Dad and Maisie go quiet. Cautiously, Maisie taps her short, lavender-painted fingernails against her coffee cup. Then she stops. “Are you pregnant?”
“No! No.” My heart is going so fast that it’s hurting my throat. “It’s my job. Or, I guess, what I do for work.”
“You do that phone thing. Influencing,” Dad says slowly, like he’s starting to notice the full extent of my secret-keeping. “Becauseyou were a model. And with the team—here—you’re helping them with fashion stuff.”
I run my palm down my neck, trying to soothe the burning sensation building there. I can’t cry. Not here, or in front of them. “That isn’t the full truth. Modeling in New York, it… it didn’t work. And influencing isn’t enough to, to support you guys. And I know how this sounds, I know it sounds unbelievable and like I’m the worst person and, and we don’t even have to talk about it, but—I lied to Bernard. That guy, the F1 driver. On purpose. I made him think I had feelings for him and I don’t, on purpose.”
Dad’s face goes blank. “Why?”
Because he hurt someone. Because he represents the world that’s kept its boot against our family’s neck. Because I wanted to hurt him back.
“It’s just something I do,” I say, barely louder than a breath. “I know it’s not totally okay.”
“You make men think you’re in love with them?” Dad exhales. “Is he… paying you?”
“No. Someone else pays. But it’s like Robin Hood, or—”
“What?”
“Weren’t you mad, after Grandma died? After Mom?” My words come out so much louder than I intend them. “The whole world came for us. They tried to take your garage, Dad. Our house. The restaurant was the only thing we had left of them both, and they took it. Weren’t youfurious? Aren’t you—aren’t you mad?”
I can’t read the emotion in Dad’s eyes. I can’t look at Maisie, either. I’m stuck, suddenly eighteen years old again and telling Dad that I’m moving to New York City. Shocking him into silence.
Then he gets up, just like he had that afternoon on the porch. He shakes his head, pulls his Stark-Benzin hat off and then slips it back on, too distraught to decide. When he takes it off again, heballs it into one fist and looks at me with an expression I haven’t seen before—not even when he was trying to explain how New York City was thirteen hours and eight minutes away from the house, by car. Back then, he’d been scared of what could happen to his daughter, alone in the big city.
Now, he’s disappointed.
“I didn’t raise you to act like this,” he says quietly, and one by one, each word breaks my heart.
“Dad.”
But he’s already leaving, walking through the garden to the hotel doors, vanishing out of my life again. And I can’t follow. I can’t move.
There’s a fumbling brush of fingers on my shoulder, Maisie’s hand, gripping my arm and then holding me upright in my chair. Because it’s like the energy that’s been propelling me forward for years is gone. Coffee, determination, anger, excitement, pride. I’m falling, empty, into myself.
“Cat, hey, do you want to go inside? You have a room here, don’t you?” Maisie says softly. “Then we can go home. I think—I think it’s time for you to come home, okay?”
I stare down at my lap. Dark gray spots are blooming on the fabric of my pretty white dress, between the sequins.
I’m crying. I can’t even feel it, but I’m crying.
“Okay.”
Chapter 29A HANGING PIECE
WATERFIELD
Waterfield isn’t everyone’s idea ofa perfect hometown. There’s only one main drag cutting through, and if a car gets stuck or there’s a parade, well good luck trying to get to the post office. We have exactly one church, though everyone goes to it, regardless of what they believe; it’s more of a social club with wooden pews and philosophical debates. When I was a kid, I’d sometimes dream about running away. Packing my bag, vanishing into the woods. I thought that I needed to leave home to really be able to come back.
But as I got older, I realized that once you leave someplace—move to New York, or go abroad, start running—you get so far down a path that turning around becomes impossible. Even as I let my suitcase thump against my childhood wicker dresser, I feel like I’m both here, in Waterfield, in my room, and somewhere else.
“Dinner’s in fifteen!” Samantha yells up from downstairs.
“All right,” I yell back.
That was always my favorite part of this house—it’s old and big but thin, noises from our separate rooms melting together. The steady bump of Samantha’s volleyball against her bedroom wall, the soft emo music drifting from Bailey’s bedroom as she draws, and Maisie’s laughter, bubbling between calls with online friends. We always turn back into an us, the four Alden girls. Walking trouble.
Maisie had promised that she’d let me tell Bailey and Samantha what happened when I was ready. And I don’t think that’ll be tonight. When I get to my bed, I just want to collapse into the gingham comforter, forever. It all looks how it used to look. The blankets, my desk, my sewing machine, my bookshelf.
