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Before I could put my phone away, it lit up in my hand. Halley’s smiling face appeared. An old picture, from the first time I took her to Disney World when she was seven. The first time since she was born that I felt like I could take a few days off. She was wearing princess mouse ears with her name scrawled across the black dome in hot pink, grinning her old, gap-toothed smile. I smiled back at her for a second before walking a few paces down the balcony and answering it.
“Hey Hals, what’s going on?”
“Hi Halley,” Garrett yelled from our table.
“Hi, hi,” Halley said, her voice bubbly and rushed. “Are you with the Uncles?”
“It’s Tuesday night,” I said by way of answer.
“Wednesday morning here,” she said. She was at our house in Europe with some of her sorority sisters. Croatia, to be exact. I’d looked for a place in Italy, but everywhere I thought I wanted was considered a “hot spot.” I wanted to have a place in Europe to escape the heat. Then Landon had convinced me to check out Croatia. His family was from there; his grandparents still lived in Zadar. I’d fallen in love with it. Same beautiful blue water, about half the people.
“You have everything you need? The house manager should have stocked the place up before you got there.”
“Oh yeah, of course. It’s perfect. We love it.” Halley sounded distracted though.
“What’s up, Hals? You need something?”
I drummed my fingers on the railing. Even though she was twenty-one and well-traveled, I still hated having her so far away. When she went to college on the East Coast, I’d bought her a condo in LA, trying to tempt her back. It hadn’t worked. My daughter was independent and fearless. I guess that meant I did something right.
“I sort of do need a favor,” she said. “But it’s not actually for me.”
My eyebrows shot up. Halley hardly ever asked me for favors, and never for other people. She’d learned the hard way about girls who tried to use her to get to me. Had one slipped past her guard? “Oh yeah?”
“It’s for Lily. You know? My big sister?”
It took me a second, but I remembered she was referring to the bizarre lingo her sorority used and not to some previously undisclosed half-sister Kim hadn’t bothered to tell me about. “Right, I remember her,” I said. And I did, vaguely. I had an impression of bright blonde hair and sandy skin. A classic California girl who somehow came from a small town in Ohio. Her mom had been the only person helping her move into the sorority house, and I’d helped her carry in a purple quilted headboard with daisy buttons pinning down the batting. Lily and Halley had gone to Paris together. She was a mainstay in my daughter’s updates about her life. I relaxed a little.
“The blonde,” Halley added.
“I know it’s the blonde,” I said. “With the single mom, right?”
“Right. You could still make us sisters, you know.”
“That had better not be the favor, Hals.” I was glad to hear her joking though. Sometimes Halley didn’t think it was funny at all that I couldn’t always remember people she’d mentioned or courses she was taking. I didn’t think it was that funny either, come to think about it. Just one of the costs I’d wondered about when I set out to conquer this industry. I’d given my daughter the life she deserved and shortchanged her on the family she deserved.
“Oh no, it’s much easier than an arranged marriage,” Halley assured me. “I was just wondering—do you have any entry level positions at the agency that you think a bright, gorgeous, go-getter like Lily would be right for?” Her voice went up at the end hopefully.
“An entry level position,” I repeated, running a hand over the top of my head. Inside it, my thoughts were churning. Had Lily been playing the long game with Halley after all? “What kind of position is she going for exactly? Has she looked at the website?”
“She hasn’t yet,” Halley’s voice trailed off. I knew my daughter well enough to know she had her eyes rolled to the ceiling, one hand tugging at the ends of her dark hair, trying to find the next words to say written in the rafters. “Because she has no idea I’m calling you.”
“Hals,” I said wearily, but I was relieved that Lily hadn’t put Halley up to this. Nothing pissed me off more than people who used my daughter to get to me. It was a cost I hadn’t even considered when I set out to become a top agent in the most coveted industry in the country.
“She really needs it, Dad.”
I believed Halley because, for one thing, she hardly ever lied to me. And for another, when she was trying to play me, her voice always became wheedling. Now it was quietly matter-of-fact. I stayed quiet while she walked me through how Lily had deferred law school for a year—something she’d apparently already told me, but she didn’t get prickly when I didn’t remember.
“So she’d need a job and your condo,” I surmised when she was done. “Otherwise, every cent I pay her is going to go to rent.”
“Yes, which is great since no one is using it anyway.”
I had reached the end of the balcony and now I turned back toward my friends. Garrett was staring after me, his hands up in the air. I held up my finger in a give me a second gesture and turned back to stare out over the city. I still wasn’t completely convinced. If Lily was as smart as Halley said, she knew what a good sob story would impel my soft-hearted daughter to do.
“Please, Dad.”
The hope in Halley’s voice was clear. Whether Lily was a master manipulator or not, my daughter loved her and wanted this for her. And the only way to find out what Lily really wanted with my daughter was to say yes and watch her closely.
And then drive her back to Ohio at the first sign of trouble.
