Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar (22 page)

“Yes, we do. It's a pretty streamlined program. I've given the airline your info. You can head down to the airport right now.”

It was raining. With no umbrellas, Aimee and I dragged our bags across the tarmac to the airplane and climbed the slippery stairs up to the plane. It was Halloween, so the flight attendant at the top of the stairs was dressed like Freddy Krueger, and the pilot waved us aboard in a
Scream
mask. We plopped down in our seats wearing our beautiful new, wet Club Monaco clothes.

“This is definitely the plane we crash in.” I sighed. “I can't believe the crew dressed up.”

“I can't believe we told the airline people we were dressed as schoolteachers for Halloween.”

I stuffed a bag under the seat in front of me. “If I eventually do die in a plane crash, and it isn't this one, I'll be really pissed off.”

I pulled out Radiohead's
OK Computer
and loaded it into my Discman, determined to run the little power left in the batteries dead. I put my ear buds in and turned on “Paranoid Android.”

As we taxied through the darkness in the rain, I looked around the cabin. The overhead lights only highlighted the fact that we were in a metal tube. A baby a couple of rows ahead stood up and faced me, face purple from screaming. I waved and made a silly face, but he kept screaming. What an asshole. I looked back at Freddy Krueger the flight attendant, showing us how to do up our seat belts. There he was, doing all the hand motions in a fucking Freddy Krueger mask to the Radiohead sound track in my ears. Aimee had already fallen asleep against her window. I shut my eyes, listened to the music, and relaxed as the plane started moving. I opened my eyes again and watched the rain passing through the flashing lights on the wing of the plane. I thought about when Aimee almost choked to death on the beach. I thought about Jake and Gryphon. I thought about our meat-and-potatoes van and the curse it probably carried and would continue to carry. And I thought about the Salvation Army. Then we sped up and took off into the sky, and I took my terrible horrible with me.

HOW I MET YOUR
FATHER:
WHEN THE CHILDREN ASK, THIS IS WHAT I WILL HAVE TO TELL THEM

As I'm scowling at my reflection in the point-of-sale screen at the diner, Dave the manager says, “You look fucking hot.”

The day before, I had all my hair cut off. It's a very, very short haircut, and I'm still in a state of shock. I'm feeling less Jean Seberg or Audrey Hepburn and more Michael Jackson.

“Kelly, I have the perfect guy for you!” Dave says.

“I don't know.” I sigh and touch the inch-long strands on the back of my head. I fake-smile at myself in the screen, just to see what happiness with this haircut would look like. “Will he care that I look like a white Wilmer Valderrama?”

“Kelly, I want to date you, but since I can't, I want my friend James to date you. Someone needs to date you.”

I nod. “Fine.”

I'm making someone a cappuccino when a guy comes up to the diner counter.

“Can you pass me a spoon, please?”

I look in his general direction but don't really focus on his face, because I don't give a shit. I'm making a fucking cappuccino. “Uh, no,” I say. “I can't.” Just to let him know he's interrupting my grind-tamping rhythm. But because I'm only 50 percent asshole, after a second I take two steps to the cutlery, grab him a spoon, and turn around. And he's gone.

That was your father.

Your father asked for a spoon to get “a better look at me,” which he confesses later that night. He was tall and had nice eyes, very boyish looking, which I liked.

“A better look at me”? I find myself weirdly flattered to hear this news.

“I'm sorry I was short with you about the spoon,” I say, sipping the ice cream float I made for myself. “I consider myself a deeply disturbed girl these days, and I was recklessly and rudely sarcastic to you.”

He shrugs. “You
were
kind of a bitch.”

“I have no other option,” I say, leaning my head back a little, trying to make my hair appear longer. “I work in a diner to stay alive.”

“When I finished school, I worked in the Middle East for a year to pay off my student loans. I'm not trying to one-up you, but I'm pretty sure that's worse than this diner.”

Nothing he says can faze me. “I have nothing. I have no hair. I'm not even allowed to have a cat in my studio apartment.”

