalie’s head. It still fit perfectly into my palm, though it wouldn’t forever.

  “You’re right, Nat. I do have problems.”

  “It’s okay. Everyone has problems.”

  “Not you. You’re perfect.”

  —

  I heard from the UC schools on my birthday. I was accepted to all except Berkeley, where I hoped they’d given the spot to Maggie that they didn’t offer me, though I understood it didn’t really work that way.

  I called her immediately.

  “Can’t talk
,” she chirped. “On with Will. I’m in. I’m in! Happy birthday, Riv.”

  “Thanks, Mags.”

  I stared at the home screen on my phone. I scrolled through my contacts and lingered on Daphne’s name. I’d composed a thousand texts and deleted them, each one some version of I’m sorry or Let me explain or Give me a chance.

  It was my birthday, and with a heart full of useless hope I wondered if she’d call, or text. Something simple.

  It was a birthday wish that didn’t come true.

  On the afternoon of my eighteenth birthday, after I aced the written and road tests, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a temporary driver’s license to River Anthony Dean. On the same day, I filed papers to change my last name to Marks to match my family. To harness the force of that heredity.

  When my new, permanent license came, with my new, permanent name, I planned on slipping it underneath Natalie’s door in a construction paper card decorated with glitter.

  On Friday I had all my best friends over. Mom made my favorite lasagna and Maggie baked a cake she decorated to look like a driver’s license. We ate off Natalie’s paper plates, which had Spider-Man on them because once upon a time I’d loved Spider-Man, and Natalie was still at the age where she believed when you love something you love it forever.

  On Saturday night I drove myself to the meeting at A Second Chance—my first solo trip in Leonard’s truck.

  At six-thirty-five I sat parked on Pico across from the sign I’d spotted on that long, lonely walk home on a night which felt like a lifetime ago. That sign that I’d seen lit up like Vegas or Times Square. That SIGN—big, bright, flashing like neon—glowed again for me tonight as I stared at it from behind the wheel of Leonard’s truck.

  A SECOND CHANCE.

  It turned out to be a SIGN after all, but it hadn’t promised a second chance with Penny, it promised a second chance with me.

  I stepped out of the truck, grabbed my shopping bags and walked up to the glass doors, where I stopped to read the message again.

  HERE: Is where you belong.

  THIS: Is where change begins.

  NOW: Is the time.

  I opened the doors and went inside.

  No audible gasps. No dropped jaws. No whispering He’s here? But also: no smiles. No calls of “Hey, River.” No hand motions back and forth.

  An empty seat in the circle awaited me. Daphne sat four chairs to the left. I didn’t try making eye contact; I couldn’t bear to watch her look away.

  I walked to the center of the circle and unpacked the bags, passing the contents around. I handed Christopher the lukewarm French dip from Philippe’s I’d picked up earlier in the day. Bree got the rainbow carrots and a honey-thyme goat cheese spread from Whole Foods. I gave Mason kettle corn from the Santa Monica Pier because he’d talked one time about his foster mom taking him there on the day they met. I brought an assortment of high-end herbal teas for Everett, and for Daphne: a strawberry Jarritos and a bag of fresh tortilla chips from the taqueria on Venice where we’d dined under the fairy lights the night I first rode the bus. I passed around the other stuff.

  I’d been nervous all week, but now that I had lowered myself into the metal folding chair and had taken a deep breath and was beginning to tell my story, my real story, I felt the same sort of peace I’d come to know over the past few months of Saturday nights.

  I talked more than I had in all the previous meetings combined. Nobody rolled their eyes or looked away, not even Mason. And some of them, I noticed, quietly ate the snacks I’d brought. “Even if I’d had the courage to tell the truth that night when I first came here”—I was finishing up—“I didn’t understand. I thought it was Penny. I thought it was getting dumped. But being here each week taught me it was more. You all made me…a better person.” I stopped, took a few breaths. Battled the frog inside. “And it’s important to me that you know that even though I failed in here as a sharer, I listened. I heard you all. Every one of you. And…I’m sorry for all the lies.”

  I croaked that last I’m sorry. A few tears escaped and I wiped them away.

  I stood up, folded my chair, and stacked it against the wall.

  “Hey, River.”

  I turned around. Mason.

  “I hope you never show your ugly, lying face in here again. But before you go…” He sighed and looked at the popcorn in his lap. “A-plus for snacks.”

  I walked out of the building, climbed into Leonard’s truck. I didn’t need the rain or Will’s sappy music—I drove home, crying all the way.

