Page 9 of Meant to Be

CHAPTER 4

Cate

Despite all my protesting and begging, my mom went ahead with the wedding. She married Chip on Valentine’s Day, a permanent stain on the already lame holiday. She kept insisting that he could change. And even if he didn’t, nobody was perfect, and the good outweighed the bad, and Chip really did love us, and his temper was a small price to pay for a “better life” in Montclair, where Chip had so generously bought us a house.

If you didn’t know what was really going on, my mom and I probably did seem lucky, as there was no arguing that a three-bedroom home in Montclair was an upgrade over our one-bedroom apartment in Hackensack. I’ll also admit that I loved having a real, fenced-in, private backyard and my own bedroom, which my mom let me paint a shade called “pink lemonade.” Another great part was that my mom no longer had to waitress. In fact, she no longer had to work atall,as Chip wanted a “stay-at-home wife” at his beck and call.

But my mom was still wrong. It wasn’t a better life—not even close—as none of those improvements were good trade-offs for the sickening sight of Chip coming through the front door with that gun in his holster and a mean glint in his eye. Or the smell ofbooze on his breath as he called me stupid and lazy—aloser like your mother. Or the terrifying noises that came through the walls of my room (and the pillow over my head)—sounds of my mom crying and screaming and begging. For some reason, the begging broke my heart the most. It never worked, and I’m pretty sure it just made things worse.

That fall, I started sixth grade at Mount Hebron Middle School, a cheerful red-brick building on Bellevue Avenue. Like our house, Mount Hebron was an upgrade from my old school with its stench of fish sticks and bleach. I especially loved Miss Wilson, my art teacher, who talked in the most soothing voice and always praised my work. In my case, schoolanywherewas better than home, my safe haven from Chip. But don’t get me wrong—my self-esteem was low there, too, and I lived in fear of my classmates discovering the truth about my family.

I frequently reminded myself that nobody knew the names my stepfather called me, and what he was doing to my mom, but I still walked around feeling ashamed. It didn’t help that I was the tallest girl in the grade—looming over most of the boys as well. On top of that, I wore all the wrong clothes among so many rich kids. Lee jeans and Braggin’ Dragon knockoff Izod shirts from Sears were my staples, as Chip insisted that my mom wasn’t going to spoil me with the designer jeans and Lacoste shirts that the other kids were wearing. It was ironic, I often thought. For the first time in our lives, my mom and I were middle-class—yet I’d never felt so poor.

On the weekends, I would stay in my room with Pepper, listening to music (turned down low so I wouldn’t disturb Chip), reading Judy Blume novels about other miserable kids, and flipping through myBopandTiger Beatmagazines. I didn’t like boys in real life, but I had a robust lineup of celebrity crushes thatincluded Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and Donny Osmond. My hands-down favorite, though, was Joe Kingsley.

Growing up, I’d always known who Joe was. A few years older than I was, he had a famous father who was killed in a failed space mission, and he lived on Fifth Avenue with his glamorous mother. They also had a house in the Hamptons, where they congregated with his aunts, uncles, and cousins, playing touch football, croquet, and other rich-people sports on their sprawling green lawn. I knew these things because my mom could never resist the tabloids with their photos on the covers in the grocery store checkout lines. As a little girl, I didn’t fully understand her interest, or why those people were so worthy of her admiration. Though I must admit, I was intrigued by those pictures, too. I especially liked the ones of Joe milling about the city, walking his sheepdog in Central Park or emerging from the subway in his crumpled school uniform and untied shoelaces.

Over the course of that first traumatic year of my mom’s marriage to Chip, Joe morphed into a teenagehunk(the term the magazines always used), and I became obsessed. Unlike other celebrities, Joe Kingsley never posed for pictures. Instead, he was captured going about his life, often with an endearing, bewildered look on his face. My favorite image, featured as theTiger Beatcenterfold one month, was of Joe emerging from the gray surf off Long Island, his tanned chest glistening, his dark hair wet and wavy, a shark’s tooth on a leather cord hanging around his neck. I pulled the staples out of his torso, unfolded the poster, and taped it up on my bedroom wall.