We're both depressed and lonely and it's love at first sight.

At home later I check my messages. My fuck buddy called.

“I heard you were with some guy at the diner tonight.”

And that was the end of my fuck buddy. Kids, I'll explain that another time.

“Can we get really, really, really drunk together tonight? I feel like we'd be good at that.” I ask your father this over the phone at 9:30
A.M.
, and by 9:30
P.M.
we're sitting in a downtown pub, really, really drunk.

“I like hockey. But I hate the way hockey players talk.”

“Me too. The worst.”

“On
Oprah
, this woman said she was so upset because her husband called her a bitch a year into their relationship. I was like,
It took a whole year??
You called me a bitch yesterday, and that was the first time we met.”

“But you
are
a bitch.”

“And she wasn't?”

“Probably not, if it took him a year to say it and she got so upset that she was talking about it on TV. Probably not.”

“I hate people.”

“I hate people.”

“Can we go to a park and have sex?”

We pull into the parking lot of the park and start kissing in the car.

“It's too cramped in here,” I say, breathing heavily between kisses. “Let's get out.”

I open my door and stumble around to the patch of grass in front of the car, sit down, then lay flat on my back in my peacoat. Waiting to be taken. I'm so drunk. I never have sex with strangers. Ever. I can't even focus my eyes. All I can do is lie there thinking about how bad I am. I am
sooooo
bad. I am a desirable woman.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shout.

“Looking for a condom.”

“I have a ton!” Really, I don't have sex with strangers. But I always carry condoms, because they fill my purse with the feeling of potential.

He comes around and stands above me, taking off his pants. I start to shimmy out of mine. I'm not trying to be sexy; no need for seduction under these circumstances. He lies down on top of me and a physical heat wave explodes through my skin to my core. This is followed by a squeak of a giggle, because he has the biggest . . .

“FAGGOTS!”

Wait, what?

“COCKSUCKERS! YOU FUCKING GODDAMN ASSHOLE-EATING MOTHER-FUCKING COCKSUCKERS!”

“Hold on. What the fuck is that?” I say to your father, not even whispering. I'm suddenly sober.

“It's my cock, babe,” your father says, clearly still in the zone.

Though I'm not sure how, because—

“YOU FUCKING BUTTHOLE FUCKING FAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGS!”

I look up and a group of guys are screaming at us from a truck, twenty feet away.

“No,” I say when it hits me. “Is this a gay pickup park?”

Then something else hits me. A rock.

The guys in the truck are throwing rocks at us.

Your father doesn't even notice. He's too far down the rabbit hole. Until—“What the fuck?”—a rock hits your father in the head.

“Oh my God.” I wince. Back to whispering: “We're being gay-bashed because of my haircut.”

I don't even think about the hate crime in progress. At this point I'm so angry at my hair, the hate crime seems loathsome but inconsequential. This stoning won't last two years, but that's exactly how long it's going to take before I stop looking like Matt LeBlanc.

Your father sits up and the truck drives away. I pull my pants up.

“Oh my God. This is some kind of gay park?” he asks me.

“I think they saw my hair.”

A look of shock washes over his face. “They thought you were a guy?!”

I nod and light a cigarette. I'm, like, three minutes ahead of him.

He says, “We were gay-bashed for having straight sex. This is amazing.”

“No, it isn't,” I whine. “I shouldn't have cut my hair.”

Your father helps me up and we walk back to the truck, matching black peacoats and dark hair.

“They thought I was a tiny gay man,” I lament. “A bottom too.”

Your father stops me from walking and holds my face in his hands. “You are so beautiful,” he says. “You are the hottest chick ever. I've never been this hot for anyone.” We kiss, and then he holds me, and I look over his shoulder at my reflection in his car's window and I see myself smiling with my stupid short haircut. That's what happiness with this haircut looks like.

And that's how I met your father.

LIFE WITH
HARVEY

“So, later this week you need to pick up my new Grand Cherokee and get rid of this weapons charge. It's bullshit! I'm allowed to carry hunting arrows wherever I want. On set, in the mall, wherever. Call Paul Zuker, my lawyer. He's in my address book, under
L
for
lawyer
.”

