Picture Perfect

by D. Anne Love

  “I want to give you this,” Nick said, handing me a thin, wrapped package. Without opening it, I could tell it was a CD. The sharp edges of the jewel box poked through the paper. It was obvious he’d wrapped it himself; the paper was ragged, and the tape was on crooked. There was no bow. “And I want to say I’m sorry.”

  I hated myself for going all teary eyed, but I couldn’t help it. “Sorry for hurting my feelings at Christmas, or sorry for hanging out with that cute girl in the red leather jacket?”

  “Emily?” Nick laughed, which made me mad all over again.

  “I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “Would you change your mind if I told you she’s my cousin?”

  “Oh, please, you can do better than that.”

  He whipped out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Here you go. Ask her yourself.”

  I felt lower than a Paleozoic worm. “Never mind. I believe you.”

  He turned his phone off. “Open your present.”

  I handed him my history report and ripped the paper off.

  “The Eagles! Their first recording! I can’t believe you found this!”

  Nick looked relieved. “It wasn’t easy. I ordered it from Sadler’s right after Christmas, and it took them a while to get it.”

  The warning bell rang and we headed for the stairs.

  “Look,” Nick said. “I need to know if you can forgive me.”

  “It’s okay. Forget it.”

  “No, it isn’t okay. I was just so surprised to get a present from you that I acted totally stupid about it. I know how you feel about me, at least I think I do. But I figured it was a mistake to like you too much. Look at Mom. She’s like, completely in love with Pop, and he lets her down all the time.”

  On the second floor we stopped at the water cooler to let a bunch of people pass. Mrs. Cantrell came by with a couple of guys in suits; the varsity basketball cheerleaders hurried toward the gym carrying a huge banner they’d just finished making. To me it was just one big blur.

  Nick said, “So anyway, I was wondering if you still want to go to the Snow Ball with me. I’ve already got the tickets and everything. I’m just not sure you want to be with me anymore.”

  I thought about what Zane had said about Ginger and about how girls have problems with honesty too. Even though I thought I probably belonged in the hospital for disordered minds, I decided to go for broke.

  “I really want to be with you, Kick,” I said as the bell rang. “More than anything.”

  His smile was worth every minute of the detention I had to serve that afternoon for being late to Mr. Clifton’s class.

  Mama had been in such a crabby mood, I almost didn’t tell her about the Snow Ball, but looking back on it now, I’m glad I did.

  “Oh, Phoebe, that’s great,” she said that afternoon when I went into her room.

  A weak winter sun slanted through the partially opened shutters, casting a golden light on her face, reminding me of how beautiful she’d been before she got sick. She patted the bed, inviting me to sit, and I kicked off my shoes and curled up beside her, the way I used to when I was little. A thin book fell to the floor, and I picked it up.

  “This is the book of poems I got for your birthday last year.”

  “I found it in the bottom drawer of my nightstand,” Mama said, “and I recognized the wrapping paper. I hope you don’t mind that I opened it.”

  “It’s okay.” I had totally forgotton about putting it there after the trip to Shreveport. That day in Louisiana now seemed a whole lifetime ago.

  “I was happy to find it,” she said. “Dickinson was one of my favorites when I was in college.”

  “How come you never told me you were a poet?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I never really thought of myself that way. At first I wrote poetry mostly to make sense of my own feelings, and then when Shyla was little, I made up rhymes for her.”

  “But not for me.”

  “Sometimes I did, when you were really small. But as you got older, you seemed to prefer your daddy to me. I never thought it was that important to you.”

  “I thought it was because Shyla is your favorite.”

  “You are all my favorites. Never forget that, Phoebe.”

  She picked out a poem and read it aloud, her voice lingering over the words until they sounded like music. She closed the book and kissed my cheek. “Now. Tell me all about Nick. What’s he like?”

  I told her almost everything, leaving out the scary parts about his dad. I told her about how smart Nick was, how all the teachers liked him, and about how he’d taken his little brother trick-or-treating at Halloween, and how he’d shown up at the hospital when Daddy got hurt.

  “Do you have a dress already?” Mama asked when our talk circled back to the impending ball.

  “Not really.”

  “Then, we have some serious shopping to do.”

  “Do you feel up to it?”

  “Not right this minute, but we’ll go early on Saturday when I have more energy and the crowds are smaller.”

  Which was exactly how it happened. Daddy and Zane both offered to drive us to the mall, but it seemed important to Mama that she drive herself. We were there when the stores opened at ten. A few people were buying stuff at the Presidents’ Day sales, but Elegant Events, the specialty shop where Mama liked to buy her own clothes, was fairly quiet. She sat on a little gold-and-white chair while I modeled dress after dress. The one I liked best was short, strapless, and covered with sequins.

  “That’s too revealing,” Mama said, and the saleslady nodded. Two against one.

  “I like it.” I twisted around to look at the back of it in the mirror. It was really short, but I loved the way it made my legs look even longer than they were. Deep down I knew Mama was right about the dress, but it felt so good to be sparring with her over clothes again that I kept it up a little longer. “If it were up to you, I’d still be wearing dresses with bows and sashes.”

