Without Scars (4 page)

“Yeah, and our characters are
us
—I pulled a lot of details from our real lives—but I get to weave these really cool backgrounds in that don’t exist, too. It’s like being in a parallel universe. Sometimes fiction is the only chance you ever get to do what you couldn’t.”

“
How to Fuck up a Friendship,”
she said with a giggle and tapped away on her cellphone. “‘When their university announced a co-ed dorm room pilot program, Chuck and Sami were the first to sign up. Now that they’re living together, it’s the ideal situation for the lifelong best friends. So, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, just everything
.’
Whoa, the new season starts soon. Quick recap, please.”

“Let’s see…Chuck has always secretly been in love with Sami, since they were kids. He had very idealistic notions of
her
growing up
.
He could never work up the nerve to ask her out. As an adult, he still idealizes her, but he has a lot of grownup cynicism mixed in now. He doesn’t think he’s good enough for her.

“Everything’s fine for a while, until she brings home a guy one night, and Chuck hears them having sex through the door. He crashes in another friend’s room, and he can’t sleep. Next morning, he starts sabotaging her relationship with the guy. He does so much damage—he loses himself in destroying Sami’s relationship—and he puts it above everything else. Chuck feels horrible eventually, though. He decides to move out, but Sami comes home after the breakup one night and climbs into bed with him. And it ended with a cliffhanger about whether they slept together or not. Season finale is pushing one hundred thousand views as of last month, the most of any episode, more than all the others combined.”

“Oh, I’m
so
in. I’m totally subscribing. And watching all of them.”

“Well, the first three aren’t great. Sound’s off. Lighting’s wrong. I’m blatantly staring at the camera in some scenes. Shoddy camera work. Dialogue felt forced and contrived in some places. The writing is kind of shaky on my part. I wasn’t good at putting a story together back then, maybe not great now, either. A little too much angst. We emoted a lot. So, maybe skip those?”

She frowned. “Geez, you’re pretty self-critical. I thought I had that market cornered. Couldn’t have been that bad if that company liked it, right? And all the people who watch? You have thousands of subscribers. They obviously saw something they liked. Tell me what’s amazing about it.”

“Well…I get to work with my best friend, and do what we both love. She really fought for the show. It’s because of her that Hillington bought it and licensed season one to show on their website. They want to sign us for at least three more series and for us to give them the right of first refusal option on any other scripts, too,” I explained. “We’ll probably take care of some of that tomorrow morning. We have a video conference with Hillington after our cast meeting and table read.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw a stunned expression on her face, like I’d spoken gibberish. “How are you so subdued right now? I would be freaking out. When I got into So Cal Ballet…it felt like a dream nearly every day I was there. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

I nodded. “Yeah but, truthfully, I was just bullshitting on the Internet like everyone else when it happened.” I’d wanted to be a writer since the first time I watched the first episode of
The Sopranos
with my dad—against my mother’s wishes—when I was a kid
.
But my own writing never went anywhere in the past, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t get an agent and my work got rejected faster than I could send more out.
How to Fuck up a Friendship
sprung from wallowing deep in
fuck this shit
city. I hadn’t expected it to succeed, because after so much failure I had no endgame, no expectations. So, it wasn’t that I was subdued; I didn’t know how to feel about the way things had changed. Years of crushing feelings of inadequacy didn’t just go away because someone finally patted me on the back.

“I just want season two to be better. Needs to be,” I continued. Tomorrow, we were presenting the entire new season as Samira and I saw the story progressing. Then media suits were going to be critiquing and judging the details. Preparing my writing had been an exercise in insanity the past several months, and why I had barely slept on a regular schedule the past few weeks. Why I was probably Fallon’s best customer. Final touches had turned into final-final touches and then one more final-final-final. Okay, there were two more after that. It never actually felt finished.

Because it never felt right.

To save myself from slipping into mindless obsession right there in the car, I changed the subject. “So, So Cal Ballet? That sounds serious. Is this like one of those dance movies where the frustrated ballerina, tired of her traditional moves, picks up some edgier ones, and finally gives some life-altering, standing ovation-worthy performance later?”

“I
wish
my life were like those
Step Up
movies but, no, the company didn’t renew my contract a couple years ago. Dance has become a bit of a pipe dream since then. That audition was actually my complete fall
from grace. Or rather an ass shaking while grinding on a bunch of other girls in pseudo girl-on-girl, guy fantasy crash-landing,” she said flatly. “And then in the ironies of all ironies, I was terrible at the thing I’m turning my nose up at. Complete and utter failure today.” A gray replica medieval castle with pink flags waving atop came into view in the distance, and I followed the posted signs to the employee lot.