My boss, Harvey, sits beside me in the passenger-side seat of his Land Rover. While I drive, he casually looks out the window tapping the beat of Queen's “I Want to Break Free” with his toothpick. Harvey is a TV producer. He dyes his hair black, wears a plain black baseball cap, black T-shirt, black jeans, and black shoes
at all times
. He has murdery ice-blue eyes; I think his entire black costume is designed to accentuate those eyes. Some people just naturally look suspicious, but Harvey seems to try to make himself look suspicious on purpose. Like if
Saturday Night Live
were costuming a “casual murderer” character and came out with Harvey, people would say, “Whoa! Laying the murdery vibe on a little thick, don't you think?”

“You've got him filed under
L
?” I ask. “Under
lawyer
?” I always have to check his directions, which makes it sound like I'm terrible at my job, when the reality is that my boss, Harvey, is kinda fucking crazy. I am called an “assistant.” I make two hundred dollars a day, straight pay, to do things like picking up toothpicks or getting a plate of food on set that has never been touched by tin foil. This is a much more voyeuristically satisfying job than barista or video store clerk. My boss just wanders around the set all day, watching people work, so I get to do that too. Until I figure out where I belong—and I definitely feel like a film set is my place—this will do. I hope I belong somewhere.

“Yeah.
L
,” he says, jamming the end of the toothpick in his mouth. A certain type of person uses a toothpick, stores it behind his ear. It really has less to do with oral care than with sending a visual cue to let you know they'll go 100 percent cowboy on you if provoked. “Also, I need to pick up some new arrows. Can you make sure you write this down when we stop, Kelly?
Arrows
.”

“The police didn't give back your other arrows, like you thought they would?”

“Nope. They sure as hell didn't. That girl from the Gap got them all riled up! I have every right to carry my arrows in there. Why? Because I didn't have a goddamn bow. Such horseshit. Suuuuuch yuppie Gap horseshit. You know what I did, Kelly?”

“You brought hunting arrows into the Gap.”

“Yes. But you know what I really did?”

I don't guess. I just look at the time on the clock: we're late. If I shut up he'll get through his speech faster.

“What I did, after all that yuppie Gap horseshit?” Harvey claps his hands together loudly. His eyes are darting as he adjusts himself in his seat. “I threw out all my favorite black Gap tees because I couldn't look at them anymore.”

“Boom,” I say. “For real, Harvey.”

“What?” Confused, he puts the toothpick behind his ear and momentarily stops fidgeting, locking eyes with me. Those murdery eyes with nothing behind them.

“Never mind, Harvey.”

I've been with Harvey for a few weeks. He's a nice guy. I organize the time he has with his son. I drive him around. I answer his cell phone while we walk together. I order his food; he chooses good restaurants, which helps. And I take notes on everything he says. He's eccentric. Which to me means crazy . . . but with money.

I acquired the assistant position with Harvey while I was living up north near the Yukon with James. He was doing some environmental work up there and I decided to join him. Not to do environmental work, but just to hang out after getting fired from the diner. (Why? Long story, but let's say I got fired for switching shifts so that I could have weekends with him.)

“This is dumb,” I told James over the phone. “Why am I looking for a dumb job down here, when I could get a dumb job up there and save money on rent by living with you? I don't need to be here to work in a diner and write. I can work there in a diner and write, right?”

“I'd love it. But it's a shithole up here, Kelly.”

“Please, tell me all about it,” I said, muting the
Felicity
marathon on my precious nineteen-inch TV and sitting down on my musty old LSD-patterned carpet.

He launched right into it. “First, I want you here. Second, this place starts with a ‘Fort.' Any town that begins with ‘Fort' is guaranteed to be a shithole. We're in the middle of the highway. It's a pit stop to nowhere. If you don't own a giant truck here, you're no one.
And
I just saw a golden eagle on the side of the road eating a moose asshole.”