The Perfection Paradox (32 page)

It was
colonial in style, with two ivory columns on either side of the
front door. It was made from expensive looking wood and was
polished and smooth.

The rest of
the house sprawled out in both directions, perfectly symmetrical.
At a guess, Hannah would’ve estimated it could fit fifteen maybe
twenty of her mustard coloured box houses inside it. All the
windows were large, letting light flow freely into the rooms
beyond. Some of the windows were open and the curtains were ebbing
in and out with the breeze. Hannah could just make out the high
vaulted ceilings of the rooms through the windows.

Kennedy drove
around the fountain and parked her car outside the front
door.

“
No point
putting it in the garage if I’m taking you home later” she
explained as she gathered up her belongings from the backseat.
Hannah lurched out of the car ungracefully and swung her backpack
onto her shoulder absent-mindedly 

Kennedy
pushed open the front door and Hannah rushed up the stone steps and
across the threshold, following her closely.

“
Would you
like something to eat or drink?” Kennedy asked. Hannah nodded. They
crossed a marble entrance hall, where a round glass table stood
with a fantastic flower arrangement in the centre. Hannah didn’t
even need to question whether they were real or not, the delicious
zesty aromas filled her nostrils, soothing her.

She thought
of the tattered plastic sunflowers her mother had bought at a yard
sale to ‘brighten up’ their decrepit living room. Within a few
weeks they were covered in a layer of dust, like everything else in
the house.

The two girls
emerged into an expansive kitchen filled with chrome appliances.
The white marble floor and counter tops gleamed as sun sprawled
through a conservatory leading off from the kitchen.

Kennedy
jerked her head, indicating for Hannah to follow her through
another wooden door.

“
Pick
whatever you want,” she offered, picking out a snack for
herself.

The
Blakewoods’ pantry was more like a warehouse. An industrial fridge
held every soft drink Hannah could think of. Past that, shelves
were filled with retro jars of candy, biscuits and snacks, popcorn,
crackers and lollipops.

Hannah
grabbed a coke from the fridge and they walked out into the
entrance hall again, this time climbing the wide staircase with
embellished bannisters up to a lofty cream-colored hallway, where
another vase of fresh flowers, this time white roses, greeted
them.

Kennedy
pushed open a cream wooden door on her right and led Hannah into
her bedroom.

And what a
bedroom it was.

It’s lofty
ceiling and large bay windows meant the room was well-lit and
bright. The floor was pale maple and a shaggy sheepskin rug covered
one side of the room. The walls were a pale pink. The headboard of
Kennedy’s bed was cream leather and her sheets were lacy pink to
match her walls.

Half a dozen
pastel-coloured cushions were spread along the headboard. At the
end of her bed was an ivory coloured sofa.

On the
opposite wall to her bed was an ivory-coloured desk and shelves
built into the wall.

Half the
shelves were filled with novels and school textbooks while the
other half, the higher shelves, were filled with dozens of photo
frames of Kennedy with friends and family. In one of the bigger
frames, Hannah noticed Kennedy smiling out at her while shaking
hands with a tall man in a dapper suit.

The President
of the United States.

A large
bulletin board above the chest of drawers next to her bed was
plastered with mementos from her life, Polaroid pictures, birthday
cards, concert tickets, as well as Marilyn Monroe’s famous picture
from the Seven Year Itch.

Next to the
desk a door stood ajar and beyond it Hannah could just catch a
glimpse of a luxurious turquoise tiled bathroom.

A set of
double doors to the left of her bed stood wide open, revealing a
wardrobe the size of Hannah’s living room. Dresses hung, colour
coordinated, a rack of shoes taller than Hannah and wider than two
of her would’ve been, arms outstretched.

Cubbies
contained dozens of bags, and though Hannah didn’t know the first
thing about designer handbags, they looked expensive.

An
extravagant crystal chandelier that looked like something from the
Great Gatsby hung high over their heads and another vase of
flowers, white lilies, stood upon Kennedy’s chest of
drawers.

Kennedy took
a seat in a cream leather office chair at her desk, pushing out the
other one for Hannah to sit in.

She pulled
her notebook out of her brown handbag that doubled as her schoolbag
and flipped it open to the page where she’d jotted down her notes
on the assignment in neat cursive handwriting.

“
Okay, so Mrs
Parker assigned us the question ‘discuss the cost and benefits
associated with fame in the 21
^st
century and decide whether
the costs outweigh the benefits.”

Hannah
shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Surely the
person best able to answer this question was Kennedy herself. She
was the one constantly under surveillance. They began the
assignment, outlining the presentation and then talking through the
arguments.

The benefits
of fame were easy. Money, acknowledgement, fans, high-end event
invitations, but the costs, that was when it got
interesting.

“
People who
don’t even know you hate you for no reason, people spread rumours
about you, people are always waiting for you to mess up, to fall,
until eventually you must be terrified of doing anything in case
you do it wrong.”

Kennedy spoke
as if this was still about Hollywood starlets or Grammy award
winning singers, but it wasn’t, this was all about her.

“
You must
become a blander version of your former self, because you can never
risk being 100% you, weird or crazy or eccentric, because what if
they don’t like it?”

“
Why don’t
they just be themselves…” Hannah asked, “Who cares what people
think.”

Kennedy was
staring up at her bookshelf, her mind clearly somewhere
else.