  —

  I woke early the next morning. Mom and Leonard were still asleep. So was Natalie. I did something next that I knew wasn’t going to win me their faith, trust or goodwill: I took Leonard’s truck without asking, leaving a note that said I’d be back later, I’d be careful, and that I was sorry but I didn’t want to wake anyone.

  I drove to the same café in Venice where I’d cobbled together a text of tattoos for Daphne—CALL ME—and I ordered coffee and toast. Thaddeus Dean’s presentation at the Barton Center Conference on Interconnectedness and Conflict Resolution didn’t start until eleven o’clock. I had some time to spare.

  I suppose I knew the minute I saw him on the conference schedule—smirking from behind his square-framed glasses, arms folded across his chest, leaning back casually against a brick wall—that I’d go see him. Maybe approach him after his lecture, while the headset still kept that stupid little microphone in place. Maybe he’d look at me like I was just another young wannabe tech entrepreneur hoping to catch a little of his magic. Yes? He’d say. What would you like to know?

  Or maybe he’d see me and recognize his own features staring back at him and he’d stick out his hand or even open his arms to me. River! He’d say. My boy! My son! Look how big you’ve grown!

  I didn’t know what to expect when I finally saw him face to face. None of the scenarios I played out in my head included me standing alone outside the Barton Center because the conference had been sold out for months.

  The guard whose job it was to keep out the likes of me had no sympathy. He blocked my path with his clipboard and expressionless face.

  “I just…I need to talk to Thaddeus Dean. Please. It’s really, really important.”

  The crowd behind me was large and growing, people with their legitimizing badges on strings around their necks.

  “Sorry, kid.”

  “You don’t seem sorry.”

  He glared at me.

  “I’m just saying that didn’t feel like a real apology. When you apologize you acknowledge that you’ve caused someone hurt…and it doesn’t seem like you’re acknowledging that you’re hurting me.”

  “Step aside.”

  I did, but only about a half step. I thought of entering through another doorway, trying my luck with a different gatekeeper, but instead I stood like a rock in the middle of a raging tide. When everyone else had been allowed into the building, the man turned to face me again.

  He looked me up and down. “Is this guy really all that?”

  It was an excellent question. It was, in fact, THE QUESTION. Was Thaddeus Dean really all that?

  “He’s my father.”

  “Then why don’t you have a badge?”

  “He hasn’t seen me in, like, twelve years.”

  He stared at me. “You got some ID?”

  I took out my new license. “See? My last name is Dean too. For now at least. I’m changing it.”

  He turned it over, handed it back, shrugged and opened the door for me. “Be my guest.”

  The auditorium was packed, some people sitting on the floor, legs folded like eager preschoolers. I stood in the very back. The lights finally dimmed and a spotlight shone down onto an empty stage; thunderous applause filled the room as Thaddeus Dean stepped into it.

  “Thank you. Thanks. Really thank you.” Hands to chest. A little bowing of the head. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “When I was a small child,�
�� he began, “I dreamed big.”

  He continued, and I thought: When I was a small child…I wondered where my father had gone.

  When I was a small child…I was forced to see a therapist with smudged glasses whose office reeked of patchouli.

  When I was a small child…I refused Maggie’s offer to borrow her father because I believed I still had my own.

  If heredity is the best indicator of what happens to you in life, then things were looking up for me. I’d given heredity the slip. I was soon to become River Anthony Marks. Someone who believes, deep down, in the power of real human, person-to-person connection.

  I was nothing like my father. He had nothing to teach me. I had nothing to learn from him. And so in the middle of Thaddeus Dean’s speech, I left. The way through the thicket on this morning was beneath the exit sign. I walked out of the auditorium, pushing open the heavy doors and letting them close behind me. I’d hoped for a slam, but all I got was a whoosh.

  My eyes took a moment to adjust to the midday sun and then another moment to make sense of what I saw.

  Daphne.

  Sitting alone on a concrete bench.

  She stood up slowly and waved, her silver-painted nails catching the light.

  I rushed over and asked the world’s most obvious question. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had a feeling,” she said. “I just…I know you, River, and I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. And I thought you might need someone. You know, afterward.”

  “But how did you—”

  “You aren’t the only one with Google.”

  I sighed and sat down on the bench, suddenly weak all over. She sat next to me but didn’t take my hand. If this had been a year ago, or really just a few weeks ago, I would have believed that Daphne had come here today to tell me she loved me too and that nothing mattered but our love and that everything would be okay between us. I would have believed that next we’d get into my truck, we’d buckle our seat belts, and I’d drive her off into the sunset. We’d costar in a perfect ending.

  But I’d grown up since then.