“Fair enough,” Dad says. “Can’t blame a guy for wanting to show off his beautiful girls, though.” The word beautiful is another thing that should feel good but hurts, because I know he doesn’t really mean it. But Arizona is in a yellow sundress and heels, and at least Dad has one good, pretty daughter with enhanced boobs.
Dad’s never talked to us about what happened with Natasha and our thirteenth birthdays, but it sits between us, this awful truth that dirties up every nice thing he says about Arizona and me.
I’m weak, so I weave a messy braid and hang it over my shoulder. I love how long and wild my hair has gotten. Arizona’s is shiny and shoulder length and parted down the middle. It reminds me of Tess’s. Natasha wears hers in a low bun, and Janie teased it out and never tucked it behind her ears.
I don’t remember Mom’s hair very well, except that it was dark blond and wavy like mine.
None of the wives have had pink hair. One of the girlfriends—before Tess but after Natasha—had a silver streak. It didn’t make her cool, but it was a nice change of pace.
“She’s going to meet us here, and we’ll take a cab to CucinaCucina together,” Dad says, sighing at my jeans and probably the wide set of my hips. I could have worn more than a T-shirt, but I hate anything more than a T-shirt and this one is at least of the Mona Lisa, which has to make it classy. I am not in proportion. I am not symmetrical. Like Mona Lisa. “She’s special,” Dad goes on. “I promise. You’ll see. She’s not like any of . . . anyone else. Anyone else I’ve ever met.”
“Where’d you find her?” Arizona says. I laugh, because it’s the perfect word for what Dad does. He finds girlfriends and wives, he doesn’t really meet them.
Dad doesn’t answer her question. He looks sheepish and puts his hands in his pockets, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen my father nervous before, but this is what it looks like on him.
And without meaning to, I have hope again.
“Cell phones off tonight,” Dad says. “Even mine, okay? Everyone I want to hear from will be at that table.”
The hope nudges forward. Dad never turns off his phone. Maybe the new woman will be different. I smooth down my flyaway hairs and ask Arizona for lip gloss. I don’t know exactly why, but if Dad can move a little in one direction, I guess I can too. Because who knows. Because maybe.
Dad answers the door, and I hear the laugh.
Her laugh.
Shit.
Arizona and I push our way onto the stoop.
“What are you doing here?” I say, even though I already know and definitely don’t want it confirmed.
Karissa smiles and blushes. “You promised you’d be open-minded about my secret,” she says.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I say because the blush tells me everything.
“Hey now,” Dad says. My whole body is beating with anger. Like my heartbeat has taken up residence in every joint and bone and muscle.
“I know how much you love Karissa,” he continues. “And I want you to know that I do too.” He’s nervous but measured, and it makes me even angrier.
She is all legs and giggles and shakiness.
“Hi?” Arizona says, trying to navigate the moment without any sort of road map.
“I’m Karissa.”
“I’m Arizona.”
“You can probably tell I know your sister,” Karissa says, reaching for me and then changing her mind. Instead she hooks her hand into a tiny, nonfunctional, finger-size pocket right below her hip. “We were in acting class together. So.”
“So,” Arizona says. I’m unable to speak, and I have a feeling this is the last syllable Arizona will be able to get out for a while too. Karissa is only a few years older than us. She looks like she could still be in high school. She wears dresses with fake pockets and gives me cigarettes and wine and a special brand of attention. She’s mine. She cannot belong to my father.
“Absolutely one hundred percent no,” I say. I won’t look Karissa in the eye, but I have no trouble staring down my father.
“I didn’t approach her until your class was over,” Dad says, like it’s a good enough excuse. My class with Karissa finished up two months ago. I wonder if he knows about the bars and the boys and the pickle-and-wine parties and the cigarettes and the way she tells me I’m adult and special and her best friend.
“You know I think you’re the greatest,” Karissa says. Her voice is low, as if it’s a private moment between her and me, but with all four of us on the stoop, there’s no room for secrets. “And I honestly believe this could be something . . . magnificent.”
Loneliness jabs at me. All the time I spent with her, I thought I was finding my Person. It’s unbearable. And embarrassing. And so terribly sad.
“This isn’t happening,” I say. If I could think of the right words to yell at her, I’d do that, but there’s a screeching in my mind, a banshee of fury, and it’s hard to think with that going on.