“
It’s not
that simple… I’m sure they’ve tried that before, but it always
seems that the whole world is against them. If they were to go to a
party and get drunk, everyone would know, everyone would pass it on
to other people. It’s just not worth it. It’s easier to be the
person everyone thinks you are. Usually just being yourself isn’t
enough, not when it seems like everyone is watching and waiting,
waiting for you to fall…”

Hannah was
staring at her earnestly, sympathetically, “Being yourself is
enough Kennedy” she whispered, “life isn’t about being perfect,
life’s dirty and rude and unpredictable.”

Kennedy was
still gazing into the distance, lost in thought.

42.

Matt thought
back to that night. It was maybe the second or third time he’d
snuck into Kennedy’s garden through the hole in the
fence.

Not the fear
of the unknown like the first time, but it hadn’t quite become a
habit yet.

Her bedroom
light had been off which was unusual for 10pm on a Sunday
night.

He’d shone
his flashlight (yes, he’d brought a flashlight) into the Blakewoods
garage. All cars were accounted for but one. A silver
convertible.

Suddenly he
heard the rumble of an engine in the distance, fast approaching. He
hopped down from the garage window clicking his flashlight off as
he went. He landed behind some dense bushes and lay very
still.

He heard the
car swerve and brake in front of the garage, but no one pressed the
button to open the door and no one got out. The engine fell
silent.

For minutes
that felt like hours Matt waited. Nothing.

Finally, he
very slowly leaned through the thick shrubs and peered
out.

Luckily, Matt
was still hidden in the shadows while the lights from inside the
Blakewood mansion illuminated the garage, the car and the girl
sitting in it.

At first Matt
thought she was asleep, but then Kennedy banged her fist on the
steering wheel, lifting her head slowly.

She was
sobbing.

She flung her
head down again, covering her face with her hands, her body
heaving. Matt felt shivers run down his spine.

He watched
her for several minutes. Although it felt wrong, almost perverse,
he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

After a
while, Kennedy turned the key in the ignition, pulled down the
mirror from over her head and slowly tried to wipe away the
tearstains and subdue the bloodshot eyes. Then she leant back in
her chair, shook her hair back out of her face, took a deep breath,
and drove into the garage.

At the time,
Matt had pinned it to an argument with her parents or a college
rejection, but now, with everything that had happened, he
understood it entirely.

This is what
she did when she wasn’t at house parties or balls or charity
fundraisers. This is what she did when she was alone.

And Matt knew
himself that you were never more yourself than when you were
alone.

Matt’s heart
sunk and a quote from a book he’d read about Albert Einstein
drifted through across his mind, resonating with the
moment.

It must be
strange to be known so universally and still be so heartbreakingly
lonely.

43.

Kennedy still
had the letter hidden in a side pocket of an unused school bag at
the back of her wardrobe.

She’d tried
throwing it away a thousand times, but she couldn’t bring herself
to do it.

She’d find
herself rifling through the trash, desperately throwing aside
banana peels and empty boxes of cereal until finally she’d spot
it.

She’d drop to
her knees and pick it up, wiping the mess off of it delicately.
She’d clutch it to her chest and weep and scream in anguish until
she felt hollow again.

The night of
graduation, he’d been on her mind more than anything else, more
than any of the others.

The boy had
been fifteen when he’d started.

Kennedy had
been thirteen. Eighth grade.

It had
started innocently enough, a homemade card, a frosted cupcake, a
nervous smile.

A
crush
his mother had called it, but it
wasn’t long before it spun wickedly out of control.

Soon, the
Blakewood post-box had been stuffed with envelopes illustrated with
fanatic blood red hearts containing explicit poems and letters from
him.

When another
boy at school gave her a Valentine’s Day card, his dog went missing
that evening and turned up a week later, skinned alive and
decapitated.

Then the
phone calls began.

Next the
emails filled with dark lyrics from morbid songs.

Then he
started breaking through the fence at the back of the Blakewood
property. He would sit in the darkness of their garden and watch
her.

Seeing the
surveillance footage made Kennedy feel sick.

After that,
the police got involved. Mr Blakewood called them after he saw the
boy lurking out in the bushes, a terrifying gleeful smile spread
across his depraved face.

He had to
stay away from her after that, he had to
leave her be
. But he couldn’t, being
without her was too much of a misery. He kept coming
back.

He was put
under house arrest, and every time he left his garden the device on
his leg would flash red instead of green and he knew he’d only have
a few minutes to find her. But he never got to her in time, they
were always there to pull him back, no matter how close he
got.

Without her,
his life became void of meaning, he was reaching out into the
abyss, and she was too far away for him to touch
anymore.

The day after
her birthday, he hanged himself.

Kennedy had
retched when her mother told her.

Her family
had pulled her out of school early that summer. Every time she
walked down the halls she saw him. She saw him standing in front of
her with that perfect frosted cupcake. She saw the boy with the
mutilated dog, a ripped Valentine’s Day card hanging from his limp
hands.

It had been
her last day at school when Kennedy had been struggling to her
mother’s parked car with a cardboard box full of binders and
notebooks.

His mother
had approached her.

She wore a
long black trench coat despite the glorious summers day and dark
tinted sunglasses shielded her eyes. Her skin looked withered and
crisp, and she’d aged exponentially since Kennedy had last seen
her.

“
He wanted
you to have this,” she’d muttered, handing Kennedy the creased
envelope. Despite its tattered appearance, the seal was
unbroken.