It’s hard to keep hearing about these people who aren’t in the world anymore. When we were in acting class for all those months, Karissa said nothing about them, and now it seems like they’re always in the room with us.
“I’m sorry, guys. I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to keep talking about them. Being with your dad is bringing up all these old feelings, and it’s making me a weirdo. So. I’m sorry for all this.” She gestures at her tears. She’s a pretty crier, with delicate wet eyelashes and eyes that get even greener and ocean-ier when they’re filled with tears.
“Breakfast is great,” I say. “And obviously you can always talk to me. Cry in front of me.” I mean it, even though I have to force my mind to forget the thing she said about being with my father. I have to pretend that sentence didn’t exist.
Karissa hugs me, tightly, bringing me in close to her, and she doesn’t let go right away. I pull away the tiniest bit, not wanting Arizona to get any madder at me, but Karissa hugs even harder before releasing.
“I really need to go,” Arizona says. Her face is red, and when she stands up, I think again how much she looks like Tess and Natasha and Janie now. I swear she’s wearing Tess’s pale-pink flats. “Park tomorrow, Montana. Karissa, please, please do not make me try this again. I’m sorry, I know you’re probably very quirky and cool and my heart breaks for what you’ve been through, but I can’t pretend that’s enough for me to want you to be in my house. With my father. Trying to be my friend or something. I’m sorry. I’m an awful, terrible person. But we want our dad. Not you.”
I don’t agree or disagree with the word we.
“You don’t have to leave,” I say to the counter. I am saying it to Arizona and Karissa both. I don’t want this moment to be happening at all.
“You feel the same way I do,” Arizona says.
I shake my head but only when Arizona is gone.
“We’ll be okay,” Karissa says. “We’ll win her over.”
They both seem to be positive I’m on their side. But no one’s really asked.
Maybe we will be okay, when Karissa and my dad are done. Maybe I’m this wonderful type of person who can forgive things and move on but also be strong and principled. I’d like to think I have that fair, kind, excellent person inside of me.
A month ago Karissa took me out for Vietnamese sandwiches, which I’d never had before. They are delicious and vinegary. She laughed in a horsey way at everything I said. She told me about her first kiss when she was twelve and talked me through her first time when she was fifteen with some pointers on positioning. I’m pretty sure other patrons heard us or at least saw me laugh so hard I spit up a sip of water.
Which is all to say, I want Karissa and my dad. I want them both. Just not together.
Karissa pours orange juice and I smile a lot, so she knows I like her weird breakfast that is partly a memorial to her sister and also that I still like her. I feel a little sick, maybe from the crazy French toast or maybe from the things Arizona said or the circumstance we’ve all somehow ended up in.
“I’m not one of them. The evil stepmoms or whatever. I’m different. I promise,” Karissa says.
I don’t reply. I don’t know how to, but I know to keep my eyes on the counter so that she can’t do one of her forceful stares that convince me to agree with her.
“Tell me everything about the boy,” she says. And I do. Because my sister left and Karissa’s right here.
twelve
Arizona turned thirteen almost two years before me, but she didn’t tell me about the thirteenth birthday gift until mine was presented by my dad and wrapped in fancy gold paper with a silver bow and a fake rose taped to the middle as extra decoration. I was pretty sure it was something shiny, like a necklace with my birthstone or the tiara I’d seen when I was out shopping with Natasha that Dad told me was ridiculous but I insisted was perfect for all kinds of events.
I used to like things like diamonds and glitter and princess costumes. I used to believe in things like birthdays and stepmoms.
The present was a slip of paper.
Dad’s office stationery, and a promise that I could get any procedure I wanted when I turned eighteen.
“For confidence,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” I said. I looked to Arizona for a translation, and she shrugged. Arizona was not very sociable when she was fifteen.
“When I was thirteen, all I wanted to know was that I would be prettier when I was older,” Natasha said, trying to explain away the confusion all over my face. She had a bad habit of saying things that were definitely insulting but that she didn’t spend any time thinking about, so were therefore somehow “not meant to be mean.”
“Oh,” I said, because there is very little else to say to a gift certificate for future plastic surgery.
“You can get anything done!” Dad said. “Like, if you don’t grow into your nose. Or, you know, breast enhancement, if that’s what you’d like. I can’t imagine you’d need lipo, but that would be fine too.”