King of the Screwups

by K L Going

  I wish she’d smile now, but of course she won’t.

  “Your father’s serious this time, Li. He means for you to leave. I’m not going to lie and say I stood up for you,” Mom adds. “Your father wants you gone by the end of the week. He’s called your grandparents and arranged everything.”

  For the first time I sit up straight.

  “Mom, he can’t! Gram and Gramps hate me. You know that. Besides, I’m his kid. And it’s my senior year. Isn’t there something—”

  She holds up one hand.

  “You’re right about your grandparents,” she says. “If it makes you feel any better, they hate me, too. You’ll end up with them over my dead body.”

  “But you won’t tell Dad he can’t kick me out? Where am I supposed to go?”

  She breathes out and I can tell she’s exhausted, but Mom is always exhausted.

  “I’ve been on the phone all morning,” she says. “I found someplace else for you to stay. It took some convincing, but your uncle Pete will take you in for a while. Just don’t tell your father it was my idea. And be careful how you break the news, because he won’t be happy about it.”

  She stands up as if she hasn’t just changed my entire life.

  “Mom . . .” I start, but there’s too much to say.

  “Your uncle’s number is on the coffee table. I told him you’d call to sort out the details once you were feeling better.” She pauses. “He’s enthused.”

  She laughs a small, airy laugh at her casual lie, and she looks so sad standing there that I want to shake her. I remember how she looked on the runway with her perfect posture and the tall, regal way she carried herself.

  “Ma, please! Can’t we talk about this some more before—”

  “No,” Mom says. “Your father wants breakfast. Don’t come downstairs.”

  Then she walks out the door and disappears.

  4

  I’M SEVEN YEARS OLD, and it’s my mother’s retirement party.

  I’m slumped in one of the huge leather living room chairs at our new house in New York. I miss Paris, and so does Mom. She sits in the chair next to mine, staring out the window. Dad is outside grilling, and Gram and Gramps are sitting on the couch directly across from us. There are people swirling around outside—neighbors and friends of Dad’s he decided to invite—but the silence inside is deafening. Finally, Gram clears her throat.

  “Really, Sarah, there’s no doubt you’ve made the right decision, leaving modeling,” she says, giving my mother one of those looks that’s half pitying and half disdainful. “Honestly, I don’t know how you lived such a . . . fast-paced . . . lifestyle for as long as you did. Especially when it’s obvious your son needs you home with him. We’ve been so worried about Liam.”

  Mom looks away from the window.

  “I think Liam is fine,” she says.

  “I wouldn’t call poor discipline and bad manners fine,” Gramps laughs. “Would you, young man?”

  I shrug and look down at my feet.

  “All Nina’s saying, Sarah, is that a boy needs his mother to be home, setting an example, not gallivanting around the globe. Trust me, we’ve got complete confidence that your parenting skills will improve now that you’ll be in a stable environment again.”

  This is Gramps’s idea of a compliment. Mom stiffens.

  “I didn’t realize my parenting skills were in question.”

  Gram and Gramps exchange a look.

  “Well, obviously Allan can’t do everything on his own,” Gram says. “Boys need plenty of attention, and before long there will be sports and girls, and colleges to look into . . .”

  “Or the army . . .” Gramps adds, giving me a meaningful nod.

  “Why, if I hadn’t stayed home with Allan when he was Liam’s age, we certainly wouldn’t be celebrating his new job as CEO.”

  “Oh really?” Mom asks sweetly. “And what about Peter?”

  A moment later, as if on cue, there’s a knock at the door. Mom smiles politely at Gram and Gramps and says, “Let me get that,” and when she opens the door, in steps a man in a slinky red dress. I stare at him very hard, not because of the clothes he’s wearing—I’ve seen men at fashion shows in all kinds of crazy outfits. No, I stare at him because for a moment I have trouble recognising who it is. Then I see it’s my uncle Pete beneath those clothes. He’s wearing a floor-length gown, high heels, and a black wig.

  “Hello, dahlings!” he says, bursting through the door.

