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Em sniffled.
“You—God.”
“Welcome to Chicken Barn,” a bored, tinny voice said from the speaker box. “What clucking good food can I get you tonight?”
I put my head on the steering wheel for a moment. “You guys. That’s a really mean thing to do to Brianna. You wouldn’t like it if she did that to your Pony Pals, would you?”
“No,” they whispered.
God. Why hadn’t Felicity said what they’d done? I’d have to call her and offer to pay for a replacement—except fucking Peachblossom was impossible to buy right now.
And the girls had been sogoodduring tap dancing that I’d promised them nuggets. I also wanted nuggets. If I gave them nuggets after this revelation, was I setting them up to be spoiled? The nuggets deal had been contingent on their behavior at the dance studio, not anything else. If Ididn’tgive them nuggets, was I setting myself up to be a father they couldn’t trust? The one who went back on his word. The one who said he’d be there but never was, so you got a call instead:Sorry, champ, but something came up. And then, one day, he wouldn’t even bother calling, but for some stupid reason you thought he’d somehow give a shit if you went to UMass instead of OU.
“Sir?” the tinny voice asked.
“Three boxes of nuggets,” I said, lifting my head off the steering wheel. “Two junior vanilla shakes, and one large chocolate. And also a family size wings, a large fries, a box of spicy strips, and a mashed potato and gravy.”
“That’s a lot of chicken, Daddy,” Em whispered loudly from the back.
“Shh!” Ada said.
“And a medium onion rings,” I told the speaker box.
After bankrupting myself on chicken, we drove home and ate in front of the Christmas tree. I stared at the blinking lights and thought of Cass, and how, just for a second, when we’d remembered how to kiss, everything had feltright. Things hadn’t felt right in a while, but Cass was...
Okay, so we once went to summer camp in Hocking Hills where, on the first night, we were busted for drugs. We didn’thaveany drugs, but that wasn’t the point. A bunch of girls I knew from my school’s drama class were spinning in circles until they got dizzy, then falling down and giggling. And it was probably because I didn’t have any actual drugs that I’d enthusiastically joined in. It was stupid and pointless andfun, and I spun so fast that I staggered sideways, my feet suddenly gone from underneath me and my stomach doing the same sort of weightlessuh-ohyou get at the top of a roller coaster, and then Cass had reached out and caught me. His fingers had been cold around my wrist, but warmed quickly as he’d pulled me into a hug instead of letting me collapse into a heap on the ground.
That was what I remembered about Cass—how perfect it felt as he caught me, as though there was no other place I could have landed except in his arms.
It had been a beautiful moment, ruined only by the sudden appearance of a bunch of camp counselors who’d overhead some of the girls up in the shower block talking about falling down with the head spins, and understandably got the wrong impression. I didn’t even know I’d been busted for drugs until one of the counselors had asked me if she’d find anything if she went through my bag, and stupid, confused me had said, in a tiny voice, “My inhaler?”
It might have been less embarrassing to have gotten busted for actual drugs instead of for spinning in circles like a toddler.
I felt like I was still spinning now—that I’d been spinning for most of my life, not just since Ben—waiting for Cass to catch me. Except he wasn’t here, so I had to land in my bucket of greasy chicken wings instead.
I sent a text to Felicity and ate my chicken wings while Ada and Em composed a letter of apology to Brianna for giving her Peachblossom a haircut. I wanted to call it the Peachblossom Incident in my mind, complete with capital letters, but it wasn’t even the first one, and the Latest Peachblossom Incident didn’t have the same emphasis. Also, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to admit to having more than one Peachblossom Incident in my life at one time. That said some things about me that, while probably well deserved, weren’t exactly flattering.
By the time I reached the oil-soaked bottom of the bucket of chicken, Felicity had responded, letting me know that yes, Brianna was very upset but an apology would certainly go a long way toward making things right, and linking me her PayPal address.
“It was the limited-edition Rainbow Glitter movie tie-in Peachblossom?” I asked, and Ada and Em gave guilty starts over their colored pencils and construction paper. “Of course it was.”
The limited-edition Rainbow Glitter movie-tie in Peachblossom cost about twice as much as the regular Peachblossom, but it wasn’t like I could complain. I sent Felicity the money, along with a message assuring her that the girls were very sorry and working on their apology letter now, and that I hoped a limited-edition Rainbow Glitter movie-tie-in Peachblossom would be easier to find than the newest release Peachblossom, which, apart from the one in the trunk of my car, was impossible to get.
After some complaining and dragging of feet—not all from Ada and Em—I got the girls into the bathroom to brush their teeth, and then into their pajamas and into bed. We read a Pony Pals story—of course—and I turned on their nightlight before leaving their room. Back in Boston we’d been at the point where they were happy to sleep without the nightlight, but here in Christmas Valley they wanted it on again. I didn’t know if that was a symptom of a larger problem or not.
It worried me that they weren’t settling. It worried me that it was my fault because, as much as I tried to hide it, the girls weren’t stupid. They could tell I was a mess. A tap-dancing chicken-binging mess.
I stayed up later than I intended, and finally got one more box unpacked. It felt like a milestone, a commitment to myself and to the girls that this was home now and we were going to make it work, dammit. It was the sort of achievement that deserved a glass of Franzia, or perhaps even half a box, as a reward, but for once I made the smart choice and went to bed instead.
Dr. Stephen Florris would be proud of me.
* * *
Wednesday morning came with a change in the weather. The sky was cloudless and brilliantly blue, and the temperature had dropped shockingly overnight. The girls, bundled up for a visit to Grandma’s, put the windows down in the car and blew dragon breath in each other’s faces, while I accidentally opened the gas tank door looking for the child lock.
I waved the girls off at Mom’s, and then, my heart in my throat, I drove to Elfwood.
Katya was behind the counter. “Frances. You are reason my Santa is in a bad mood.”
