It’s the most either of my parents has ever said in front of me about anything remotely financial, and if my mother had said as much to me that day in the car, outside the Whitmans’ house, when I told her what I needed done, maybe it would’ve meant something to me. That honest vulnerability. Tonight, it means nothing.
“I’m not moving,” I say, before both my parents pull back and look down at me with different but equally concerned expressions. “I don’t want to start over. I just did that. And you’re right.” I look at my mother, and her eyes are like saucers. Like she’s a deer caught in my headlights. “This is where I want to be, with Cherish. We all seem to agree on that. So. I’ll stay with the Whitmans.”
“Farrah,” Mom says, and her breath has to force it out. “The Whitmans didn’t agree to you living there long-term. And even if they had, we’re not asking for that. I’m sorry for what we’ve put you through these past few months; I know they’ve taken their toll on you. But we’re not going to leave you here.”
“It wouldn’t be leaving me,” I start, but I can see that despite my suggestion leaving them heartsore, and probably a little guilty, they’re not even considering it. So I choose my words more deliberately, make sure every one of them can cut. “I know you didn’t mean to disappoint me, or make me feel betrayed, or unsafe.”
She flinches. It’s slight, but I see it. My dad’s mouth falls open a little, and then he curls his hand around the bottom half of his face and looks away.
“I know you miscalculated when you lost your job, and you never meant for all of this to happen. For all of us to pay the penalty for your ego.” My mother blinks in rapid succession, but that doesn’t mean she’s forfeiting, so I don’t let up. “And I know you wouldn’t have asked the Whitmans just to suit your needs; I know it means you trust them.” I let my shoulders fall, and my head with them. “I’m only just getting comfortable again.”
“Farrah,” my dad starts, but he’s hesitating.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I know losing the house is just a change of plans when you’re old enough to understand, and maybe that’s why you didn’t try as hard as you said you would. I know it shouldn’t matter so much to me, the way it doesn’t matter to you and Mom, but—I can’t grow up that fast. I’ve been trying . . . but I keep getting sick over it. And being with Cherish helps. Like having her at the academy. I don’t want to start over someplace else and be the only one again.”
My mother’s completely turned around, which can only mean she doesn’t want me to see the way she’s holding her fingers beneath her eyelashes, catching tears. I only wish I could see whether they’re from sadness or frustration.
“No one wants you to grow up any faster, Fair.” Dad holds my face with one hand and pulls me into his chest. “You shouldn’t have to. And you have nothing to apologize for.”
I hold him snug and nuzzle my forehead into him the way I always did when we were watching a movie that was supposed to scare me, and he rubs my back, slowly, up and down.
“None of this is your fault,” he says, and I open my eyes even though I’m too close to his shirt to keep the gingham from blurring. “We can try to take it slow. Okay?” He pulls back and looks down at me. “The least we can do is not rush you.”
“Okay,” I agree.
When my mother finally turns back toward me, she pulls me into a hug before I can get a good look at her, and hooks her chin around my shoulder.
“We’ll figure this out, honey. Dad and I will figure everything out.”
I can’t help but smile.
Dad and I . . . Just so I know, as far as Nichole Turner is concerned, nothing is up to me.
I take an arm from around my dad and put it around her waist, my fingernails scraping deep enough to reach her skin as my fingers curl into the fabric of her blouse.
VI
On my way now! I text Cherish when I’m in the car with a Tupperware container full of Dad’s pasta on the passenger’s seat.
Good! I’m with the boys and you’re my ride hoooome!
And then she sends a selfie of her and Kelly. He’s scowling, of course, and she’s straddling him, sticking her tongue out like she’s taunting me by sending a photo of him. Which she is.
As if she can see my sneer, Cherish sends a follow-up picture, and this one shows her clearly catching Tariq by surprise when she leaps onto his back. She and Kelly were in the Campbells’ TV room, separated from the terrace and pool area by a set of French doors, and Tariq is standing beneath a slowly darkening evening sky when she attacks. Whatever she and Kelly were doing was clearly not fun for the whole gang. Not that it ever is, or that they ever care.
I send back a kiss emoji and blast the music as I pull onto the highway to head back to my side of town. It doesn’t matter what music in particular; I’m cosplaying a teenage girl, reveling in an obnoxious display of self-centeredness meant to declare that I’m carefree—even though it’s safer to be constantly aware. Constantly observant, and interpreting; your outward behavior a decision based on forethought, not narcissism.
I do not believe that my mother would prefer a child like that, that she’d be less worried if I were myopic and one-dimensional. But her performance has taught me a valuable lesson. When I was very young, I thought part of self-control was adhering to the truth. Parents, after all, teach no lesson more intentionally than “Thou shalt not lie,” and if children listen to what they say more than observing what they do, it will be years before we know the value of deciding the narrative for ourselves.
But I knew better. I studied her.
I saw the real her, the one hiding behind her eyes, so when she first recoiled at my behavior, I understood that it was a lie, a strategy in the war games we play.
I tried to teach Cherish. The lie I told the day with the nails and Jerry Whitman’s renovation site didn’t just get us what we wanted, and it didn’t just keep us out of trouble, even though that was the point. It also turned into a kind of lore, a beloved origin story told at birthday parties, years and years later.
Control.
A bold, ambitious lie is a last resort, its tellings few and far between. That way it isn’t just disarming, but convincing every time.
When you tell that lie, you commit to it, even if it means doing the thing no one believes you’ll do.
If you learn to tell the lies no one else has the stomach to commit to—the brazen kind—it is amazing how well it works. The way it did when we were in fourth grade. The way it did tonight, with my parents. It can be addicting, too, but I’m not greedy.
From now, I’ll be obedient. It’s how you make sure they’ll believe you the next time. When they agree to let me stay with the Whitmans, I’ll just be doing what I was originally asked. When I was in distress, my mother goaded me with instructions to be gracious. She said to appreciate being taken in, and now I will. Now I’ll want to.