Identity Crisis (15 page)

“Hello, hello,” she says impatiently. “Is she there? I tried her on her cell, like, three times and she's not picking up.”

I rack my brain, trying to remember what my mom had told me sometime way early this morning, when she'd poked her head into my room and said she'd be back later in the day. I'd been half asleep, still trying to block out the cruel world.

“No, she's out,” I tell Elena. “Having brunch with a friend in the city.”

“Who? Diane?” Diane was my mom's only good friend in Boston, a Back Bay realtor she'd roomed with in college.

“Dunno,” I shrug. She had only said something about brunch before she dashed out of the house.

“Well, I need to talk to her about Head of the Charles,” Elena says importantly.

“You're rowing?” I ask, somewhat surprised.

Head of the Charles is this super prestigious regatta for the top crew teams held every fall on the Charles River in Cambridge, near Harvard Square. When we were little, when my parents still enjoyed doing things together, they used to take us down to cheer on the boats, and I guess that's when Elena caught the bug to become a rower.

“Yeah, in the frosh boat. You guys are coming, right?”

“I guess,” I say. “When is it?”

She tells me the date and I make a mental note of it. “Well, Mom's been spacey lately. You better make sure she puts it in her calendar.”

“What, you mean because of your dumb tickets?” Elena says. “Yeah, she told me. That's not spacey, Lise, she got in a car accident.”

“No, I don't mean the tickets,” I reply, annoyed. Clearly, she hasn't heard the good news that I'm getting tickets from Colin Dirge, and there's no way, now, I'm telling her the whole convoluted story of why I was running crying through the mall in the first place.

“Then what?” I can tell she doesn't believe me. Our mom has always been the most organized person I know, with lists and schedules and routines.

“I don't know, just forgetting little stuff.”

“You don't think she's sick, or something?” Elena asks, her voice rising in alarm, which makes me feel slightly better. I was wondering the same thing, and it would have been so typical of my mom to confide in my big sister but not me. They both still treat me like the baby in the family, even though I'm only an inch shorter than Elena. But if she didn't know anything, then maybe there really was nothing to know.

“I don't know. She hasn't said anything to you?”

“Nope. She's probably fine, Lise,” she says in that annoying big-sister tone of hers. “She's probably just, you know, menopausal or something. Dad didn't say anything.”

I can't help but snort. “Like he would know.” Dad doesn't have a clue about Mom's life anymore. She's in the past. His ex. Would he even care if there was something wrong with her? With me?

“Well, he didn't,” Elena insists.

“So you talked to him?”

“Yeah,” she says casually. “The other day.” I just don't get how Elena can still have this super close relationship with my dad, after everything that happened. Our conversations, even this summer, always feel so forced. “You should call him.”

“Why? Did he say something?”

“Just that he hasn't heard from you in over a week. You shouldn't blow him off. Look, I just said I'd remind you. Don't kill the messenger, okay?”

Easy for her to say. She had to skip out on our annual August visit this year, since it conflicted with her freshman orientation, leaving me spending three awkward weeks with him, Claire, and the twins, all on my own. A fact I now remind her of. “I think I've had enough quality family time for one lifetime.”

“He just wants to see how school's going. That's what we talked about. He's bummed he can't make it up here for the race. Oh, and he said he was sending me something.”

“Just you?” I can't help ask, jealous again that she is always the favored one.

“I don't know, Lise. I'm sure you, too,” she assures me.

I half snort in disbelief.

“Why do you have to be so hard on him?” Elena asks.

“Why do you always let him off so easy?” I shoot back. Why didn't Elena have as hard a time getting over Dad's betrayal as I did? Was it because she loved him more? Or less?

Her voice softens. “Look, Lise. I know the whole thing sucks.”

I concede her point with silence. The phone line crackles as we listen to each other breathing. I wish I could be as forgiving as Elena, but I don't know if I can. Most of all, I wish Elena hadn't bailed on me this summer when I needed her to be there.

“Elena?” I finally ask, my voice growing soft, too.

