Better Than Perfect Page 8

  9

  I went on autopilot.

  Every morning I woke up at seven, had breakfast with my aunt, got dressed and took a train into the city. Then I walked across town to the UN, where I snapped on my ID badge and got my agenda for the day. Some days I sat in on low-level meetings. Other days I listened to the General Assembly debate. There were information sessions about specific countries and there were lunches in the glass-walled cafeteria overlooking the East River. Meetings with NGOs working on girls’ education. Papers to read and discuss. Access to the UN’s library and database. Sitting on the 5:48 train headed home, I would realize I had no idea what I’d seen or said or done all day. I would get off the train and it would be raining and I’d think, Was it raining this morning when I left the house? and I wouldn’t be able to remember.

  Aunt Kathy went to visit my mother at the hospital every day. Apparently she was still fairly dopey from the different medications they were giving her. I couldn’t see why the doctors couldn’t just figure out what she needed to clear her head and ask her if she’d tried to kill herself, but Kathy told me I needed to be patient. I reminded her that patience was not one of my virtues. Oliver finally arrived at some spot in the Adirondack Park with cell service, got the ten million messages we’d left for him, and came home. He went to visit our mom, then met our dad for dinner in the city and stayed with him. Somehow his choosing to stay in the city instead of at the house felt like a decision to align himself against me and Aunt Kathy, and when he called and asked me to have dinner with him and our dad, I said I had plans. He asked me how I was and I said I was okay. I asked him how he was and he said he didn’t know. Part of me wondered if he might offer to stay at the house with me after Aunt Kathy left, but he didn’t. I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a life in New Haven. And school was starting for him soon, too. We promised to talk in a couple of days, but after I hung up, I had the strangest feeling—so strong it was like a premonition—that I would never see him again.

  Friday when I got home the house was empty. I tried to do my SAT homework. Glen, my tutor, was on vacation, but when he came back, he was going to want to see all the progress I’d made while he was away. There was also preseason coming, which I was totally unprepared for. Out my back window, I could see the pool. It was pristine, shimmering red and gold with the light of the setting sun, and I thought about the pool guy and how he kept coming every week even though nobody used the pool and how he’d keep coming even though soon nobody would be living in the house. The pool guy, the gardener, the housekeeper . . . my house was its own little economy. All these people working so hard to make everything clean and pretty and well-manicured.

  And with all that, my parents still hadn’t been able to be happy together.

  I turned away from the window. The thought of motivating myself to get off my bed, go outside, and swim laps was exhausting, and instead I lay down and tried to get through a reading passage on the creation of the EPA.

  I must have conked out, because the next thing I knew, Aunt Kathy was shaking me awake gently. “Juliet,” she whispered.

  I sat up, sweaty and disoriented. She was sitting on the edge of my bed, smiling at me, and she looked so much like my mother that it hurt to see her. I closed my eyes and leaned back against my pillow.

  “You were really asleep there,” she said, patting me.

  “I was having the strangest dream. . . . I was on a boat, and you were there. And Mom. And we’d forgotten something, and I think we had to go back to get it, but I couldn’t figure out how to work the sails. . . .” I shook my head. “I can’t remember. Maybe you weren’t there.” The dream receded, leaving in its wake the sense that I’d done something wrong.

  “Come on,” she said, when I didn’t say any more. “Let’s go have some dinner.”

  Downstairs Kathy stood at the counter chopping while standing on one foot, her other foot against her knee, like a flamingo. I sat on a stool, watching her and trying to wake up. “Have you given any thought to my suggestion? About coming to Oregon.” She was leaving Sunday morning. I wondered if she’d made me a reservation just in case.

  “I have.” I wasn’t lying, either. I’d imagined packing a suitcase and taking a plane to Oregon with Aunt Kathy. Waking up in the guest room. Going to the high school Andrew and William would go to in a few years.

  “And?” She dropped the tomato cubes in a bowl and sprinkled some feta in with them. I got up, went over to the cabinet, and took out two plates.

