Faking Perfect (5 page)

At age nine, when I’d first seen these pictures, I’d known immediately that the guy looking back at me was my father. Five years had gone by since I’d last seen him, and my memories of him were fuzzy, but one glimpse of his eyes erased any lingering doubt. They were just like mine.

Instinctively, I’d hidden the pictures and never told my mother I’d seen them. I knew she wouldn’t like it. She didn’t even like to talk about my father unless it was to remind me that she’d saved us from him and that he was a horrible dad, the kind who didn’t think twice about driving drunk with his baby in the car and spending the rent money on crack. He was so awful, Mom told me, so destroyed by drugs, she’d had no choice but to rip me from my home and move us several thousand miles away to a town where she knew no one except for her old friend Teresa. Once here, my mother made sure the dangerous man who was my father could never follow us or contact us. Restraining order issued, sole custody granted, ties severed. All for our own protection.

Pictures were destroyed too, except for these two that had somehow survived. In one, my parents sat together on a ratty brown couch, fingers curled around bottles of beer. My mother’s hair was reddish blond, like mine, only she had bangs that defied the laws of gravity. She wore a loose neon-blue shirt that revealed one creamy shoulder and she was smiling, face flushed with happiness. She looked thrilled to be beside him, this guy with the shaggy brown hair and tattoos on his arms and eyes the exact color and shape of my own.

In the second picture, the same shaggy-haired, tattooed, blue-eyed man was holding me in his arms, helping me blow out the candles on my second birthday cake. I was a chubby-cheeked toddler with a mop of yellow ringlets for hair and a smile that mirrored the one on my father’s face. We looked happy and relaxed, and completely unaware that in just two years, we’d be torn apart.

He looks so normal
, I thought whenever I looked at these pictures.
This
was the man we’d escaped in such a hurry? The man who’d helped create me only to choose drugs and alcohol over his own daughter? The man who gave me up when I was just four years old, barely old enough to form any clear memories of my time with him?

I did have one memory, one that came back to me often, the image so vivid I knew it had to be real and not just something I’d fabricated from the various things I’d heard about him. No one had ever told me about walking in the woods with my father, holding his hand as he pointed out birds and squirrels and bugs. But I was positive it was something we used to do together. Even now, I remembered the warmth of his hand, wrapped snugly around my small one, and the smell of those woods, fresh and damp. More than anything, I remembered what I’d felt, being there with him. Not fear, not anxiety, but security and contentment, the way a little girl should feel with her father. This happy memory conflicted with everything my mother had ever told me about him, but I refused to let her words twist it or tamp it down. It was the only connection to him I had left. That, and the pictures.

Whenever I felt that familiar ache in my gut, I’d open my snake book and study those two pictures until my eyes watered. Rarely did it help, but I liked the feel of them in my hands, solid proof that at least one time in my life, I had a parent who held me close and seemed glad that I’d been born.

Chapter Five

“W
exi, can you wead this My Wittle Pony book to me?”

I jumped and looked over toward the side of the couch, where Grace stood with her blanket and a glossy pink book. I smiled at her, even though this was the fifth time she’d gotten up since I’d put her to bed less than an hour ago. Her big brown eyes and the way she pronounced my name melted me every time.

“Sure,” I said, and she cuddled in next to me on the couch. I breathed in the smell of her blueberry-scented kid shampoo and began to read.

Somehow, despite growing up with a woman whose idea of mothering was storing easy-to-open, pre-made food within my reach so I wouldn’t starve to death on weekends when she slept through breakfast and lunch, I loved taking care of little kids. Maybe maternal instincts skipped a generation, or maybe being around Nolan’s nurturing mother had impacted my psyche. In any case, I’d graduated from the Babysitter Training Program at age eleven and had been taking care of children ever since. And I was good at it.

I’d been babysitting Grace ever since she and her parents moved onto my street about three years ago. She was only eight months old then. Her parents, Todd and Rachel, paid me well and trusted me implicitly. And Grace . . . she literally couldn’t remember life before me. I watched her at least once a week, whenever her parents went out for a date night or had a scheduling conflict with work. She was always excited to see me.

