Minnie scowled at her mother. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Hannah rubbed her forehead. Minnie knew that everyone thought she was the spitting image of her mother, that they had the same eyes, the same hair color, and the same way of moving their body when they spoke. But Minnie knew she resembled her father more than anyone else, that she had his nose and his chin and his intellectual prowess. At least, that was what he’d told her.
She had no interest in looking like her mother, nor in being anything like her.
Before her mother could ask her again, Minnie shot to her feet, barreled into her room, and slammed the door behind her. But the drama of the morning was far from over. Waiting on her phone was a text from her boyfriend, Gavin.
GAVIN: What was your mom thinking?
Minnie thought she was going to collapse. It was true that Gavin’s father was also listed in the article, that her mother had apparently found links between Gavin’s father and Minnie’s father and Stephanie’s father and Renata’s father, fathers from this very neighborhood who’d very recently barbecued at their poolside, talking about sports and business. But what business had they been talking about? Was it this business, the business of stealing money from taxpayers? Minnie closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t!
More than that, she couldn’t believe her mother had gone out of her way to destroy her father’s career. Even if what she’d written wasn’t true (it definitely couldn’t be true, Minnie thought), Hannah had ultimately destroyed Kendall’s reputation. She’d also destroyed Minnie’s relationships with her friends and boyfriend, probably.
Unless Gavin listened to reason? He couldn’t break up with her. He wouldn’t. They already had plans to go to prom next weekend. They’d already talked about getting married when they left high school. They’d already named their first child!
Minnie called Gavin immediately. He texted back that he was still in class. At this level of stress, Minnie had completely forgotten about school. Impatient, she demanded that he make an excuse and get out. A couple of hours later, he managed it, telling her to meet him at their typical place. When her mother was in her father’s study, doing who knew what, Minnie slipped out, grabbed her bike, and rode to meet Gavin at the slurpee place five blocks away. Usually, she listened to music while she biked, basking in the beautiful sunshine, smiling at everyone she passed.
Today, she felt morose and gray-faced. No song would bring her out of her panic.
When Minnie arrived, Gavin was on the phone, yelling, “Mom, I don’t know, okay? How could I have known?” His eyes were rimmed red with tears. “I have to go.” He hung up and threw his phone so that it bounced on the sidewalk. When he saw Minnie, he sucked in his cheeks and gestured for her to sit down. It felt entirely too formal, like they didn’t even know each other.
“Apparently, my dad took off this morning,” he grumbled, his face in his hands.
Minnie’s heart felt squeezed. “Mine did, too.”
Silence hung between them. Minnie scrambled for something to say. “Do you think they went to the same place?” She imagined herself and Gavin leaving Miami and joining their wealthy, intelligent fathers wherever they were. She imagined them all laughing about this in a week or so, maybe at an expensive restaurant in the Bahamas, or wherever it was people escaped to.
Gavin didn’t answer. Minnie’s palms began to sweat.
“Why did your mom do this?” Gavin demanded.
“I don’t know! I don’t know.” Minnie shook her head. “I had no idea she was planning this. I hate her. I never want to see her again.”
Gavin let his hands drop to the table between them. They hadn’t even gotten a slurpee yet. Usually, he got the blue one. She loved kissing him when his tongue was blue. She got the red one because she always had, ever since she was a little kid. She’d always imagined their kisses turning purple.
“Tell your mom to fix it,” Gavin said. “Tell her to write something and take it back.”
It sounded simple. Too simple.
“I don’t know if she will,” Minnie said in a small voice.
“Come on. You’re her only kid. Just tell her what you need her to do. It’s what everyone needs her to do. Otherwise, man. So many people are going to prison,” Gavin said. “That, or our dads are never coming back.”
Minnie was intimidated. Did she really have the power to make everything all right again? Knowing her mother and her mother’s long-held beliefs in journalism, she doubted it.
“If you’re not going to try,” Gavin said stiffly, “then we have to break up.”
Minnie felt it like a punch in the stomach. “No.”
Gavin gave her a terrible, cold look. He got up and brushed his hands on his cargo shorts. “Call me when you’ve fixed this,”he said, then turned on his heel, picked up his phone from where he’d thrown it, and headed back to his multimillion-dollar house.
Minnie remained at the picnic table for a long time, staring at her feet through the holes in the wood. She kept telling herself to wake up from this nightmare. But she couldn’t.
Growing up,Minnie had always known her parents were different, so different that Minnie often wondered how they’d met and fallen in love in the first place. Her mother was idealistic and well-read, and she often attended political rallies, made posters, got involved in various social movements, and had very little time for her father’s country club and “what the neighborhood wanted her to be.” Just looking at the way her mother dressed—so different from other Miami mothers—had embarrassed Minnie. Would it hurt her to put on a little makeup every once in a while? Would it hurt her to style her hair?
Minnie’s father, Kendall, had always had something to say about her mother’s hobbies and choice of career. Sometimes he said it in front of Hannah, and other times, he didn’t.
“She’s wasting her time,” he’d said one afternoon when it was just Minnie and Kendall, out in the yard, Kendall practicing his putting while Minnie read a glossy magazine. Hannah had been off somewhere, pursuing a story or protesting. “Promise me you won’t grow up to be like your mother, Minnie.”
