Page 2 of Play Nice

Rain taps at my window, a polite alarm. My eyes are slow to open, yesterday’s mascara gluing my lashes together. I got back to my apartment and fell into bed without undressing, brushing my teeth, or performing any of the many steps of my p.m. skincare routine.

“I have forsaken my serums,” I groan to no one.

There’s makeup smeared across my pillow, glitter all over my sheets.

I roll onto my back and hear a soft crunch, reach underneath me to find my gift bag from last night’s party.

I finger the heart-shaped tag with my name on it, then dump out the bag’s contents.

Metallic tissue paper, clumps of glitter that will linger for eternity, and, finally, a small gold jewelry box with Veronica X Shine Inc.

written in loopy script across the top. Inside the box is a pink velvet pouch, and inside that is a charm.

A white gold snake with tiny diamond eyes.

I hook a nail through the jump ring and hold up the charm.

There are a few ways I could take this. Veronica chose this charm for me because it’s the edgiest and most expensive in her collection and suits my style better than a heart or key or flower or whatever.

Or I could be offended that she would gift me the snake, read too far into it.

Thinking back, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything to her that would earn me the title of snake, but who knows.

My feet find the floor and I shuffle over to my dresser, to my jewelry tree, pick out a suitable chain, slide the charm on, and clasp it around my neck.

I lift my eyes to the mirror, to my reflection, to study how the charm looks resting against my skin, but instead I see my mother, the traces of her face in my own, and I remember she’s gone.

She’s dead, and I’m supposed to go to Dad’s today.

Which means I need to take New Jersey Transit. As if the one tragedy wasn’t enough.

I find my phone still in my clutch, battery at ten percent. I plug it in and call Dad on speaker.

He answers right away. “Hey, sweetie. How you holding up?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” I say, yawning. “Are Daffy and Leda there yet?”

“They’re here. Amy’s making them pancakes,” he says.

“Dang. I love Amy’s pancakes.” My stepmom’s lone success in the kitchen.

“What time do you think you’ll be here?”

“Not sure yet,” I say, staring at my unmade bed, at the mountain of unwashed clothes in the hall. A wicked idea pops into my head. “I have to do laundry. I have to pack. How long am I coming for? Will there be a funeral?” I force my voice to break. “I’m sorry, Dad. I just, I wasn’t ready for this.”

“I know, Cli,” he says. “Why don’t I come pick you up?”

Too easy. “Really? Are you sure?”

“I don’t want you taking the train if you’re this upset. Let me go tell Amy and I’ll be on my way.”

My father. Steady and reliable, the captain of the ship, the benevolent king of our lives, his love as sure and powerful as gravity.

“Thank you, Dad. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I’d feel bad, but it’s not so far. An hour and a half, two with traffic. And, yeah, I may be a twenty-five-year-old woman calling her daddy to come pick her up, but the train is such a nightmare. I’d do worse things to avoid it.

I leave my phone plugged in, shove the laundry pile into the washing machine, and take a quick, cold shower. Towel off, then brush my teeth. Start my morning skincare routine. Consider what to wear.

Dad didn’t answer my question about a funeral, but I’m assuming there will be some kind of service. I own so many black dresses, yet none of them seem appropriate for mourning my mother. Which maybe is appropriate since I don’t know how to mourn her.

Would she even want to be mourned? She didn’t believe in death.

Once my makeup is done, I climb back into bed, unplug my phone, clip on my selfie light, and take a photo of myself in my bra and my necklace, my shiny new charm on display.

It’s good enough to post to the grid. I tag Veronica, tag Shine Inc.

Caption it with a snake emoji, a diamond emoji, some stars.

I stare at the picture. It’s obvious to me that my smile is fake. But it won’t be obvious to anyone else.

Another lesson from my mother, one she taught by unfortunate example. By showing us what not to do. By showing us how important it is to be in complete control of your emotions. It’s too dangerous the other way around.

—

Several hours later Dad is cleaning out my fridge and I’m still packing.

“It’s all takeout in here, Cli,” he says scoldingly.

“What can I say, cooking isn’t a priority for me. And before you lecture, remember feminism.”

“I know, I know,” he says. “You sound like Daphne.”

Daphne thinks she’s the most progressive in the family, but she got awfully judgmental when I told her I was considering starting an OnlyFans.

“All right. I’m going to take out this trash, and then we should be getting on the road,” he says. “I’m sure your sisters are anxious to see you.”

“I’m sure,” I repeat. We all love each other, but Daphne and Leda don’t always get along. I’m the family’s social lubricant, the special sauce.

I kneel before my open suitcase, contemplating its contents. Working in fashion has ruined my ability to be spontaneous, to be nimble even under these circumstances. What I wear matters, how I’m perceived matters. Sometimes I think it’s all that matters. Sometimes I know it is.

