Future Perfect (22 page)

T
hey were excellent, perfectly logical, and reasonable reasons. Of course I couldn't play volleyball anymore—I was studying for the SATs. I was running for student government. I was working. My knee was acting up after one too many midair collisions where everyone landed ungracefully.

They were sincere reasons, real and true reasons that had nothing to do with my weight, or feeling so wide next to tall, wiry Amy, and lanky and muscular Justin, tiny Emily always gunning for captain. Or because I had to play harder, because everyone was skinnier than me. Play better, because they were skinnier than me. Be fierce because I had to be brave. Force myself on the court every single practice.

I threw up before every single game, my stomach heaving at the sound of the crowd outside the locker room. A hundred strangers with their eyes all on me, everyone wondering, how is that fat girl supposed to play volleyball?

Having to prove myself, over and over.

I have never allowed myself to acknowledge this, not really. More important, no one was ever supposed to know. Somehow, I really believed no one ever suspected I had this frantic, terrified center, a churning, overheating engine constantly propelling me forward. The energy behind everything I do. Everything I am.

The thought tears through me, leaving me feeling bloody and ragged. My head is down and my fists are in my pockets and I'm walking fast. I'm not skipping my last class, because I'm not running away. I don't run away. But relief slams me in the chest and stops me short when I see the classroom door is open and the light is off and no one is inside. I don't care why no one is there. I spin and I march through the emptying halls and right out the back door, flinching at the brightness of the sun after the dimmed lights of the hallways. I'm ducking my head and moving more and more quickly, the farther I get away.

When I pass my car I drop my bag and kick it underneath and keep going. I don't want to stop moving. If I stop, all these thoughts will catch up and swallow me. The faster I move, the louder the silence that fills my head. When I'm in motion, I'm just long breaths and bunching muscles and moving limbs. When I'm not thinking about my body, just using it, everything makes more sense.

I dodge through the gravel divider and over the sidewalk, across the road to the bike path that winds down to Main Street
and the beach. When I cross from the bright sun to the shade of the trees I break into a run, my flip-flops slapping the dirt and branches dragging across my bare arms, leaving white scratches behind. I don't stop at the end of the trail. I hit the cobblestones of Main Street, veer toward the boardwalk, leap off the boards onto the sand. I'm breathing heavily, too hot in the sun. But I feel light and invisible. I don't notice anyone, and they won't notice me if I keep moving. I kick off my flip-flops and I pound through the sand, chasing the gulls down the beach.

I run through the stitch in my side.

I run through the burn in my lungs.

I run through the image of my mother, laughing on the lawn of Harvard like she had some right to be there.

I run through my grandmother's promises.

I run through the idea, the seductive, twining, choking-vine idea that everything could be
easier
. Everything could be
simpler
. That I never have to feel like this again.
That skinny is so much easier than fat.

I run through the idea that I am not strong enough to do this anymore.

The beach ends abruptly at a sheer rock wall that stretches so high overhead it can block out the sun. I am running flat out now, straight for it, my legs pumping and on fire. My whole body burning. The sand drags at my feet but I am stronger, and faster. I run hard at the wall and throw myself at it, gasping, clinging to
it, sliding down until I'm sitting on the rocky sand, pressing my face against the rough, warm stone and gulping air.

I feel empty. The space behind my eyes feels like it should be filled up with tears, but it's gone dry. I'm miles from home and it feels like no one but me has ever been here. It's an unfound beach, the sand littered with broken branches and drifts of seaweed. The smell of salt and sulfur and sand is almost as big as the sky, and the sun is turning everything gold. I feel like I am the first person in a while—in maybe ever—to churn up the sand, disrupt the tide, startle the gulls.

I sit and let my breath calm and wait for a revelation. A sense that everything is going to be okay, that I've found an answer, the key to everything, the end-game solution. I spread my hands out in the sand and close my eyes against the slowly dipping sun.
Invisible gamma rays, help me,
I think.

No answers, I know. Just me.

I am the sum of my parts. Everything I've ever done and everything I've ever achieved and everything I have ever been. Fat and smart and afraid and fierce and angry and brave all together right here, and every piece of the puzzle fits the way it's supposed to and I can't pretend anymore. It's always been true, no matter what I've told myself or hoped or tried to believe.

I wobble a bit when I drag myself standing, wait for a moment to get steady and sturdy on my feet, and head home.

