She's Faking It

by Kristin Rockaway

  Through a tight smile, she said, “I’ll speak to my merchandise coordinator to see what we can do.”

  “Great! And my best friend, she coordinates donations to a safe house for women escaping abusive relationships. A lot of them live there with their kids and it’s a situation with a lot of negative energy all around. I was wondering, what kind of sacred cleansing ritual would you recommend for the shelter? You know, to help the women and children choose happy.”

  Suddenly, her smile disappeared.

  I held The Aspirational Action Plan aloft. “There’s surprisingly little action in this plan of yours. It’s mostly empty promises.”

  Her eyes were icy slits. “I’m inspiring people to live their dreams.”

  “You’re inspiring people to give you piles of money for products that don’t do anything to actually help them.” I turned to the line of women behind me. “How many of you struck it rich after investing in one of Demi DiPalma’s Prosperity Packages?”

  Not a single woman raised her hand. Some were scowling, while others had their phones out. A few seemed totally bewildered, like they couldn’t believe I had the audacity to disrupt this faux spiritual event by running my big mouth.

  Then Headset Lady started bearing down on me, and I knew my time was up. As she hustled me off to the side with her canned “Let’s be respectful” line, I caught Natasha’s eye. She was standing next to the fire, flames dancing in her pupils, corners of her mouth turned up triumphantly. It almost felt like she was proud of me. Either that, or she was plotting my death.

  When I reached her side, I said, “Hi,” worried that it might just be the latter.

  Until she said, “Bree, that was extraordinary.”

  My whole heart surged with gratitude. For Natasha and her unyielding support. For Mari, who helped me to see the truth about others. For Trey, who helped me see the truth about myself. For my mistakes, for my failures, for the opportunities I’d had and the ones I’d yet to encounter. Mostly, I was grateful for the freedom to choose.

  With a flick of my wrist, I tossed The Aspirational Action Plan into the fire, where it exploded in a flash of sparks.

  Goodbye, negative energy.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “Good idea.”

  Natasha took my hand and led me toward our tent, where we packed our bags before leaving the desert behind.

  Chapter 27

  Nine thirty at night was late to get started on the road back to San Diego, but we certainly weren’t going to hang around in our tent-yurt any longer than we had to. Something told me breakfast the next morning would’ve been supremely awkward had we stayed.

  Fortunately, there was a twenty-four-hour Starbucks right next to the highway on-ramp, so we loaded up on venti flat whites with extra espresso shots. Then we tuned Natasha’s XM radio to the Pop2K channel—the music of our childhood—and launched into our own little version of Carpool Karaoke. It was hard to stay sleepy while singing along to Outkast and Avril Lavigne at the top of our lungs. And when Natasha whipped out a pace-perfect rendition of “Thong Song,” I nearly peed my pants.

  Finally! The sisterly bonding experience we’d hoped for. Too bad it only got started on the ride home.

  Of course, there was a restlessness beneath all that laughter. Neither of us had forgotten the words that had been spoken the night before, and as much as I wanted to, we weren’t going to be able to ignore it forever. Eventually, we’d have to talk things through. For now, though, we would sing in our seats as we flew down the desert highway, enjoying this precious time alone together.

  By the time we arrived back at Natasha’s, it was after midnight. With Al and Izzy still away on their camping trip, her four-bedroom house was empty—the perfect setting for a private, gut-wrenching conversation. But our voices were hoarse from all those sing-alongs, and we were beyond emotionally drained from the events of the past forty-eight hours.

  “Bed?” I asked.

  “Bed,” she replied.

  Then she led the way upstairs. With a hug and a kiss, we parted ways on the landing, where Natasha went off to the master suite and I went off to the guest room.

  Sleep came easy in that comfy bed without a bunch of people chanting fifty feet away from my pillow. I stretched out on the diagonal and drifted off, luxuriating in the silence and the space. It was a deep, relaxing slumber, and I probably would’ve slept a whole lot longer if the guest room didn’t have an east-facing window.

  In the morning, sunlight streamed in through the cracks in the blinds, brightening the room beyond my closed lids. All things considered, it wasn’t a bad way to wake up. Certainly better than the thunderous boom of a garage door grinding open beneath me. This felt warm, like a snuggle.

  Or maybe that warm, snuggly feeling was Natasha, who had crawled into bed with me at some point during the night. She was asleep now, her soft, even breathing the only sound in the room.

  Yawning, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and her eyes fluttered open. With tousled hair and a makeup-free face, she looked almost exactly the same as she did eleven years earlier, when it was just the two of us in a home much smaller than this. She gazed up at me. My big sister, my rock, my role model.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I know. You said that already. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.” Natasha sat up and leaned back against the headboard. “It was uncalled-for and cruel and untrue.”

  I wasn’t sure which part she was referring to—when she said I was terminally indecisive or when she told me I’d ruined her life. Whichever one it was, we both knew it wasn’t necessarily untrue.

  “You were stressed-out about the book proposal and meeting with Demi,” I said.