Dad comes back and waits impatiently as I finish packing, as I check and double-check that I have everything I could possibly anticipate needing or wanting.

He carries my suitcase out to the car, griping about its heft as I lock up.

When I get to the car, I throw my duffle in the trunk and slide into the passenger seat, putting my purse between my feet and shifting the seat back.

There’s an unopened bottle of water in the cup holder, and I help myself, assuming it’s for me.

“Probably warm now,” Dad says. “It was cold when I got here.”

The plastic is wet with condensation, the label soggy. “That’s okay. Thank you for bringing it. And for driving me. And for waiting. And carrying my suitcase.”

He massages his shoulder before starting the car—perhaps an attempt to guilt me.

He’s a six-foot-four Viking, and his hair has been salt-and-pepper for as long as I can remember, so it’s easy to forget that he’s creeping toward his mid-sixties, that he’s not indestructible.

“What do you do when you go on all your trips? If this is what you bring for a few days.”

“ Maybe a few days. I don’t have enough information,” I say, adjusting the vents so the heat isn’t blowing directly into my face. There’s still glitter on my hands. There will always be glitter on my hands. Glitter is permanent.

“I don’t either,” he says. “Helen didn’t call me. She called Leda.”

Not surprising. Aunt Helen, Mom’s older and only sibling, hates my father. Hates. Amy is a close second on her hit list. To say my parents did not have an amicable divorce would be like saying the Challenger did not have a pleasant flight.

“They have lunch sometimes,” he says, turning onto Flatbush Avenue. “Helen and Leda.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

He doesn’t respond, so I don’t respond. I know Leda has met with Helen, they both live in Boston, and Helen has been trying to get back in touch with us for years, and while Leda, a chronic overachiever with an iron will, could probably stop the earth on its axis if she put her mind to it, Tommy is a soft kitten who grew up in a normal family.

He’s her well-adjusted Achilles’ heel and never approved of her steadfast disavowal of our mother.

And while he couldn’t get her to budge on the issue of Alexandra, he could talk her into a lunch with Helen, which turned into several lunches, because Leda and Helen are cut from the same glorious rigid bitch cloth.

I know all of this, but I don’t know if our father does. It could be a trap, so I don’t confirm or deny.

“Can I put on some music?” I ask, already reaching for his phone.

“Sure, Cli,” he says. “Not too loud.”

I put on some Quiet Riot because Mr.James Arthur Barnes can’t resist some glam metal. Their cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize.”

“Hell yeah,” he says, head bobbing. “Turn this up.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

I continue to DJ for the rest of the car ride.

We get stuck in traffic, so it takes longer than it should to make it to New Jersey, to my father’s house.

Leda’s Mercedes is parked on the street, perfectly parallel to the curb.

Daphne’s Subaru is parked haphazardly in the driveway—the beat-up hatchback she’s had since high school.

She can afford a new one, but since Leda and I are materialistic, she decided not to be.

Dad is careful as he pulls around her car into the garage, which is unnecessary. What’s another dent?

A simultaneous feeling of relief and unease rushes through me.

It happens every time I step foot in this garage, in this house.

Considering it’s the childhood home of mine that wasn’t haunted or cursed or whatever, I shouldn’t feel so haunted coming here.

The feeling is fleeting, it never lasts, but it always happens.

A swell of memories, the ghosts of past me, the precocious kid who was glad to be out of Mom’s house, where the atmosphere was tense, and there were no snacks, and everything stank of cigarettes and Chardonnay.

But then also the guilt, confusion, missing her, unsure which parent I loved more, which parent I trusted more.

It’s child-of-divorce syndrome. It’s so annoying.

Dad lugs my suitcase out of the trunk, I gather all my bags, and Amy opens the door into the mudroom for us. She wears a face of pity, though I know she’s probably happy my mother is dead. Maybe not happy , but something in the vicinity.

“Oh, come here,” she says, pulling me in for a hug.

Her signature smell is comforting, too sweet and too much and yet somehow just right.

It’s like inhaling caramel, snorting straight sugar.

When she was our dance teacher, everyone wanted to smell like her, to look like her, be like her.

Whenever I conjure up her image in my mind, it’s the box blond twentysomething in leg warmers and a leotard, not the stepmother who stands before me, with dark roots and skin specked from gratuitous time unprotected in the sun, wearing kohl eyeliner that’s sunken into her crow’s-feet, and an unflattering sweater tucked into low-rise jeans.

Her style never evolved past 2010. I find it equally tragic and endearing.

“Hey, Amy,” I say.

“Let me take your bags,” she says. “Your sisters are in the sunroom.”

“Then that’s where I’m headed.”

She leans in for another hug and says, “I made them some sangria. They might be a little tipsy.”

“Good. They’re more fun that way,” I say, hoping they left some for me.