So Over My Head (27 page)
“You go see your dad?” one asks.
The other shakes her bleach blonde head. “He very busy. Important client.”
I smile at the two standing in front of a water fountain backdrop. “Good thing I’m his daughter and he
always
has time for me.” I grab Ruthie by the hand and lead her down the hall. “Walk quickly. Dad said they both have their black belts, so I don’t want to push my luck.”
Ruthie snorts. “Like I’m afraid of a black belt. Dude, I got street cred.”
“Yeah, Main Street in Truman. I’m sure they’re shaking in their push-up bras.”
I zip us around a corner and power walk down the next hall. At the last door on the right, I rap my hand in a hearty knock. “It’s me, Dad.”
“Bella?” I hear him inside, getting up from his desk. The door opens a crack. “This better be an emergency. I’m with a client.”
“Oh, it’s a crisis all right.”
His frown is not encouraging. “Like the crisis last year when you needed me to choose which shoes I thought looked the best with your skirt?”
“You should be glad I value your opinion.” I try to peek in to see if his client is famous, but he stands in my way.
“Go to the nearest waiting room and hang out there. I’ll get you when I’m through with my patient.”
“Is it anyone I know?” I whisper.
He leans close. “Yes.”
“Gonna tell me who it is?”
“Not on your life.” Dad smiles and pats me on the shoulder. “But she was nominated for an Oscar last year.”
Half an hour later Ruthie and I are back in his office, the surgery-requiring actress long gone. Dad is really crafty at protecting his clients’ identity. I can’t say it’s a quality I respect about him.
“So tell me what brought you all the way to my office.” Dad sits behind his desk and steeples his fingers. “I know it has to be some-thing important or you’d be shopping right now.”
“A girl can only shop so much,” Ruthie says, eyeing the objects on his desk.
“Yes, I know.” Dad grins at my friend. “And my daughter can shop
so much
, I sometimes think I need a second job.”
Ruthie lifts a big rubber squishy ball. “What do you call this? A weight?”
I share a smile with my dad. “I call it a D cup.”
“Ew.” Ruthie drops it back to its resting place.
“State your business, Bella. I don’t like to work late on Saturdays.”
Oh, how to proceed? How do you tell your dad that his future wife is up to something? That you don’t think he truly knows the real Christina? “Um . . . well . . . I have been having some weird moments with Christina the last few times I’ve been here.”
Dad’s leather chair squeaks as he lounges back. “Honey, you know she’s been stressed with the wedding plans, her job, not to mention retooling my career with this TV show. The Brazil deal is a risk, and we’re both staying pretty keyed up.”
“A few weeks ago, we were trying on dresses. And she told me she was going to call some clients and sent me to get a coffee. I came back early and saw her not on the phone. But talking to . . . some woman.”
Dad’s face is bland as oatmeal. “Are you kidding me with this?”
“They were arguing. The woman had obviously come to meet her and talk. And Christina kept telling her that she wouldn’t back out, that she would go through with their plan. Dad, I know it sounds crazy, but I just have this feeling.”
“You’re a teenager. It’s called hormones.”
“You got that right,” Ruthie harrumphs. “Last week they took over my face in a zit attack.”
“Okay, so yesterday I’m back at the same dress shop.” Where I was again violated by chicken feathers and Enrique’s assault on fashion. “And the designer asked me about Christina’s sister. And he didn’t mean Marisol. He said her blonde sister Mercedes had picked up a dress.”
Dad leans an elbow on the shiny black desk and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You’re giving me a stress headache. And stress head-aches lead to crow’s feet.”
Oh, quit being such a girl!
“Would you please listen to me?”
His hand drops with a slap to the desk. “I am. And I don’t like what I’m hearing.”
“Then can you explain any of this?”
“Bella, what is there to explain? I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding. We all know about that overactive, suspicious imagination of yours.”
Beside me Ruthie bites her lip to cover a smile. That traitor.
“How do you explain her sister?”
“I’m sure Enrique was mistaken.” Impatience flows with Dad’s every word. “Marisol is her only sister, her only family. When Marisol was only a baby, Christina—”
“Yes, brought her from Brazil all by herself.” On the back of a donkey. Or swimming the ocean with only a piece of driftwood. Or holding onto the wings of a swarm of migrating butterflies. “And do you really think it’s in your best interest that your own attorney wasn’t involved in your prenup?”
“That’s none of your business.” Dad stands up. “Actually none of this is. I believe you need to get back home. Now.”
I jump to my feet and step toward the desk. “Dad, I know some-thing’s wrong here, and you’re too blinded by Latin love to see it.”
“Do you need me to call you a cab?”
A clock ticks on his desk as we fall into silence. Staring each other down like two enemies about to draw pistols. Instead of a father. And his daughter.
“I know this adjustment has been hard on you.” The angles of Dad’s face soften. “But you need to accept it once and for all that your mother is married and has moved on. And I’m going to be married. Your mom and I will never be together.”
“Is that what you think this is about? Some juvenile wish for my parents to be together? I love my life in Truman.” My words are pointed arrows, and I let them fire. “I can’t imagine going back to how things were. I have two parents there who love me and are involved in my life.”
“That’s enough, Bella.”
“Jake calls me from the road. Just to talk to me. My
step
dad calls me more than my own father. And Mom makes me breakfast and goes to my school events. We have family game night and go to church together. And you think I want what we used to have?” I shake my head as a tear drips to my cheek. “I could never settle for second-rate parenting again. I have a real family now, and I deserve that. I deserve people who love me on a full time basis.”
He swallows and blinks. “You know I love you.”