“What?”

“How can you just forgive him?”

She pauses for a long moment. “Because he got swept up in something he wasn't strong enough to stop. He was weak, I know. But also I know he didn't want to hurt us. Can't you, you know, give him another chance? Maybe he'll surprise you.”

I think about that but don't have a reply.

“So how is it, up there?” I ask, changing the subject, wishing I could get out of the next three years of high school early and join her. When I wander into her room now, it's weird how it's been stripped bare, how all her photos and trinkets have been reassembled somewhere else, in a dorm room miles away.

“Amazing.” And she goes on and on about late night Dominos with her dorm mates, and this frat party she went to where everyone dressed as angels or devils, and her Intro to Psych course where they get to be human lab rats, until finally, she remembers to play the part of Concerned Older Sister and ask about my life back at Dansville High. “So, how is Dullsville?”

I tell her about math with Pinella, whom she had sophomore year, too, and Maeve making the volleyball team. “How about those witches from last year—they're not still trash-talking you, are they?” One night, early in the summer, Elena had forced the story out of me after rumors of the Freshman Fling melodrama somehow trickled up into the senior stratosphere.

But the urge to confide in my sister is somehow gone, the moment passed.

“No,” I lie, since technically they've moved on to way more sophisticated forms of torture. “It's pretty much the same old, same old.”

I hope Eva realizes we are going to hell, or if not hell, at least, a state penitentiary.

At church this morning, Pastor Reilly's entire sermon thundered against the sin of lying.

“Who among us has ever deceived another? Dissembled? Lied? Prevaricated? Told untruths?”

Me, me, me, me and, oh yeah, me.

The whole time, I was sure he was looking right at me, knowing that practically everything I'd said to Annalise online was based on a lie, and that even if God forgave me for it, she probably wouldn't.

Besides, it wasn't just the higher power I needed to worry about smiting me down. I'd typed in the words “Internet” and “impersonation” and “false” into Google last night and discovered that what we'd done was breaking the law in a whole bunch of states and could cost us tons of money in fines—or even land us in jail. The main legal distinction was whether we'd done it as a prank or “maliciously” to cause “emotional distress.” I think again of Annalise, running through the mall in tears, and am positive we're going to end up in a jail cell. The legal fees alone will bankrupt the little money my parents have left after they split their assets. I forwarded the link to Eva, who texted me back to quit worrying, saying that prison chic was so in, hadn't I heard that orange is the new black?

As we all file out into the banquet hall for post-sermon coffee, Cooper and his parents come over to greet my family. Our dads shake hands casually, while our moms air kiss and exchange pleasantries.

“How are you?” I hear Cooper's mom ask mine, scanning her face, as if she knows the answer is written there.

I wish Mom would tell the truth:
My husband's out of work and considering divorce, my Botox bankroll is running low, and my daughter's close to being busted for online fraud. How 'bout you?

“Great, just fine,” my mom chirps, negating the sermon we'd just listened to five minutes ago—although she does shoot me a look when I roll my eyes and audibly cough in disbelief.

“Why don't you and Cooper go get some cake?” she suggests.

Cooper looks agreeably at me and I nod. The two of us duck over to the dessert table, where we always stuff our napkins with whatever baked goods the sisterhood has provided that week, then head out to the courtyard to scarf them down. The fall air is growing crisp, but still warm so long as you stand in the sun. I love being privy to Cooper's church persona: a proper button-down shirt and shiny shoes, his hair damp and combed neatly, completely different from the bed head and T-shirt school version.

We lean against the low brick wall and I dig into my coffee cake, getting crumbs all over my black woolen skirt. I brush them off angrily. Too angrily. Cooper notices.

“What's up with you and your mom?”

Uncharacteristically, I find myself blurting out the truth. “I can't stand when she's so fake. Like, we could have our house burn down and be standing here in our underwear, and my mom would say, “Oh, we're doing grrrreat, how about you?”