  I clap. “Aunt Pete is here!” I holler.

  As soon as I say it, Gram bursts into tears, and Mom doesn’t even attempt to hide the huge grin that spreads across her face. Then Dad comes in from outside and it’s as if all the sound gets sucked from the room, then it all comes back again, louder than before.

  “I want you out! If you think you can act this way in front of my son . . .” Dad bellows.

  “Sarah, did you invite him?” Gram whines.

  “. . . a disgrace,” Gramps says. “You’re not any son I ever wanted to have.”

  The voices are so relentless that I just sit there with my jaw hanging open. My dad’s and grandfather’s faces are beet red as they shout, but Aunt Pete is smiling. And for the first time since the party began, so is my mother.

  Aunt Pete notices me watching and winks.

  “Catch you on the flip side,” he says, as my father and grandfather simultaneously usher him out of the house.

  That’s the last time I ever saw him.

  Aunt Pete.

  I stare at the phone number written in my mother’s swirly writing, and my breathing gets shallow.

  This can’t be happening.

  I feel like I can’t get enough air, so I tell myself to cool it. Living with my cross-dressing uncle in his trailer park will be a hundred times better than living with my military grandfather and the world’s strictest grandmother in Nevada.

  Won’t it?

  Honestly, how the hell would I know? The only reason I even know where Aunt Pete lives is because Dad always says, “You don’t want to end up like my messed-up brother, living in a broken-down trailer park in the middle of nowhere.”

  I drum my fingers on Dad’s desk and try to remember Pete other than that day at Mom’s retirement party. Only I can’t. Did he visit us in Paris?

  There’s no way I can live with someone I don’t even remember.

  I get up and walk down the hall to my bedroom. Then I pull on some clothes and, despite Mom’s warning, I go downstairs to the kitchen to find Dad, because really, this has got to be a huge misunderstanding. He misunderstood the severity of my mistake, and I misunderstood how mad he is.

  Or something like that.

  When I find him he’s furiously working on files that he rescued from his office floor, which is not a good sign. The fact that Dad is working on a Sunday morning is standard fare, but the fact that he’s working at the kitchen table has got to be pissing him off.

  I hover in the doorway, taking deep, calming breaths. Mom is at the stove cooking tofu and scrambled Egg Beaters. She’s got a platter of fake bacon on the new marble counter she had installed last week to replace the “old” chrome counter that she’d installed only six months ago.

  “Dad,” I say, and my voice cracks.

  Dad doesn’t look up. He writes something in a file and punches numbers into a calculator.

  “I’m, uh, really sorry about last night. Honest. It was a bad decision, and I know you say I’m always making those, and you’re absolutely right, I am, but . . . I didn’t do it to make you mad.”

  I wait, but there’s no reaction from my father. Mom concentrates on scrambling the tofu.

  “Could we talk about this?”

  No response.

  “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be, but don’t you think kicking me out a week before the start of my senior year is kind of harsh?”

  The tofu sizzles so loudly the sound fills the room and the smell makes me nauseated. Mom stabs at it w
ith her spatula.

  “Mom?” I say, but she won’t stop cooking. I notice the way she’s stacked the breakfast plates on the edge of the counter so they’re almost falling over. Two plates, not three. I want to reach out and topple them. Watch the expensive china explode into shards.

  The tofu sizzles and starts to burn despite her continued jabbing.

  Dad punches numbers so steadily the clicking sound is relentless.

  “Dad,” I say again, and it comes out sharp. Then Mom turns and it’s like the china dropping.

  “Go,” she says, slamming down her spatula. “He doesn’t want you here.”

  Her face crumples immediately after she says it, so I know she didn’t mean it to come out that way, but it’s too late.

  I leave the kitchen and don’t come back.

  5

  I DIAL AUNT PETE’S NUMBER, then close my eyes.

  “Do not screw up, ” I whisper. “Do not screw up.”

  It must be a cell phone, because the ring tone sounds weird—like horrible screeching guitar music—and I almost hang up, but then someone picks up the phone.