“Wow. I’m sorry…” I empathized with her career disappointment.

“I thought you liked stories?” But that wasn’t really hers. What she had told me sounded more like the end of what she was used to, or at least the beginning of something unfamiliar. “Maybe you can put it in your show. I can act.”

“Yeah?”

“I manage to pull off Functional Adult, fooling many. Someone gives me paperwork
every day
and trusts me not to just shred it into confetti. So, yeah, I can definitely be the girl from across the hall, the dancer with a past. Maybe I’m into Sami and it’s a love triangle….dun-dun-dun,” she teased. “But I want some cred if you end up using any of
my
real storyline.”

“Can’t use it if I don’t actually know it. Tell me what I missed in the middle tonight.” No way Ghost was going to get the final ask.

She leaned into the window after she got out of the car. “Thanks for the ride…and for not being a serial killer.”

“You’re welcome?” I said, laughing.

“And consider me for a role. I might really need a new career.” She pushed back from the car. I smiled without answering and waved one last time as she disappeared into the castle. Nikki was doing what everyone always did when they found out about my show: throwing out random ideas about the plot, as if I didn’t have enough of that in my head already.

Even just talking about the show with her made me nervous about the meeting tomorrow. Would those guys at Hillington Media even get my direction in the first place? Would they understand that Chuck wasn’t supposed to be a conventional hero, that I was intentionally exaggerating his flaws, and that the road to love wasn’t the comfortable, easy route the audience may have wanted?

Shit.
I probably needed to tone it down and make it safer. It was still early in the day. I had plenty of time to work on a few story arcs before we went out tonight.

I reached into a cup holder and retrieved the baggie of pills I’d hidden beneath an old McDonald’s cup. I threw my head back and shook two pills into my mouth.

Chapter Four

Nikki

“I got the job!” I told my co-workers when we reached the Castles and Cupcakes parking lot.

“What? I thought you said you bombed it?” Denise asked. She wriggled out of her costume in a large shadow by her car. “That’s why we spent the last hour mocking that choreography you showed us.” Two girls bumped me with their butts, imitating a dance move.

“Quit! Or you won’t get the comedy show tickets, bitches!” I yelled. “And I did bomb it…” But during a break at work I’d faked enough fearlessness to call the coordinator with the company that held the audition today, to hopefully sell my other dance skills. I was really glad I did. Apparently the judges all agreed that I sucked, but they
all
had also commented on my ballet freestyle and how exceptional it was. After asking if it was original choreography (it was) and if I could do more (I could), the coordinator told me he didn’t have anything on my level, but he did have a job opening that a lot of other dancers he knew had turned down. He hadn’t bothered to ask anyone else. His sister was a high school teacher and in charge of the drama club. They were putting on
West Side Story
and they needed a choreographer for the musical numbers. He really sold it, though, when he added, “It pays.”

“It’s a different job. Working with kids on a play,” I said to Denise as I got into her car. We waved goodbye to the others.

“I thought we agreed Castles made us hate kids?”

I laughed. “Yeah,
we do
…but
money
.” Okay, so it wasn’t the job I had barely wanted, but it was the one I had gotten. And it sounded like fun. I needed dance more than I needed a stage to dance on.

When Denise and I got to the auto shop, Ghost was waiting at the counter inside. I groaned. I hated that I would be a few hundred dollars closer to my credit card max soon. Not anything to bankrupt me, but it was still money I wished I weren’t spending on a car repair. Then Ghost slid the bill across the counter.

“Um…where’s the rest of it?” I asked. Something wasn’t right. I read my name and the car information three times to be certain he’d given me the correct invoice.

“Yeah, it is.”

I frowned. “Did Charlie pay for some of it?” Seemed irrational that he would.

“Nope.” He sighed. “That’s your bill. Hurry up and pay, so I can go home already.”

I slid him one credit card. “Why is it so small?”

He glared at me as he swiped it through the card reader, but it wasn’t an unfriendly look. “Because Charlie is my friend. It’s just how it is.” That was it? Bro friendship? It wasn’t a satisfactory answer but I kept my mouth shut. The printer noisily spat out a stream of paper. He marked different sections with X’s then shoved it at me with a pen. “Sign, please.” Charlie had naked pictures of Ghost. That’s what it was. His dick and his face in the same shot. Had to be.