  The saleslady shot Mama an aren’t-teenage-daughters-a-pain look, then flipped through the rack and handed me yet another dress. “This just came in yesterday. It might work.”

  I tried it on. It was made of midnight blue satin, strapless, with a full skirt that made me feel like a princess. Mama’s eyes filled when I came out of the dressing room, my yellow wool socks peeking from beneath the hem.

  “Oh, Phoebe,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

  Which described both the dress and the day. After we bought shoes to go with my dress, we had lunch in the food court. Listening to Mama’s happy chatter as we ate our salads, I felt like I was waking up at last from a long bad dream.

  “I must remember to write this down in my new red journal,” Mama was saying, “so I can look back when you’re all grown up and remember how much fun we had today.”

  It was the first time Mama had mentioned her Journal since opening her present on Christmas morning, the first time she’d talked about the future.

  As long as I didn’t let myself think about the secrets I was keeping from her, secrets about Nick’s family, about Daddy and Beverly, it felt like old times.

  People say a picture is worth a thousand words, but even the photo the official Snow Ball photographer took of Nick and me can’t do justice to that amazing night.

  Nick and his mom came to the house to pick me up. I was still in my room getting ready when I saw their car pulling into our drive. I checked my lipstick one last time and went down to the living room just as Nick rang the bell. Mama let him in and embarrassed us both to death going on about how handsome Nick looked in his suit and what a darling couple we made. She posed us in front of the fireplace like department store mannequins while she fiddled with her camera, but something was wrong with the flash, and she finally gave up.

  She and Daddy went with us out to the car, and they introduced themselves to Nick’s mom, a thin blond woman with sad blue eyes. She smiled at me, spoke quietly to my parents, and introduced Jacob, w
ho was strapped into his safety seat behind her.

  Nick and I squeezed into the backseat; we escaped from Trask Land and arrived at school just as the deejay put the first song on.

  Maybe it was all that fake snow and dazzling silvery light that made everything seem so magical. Whatever the reason, I was insanely happy because Nick and I were back on track after the whole Christmas fiasco. We danced every dance, hung out with Ashley and Courtney and their dates, and pigged out on canapés and chocolate éclairs.

  Looking around at the other members of my class, I was surprised at how much we all had matured since the Howdy Dance last fall, when we’d stood around trying to look impossibly cool, secretly wishing we were somewhere else. Now everybody laughed and talked more easily, and the line to the girls’ bathroom wasn’t nearly as long.

  Despite the hovering presence of about thirty chaperones, it was still the most romantic evening of my whole life, and when Nick managed to steal a kiss as we waited outside in the shadows for Daddy to pick us up, I was sure that nothing else would ever match the perfect joy of that moment.

  “Did you have a good time?” Daddy asked as Nick held the car door open for me.

  “Yes, sir,” Nick said. I scooted over to make room for him. He shut the door and squeezed my hand in the dark.

  Daddy pulled into a long line of cars snaking around the building and onto the street. “Looks like you had a good turnout.”

  “Mrs. Cantrell said almost two hundred students bought tickets,” I said.

  When we finally reached the street, Daddy said, “Nick. Your house is on Algonquin Street?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The conversation was so stilted I wanted to scream. For some reason Daddy seemed too tightly wound, and it worried me. To loosen things up, I said, “Is Zane back from his meet yet?”

  “He came in around ten,” Daddy said. “But don’t ask him how it went.”

  “We got creamed,” I said.

  “Apparently so.” Daddy put his signal on and turned left onto Thornton. “How about you, Nick? Are you into sports?”

  “I played freshman football this year,” Nick said.

  “What position?”

  “Running back. I scored two touchdowns.”

  “Good for you!” Daddy said in that overly enthusiastic voice adults use with kids. “What about next year? Going out for varsity?”

  “Maybe. Mom says I need to hit the books if I expect a college scholarship. I know I’m not good enough to win a full ride as an athlete.”

  We pulled up in front of Nick’s house, which was dark except for the porch light illuminating the front door. Nick squeezed my hand again before opening the car door. “Thanks for the ride, Judge Trask.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I got into the front seat beside Dad and pushed the button to lower the car window. Nick leaned in. “G’night, Phoebe. It was fun. See you Monday.”

  He turned and jogged to the house. As we headed back through town, Daddy said, “So. Did the dance live up to your expectations?”

  “It was awesome, Daddy. And Nick is so great.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” He adjusted the heater vent. “Are you sleepy, Feebs?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good. Because it’s time you and I cleared the air.” He swung through the drive-through at Gus’s and got two coffees to go. Then we drove back to the park and pulled into the deserted lot. He turned the heater up another notch and handed me a coffee.

  “I want to talk to you about Beverly,” Daddy said, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  “What about her?”

  “You’ve been angry with her since the beginning, and angry with me, too. I’m tired of feeling as if I should be defending my actions to a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  “You’re an adult; you can do whatever you want.”

  “Nobody can do whatever they want. Everyone has limits.” He sipped his coffee. The steam rose, fogging up the window. “Suppose you tell me what’s been bugging you all this time.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “Fine. First off, it’s the way you call her ‘Bev’ and she calls you ‘Sum-nuh,’ like you’ve been best friends forever. Second, Zane and I saw you in the car with her one day, and you lied about it.”