T
he entire house is filled with smoke. It's pouring out the windows and through the screen door. Mateo and I are standing on the lawn, but we can hear our father inside shouting at Lucas to find wet towels, and about whose idiot idea was it to not own a fire extinguisher, and
goddammit
. He tried to deep-fry the Thanksgiving turkey and no one is surprised that it's gone as badly as it has.

Laura is still in New York. Grandmother is in Toronto, and then Hawaii, and then Germany and Italy, her yearly round of talks. But Lucas and Mateo came home, and Jolene might go over to her parents' for dessert, and Hector stopped by with some of his mother's tortilla soup because we are friends again, I think.

Jolene volunteered to go to the co-op and find something not burned to eat, and Hector ran back home to see if his mother could spare some of the second turkey she always cooked for just-in-case. And I'm outside with the grass tickling my calves, a little chilly
in the darkening light, feeling a little bit useless and incredibly irritated. “Not
now
, Ashley,” my father had said, pushing me back from the flames pouring out of the oven, and I had stormed out the door. Let him burn down the house. I didn't care.

I stomped down the back stairs to where Mateo was lounging in the grass. Mateo never bothered to try and help.

“I'm hungry,” Mateo says, squinting up at me and taking a swig of his Corona.

“Nice to meet you,” I say absently. “I'm Ashley.” I cross my arms over my chest and tap my foot. “If he had just listened to me for once he would have known—”

“Forget it,” Mateo interrupts. “He's never going to listen. He has to learn from his own mistakes.”

“That would be
great
if he ever
learned
anything.”

Mateo knocks his knee into mine, hard. “Hey. He tries, you know. He really does.”

“Tries to screw everything up?”

“That's not fair,” Mateo starts, but I'm not finished.

“Don't try to defend him. You don't live with him anymore. You don't know what he's like. He's just—he's exhausting.” We've barely made eye contact since our argument on the lawn.

Mateo shrugs, swigs his beer again. “He's gone through a lot of shit,” he says, glancing up at the deck. The smoke has gone white instead of dark, but it's still pouring through the windows and door.

“He just tried to set us all on fire.”

“Mom used to take care of him,” he said. “And Clara just kind of ignores him. She's always focused on you.”

I look at him sharply. “Well, he's an adult,” I say.

“Mom still calls me to check in on him,” he says, and I suck in a breath.

“You talk to Mom?”
I want to ask questions, but I smash all those words right back down. I'm sorry I said anything at all.

“Yeah,” Mateo says. He looks at me. “You look just like her. It's weird.”

“You've
seen
her?”
I can't stop myself from saying it.

“She's on Facebook,” he says.

“Of course she is,” I say. I've never been tempted to search for her.

“She's doing good,” he says.

“Okay,” I say. “I wonder if Jolene is back yet.” I start across the yard toward the driveway, but he grabs the sleeve of my sweater.

“Hey,” he says. “She worries about you.”

“Yeah, it's too late for that,” I say.

“She knows that,” he says.

“Good for her.”

“I'm just saying don't believe everything Clara tells you.”

“I
don't
,” I say. I want to brag about turning down the coupons, but Mateo and I don't have heart-to-heart talks. It would be ridiculous to start now, but he seems determined.

“You're more like Mom than you are like Clara.” He won't stop talking. I yank the beer out of his hand.

“You're drunk, right? That's the only reason you could possibly be saying these things. Mateo, I don't care.”

He hesitates, and I freeze, then close my eyes. I remind myself that I
don't
care what people think anymore. These are easier words to say than to live every day. Every time I flinch in a spark of humiliation, I get furious with myself and crush it out.

“I'm not getting weight-loss surgery,” I say. “Dad knows I'm not.” And then I realize I haven't actually let my father off the hook yet. “I'll tell him I'm not. Because I'm not.”

“Mom is furious about it,” he says, and I shove the beer back into his hand and stalk away.

“I don't give a shit,” I call over my shoulder, and then spin around, my hands on my hips. “Do you know she never really went to Harvard? I bet she couldn't even get in. All these years I thought she had maybe done something worthwhile in her life but it was a lie. And I'm nothing like her.”

“And you're pissed at Mom for not having gone to Harvard instead of at Clara for lying to you.”

“I'm pissed that—” and I stop. I shake my head and everything is rattling loose. I tuck my arms around myself again because it's starting to get cold.