Hiding my smile, I scribbled quickly and put the keys inside my bag. In case I’d annoyed him enough to change his mind about the cost. “Thanks, Ghost.” He’d saved my ass today.

“Yeah, no problem. Car’s just on the side, on the right. See you later. I mean that,” he called after me. “We’re expecting you. It’s a good group, seriously; we’re kinda crazy, though. Comedy show and Coco’s right after.”

“I’ll be there!” It wasn’t like I had anything better to do tonight. How hard was it going to be to hang out with complete strangers when I’d already gotten into a car with one of them?

Once I was inside my mom’s car, I took a moment to relish the relief that it was fixed, before I pressed out a text to her:
Running late. Car was broken into. Took care of it. Everything’s fine now. On my way to your house.

I could’ve gotten away with the secret, with a lie about having to stay later at work. But open and honest communication was the only way to repair my relationship with my parents. In whatever way I still could. Mom was going to think I was lying, anyway, like all those times before. My track record didn’t give me much good character to stand on. But who’d blame them when their daughter was an alcoholic?
I’m better and I am trying
, I reminded myself.
I’m trying so hard.
I squeezed the steering wheel, willed the tears away. Dread churned in my stomach when I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. My house key privileges were revoked long ago. But even if I had been able to just let myself in, I wouldn’t have anyway. I wasn’t
un
welcome, but there was great loss in feeling like a stranger in a place I should’ve felt comfort. 

My younger brother, Tyler, swung the door open before I even had the chance to knock. Whatever he had expected to see wasn’t me, so he grunted. “Hey, Ty…”
He gave me a quick nod and charged up the stairs.
I heard my parents laughing somewhere inside. I was so jumpy I stumbled into an end table.

“Is that my Butterfly?” my dad called from the kitchen. He walked into the living room a few seconds later, a jar of salsa and a bag of tortilla chips in his hand as he plopped down in an armchair.

“Hi, Dad.” I strode across the room to give him a hug and to kiss the top of his head, like I had been doing since I was a kid. He was in his late 50’s now, so there was pretty much a horseshoe of salt-and-pepper gray hair up there. I had more of his features than my mom’s. People always threw out “spitting image” when we were together.

“Hey, your mom read your text to me. What happened?”

“Some guy broke into the car about a week ago. The officer who came to the scene gave me a case number for the report. I left my stupid iPod on the passenger seat. It was my fault and I wanted to handle it.” I knew he was studying me, trying to find the lie. This was why filing the police report after the robbery was important, for the proof. I hoped they knew I wouldn’t file a false one to cover up damage to the car that was the result of my drinking. You see I used to drive tipsy all the time. I
learned
how. But my car still got dinged up a lot. I’d blame kids throwing around a ball, objects flying off the back of pickups, a runaway shopping cart, or a careless someone’s car door.
You know people never leave a note if they won’t get caught,
I’d say. Even while Captain Morgan was my blood type.

“I figured the repair was within your deductible…” I searched my purse for the cop’s business card. “Mom?” I called out. I could hear her moving around in the kitchen. She stuck her head out from around the wall. “The car’s fine. You can go loo—”

“We’re both just glad you weren’t in it at the time,” she said. She smiled but she gave me the same scrutinizing once-over my dad had.

“Bye!” Tyler flew down the stairs a second later, buttoning his shirt. The thick scent of cologne floated into the room, too. I smiled at how he’d cleaned himself up so quickly: black hair combed back, shaven face, collared shirt, and clean jeans.
Oh
…this was for a
girl
.

“Wait!” my mom yelled before he reached the door. “Curfew?”

“One.”

“No…” she said.

“You guys let me stay out until one with the guys from the team last weekend!”

“You were at your coach’s house,” my dad said. “And we’d known about that for weeks.”

“What? I didn’t even know you were playing basketball this year…” I mumbled.

“Yeah. Mom and Dad were at the last home game, which
we
won”—he looked at our parents pointedly—“and you guys saw me get elected co-captain for next year. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Yeah. We’re proud of you. Tell Lola we said hi,” my mom said.

I felt like I was at someone else’s house, watching someone else’s family. That stung. I walked over and stepped in front of Tyler. He veered around me, so I grabbed his arm. “Seriously, Ty, I can’t get five minutes?” I could never tell if my brother’s behavior toward me was teen shit or my shit. I mussed up his hair in the front. His jaw clenched as he pushed my hand away. He looked like he was mulling over what to say. “Well?” I urged.

“I’ll come over soon,” he said, wriggling out of my grasp. “Bye.”
Oookay.

