I don’t get a drink.
Dirty Versailles is slow and grimy tonight. It was so fun a few weeks ago, but tonight my bra’s too tight and Karissa has that freaking rock on her finger. Someone vacuumed all the fun out.
“I’m over your sister,” Karissa says. “Do we have to keep her?”
“Hey,” I say. It’s not exactly a strong response, but it’s something. I try again. “You crossed a line. And my sister and I are a team. Okay?”
“I know, I know. She’s wonderful. We love her. But aren’t you glad you have me and Bernardo? That’s how I feel about your dad.”
“I’d like to have everyone,” I say, but it tastes bad. It is Arizona and me against the stepmothers. That’s what it is supposed to be.
Although I guess if I’m honest with myself, it never has been. Not since I made an imprint of my sleeping body on Natasha’s couch. Not since I hugged her kids and babysat them and pretended to be somewhere else. I’ve been betraying Arizona all along.
I have absolutely zero idea what I’m doing, and seeing Karissa face-to-face right now feels all wrong. Like I’m not Montana anymore at all. I eye the door. It’d be easy to sneak out and make my way back to Arizona’s. Bring her a carton of ice cream or a pizza.
“Another!” Karissa calls to her bartender.
I watch her get drunk, and I sip on a glass of water and then an orange juice to keep things interesting.
“Are you looking for a new agent?” I ask, wanting to talk about things that aren’t about Us.
“Soon, soon,” she says. She grins. “I’m going to be the girl they want me to be.” I think that’s what she says, but the words are sloshed and jumbled. Her eyes are unfocused.
“I bet you’ll be famous someday,” I say, and this at least I mean. All the things I’ve started to find wrong with her don’t mean she’s not crazy talented and impossible to stop watching.
“Maybe I’ll be the girl Arizona wants me to be, too,” she says, nonsensically. There is no version of Karissa that Arizona would be okay with. I take the smallest sip of Karissa’s French martini, and I’m surprised by this fizz and the sweetness. It’s nothing like what she made me and Bernardo that night in the basement. It’s better, lovelier, fancier, more compelling. I could get used to it.
“Look,” I say at last, part of me still watching the exit, willing my limbs to take me there. “Maybe you could at least wait? On the wedding? I know we keep saying it and it’s a total broken record situation, but it would help so much if you and Dad would slow down and breathe and let us adjust and make sure you actually love each other.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand love,” Karissa says. “I know you do. I’ve seen it. We’re the same. We’d do anything for it.” She reaches out and touches my eyebrow ring. It’s still sore, and her finger on it hurts, sends a wave of pain behind my eye.
I miss Bernardo like he’s a limb, and I’m also certain that our love is nothing like whatever she and my father have.
I should have gotten drunk.
I also should know better. I should know better, but when Karissa and I leave, I walk us up the path Natasha and I walk with the girls when we’re trying to get them to fall asleep in their stroller.
And maybe it’s what I wanted or maybe it’s the exact last thing I ever hoped would happen, but we run into them. I don’t see them until they’re close. Natasha’s in pajamas and I’m maybe vicariously drunk through Karissa or potentially so mad and confused that I feel drunk.
She sees me, though. And sees Karissa’s drunken stumble.
“Montana?” Natasha says.
“Monana!” Victoria calls out. Veronica screeches and reaches for me. I can’t breathe. I don’t reach back.
“Hi,” I say. Not Hi, Natasha. I guess some desperate part of me believes I can get out of this situation unscarred.
“Hi!” Veronica says. She has a tiny vocabulary, but what words she has she loves.
“Hi,” Karissa says. She wipes her mouth with her hand, like a little spit maybe came out on her greeting. “Who are you people?”
Natasha squints. “Who are you?” she says. “Friend of Montana’s?” I almost can’t believe that Karissa and I still look a little like we belong to each other, like we fit. I feel so far away from that time.
“I’m Karissa!” she says. She trips over her own feet to grab Natasha’s hand, and I’m collapsing inside. I am red and wish I’d drunk my weight in vanilla vodka at Dirty Versailles. I grab my phone in my pocket like it’s Bernardo’s hand and think I can’t manage the world without him sometimes. Not when it’s like this—tense and ready to fall to pieces.