Mateo doesn't say anything. He's just standing there, looking at me kindly, almost like he isn't my jerk older brother.

“I'm not getting weight-loss surgery,” I say finally.

Mateo shakes his head. “She'll bully you into it.”

The wind sends a gust of smoke whirling around our heads. He doesn't follow me when I turn and walk away without a word.

I
rehearse.

Grandmother, I am rejecting your proposition. Grandmother, I cannot accept your offer. Grandmother, cancel my appointments. Grandmother, all bets are off.

I never see it coming.

December 15. I know she's back from Venice because there's a letter on my pillow when I get home from school. There's the red Harvard crest, and there's my name typed out neatly on the front and the envelope slit cleanly on the top.

I shake the letter out and unfold it and I read,
I am delighted to say that the Admissions Committee has asked me to inform you that you will be admitted to the Harvard College Class of 2019.
And—no scholarship.

I drop the letter on my pillow. Roaring white noise in my head.

Also on my pillow, a small white card, creased and torn and with a thumbprint right in the middle over my name.

Ashley Maria Perkins. Weight-loss Surgery in Exchange for Four Years of Tuition.

I can hear footsteps overhead and I freeze. I close my eyes as if it will hide me. Jolene calls my name and I can't move. When she appears at my door, I still can't move.

“What is it?” she says. She looks at the bed where I point, picks up the letter. “Ashley,” she breathes. “Ashley, you got in. Of course you got in! You got into Harvard! This is such good news!”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Are you kidding? You must be kidding.”

“I have to go,” I say.

“Well, of course you have to go. You have gotten into Harvard!” Her face is shining. “I am very proud of you.” She leaps forward to hug me. I must feel like a statue.

“If I go to Harvard, I have to get weight-loss surgery,” I say into her shoulder, and then push back. I put my hands over my stomach, which is churning.

Jolene looks worried. “I don't understand. Is it the tuition?”

My laugh is closer to a sob. “Oh god, the tuition. Yes. That too.” I can't afford college without a scholarship. I can't afford it without my grandmother. It is all piling on, collapsing the fragile structure I had built inside me.

“What is it?” Jolene says. She grabs my hand. “What's going on?”

I can feel my hand shaking in her grip. “If I don't get weight-loss surgery, I'm a liar. I lied to get into Harvard. I said I was getting weight-loss surgery to change the world. My interview. My essay.”

“Oh, Ashley,” Jolene says softly.

“I can't do that,” I say. I know I sound hysterical. I can hear how shrill my voice is. “I can't do that, Jolene.”

“I know,” she says. She pulls me down to sit on the bed next to her.

All of this—this
bravery.
This
conviction.
It's been useless.

She looks at the letter in her hand. She picks up the card. We're both quiet for a moment. Her mouth quirks up on the side. “Laura would say, ‘At least you'll get free tuition.'” She looks at me anxiously. She's got tears in her eyes.

“I'm going to Harvard,” I say. I hear the tears in my voice.

“Congratulations, my darling,” my grandmother says, coming into the room, enveloping me in her arms. “I am so proud of you. This is such good timing. When I was in London I spoke to Stanford again.”

“I have a surgery appointment,” I say.

“You have a surgery appointment,” she says, holding me by the shoulders and beaming at me. “Right after Christmas.”

“That's so soon,” Jolene says. She's still holding the little white card. She looks back and forth between us.

“Merry Christmas to me,” I say, and it does not come out sounding jolly.

Grandmother frowns, then briskly says, “I'm proud of you.” She kisses me, a warm dry peck on the temple. “Your mother would be proud of you,” she says, and I stiffen.

“I don't know about that,” I say.

She shrugs. “True. How could we know? But I'd like to think she would at least be smart enough to recognize how well her daughter is turning out, despite everything. What an amazing woman she's becoming.”

“I don't feel amazing,” I say.

“We'll have a party to celebrate,” Grandmother says.

“No!” I say.

“Your acceptance, darling. I know you're sensitive about the surgery thing.” She pats my shoulder.

“I don't care about the surgery thing. I just don't want a party.” I can't look up at her.

“You'll change your mind,” my grandmother says. “Get ready for work now.” She sweeps out of the room.

“I'm not a liar,” I say softly. And I can't lie to myself anymore.

The tiniest, pinprick bright spark of relief, and it burns.