  “Y’ello?” The voice on the other end is one of those deep, scratchy voices cross-dressers always seem to have in the movies. I wonder if it’s a prerequisite or something.

  “Hello, Aunt Pete?” I say, and then I think, Aw, crap. I can’t believe this. One point two seconds into the conversation and I have screwed up.

  “Aaauuuncle Pete? It’s me. Liam.”

  There’s a long pause.

  “Liam. Oh, right.”

  Now that didn’t sound too “enthused.”

  “Yeah, so Mom said she called and I could come stay with you for a couple months.”

  There’s a choking sound on the other end.

  “Months?! Your mother said ‘weeks.’ A few weeks. As in two or three. Just long enough for my brother to get over whatever hissy fit he’s having.”

  Typical. Mom always does things halfway. Maybe she was being optimistic that Dad will change his mind, but I doubt it. For a second I’m pissed, but then I remember she still saved me from my grandparents.

  “Did I say months? I meant weeks.” I consider trying to make months and weeks sound the same, but think better of it. Aunt Pete doesn’t say anything for a long time.

  “Does your father know about this?” he asks, and I know right away that this is a crossroads. I can show some character and tell the truth, or I can simply lie like Mom does.

  “Yeah,” I lie. “He knows.”

  “And he agreed to this? I find that hard to believe. Your father and I haven’t spoken in a long time.”

  “Well,” I say, buying time so I can make stuff up, “he wanted me to go live with your parents (the truth) but they said no (okay, little lie), and there’s really no one else to ask since Mom’s mother is in Paris and you may have heard about the whole thing that happened last time I visited her sister? The thing with the party (unfortunately, true)?”

  Aunt Pete snorts.

  “Your mom says we’d have to get you enrolled in school here, even if it’s only temporary. You’re a senior now, right?”

  I nod vigorously then remember I’m on the phone. “Yeah. That’s right. And honestly, I’d hardly ever be around because I’d be in school and sports and stuff, so you’d barely even see me.”

  This is another lie. I’m permanently banned from sports because of my poor academic standing, so I never have anywhere to go after school. But Aunt Pete doesn’t have to know this just yet.

  He sighs really loud. “Tell me something, Liam,” he says. “This was your mom’s idea, wasn’t it?” The question comes out of the blue and I don’t know how to answer.

  “Um, did she say it was her idea?”

  Pete hesitates, but then he says, “No. She said it was your idea, and I was your first choice of who to live with, but I’m asking for the truth.”

  He sounds serious and I wonder why this matters.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I say at last. “Honestly, I don’t remember you very well. Sorry.”

  When Aunt Pete answers he doesn’t sound mad. His voice is different—choked up. “Hell,” he says.

  I think, Great, now I’ve made him cry, but then he clears his throat.

  “You can come live with me until your dad decides to let you back home. A couple weeks, right? You’re going to get yourself straightened out?”

  “Yes,” I say in a relieved rush. “Dad and I just need a little time apart and I won’t be a bother because I’m really self-sufficient and . . .” I say the word “and” before I realize that requires thinking up a second redeeming quality. “Uh . . . entertaining.”

  This time Pete laughs. It’s a big, raucous laugh, so I guess that was the right thing to say.

  “Good,” he says. “You’ll fit right in.”

  6

  “DAD, WANT TO SEE WHAT I MADE IN SCHOOL TODAY? I got a B on it and the teacher said it was creative. See, Dad? Look, it’s a picture in a shoe box, and there’s this big dinosaur who’s going to eat this little dinosaur . . .”

  Dad stops reading Business Today and turns to me.

  “It’s called a diorama,” he says with a loud sigh. “And a B,” he adds, “is nothing to brag about. I always said that no son of mine would end up a B student, but I guess I was wrong. After all, as the whole world knows, we did get the paternity test.”

  Dad says that last bit under his breath, then he snaps his magazine back into place. I stand there with the shoe box in my hands, not sure what to do.

  “Li, let’s put your diorama up in the parlor,” Mom says, coming from behind and gently pushing me away.