  “That’s not an excuse.” She hugged her legs to her chest. “The whole thing was a huge waste of time, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry the retreat wasn’t what you expected it to be. But there are a lot of other ways to get your book out there in the world. You know, I read that self-publishing an ebook can bring in thousands of dollars in passive income.”

  “No, I don’t just mean the retreat was a waste of time. I mean everything—the book proposal, the Instagram account. Demi was actually right when she said I didn’t want it enough.”

  “What?” I grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to shake some sense into her. “After everything that happened this weekend, you are not going to allow this scamming cow to destroy your dream.”

  She took my hands and placed them gently in her lap, covering them with her warm palms. “That’s the thing. It wasn’t really my dream. I wanted it because it was something I could point to for clout, not real fulfillment. I didn’t want a book, I wanted bragging rights. A way to prove to people that I’m worth something. That I’m smart.”

  “But you’re the smartest person I know.” How could she not see that?

  “Maybe you feel that way, but it’s hard to believe it when...” Her voice caught. She dropped my hands, scrubbed her palm down the side of her face, and started again. “You didn’t ruin things for me, okay? I don’t ever want you to think that, and I’m sorry those words came out of my mouth. I have never regretted quitting school to take care of you. Not for one second. What I regret is never going back.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  She answered by gesturing to the walls around us. “I started a family. And trust me, I don’t regret that, either. Al and Izzy are the reasons I breathe. They’re a stabilizing force in my life. But for a while there, I felt like I existed only as a member of the DeAngelis family, and not as my own self-actualized person. That’s when I found The Aspirational Action Plan, and the way Demi DiPalma wrote those words, it felt like she was talking directly to me. Like she understood me.”

  “Right.” That’s exactly how I’d felt when I’d read it for the first time.
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  “Look, I know Demi DiPalma is a scam artist,” she said, “but I do feel like this book was helpful. It was exactly what I needed at the time. It encouraged me to wish big and to think deeply, and without it, I honestly never would’ve started my business, because I never would’ve dreamed up the idea.

  “It was only the catalyst, though. Like you said, it takes more than dreams and thoughts and wishes to change your life. To make a difference, you actually need to take action. Which is something you did all weekend, calling people out on their horrible behavior. I’m proud of you.” She snorted. “God, the faces of those women when you threw the book into the fire. I wish I’d taken a picture.”

  “Plenty of people had their cameras out,” I said. “I’m sure if you search Instagram for the #synergysummit hashtag you’ll find some.”

  “Please. I’m ready to delete my Instagram at this point.”

  “Me, too. Especially now that I’m done fulfilling all my collab obligations. Despite what you think, I was taking it seriously. I just realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. Though it’s not like I have any better ideas.”

  She took a deep breath, clearly searching for a diplomatic way to ask the question I knew she’d always wanted the answer to. “Do you ever plan on going back to college?”

  “No,” I said instantly, and it felt right. “I don’t feel like I need a college degree to have a purpose in life. I guess I might change my mind in the future, but I’m already drowning in student loan debt, and I have no interest in adding to that. Plus, I still don’t know what I’d study, and I don’t wanna get a degree just to say I have one. That’s why I went to college the first time and look where it got me.”

  Natasha nodded, a pained expression on her face.

  “I know that sucks for you to hear,” I continued, “and it sucks for me to say it to you. Especially considering I squandered my chance at an education, while you were forced to sacrifice yours.”

  “No,” she said. “No one forced me to do anything. I chose to do it. And I’d do it again. Taking care of you was my number one priority, Bree. I promised Mom I would always take care of you.”

  Tears slid down her dewy, pink cheeks. She looked nineteen again, so strong and so vulnerable at the same time.

  “You did more for me than you ever had to,” I said. “Mom would’ve been proud.”

  “I miss her.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “So do I. It’s been so long, though, I feel like I’m forgetting her.”

  I’m not sure if it was Natasha’s tear-streaked face, or the warmth of her body next to mine on the mattress, or the fact that we’d finally aired all our mildewed grievances and asked the unspoken questions that had been building up for years and years. Whatever the reason, I suddenly felt inspired to confess the secret I’d been hiding from her ever since she cleaned out Mom’s old closet.

  “There’s this box under my bed. It has some of Mom’s stuff in it—a T-shirt, a book, things like that. Whenever I have a hard time remembering her, when I feel like I’m forgetting her face or her voice or whatever, I take out the box and I go through it. Sometimes just touching the things that she touched makes me feel close to her again.”

  The words came out shaky. As I spoke, Natasha searched my face. “Where’d you get it from? The stuff in the box, I mean.”

  “I snuck them out of a garbage bag on the day you emptied her room. I never told you because I know how you feel about sentimental clutter. And you were right, we had to get rid of everything so we could start to heal, but... I couldn’t let it all go. I needed something of hers to hold on to.”

  Natasha’s mouth hung open. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you felt that way.”

  “You were going through a hard time, too. We both were.”

  “I thought it was the right thing to do. I had read a self-help book on how to cope with grief and it said to sort through all your loved one’s belongings as soon as possible so you can concentrate on moving forward. Don’t look back, it said, because that’s not where you’re going. I knew there were things in her room we should’ve kept, important things, but I didn’t have the strength to do it on my own and I didn’t wanna burden you with it, either. I just needed it all out of my sight, as quickly as possible.”