  “I can’t,” I said. I tried to explain why. “I’m already registered to take the SATs here and—”

  “Juliet, you must know that you can take the SATs in Oregon.” For the first time since she’d arrived, Aunt Kathy sounded impatient with me. She shook the colander holding the pasta roughly.

  “But I’m taking them at Webster High.” I put the plates down on the table more heavily than I’d meant to. “Because everyone knows you have to take them at Webster High, not at Milltown, because there’s always some kind of problem with the proctoring at Milltown. And if I come live with you, I won’t know the right place to take them.” She started to interrupt me, but I talked over her. “And there is a right place to take them in Portland, Kathy. Trust me. You just don’t know about it. Plus I’ve got all my AP classes and swimming and debate and my SAT tutor—I can’t leave all that behind. You have to understand that.”

  She added the pasta to the feta and tomatoes. “Is this about Jason? Because I know he’s a wonderful boyfriend, and I’m sure the idea of living with him is very exciting, but you can’t let that cloud your decision.”

  “It’s not about Jason,” I said firmly. “I’m not even sure I’m going to live with the Robinsons.”

  Kathy didn’t look completely convinced, but she didn’t push it. Instead, she brought the pasta over to the table and gestured for me to sit down. “There’s something else I’d like to talk about. And that’s your seeing someone.” She reached behind her and took a piece of paper off the counter, then slid it across the table to me. “Her name’s Elizabeth Bennet, and she’s apparently terrific.”

  I made a face. “Her name’s Elizabeth Bennet? Like the Jane Austen character?” I’d done an independent study with my English teacher last year, and we’d read Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility.

  Aunt Kathy laughed. “You know, I didn’t even notice that.”

  “I’m not seeing a therapist named Elizabeth Bennet.” I rolled my eyes. “Please.”

  “Juliet, don’t be like that. She’s a good therapist. I think she could help you.” Kathy turned the paper toward herself, like maybe the woman’s name would have changed since she wrote it down.

  “Aunt Kathy, I’m not the one who needs help. My mother is the one who needs help, okay?” It came out really nasty.

  “It’s okay to be angry,” said Aunt Kathy, her voice quiet and calm. “Even if all she was was irresponsible about her medication, your mother did a horrible thing.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I corrected her. I was embarrassed by how emotional I was being, and I tried to get my voice under control so Aunt Kathy wouldn’t think I was freaking out. “It’s not her fault. I feel bad for her, not angry at her.”

  “Juliet, it’s not your job to take care of the grown-ups in your life.” Aunt Kathy reached her hand across the table. “And it’s okay to be angry.”

  “Don’t tell me how to feel,” I snapped. “I mean . . . I know it’s okay to be angry, okay? But I’m not angry. Not at Mom, anyway.”

  She studied my face for an uncomfortable minute. “I’d feel better if you’d see someone.”

  “If it’s not my job to worry about the adults in my life, then it’s not my job to see a therapist so you feel better, right?” I raised an eyebrow at her to show how impressed she should be by my flawless logic.

  Kathy threw her napkin up over her head. “Okay. I surrender. You win.” She stood up and walked over to the refr
igerator, clipped the piece of paper with Dr. Bennet’s name on it under a magnet, and came back to the table.

  “Just so we’re clear, you know you can always change your mind, right?”

  It wasn’t clear to me if she meant I could change my mind about Dr. Bennet or about moving to Oregon, but since neither of those things was going to happen, there was no reason to ask which she was referring to.

  “I know,” I told her. And this time I was the one who reached my hand across the table to hers. “Thanks.”

  That night I put on my bathing suit for the first time in weeks. I was planning on swimming laps, but I just ended up sitting by the dark pool with my feet dangling in the water, trying to make a decision.

  My dad kept leaving me voice messages about apartments the HR person at his consulting firm had found for him. Some had pools. One had a tennis court, which his mentioning as a selling point was kind of hilarious given the fact that my mother was the only person in our family who played tennis. I tried to imagine living in some random apartment complex with my father and the college girl he’d found to stay with me while he commuted back and forth to Ohio where a hospital had hired his firm to restructure it. Would she try to be friends with me? Would we all have dinner together when he wasn’t traveling? Would the two of them fall in love?