  “He didn’t even look at it,” I say when we’re in the other room. “The teacher said a B was good.”

  “It is good.”

  “Then how come . . . how come Dad doesn’t like me?”

  Mom leans down and wraps me in her arms.

  “Of course he likes you. Your father loves you. He’s just . . .” Mom sighs. “Oh, Li,” she says. “It’s complicated. You just have to be patient and stop trying so hard. Okay?”

  As I stand there packing my clothes, I know Mom’s advice was wrong. I should have tried harder. I’m attempting to dredge up some shock over the fact that I’m really leaving, but no one can say they didn’t see this coming. Not even me. Delia wasn’t the first girl I’ve been caught fooling around with, plus I lost my license for DWI, failed numerous classes, attended more forbidden parties than I can count, and hosted more of them than I should admit. I wonder if things might have ended up different if I’d tried harder.

  I glance out the window and see Mom’s car out front, waiting for me to bring out my last suitcase. I’m trying to decide what one wears in a trailer park anyway, and when I turn around to take some clothes out of my dresser drawer, that’s when I see Dad standing in the doorway.

  “Liam,” he says.

  I don’t look up, just keep folding the clothes really meticulously, the way I do when I work for Mom in her boutique.

  “You know this is for the best. Don’t you?”

  Arms back, smooth out the wrinkles, align the creases.

  “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

  There’s a long silence while I fold and Dad watches. I wish that had been the end of things, because that would have been a decent ending. Not great, but decent. But, as always, I screw up.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I say. “Maybe I’ll do better at Pete’s. I’m really going to try to be different this time and I think that I can . . .”

  Dad’s whole face changes.

  At first I don’t know what I’ve said wrong so I do my usual panicked search through my brain. Then it clicks.

  Crap.

  I hadn’t told him yet.

  “What did you say?”

  Dad strides forward and I take a step back without meaning to.

  “I . . . uh . . . I asked . . .”

  “Liam,” he says, “spit it out. Now.”


  “I asked Pete if I could live with him and he said yes, so Mom’s driving me to his place.”

  “She’s driving you to the airport,” he says. “I told her to buy your ticket to Nevada. I arranged everything with your grandparents.”

  I shake my head.

  “She didn’t buy the ticket.”

  Dad turns purple.

  “How could you?” he breathes. “Did you try to come up with the one thing that would hurt me the most? You must have given it a lot of thought.”

  There’s something mocking about his tone, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to imply that I’m awful and vindictive, or that I’m too dumb to think of this, or both. I want to say that it was Mom’s idea. Believe me, I sooo want to say it, but I don’t.

  “Dad, I can’t live with Gram and Gramps. They’re all the way in Nevada and they don’t even like me. Where else was I going to go?”

  I’m stammering and Dad takes one more step forward. He speaks very slowly, enunciating every word. “If you think there is anything your uncle can give you that I haven’t given you, you’re dead wrong.”

  Our bodies are physically closer than they’ve been in years, and I can feel Dad’s breath on my face. Even though he’s never hit me before, I find myself waiting for his fist to whip around from behind, but at the last second Dad takes a step back. That step frees my tongue.

  “I’m sorry,” I say in a rush. “I’m really sorry. I knew you’d be upset, but I didn’t think it would be this big of a deal. Honest. If I’d known you’d be this upset, I wouldn’t have done it. I just wanted someplace to go, and . . .”

  Dad shakes his head. He regards me coldly, and while I admit that I’ve given Dad eight hundred worthless apologies, this one I mean. I really didn’t think he’d be this upset. I thought he’d be just about as mad as he usually is, so what difference would it make?

  But I was wrong.

  “Liam,” Dad says right before he storms out of my room, slamming the door behind him, “you never cease to disappoint me, do you?”

  7

  SO NOW I’M SITTING IN MOM’S LITTLE RED CONVERTIBLE, with all my stuff crammed in the back, on my way to a new life I don’t want. Mom is driving and she chatters the whole way, telling me about what good times she used to have with Aunt Pete and his glam-rock band when they were in college.