Family of Liars(38)

38.


I REACH OUT and touch them at her neck. “Those are Tipper’s.”

“I asked if I could try them. You got a turn. All her other stuff is so old-lady.”

“She let you wear them?”

Penny shrugs. “Sure, whatever. Tomorrow I think we should go to the Vineyard and do some crimes. We could see an afternoon movie and go to the arcade, or whatever. Something different. You, me, Yardley, and Erin?”

How could Tipper let her wear the black pearls?

“Well,” says Penny, ignoring my silence. “Up to you. Oh, and your father is not your father.”

“What?”

“Your father is not your father,” she says again. “Hope that helps.” She reaches out as Erin walks by. “Erin, I’m very sexy, right? Major told me I’m very sexy.”

She and Erin go off together.

I grab Bess. “Penny just said to me, ‘Your father is not your father.’?”

“Yeah?” Bess adjusts the strap of her dress. “Was it helpful?”

“What did she mean?”

Bess shrugs. “Did you see she’s wearing Mother’s black pearls?”

“Yes.” I lean against the bookshelf to steady myself.

“I’m going to see what Mother will lend me,” says Bess. “I mean, the black pearls are probably the coolest thing she has, but girls at school are wearing these long ropes of white pearls, like costume jewelry. Do you think Mother has anything like that I can wear?”

“No.” I shake my head to clear it. “What did she mean, ‘Your father is not your father’?”

“God, Carrie. Chill. I don’t know. I didn’t see the second movie.”

I have to get some air.



* * *



—

I RUN OUT to the porch and down the lawn. When I am some distance from the house, I reach around, breathing hard, and pull the Who Am I card off my back.

Luke Skywalker.

Tomkin loves him. He looks good in white. Yoda is a little green friend. He has sex appeal. Bess didn’t see the second movie. His father is not his father.

Penny knows nothing. But Tipper let her wear my pearls, the pearls that tell the story of Buddy Kopelnick, and an unwanted pregnancy, and a husband who forgives his unfaithful wife.

She let my sister have the pearls that tell the story of me.

I realize: my weak jaw, my malformed teeth, now restructured into beauty…my father wanted to fix me so that I looked like him. He erased the Buddy Kopelnick in my face, telling me I had no choice.

I am drunk. I throw myself into the tire swing, spinning, careening, letting the swing whirl my body into something approximating the chaos I feel inside.

Buddy, Rosemary

Codeine and Jim Beam

Pfefferman, Kopelnick

My father is not my father

My face is not my face

My sisters are not my sisters

She gave the pearls to Penny

I spin, and cry, feeling I have lost my place in this small world I’ve always lived in, sobbing until my body feels like it can’t possibly sob anymore.



* * *



—

“HEY THERE.”

I let my feet touch the grass. The swing slows to a stop.

Pfeff stands on the lawn, his hands behind his back. He looks like a statue, his skin almost blue in the moonlight.

“Go away,” I say. I don’t want him to see me crying. “Please just leave me alone.”

“Carrie.”

“What?”

He steps toward me. “Are you okay?”

“Obviously not.”

“All right, then.”

I turn away and wipe my eyes, though there’s no hiding my distress. “I can’t explain,” I say. I don’t want him seeing me like this, drunk and raw and illegitimate.

“So don’t explain,” he says in a whisper.

“It’s not your business.”

“Okay.”

“Just ’cause you told me you didn’t get into Amherst doesn’t mean I’m going to share all my secrets with you.” Words spill out of me, the bourbon loosening my tongue. “So will you please go away?”

He keeps standing there, his eyes in shadow.

“Why are you guys even here, still?” I ask petulantly. “You came for like, a short visit, and you’ve been here ages. Don’t you have anywhere else to be?”

“I think you know why we’re still here.”

“No. You’re just here, and still here, and still here.” My head is dizzy from spinning. Fogged from all my tears.

“Think about it, Carrie,” Pfeff says softly.

“Is it the Ping-Pong table? The shortbread? The parlor games?”

“Very funny.”

“Yah, that’s me. A never-ending river of joy and laughter.”

“But you know the real answer,” Pfeff says. “Why am I still here?”

“I told you to leave me alone,” I say. “I’m not having the best night and I’m in no shape to guess riddles.”

“You don’t need to guess,” he says. “The answer is right in front of you.”