  Could my life possibly get even more melodramatic than it already was?

  Sitting there, staring at the few brave leaves that had fallen since the pool guy had cleaned, I knew that I was going to move in with the Robinsons. I made the decision without making it, just like the summer Sofia and I vowed we weren’t going to eat any refined sugar and then we’d been at the diner one night and found ourselves ordering dessert.

  I sat back on my hands, looking through the glass doors at my aunt, who was sitting at the kitchen table talking to my grandparents on the phone. From the little bit I’d overheard before coming outside, I could tell they wanted to come down and that Aunt Kathy was trying to get them to wait. I hoped she would convince them not to come. I loved my grandparents, but my grandmother was fairly nervous and my grandfather’s idea of intimate family conversation was asking you what route you’d driven to his house in Connecticut and how much traffic there’d been. I couldn’t exactly see them being helpful in the midst of a mental health crisis.

  As I watched my aunt, I wished it were my mother sitting there instead of her sister. I understood that the social worker was right, that now my mother was going to get the help she needed. And I knew I should be happy about that. But if I was being honest, I had to admit that I wished my mom were sitting at the kitchen table, buzzed on muscle relaxants and white wine, while I swam laps, blissfully ignorant of all the sadness inside her pretty head.

  10

  It was strange to pull up in front of Jason’s house with an overnight bag on the seat next to me and to know I’d be sleeping there tonight and tomorrow night and every night for the foreseeable future. How many times had we sat on his couch, wrapped up in one of the fuzzy blankets his mom kept in a cedar chest in the den, fantasizing about what it would be like when we lived together someday?

  And now we were doing it.

  But walking across the lawn, I couldn’t get excited about moving into his house. And it wasn’t because of what had happened at the club that night with Declan. Every time I started to think about that, I forced myself to think about something else. It had been a horrible night, I had done a stupid thing, no one knew about it, and soon I’d have forgotten about it completely. Already the whole twenty-four hours felt unreal, as if I could just as easily have dreamed it as lived it. Last night, right before going to bed, I’d gotten up the nerve to ask Aunt Kathy about my mom’s restraints.

  “Restraints?” she’d asked, surprised. “What restraints?”

  “On her wrists. Little blue restraints. With Velcro.” I illustrated with my hand where they had gone. “She was wearing them that first night in the hospital.”

  “Oh, honey,” said Kathy, hugging me. “She doesn’t have anything like that now. If you could see her, you’d see she’s just in a regular hospital bed. As soon as they transfer her to a long-term facility, you’ll get to visit her, and you’ll feel so much better.” She shook her head. “Restraints,” she said quietly. Then she perked up. “Are you sure you weren’t just looking at a hospital bracelet?” She made a gesture similar to the one I’d made. “White and blue plastic?”

  “Nooo . . . ,” I said slowly. I was pretty sure I’d asked the social worker about them, but now I couldn’t remember. “I don’t think that’s what it was.”

  But because Kathy was convinced I hadn’t seen restraints on my mom’s wrists, I’d started to wonder if maybe I was wrong and they hadn’t been there at all. Maybe I’d imagined not just the restraints but everything about that night—finding my mother passed out on the floor of her bathroom, the fight with my father in the ER, the near accident with the van, singing “Happy Birthday” onstage, kissing Declan.

  Had any of it actually happened?

  So it wasn’t the fact that I’d cheated on him that made moving into Jason’s house feel weird. What made it weird was that it was proof of how fucked up my family was. Part of what had made me and Jason so special all these years had been that our families were so alike—he had a younger sister; I had an older brother. His parents had met in college; my parents had met in college. He had a stay-at-home mom; I had a stay-at-home mom. Our lives were identical, and we knew that our lives together were going to be identical to the ones we’d grown up with (except for the stay-at-home mom part).

  We were equal.