  “Right, I understand. Getting rid of everything was the fastest way to move on.”

  She gnawed on her lower lip. “I didn’t exactly get rid of everything.”

  It was hard to make sense of what Natasha was saying. I had seen her fill those garbage bags, seen her stuff them into the trunk of her car, then watched as she drove away, presumably to the Goodwill donation truck permanently parked on the side of the I-5.

  Then it hit me. “The box. The seashell box in Izzy’s room. It’s Mom’s, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath, let it out. “But there’s more. Come with me.”

  I followed Natasha along the hallway and down the stairs, my mind racing with possibility. I’d seen every square inch of this house, and I knew how Natasha worked. There was no hidden clutter lurking behind any closet or cabinet door. Unless one of those neatly organized bookcases in the living room opened to reveal a hidden chamber, I couldn’t see where she’d have stashed any of Mom’s old stuff.

  Until she opened her junk drawer—yes, even professional organizers had junk drawers—and pulled out a bright orange key tag.

  “StoreSmart.” This was unreal. “We were just there.”

  “We went to the one in Mission Valley. My storage unit is in Carlsbad.”

  She handed me the key and I turned it over in my palm. Unit #429. “How much of her stuff did you keep?”

  “All of it. For the past eleven years, it’s been sitting in a five-by-five climate-controlled room on the side of the freeway.”

  “But, the BUGS acronym. Sentimental clutter. You always say to throw it away.”

  “Clearly, I don’t practice what I preach.” She threw up her hands. “Guess I’m a big faker.”

  We didn’t bother to change out of our pajamas. We simply threw on our flip-flops and hopped in the Audi. Fifteen minutes later, Natasha pulled into the StoreSmart parking lot, in the shadow of a massive orange warehouse that held all of my mother’s worldly belongings.

  I couldn’t run to unit 429 fast enough.

  The key was still firmly gripped in my sweaty hand. I shoved it in the lock and turned, but before I could raise the gate, Natasha stopped me. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Was I sure? No. Everything I’d thought had been lost forever was on the other side of this thin metal barrier. I had no idea what it was going to be like to see all those physical reminders of my mother in one room. Was everything still in garbage bags? Would her once-treasured possessions now be musty and deteriorating? And if so, would that make me feel worse than if I’d never seen them at all?

  But in the moment, none of that mattered. I wanted in, now.

  “I’m ready.”

  The gate rumbled up. Cool, dry air whooshed in my face. Natasha flicked on the light.

  Of course this is what it looked like. My sister would not have dumped a bunch of garbage bags into a cement room and called it a day. Not at all.

  This was possibly the neatest, tidiest, most pristine storage unit in history. One wall was lined with rolling clothes racks, the items hanging from them organized by style and color. There were heavy-duty shelves set against the other two walls, each of them laden with clearly labeled boxes and drawers.

  The whole space smelled of cedar. “It keeps the fabrics fresh and protects them from household pests,” Natasha said. Of course she knew that. She knew everything.

  I walked the perimeter in silence, cataloging the contents of the room with my eyes, remembering things I had forgotten long ago. The dress Mom had worn to Natasha’s high school graduation. The L
uther Vandross CD she always played while she cooked Sunday dinner. And the books. So many books, so many nights spent next to her on the couch. I touched their well-worn spines, felt a connection to the love I’d lost, the love of words and stories. I shouldn’t have stopped reading when she died.

  Natasha had even stored Mom’s old makeup. By now, that must’ve been rancid, but I still enjoyed cracking open the eyeshadow palette, seeing how worn down the purple was compared to the other colors. Mom liked purple eyeshadow. I was learning new things about her, even now.

  I just had one question for Natasha. “Why?”

  “I told you, I had to get it out of my sight, but I knew I couldn’t throw it away.”

  “But it’s been eleven years. Why have you kept it all for so long? And why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

  She grasped the edge of a steel shelving unit, like she was using it for support. “I meant to tell you about it, I honestly did. I knew you needed to go through it—you had a right to go through it. At first, I wanted to wait until you were a bit older, until you’d had a chance to heal a little. But the more time that passed, the harder it got for me to say anything about it. I never wanted to rip off the Band-Aid and open your old wound. Though it seems ridiculous now, as I say it.

  “Anyway, I wanted to keep everything organized and prevent it from getting damaged, so I set it up like this. That way when the time came, you wouldn’t have to wade through some disheveled mess.”

  I fingered a strand of faux pearls, set inside a clear container labeled Costume Jewelry. Mom had worn these the night we saw The Nutcracker in Balboa Park. “How often do you come here?”

  “Once every six months or so. Just to check up on things, make sure the temperature’s okay, replace the cedar blocks.” She watched me pull the pearls from the box and put them around my neck. “Are you mad at me?”

  I walked the two steps over to her and squeezed her hands in mine. “Not at all. I’m grateful for you, Natasha. I can’t believe you went through this alone.”