“On your terms.” Now my nose is dripping. I’m totally snot-crying. “And you know what, Dad? It’s not good enough anymore. I’ve been trying to get your attention for years. And I’m sick of it. I happen to be a great daughter. And I’ve changed this year, and you haven’t even noticed. You know why? Because you never even knew me in the first place.” I sniff and pick up my purse. “Let’s go, Ruthie.”
“Isabella, you stop right there.”
But I keep walking. I’m done with this conversation. And done with trying to win my father’s love.
S
ome people have their prayer closets. I have my prayer Volkswagen.
I sit in my Bug Monday after school, my head on the steering wheel, and just spill my heart out to God.
Lord, my life pretty much stinks. Like week-old beans. Like Budge’s
shoes. Like the cafeteria on sauerkraut day. I left my dad’s with nothing
resolved. I don’t know anything more about Christina and her mystery
sister. I thought Marisol would cough up the details, but she played
ignorant when I quizzed her two days ago. And Dad and I aren’t even
speaking. I just knew he would tell me how sorry he was. Nope. Nor did
he act like he even cared a bit about all the info I dug up on his fiancée.
He trusts her more than me, and she’s totally shady! I need help, God. I
need strength and wisdom and ice cream and sprinkles
—
Tap! Tap!
I jump at the rapping on my passenger window.
Luke frowns down at me from the other side of the car. “Open up.”
“Go away.”
“You’ve been a hag all day.”
“Take your sweet talk somewhere else.” My cheeks burn with the embarrassment of just being caught whining to Jesus about my life. Most girls could’ve at least made it out of the parking lot.
Luke leans his arms on the car and presses his forehead to the window. The breeze plays with his dark hair. “Talk to me, Bella.”
I start the car. “Gotta go.”
“Open this door or you’ll be driving through Truman with a new hood ornament.”
This image brings a small smile to my face.
“You have five seconds to unlock this door, or else I call your mother and tell her about your current pursuit of a murderer.”
Click!
“Much better,” Luke says as he slides in.
The car instantly smells like him, which only serves to muddle my head even more. “I don’t have time for boys,” I mumble.
“Bella, I’ve been thinking.”
“You want to put me back on my weekly feature for the newspaper?”
“Not yet.” He picks up a CD resting between us. “Been listening to some John Mayer?”
Luke and I have little in common. But one thing we do share is our closet love of all things Mayer. Seriously, I hear that piano and husky voice, and I melt on contact. Luke said it didn’t have
quite
the same effect on him.
I snatch the CD back. “I have things to do, so I’ll see you at the carnival.”
He twists in the seat until his back is pressed to the door. “I want to know what’s going on with you. You had at least three good opportunities to snip back at Ashley today in journalism, and you didn’t take a single one.”
I run my finger over the bumps and plains of the steering wheel. “Bad weekend with my dad.” I tell him about Mercedes. “And when I confronted my dad with all this fishy stuff about his fiancée, he just blew me off. He is such a jerk.”
“Jerk’s a bad word? And here all this time I thought it was just your endearment for me.”
“Do you know what I’d do if I were still living in Manhattan?”
His voice is as low as Mayer’s. “Tell me.”
“I’d go to a spa and just spend the whole day getting pampered and forget about all my troubles.”
“I’ll never understand the appeal of mud baths.”
“I want my dad to pick me, you know? Just once I want to be his priority. I want to be able to look back on our relationship and know that I was well and truly loved.”
“I like you.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t count.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
“I mean nobody can replace my dad. Not even Jake.”
“What about God?”
“He tends to forget to send me birthday cards,” I quip. “It’s just not the same. Yeah, I get he’s the father of all fathers. But I want Kevin Kirkwood to man up and treat me right. I want to be . . . enough.”
Luke pulls my hand until I’m leaning on him. “You are enough, Bella.” He kisses the top of my head and wraps an arm around me. “Your dad has to be a selfish moron to not want to spend time with you.”
“And to not listen to my voice of reason.”
Luke’s chest rumbles in a laugh. “That too. Maybe you could try talking to him again. Don’t overload him with all your Christina stuff. Just tell him how
you
feel about the two of you.”
“Honesty is so hard. Why can’t people just say what they want?”
“I ask myself that question all the time.”
I raise my head. Luke’s fingers filter through the hair at my temple.
His eyes drop to my lips. “I’m not going to kiss you again, so don’t even look at me like that.”
“But you want to.”
“But I’m not.”
I lean in a centimeter.
“Move back, or you’ll be the first girl I’ve ever elbowed in the ribs.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t believe in hitting girls.”
I smile. “No, why won’t you kiss me?”
He removes his arm. “Because you’re worked up about your dad. You’re hurt and confused. If you kissed me, it wouldn’t be about you and me. It would be about me being . . . an ice cream substitute.”
“The honor couldn’t get much higher than that.”
He pats my knee like he’s my grandpa. “Want to pray?”
“I’d rather make out.”
Luke reaches for my hand again and none-too-gently tilts my head ’til it’s bowed. “God, I pray for healing for Bella and for her relationship with her dad. I pray she would see that no matter what happens in her family, you truly are all the father she needs. Give her the strength and the courage to give all her pain to you. Help her see that not all guys are going to hurt her or leave her. Help her to trust the men you have put in her life. God, I pray that—”
“Lord, I ask that Luke realize I am a fabulous writer and let me have my column back. If this is dating retaliation, help him to get over it. I know the pain of not being able to have me right now is like a dagger to his black heart. And I—” Luke squeezes my hand ’til I shut up.
“Jesus, give Bella and me the wisdom to figure out our . . . friendship.”
“And—” I get the hand squeeze again, so I let him continue.
“Give us the wisdom to deal with the carnival issue the best way. Help us to act with integrity and do what’s right. And protect us.”