  “I lied about it? When was this?”

  “Last summer. The day we found Lucky. We stopped to buy dog food and stuff, and we saw you and Beverly cruising down Main Street in her car, laughing like two wild hyenas. When I asked you where you’d been that day, why you were late, you said you’d had to run an errand.” I sipped my coffee to clear the hard lump forming in my throat. “Some errand.”

  “I remember that,” Daddy said. “And I remember the errand. The AC in this car went out, and I had to leave it at the dealership to be repaired. You and Zane were gone, and Beverly offered to pick me up.”

  I recalled the day I went snooping in Beverly’s office and saw his initials on her calendar. To be fair, I guess it could have been just a reminder to pick him up from the car place. The morning after Zane’s run-in with the law, Daddy drove Mom’s van to work, but at the time I was so worried about my brother’s troubles I barely noticed. “Maybe it was totally innocent. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was nothing to tell.”

  “Okay, but what about your lunch with her at Bramasole at Christmas? Courtney and I saw you sitting with her. I was mortified. Plus it was really tacky of you to take her to Mama’s favorite place. Especially when Mama was at home puking her guts out.”

  “Is that what it’s all about? You think I’m seeing Bev behind your mother’s back?”

  “Well, I sure didn’t see Mama sitting there with the two of you that day, and you never mentioned to any of us that you’d had lunch with Beverly. What was I supposed to think?”

  “You were supposed to think,” Daddy said slowly, “that your father would never do anything to hurt his family. You were supposed to think I have more honor than that.”

  “But—”

  “Let me finish. That day at the restaurant I was waiting for Judge Capshaw to get here from Ellis County to discuss a case he’s taking over from me. Beverly came in to meet her attorney, and he was running late. I asked her to join me for coffee while we waited for the two of them to arrive. If you’d stuck around for another few minutes, you’d have seen us going our separate ways.”

  The hurt in his voice made me feel about an inch tall. I scrubbed at a tear sliding down my cheek. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem to have so much fun with her, and Mama was gone, and Beverly was at the house every day when you got hurt. Plus she showered us with presents for no reason, and it just felt like she was trying to take over and push Mama out of the picture.”

  “There’s not a woman on earth strong enough to push Bcth Trask out of the picture.”

  I set my cup in the cup holder on the console and rubbed my hands together. Across town a police siren wailed. The clock on the dashboard inched toward midnight.

  Daddy said, “I’ll admit Beverly came on strong, and it was unsettling at first, but when you remember that she’s lost both her husband and her only child, it’s easy to see why she’d be desperate for some kind of family.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for her. But still, she can’t have my family.”

  “No.” Daddy turned his cup around and around in his hands. “And maybe I have grown too fond of her. I was adrift when your mother left, and Beverly was someone to talk to. She was still grieving and needed somebody too. I consider her a friend, Feebs. A good friend. But that’s all she is and all she’ll ever be. Understand?”

  “Yes.” I let out my pent-up breath and shifted in my seat, feeling relieved and foolish all at the same time. “Have you told Shyla and Zane all this?”

  “Not yet. But I intend to.”

  It had grown colder outside, and Daddy flipped the car heater to high. “Of course, I sense
d months ago that something was bugging all of you, especially you and Zane, but I’ve been so busy with work, and with looking after your mother, that until tonight I didn’t understand how serious the problem was.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was outside talking to Beverly when Zane got in from the swim meet. He was in a bad mood, and when Beverly asked him how the meet had gone, he threw his duffel bag across the yard and yelled at her to butt out. When I insisted that he apologize, he refused. He asked me why I didn’t just get a divorce and move in with Bev and get it over with. Then I realized how our friendship must have looked to all of you. And for that I am really sorry.”

  The thing about being a daddy’s girl is that you put your father on a pedestal and spend your life looking up to him, expecting him to be perfect. Then something happens that sends him crashing down to earth, and you find out he’s not superhuman after all, that he has flaws and weaknesses like everybody else, and you can’t ever see him quite the same way again. Even so, you don’t love him any less.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” I said. “Thank you for the truth.”

  “It’s freezing in here,” my father said. “Let’s go home.”

  At the end of March, I turned fifteen. Shyl came home for my birthday, and we all went to dinner at Bramasole. It was a huge deal for me; now I was only six months away from getting my driver’s permit. Last summer my future had seemed too far away even to think about, but now I could imagine myself starting my own life.

  While we waited for our dinners, I opened the stack of presents beside my plate. It was the usual stuff—clothes, CDs, jewelry.

  Looking at my family seated around the table, I thought about everything we’d weathered since my last birthday—Mama’s absence and her illness, the trial, Daddy’s beating, Zane’s run-in with the law—and I felt a jolt of pride that somehow we had survived it all and glued our family back together again.

  Not that my whole life was suddenly perfect. In a kind of weird cosmic trade-off I had my mother back, but I was losing Nick. His parents were splitting up, and his mom was moving Nick and Jacob back to Houston, where their grandmother could watch Jacob while Mrs. Harper worked.