“Eleven, T!” Dad called out. I went to sit near him. My mom was leaning against the wall near the kitchen entry.

“Big news!” I said. Maybe it was childish, but I wanted them to be excited about something in my life, too.

“Me too,” my dad said. “You first.”

“I got a dance job today! Working with kids on their musical. And it pays. I think it’s a good start. The guy who offered it was happy I said yes.”

“Congrats, sweetheart,” my mom said.

“Thanks.” I leaned toward my dad. “What’s your news?”

He extended his prosthetic leg. It was different tonight—titanium I guessed, with a curved blade foot—not the skin-like one he used every day. “I got cleared to start running again.”

“Oh, wow! I’m really happy for you.” I spoke haltingly to make sure my voice didn’t crack. Tears were already burning my eyes. My dad was getting his hobby back, exactly like he’d vowed he would. So much had been lost two years ago, and so much was still being rebuilt.

Without saying anything, my mom spun and went into the kitchen. I swallowed down hard. I started to call after her and ask if she was all right, but what was the use? She’d brush it off as nothing. Like always.

“T is already talking marathons for next year. I think he purposefully let me run our mile faster than he did tonight to coax me into signing up,” Dad said with a loud chuckle. It was good to hear him laugh again. Always good to hear it sound so hearty again. He’d come a long way from the multiple surgeries, year plus of physical therapy, and treatment for depression.

I didn’t speak again right away, not until I was sure my tears weren’t much of a threat anymore. The guilt was always hanging over my head, but in this house it seeped into me. I never seemed to be able to find the right words. Everything sounded generic when I had to face my mistakes. “You’ll be beating Ty on your own in no time.” It was the best I could do.

I stayed anxious and distracted until Lea sent me a text to say she was on her way to get me. When her car pulled up, it felt like a jailbreak. I used my mom’s keys one last time to transfer the alcohol from her trunk to Lea’s. I hated that Charlie saw the bottles earlier. If there was anyone’s judgment about my perceived alcohol consumption that shamed me the most, it was usually a stranger’s.

“You look like you
really
need this,” Lea said, sticking her curly red-haired head out the driver-side window.

“I do. I really, really do,” I said, getting in. Instead of going to my apartment, we went to a part of Miami that any reasonable person would’ve warned us to stay out of after dark: a crumbling neighborhood lost to foreclosure and general neglect. We parked near a brick wall covered in fading graffiti and popped the trunk. This place was a restaurant once. I threw a bottle of vodka at it. That one was for my dad, like always.

Lea passed me another bottle as I told her about his improvements and my new unexpected job. Each time one of the bottles smashed, my guilt eased. I loved the sound of the glass shattering. And the way the liquid darkened the brick. Because I really
fucking
hated alcohol. Here I imagined killing it, destroying it the way I had let it destroy me. This was my therapy, pushing myself to the limit by handling my weakness but staying completely in control.

“How’s
your
dad?” I asked. She shrugged. There was always more when Lea shrugged, and I already knew what it was. “Oh, no, don’t choose me.”

“I’m not choosing you over him. I’m just getting tired of him making me feel like I have to make a choice. He’s stuck on two years ago, so he’d rather you not be someone who is passionate about dance, who goes to see Cami every other Saturday because you want to, and who is leading a better life. And certainly not his socially awkward daughter’s only friend. He wants you to be a soulless person in a dirty trench coat with a scar on your face, and an evil laugh, who doesn’t care about what she did—a monster. Hell, I wanted you to be that once, but we all worked through that…or I thought we did.”

“I don’t blame him, though.” I never thought I’d be defending a man who couldn’t stand the sight of me, but objectively I didn’t know how I could forgive the person who had caused the worst night of my family’s life, either.

And my own father’s.

I remembered feeling the car drifting across the double yellow lines and how much my eyes were hurting. Probably from the splash of oncoming headlights. Thankfully, the Andersons all lived when I slammed into their van. But the collision sent my Civic into a tailspin. I careened into a tree that nearly split my car in half. My dad’s side took on the brunt of the crash.

****

There was a swirl of citrus tobacco scent in the air from the hookah tables outside of Coco’s when Denise, her boyfriend, John, and I got there. After the comedy show, they insisted on tagging along just for a while to make sure I wasn’t being recruited into a sex cult—Denise’s words. Looking inside Coco’s, I could tell it was just a few bodies short of shoulder-to-shoulder on the nightclub side.

“Nikki!” Charlie waved at me. I’d nearly walked right by him.