“I’ve been in my room the whole time,” I point out, rearranging a pile of bubbles since Mom has been known to critique my body without invitation. She doesn’t seem to realize that movie star elegance doesn’t necessarily pass down through the genes. I’m lucky I got enough of her beauty—her thick, chestnut waves and ink-dark eyes—to be admitted to the popular circle at school. I always see my beauty as somehow superficial, though, as if it can be stolen at any moment. I try too hard, care too much. Mom carries hers inside her. It’s effortless. She is Old Hollywood Glamour. I am… Not.
“Your father tells me he’s already given you the news,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, pushing myself up against the end of the deep, clawfoot tub. “We’re moving.”
“Yes,” she says, looking thoughtful as she sips her martini. “I suppose you are.”
My heart does a funny little skipping, twisting thing inside me. “You’re not going.”
“Don’t look so shocked, dear,” she says. “You know I can’t simply pick up my life and move it to Alabama. I’m a Manhattan girl.”
“Arkansas.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “Wherever.”
“So… What? You and Daddy are getting a divorce?”
“We didn’t get to that,” she says. “I had to get ready to go out. There’s a fundraiser at the MET tonight.”
“You’re just leaving Daddy in the middle of a fight to go hang out with some people you barely know and don’t even like?”
Typical Mom, but still.
“Don’t make it sound so dramatic,” she says. “It’s really not. It’s simple. He’s moving across the country. I’m not.”
“So it is divorce.”
“As you can see, I’m not the bad guy here, Crystal. I’m just going on with my life as I have. He’s the one making changes, making big demands.”
That’s what was on my mind all day. If I could stay, somehow, would I? Or is Daddy right? Maybe a chance to start over isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Maybe going on with our lives as we have is.
“Do we have to choose?” I ask. “You or Daddy?”
Mom sighs dramatically and sets down her empty glass on my makeup counter. “Your father and I have been fighting for years. It was only a matter of time. I never thought we’d still be together when you children started high school, let alone when you were nearly ready for college.”
“I thought that’s just how you were,” I say. “How you liked it.”
Now that I said it out loud, it sounds all kinds of fucked up. Just because all I’ve ever known is their fighting and making up, that doesn’t mean love is supposed to be that way.
“I think I’d just like some time alone,” Mom says, standing with a grace she somehow maintains even after countless martinis. “I don’t even know who I am without all of you. What doIwant? Without your father, without you kids to think about, what would I do with myself? Who am I?”
“Is this really the best moment for your latest existential crisis?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
“How many times have you gone out for ice cream this month?” Mom asks, eyeing the ample swell of my breasts.
“Mom!”
“To have such perky ones again,” she says with another sigh. “Oh, well. I’d better get going, or I’ll be late to dinner.”
When she leaves, I slide down under the bubbles and lay on the bottom of the tub, holding my breath and staring up through the water.
I heard drowning doesn’t hurt,I said to Veronica as we floated on top of the pool this summer.Do you think it’s true?
“Why do you think about that stuff?”she snapped. “That’s so morbid, Crystal. You really need to stop.”
And I wanted to remind her of the time I’d told her we needed to stop, and she hadn’t listened. But I didn’t say anything because I thought, what if I wasn’t her best friend? I know how quickly fortunes turn.