“One more book? Pwease?” Grace begged after the Little Ponies had solved all their pony problems and lived happily ever after.

“It’s nine-thirty, Gracie. Time to go to sleep.”

She sighed and shook her head, making her chin-length brown hair flick against her face. She could be quite the diva. “I’m not tired.”

“I am,” I said, tossing the book on the expensive-looking coffee table in front of me. Todd and Rachel’s house was a lot nicer than ours. Rachel was a registered nurse and Todd managed a car rental company. “Maybe
you
could put
me
to bed.”

She giggled. “Okay.” She went to use the bathroom and then tucked me into her twin-size bed. Only then did she climb in herself, clutching her yellow blanket in one hand and my fingers in the other.

We stayed that way, both of us passed out after a hard evening of coloring and dollhouse decorating, until her parents arrived home at midnight.

Todd offered to drive me home, but as usual, I declined. My house was a two-minute walk up the street and we lived in a very safe, quiet neighborhood. The only creatures I ever stumbled across between their house and mine were outdoor cats and the occasional raccoon.

The air felt mild and damp on my face as I trudged up the road. When my house came into view, my stomach dropped. An unfamiliar car sat in the driveway next to our Ford.
Great
, I thought as I passed it. Upon closer inspection, it was a Lexus SUV. Pricey. Usually, my mother’s boyfriends drove pick-up trucks or dented cars with rust stains the size of my head.

Please
, I thought, closing the front door with more force than usual.
Please don’t let them be in bed together
.

They weren’t. To my surprise, they were sitting at the kitchen table, mugs of some kind of dark liquid in front of them. My mother, showing all thirty-two of her bleached white teeth, and a man I assumed to be Latte Guy, smiling back at her.

“Oh,” my mother said when she saw me, as if she’d forgotten I lived there. Or she was disappointed to see me. Probably both. “This is my daughter Lexi.”

When the guy stood up to greet me, the first thought to enter my mind was
He’s young
. Younger than my mother, for sure. Maybe early thirties.

“Jesse Holt,” he said, his grip firm around my hand.

The second thought to enter my mind was that he was as good-looking as my mother had claimed. Tall, well-built, with close-cropped black hair and gray, almost colorless eyes. Eyes that stayed locked on mine as we shook hands. He oozed confidence.

“Hi,” I said, nodding politely and then backing away. I knew from the strained smile on my mother’s face that I was interrupting this . . . whatever it was. “Nice to meet you.”

He smiled and maintained eye contact with me for a few more seconds, then sat back down across from my mother. Flustered, I excused myself and headed for my room. There was something about him, something not altogether pleasant.
Slick
was an apt description. He seemed like the type of guy who would sleep with someone and then steal her purse. Hopefully, Mom hadn’t left any valuables lying around.

Once in my room, I closed and locked my door and then checked on Trevor. He was all curled up in his hide, digesting his weekly mouse meal. From where I was standing, I could just make out the muffled conversation going on above me in the kitchen—a high, giggly voice mingling with a deep, smooth one. Even though my room was toasty warm, a shiver ran through me. I unlocked my door and slipped next door to the bathroom, where I scrubbed my hands in the hottest water I could stand.

A loud thump woke me out of a dead sleep sometime later. I jolted upright in bed and looked around my dark room, trying to identify the source. My pounding heart almost stopped altogether when I saw a dark shadow pass by my window. Seconds later, there was a bang against the glass and then a face appeared. Relief filled me, quickly followed by anger. Tyler. He knew he wasn’t supposed to just show up unannounced.

I scrambled out of bed, still half-asleep, and opened the window a few inches. “What are you
doing
?” I whisper-yelled.

He poked his head into the opening. “Can I come in?” he asked, giving me a blast of his alcohol breath.

“Are you insane? You’re supposed to text me before coming over here.”

He grinned and lowered his body so that his chest and legs were flush with the wet ground. “Insane? No. Drunk? Maybe. And I did text. Five times.”

Just then I remembered that my phone was upstairs in my coat, stone cold dead.