  I stood on the lawn staring up at his house, just as I’d had two weeks ago when he was leaving for France. Jason had never expressed any opinion about my parents getting divorced outside of sympathizing with me. He’d never been anything but supportive and loving and concerned.

  But he must have had feelings about it. He must have had feelings about me and it.

  What were they? What was he thinking about my family now? What was he feeling about me now?

  I pulled my bag higher up on my shoulder. Somehow its weight was comforting, a reminder that I existed outside of Jason’s parents’ charity. Maybe I didn’t have parents who could take care of me or a house I could go to. But at least I had a bag.

  I crossed the lawn and rang the bell.

  The Robinsons had a guest room, but it didn’t exactly surprise me that I wouldn’t be staying in it, since it was right across the hall from Jason’s room and on a different floor from his parents’ room. Bella’s room, on the other hand, was next door to Grace and Mark’s.

  Sitting on the trundle bed, which Bella had made with bright pink sheets and her old My Little Pony comforter, and looking at Jason standing in the door of the bedroom wearing his sweatpants and a Brown T-shirt, I couldn’t believe I’d been nervous about seeing him. From the second I’d walked in the door and Jason had put his arms around me and whispered, “Hey, J,” in my ear so softly it made me shiver, I’d known everything was going to be okay.

  Maybe I wasn’t living in my house. But I was definitely home.

  As soon as we’d come upstairs, Bella had insisted on helping me unpack all my stuff, marveling at what a neat folder I was. It inspired her to take everything out of her own drawers, and we’d spent half the afternoon organizing her clothes. That had made me feel better about being a guest, as if I was contributing to the family rather than just taking from them.

  “So,” said Jason, smiling at me from the doorway.

  “So,” I repeated, smiling back at him.

  “Nice jammies,” he said, nodding at my yoga pants and T-shirt with a silkscreen of the Buddha on it. Aunt Kathy had bought both for me last Thanksgiving when we’d gone out to Oregon and she’d convinced me to take a yoga class with her. I’d hated the class (being told to relax about ten thousand times in an hour made me tense enough to punch someone), and Aunt Kathy had irritated me by saying I wasn’t surrendering to
it, but even though few things were more annoying to me than Aunt Kathy on a yoga spiel, when I’d slipped on the clothes in the bathroom earlier, I’d felt heavy with loneliness for her.

  I glanced down at what I was wearing. “I had the feeling your parents wouldn’t dig seeing me in boxers and a tank top.”

  “Maybe not,” said Jason. “But I would.” He gave me a wicked grin, even though he’d seen me in a lot less than boxers and a tank top. “Movie?”

  “Really movie?” I asked, because normally when we talked about watching a movie we meant channel surfing until his parents went to bed and we could go up to his room to have sex.

  But Bella interrupted before Jason could answer. “What movie?”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “I was thinking of me and J,” he said. “You should get some sleep. You’re probably pretty jet-lagged.”

  “You need sleep more than I do,” countered Bella, kneeling on her bed and pointing at Jason to emphasize her point. “You both start preseason tomorrow. And anyway, Mom said you guys aren’t allowed to exclude me the whole time Juliet’s here.”

  Jason took a step toward his sister. “She also said you had to give us some time alone, so don’t be a total brat!”

  “Mom!” Bella shouted. “Jason called me a brat.”

  “Guys! Guys!” I said, and I couldn’t help laughing. “Enough.” Being here with Jason and Bella suddenly felt like being at home with my brother before he left for college. “We’ll all watch a movie together tonight. Then tomorrow, Jason and I will watch a movie alone.”

  Bella sat down on her heels. “And the next night you and I will watch a movie alone. That’s fair.”

  “Well, we definitely want to be fair,” Jason said sarcastically.

  Bella and I filed past Jason (who patted me lightly on the ass as I walked by), and the three of us headed down to the den. Except for the fact that I wouldn’t be getting in my car and driving home in the next two hours or so, it was just another normal night at the Robinsons’: Grace in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. The glow of the computer screen letting us all know Mark was at his desk working. My entire life had exploded, and the Robinsons were doing exactly what they’d been doing every night since I’d met them.