Cooper nods like he understands. “Moms can be crazy like that. Remember, like, in fifth grade, when we went away to Argentina for a whole week to visit relatives?”

“Vaguely.”

He shakes his head. “Wasn't true. Me and my brother got lice, and she couldn't handle the shame of people knowing. We had to stay inside all week while she de-loused our scalps and disinfected the house. Every other kid just came back to school the next day with a shaved head, but not us.”

“Seriously?”

He makes the Boy Scout three-finger salute. “True story. You're the only one I've ever told.” He rolls his eyes heavenward. “Ah, the relief. I've been carrying it around all these years.”

I laugh, feeling a little bit better. For some reason, with Cooper, I'm never shy, like I am with other boys at school. Maybe because I've known him my whole life, practically. I wonder for the billionth time if this great rapport is just all in my head. If not, then why doesn't he feel it, too? Is Tori right? Is it because I fail in the figure department? Does it really come down to stupid cup size—even for Cooper?

“So, what's the horrid truth she's covering up?” he asks, leaning in. “It's not good to keep it bottled up inside.”

I hesitate although I know I can trust him. “Come on.” He smiles encouragingly. “You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.”

What secrets could Cooper possibly have? Intrigued, I look around, making sure no one is near enough to overhear. Then in a rush, I tell him. “My dad quit his job. And my mom is pissed at him. She doesn't want anyone to know he's unemployed. Says it's our personal business. And I'm worried that all the stress might make them split up. They've been having huge fights over it.”

He is right. For a moment, it does feel good to let my secret escape, to watch it float away, like a helium balloon carelessly slipping from a child's hand at a fair.

“Whoa. Out-of-work dad and fighting parents? Really dredging up some skeletons in the closet, there?” Cooper smiles kindly at me. “I thought you were going to tell me some real family scandal. A paternity suit, forged documents, traceless poisons, that kind of thing. That's all you got?”

He gazes at me, and for a moment, it feels like he is waiting for me to say something else. Something more. If only I had Eva's bravado, I would just spit it out. What had she said to do? Just make a move on him already. I want to open my mouth and scream,
No. That's not all. I am madly in love with you, you idiot!

Instead, a sigh escapes my lips. “That's all.” Isn't it enough? There's no way I can tell him the other secret hanging over my head, the complicated cat-and-mouse game I've got going with Annalise.

“Don't stress,” he says. “I'm sure they're not going to divorce in the middle of all that. That doesn't make sense. Once he lands a new job, things will go back to normal. You'll see.”

“Maybe,” I concede, not convinced, but appreciating his attempt to cheer me up. “Now you.” I am not hopeful. There is only one confession I want to hear from his lips, and I doubt I will ever get it.

“Me?” He waves his hands innocently in the air. “I got nothing. I just said that to make you go first.”

“Cooper!” I playfully kick the pebbles on the ground toward him, sending a cloud of dirt onto his shiny brown shoes.

“Hey!” He feigns a coughing fit until the dust settles. “Okay, fine. It's no secret, probably. The whole darn school knows.”

“Who you're into?” I say haltingly.

He nods in assent, frowning, as if remembering something. “I know you and your little crew aren't her big fans.”

I ask if he heard what happened last year, not sure how plugged in he is to the Dansville High rumor mill.

“Vaguely. Something that got Eva's knickers in a twist.” Cooper shrugs. “I'd say that's a mark in her favor.”

Cooper's never bothered to hide his dislike of Eva. He'd tried one time to get me to explain why I stayed friends with her, until I finally told him to drop it. He just doesn't get it, how high school is like a jungle: separate yourself from your pack, and you might be eaten alive.

“But I can't seem to figure her out,” he continues. “She keeps sending me mixed signals. Hot and cold, you know? What do you think?”

I wish I could be anywhere else but here, having this conversation, but against my better judgment, I try to help. “For starters,” I suggest, “try not insulting the band she's obsessed with.”

He nods his head. “Yeah, I really put my foot in it there. Dumb, dumb. Why is my mouth like ten times ahead of my brain?”