On some nights, feeling especially sad and lonely, I would pretend that Joe was my boyfriend. I would make up all sorts of elaborate vignettes, but my favorite was a scene of Joe and me on the beach at dusk. I could practically hear the waves crashing onthe shore and smell the salt water and see his dark eyes smoldering as he fastened his shark’s tooth necklace around my neck before leaning down to kiss me gently on the lips.

Occasionally, I would feel a little embarrassed for myself, and it would cross my preteen mind that I was doing the same thing my mom had always done: relying on a boy for my happiness. But then I reminded myself that my fantasy of Joe was the opposite. It was my way of avoidingrealboys who might one day hurt me; it also provided an escape from the man who alreadydid.

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The summer beforeninth grade, I underwent my own metamorphosis. Some of it was just the natural progression of puberty and filling out my tall frame with the slightest hips and breasts. But a lot of it came from a dogged determination. I read advice columns in teen magazines about how to “fake it till you make it.” I practiced good posture, once even balancing books on my head the way they suggested. I learned how to do my makeup and style my hair. Most important, I bought myself some decent clothes, thanks to a babysitting gig for a rich family who paid me six dollars an hour to watch their kids at the Glen Ridge Country Club. As a bonus, I was getting tanner and blonder, too.

So when I returned to school that September as a freshman at Montclair High, everyone took notice, both the girlsandthe boys doling out the compliments about how pretty I’d “become.” By the end of that first week back, Bill Adams, a junior football player, had invited me to a party (I said no), and Wendy Fine, the most popular girl in our grade, asked if I wanted to sit with her at lunch (I said yes).

At first, the attention surprised me. After all, how much could a person change over the course of three months, and why was somuch turning on my appearance anyway? It was all further evidence of the “emperor’s new clothes” pack mentality. Someone at the top, likely Wendy, had decided that I had some worth, and everyone else was just following suit, giving me a chance.

But I still had to pass the test, and as I sat down at Wendy’s lunch table, I reminded myself to smile and pretend to be confident. Meanwhile, Wendy and her cohorts pummeled me with questions. It was clearly an audition of sorts, and I could tell by the looks on some of the girls’ faces that they were hoping I’d falter. Kimberly Carrigan, in particular, looked sour, perhaps worried that I might affect her standing as Wendy’s best friend.

“So, Cate, do you like anyone?” Wendy asked at one point, her eyes darting over to the football table, where Bill Adams was sitting.

I shook my head no.

“What about Bill?” she said. “I heard he asked you out.”

“He didn’t ask me out,” I said. “He just invited me to a party.”

Wendy let out a snort of a laugh and said, “Um…that’s called asking you out.”

For a second, I felt dumb. But I spun it to my advantage, playing cool with the most nonchalant shrug I could muster. “Whatever. I said no.”

Several of the girls looked impressed as Wendy continued to grill me. “Why did you say no? ’Cause your dad’s a cop? And you’d get in trouble?”

My stomach dropped at the out-of-the-blue mention of Chip. How did Wendy know he was a cop? I started to tell her that he wasn’t my dad—that he was only mystepdad. But then I flashed back to my English teacher talking pityingly about the kids from “broken homes” inThe Outsidersand bit my tongue.

I shook my head, flipping my hair behind my shoulder like thepopular girls always did. “Nah. He’s not, like, running around busting parties or anything like that…. He’s a detective…. He works in the city.”

Wendy looked impressed, nodding her approval as she told me that her father worked in the city, too. She then returned to the subject of Bill, askingwhyI’d said no. “You don’t think he’s cute?”

I hesitated, my mind racing. How could I explain that it really had nothing to do with Bill’s level of cuteness? I just didn’t trust boys. Nothing good ever came from a romantic relationship. I couldn’t really say all of that without sounding weird, so thinking of my Joe poster, I blurted out a whopper of a lie. “I’m kind of seeing someone.”

“Who?” a few girls said in unison, everyone leaning in, eager.

“His name’s Joe.”

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