“Let me in, Sexy Lexi.” He laughed at this unoriginal nickname and then repeated it three more times. He was toasted. “Please? It’s fuckin’ cold out here.”

Normally I would have slammed the window on his neck in response, but for some reason I opened it wider and stepped aside. Tyler rolled over and then stuck his legs in, the rest of his body clumsily following.

I reached behind him to shut the window and then spun around to face him. “You have to be quiet. My mother has . . . “ I cocked my head and listened for signs of life upstairs. Nothing. “Is there an SUV in the driveway?”

“No.” His hands found my hips in the dark and he pulled me closer. “Why?”

“No reason.”

He leaned in for a kiss. I wasn’t exactly in the mood, but I kissed him back anyway.

He smelled like fresh air and smoke and whatever he’d been drinking earlier. As I slid my arms around his waist, my hand knocked against something solid near the inside pocket of his jacket. Shifting my face from his, I reached into the pocket and freed its contents: a small, half-empty bottle of spiced rum.

“Trying to get busted for underage drinking again?” I asked, dangling the bottle in front of his face. “Walking the streets, drunk, with this in your pocket? Not very bright of you.”

He made an uncoordinated grab for the rum, but I snapped it away before he could make contact.

“Uh-uh-uh,” I said as if scolding a naughty toddler and then watched his dark eyes flash as I opened the bottle and took a slow drink. The rum burned going down, making me gasp.

“Got any mix?” he asked. Smiling, he tugged on the bottle until I finally let go.

A few minutes later, we were sitting side by side against my headboard, chasing mouthfuls of spiced rum with sips of the warm Coke I’d swiped from the stockpile of cases in the laundry room. When our cans reached the half-empty mark, we filled them back up with the rest of the rum. The icky feeling I’d had going to bed had become a distant, fuzzy memory.

“So what have you been up to tonight?” I asked, wincing through another swallow. “I mean, before you decided to slam my window and scare the shit out of me.” I was just buzzed enough not to care about the interested tone in my voice. Usually, I felt it best not to question Tyler about where he’d been and what he’d been doing before he showed up at my house. I didn’t want to think about whose sloppy seconds I was getting whenever he kissed me.

“Party at Skyler’s,” he replied.

“Oh.” Skyler was the one who always stared at him in math class. I was pretty sure he’d either already slept with her or was planning to. “How did you get here?”

“Walked, of course.” He drained his Coke can and burped quietly. “You think I’d drive like this?”

“Maybe, if you still had a car.”

He shot me a dirty look, and not because I’d accused him of being capable of impaired driving. He was still annoyed that his parents had taken away his car after one too many speeding tickets. He wouldn’t get it back until—or
if
—he graduated. “And what have you been up to tonight, Sexy Lexi?” he asked, tugging on one of my curls.

I slapped his hand away. “I babysat. You know, one of those
honest
ways to make money?”

He reached for his discarded jacket and rooted in the pocket for his pack of cigarettes. “Are you saying”—he slid one out and stuck it between his lips—“I don’t make an honest living?” He flicked his lighter and held the flame against the end of the cigarette, but his hand was swaying too much to ignite it. “I’m an entrepreneur,” he added, stumbling over the word.

I let out an ungainly snort and started to laugh. “Give me that,” I said, taking the lighter from him and holding it steady against the cigarette. When it was lit, I snatched it out of his mouth and put it in mine.

“First you steal my rum and now my cigs,” Tyler said, indignant. “What’s next? You want my wallet? My heart? No, wait . . . you already stole that.”

The lighthearted atmosphere drained from the room and all of a sudden I felt completely sober. There it was again, that impending-storm feeling. That shift in the air between us. He’d never said anything like that before, and even though I knew the alcohol had surely loosened his tongue, the implication in his words was pretty clear. To him, I wasn’t just an outlet or a booty call or someone to share rum and a smoke with. Somehow, without any encouragement on my part, I’d become more.

I passed the cigarette back to him. “Tyler—”

“I was just kidding.” He chuckled a little, but it sounded hollow. Forced. He looked away and took a drag off the cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs for several seconds. It must have burned.

I felt the stirrings of nausea. “You should probably go. It’s really late.”