Something Real (29 page)

I keep my eyes straight ahead and walk quickly, hoping that no one in the classrooms will recognize us. The lunch bell is going to ring any second.

“Benny goes here, you know.”

Dad nods, his long strides matching my short, quick ones. “I do. But I wanted a little alone time with you. That okay?”

The universe is testing my new resolve to stop running away from my problems. But there’s a difference, isn’t there, between running away and self-defense?

We’re almost to the main entrance. “Are you parked out front?”

“Yes.”

Of course he is. How could he resist letting the Vultures get a few nice shots of him taking Bonnie™ out to lunch?

“Does Mom know you’re here?”

“She does.” He points to a BMW a few feet away. “That’s me.”

“Nice car,” I say, my voice dry.

Dad grins. “This one’s a rental, but we’ve got one just like it at home. We love this thing.”

“We?”

He coughs uncomfortably. “Hop in.”

Is he still with her? The girl who is practically my age?

“Is MetaReel coming to lunch with us, too?”

“No. But we should hurry before they figure out where we are.”

I open the door and duck inside. The new car smell makes me nauseous, and as soon as he starts the engine, I immediately roll down the window. I slip on my don’t-talk-to-me glasses from Hand Me Downs as we pull out of the parking lot.

“They out here every day?” he asks, gesturing to the Vultures.

“Of course.”

“So what’s good around here?” He’s injected some false cheer into his voice, and it’s as obvious as my mother’s recent Botox treatments.

“I’m not hungry.”

Why am I in this car? He doesn’t deserve to just walk into my life like this. I should get out.

“Honey, don’t you think you’ve punished me long enough?”

I bite my lip until I can taste blood in my mouth. Then I stop because I don’t want to go back to thinking that hurting myself makes the other pain go away. Fuck. I’m with him for, like, three seconds, and it’s like all those years of therapy and figuring it out are just gone. Like
that
.

Dad purses his lips and exhales like he’s rationing his air. He used to do this when he got annoyed, but was trying to keep his temper. It’s the reaction I want (to make it harder on him, to—
yes
—to punish him a little), but it hurts my feelings all the same.

“Well,” he tries, “I saw a Mexican place near the freeway—Don something-or-other. Wanna get some enchiladas?”

“I guess.”

“Great.”

Dad reaches over and fiddles with the radio.

Call now and you’ll receive … You and me could write a bad romance … The Dow Jones is up three percent and market shares … At Crazy Dan’s you’re not just getting a good deal, you’re getting … Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly …

Finally, he just shuts it off. His hands grip the wheel, his knuckles white, and I stare at them for a moment, lost in a memory of him teaching me to write, his fingers gently guiding my own. This is the man who gave me words. But he didn’t listen when I tried to use them.

“So how do you like high school?” he finally says.

“It was good until all this started up again.” Now, being in the midst of the show, I know it was more than good. It was football games on autumn nights, eating lunch in the caf at long, sea foam green tables with no one staring at me. It was sleeping over at my friends’ houses and knowing people liked me as Chloe, not Bonnie™.

“Your grades okay?”

Really?

“Dad, I can’t talk about my grades right now. I haven’t seen you in years, and you come during our
live episode
and get in a fight with my stepdad and show up at my school and—” I stop because if I don’t, everything I’ve wanted to say will come tumbling out.

Dad pulls into the restaurant parking lot and kills the engine. I can see the Vultures in the rearview mirror, taking out their cameras. This is why I only go from home to school and back again.

“Shit,” Dad says.

I don’t wait for him. I shove open the door and sprint toward the restaurant.

“Bonnie™! One picture!”

“Hey, Bonnie™, how’re you feeling?”

“Andrew—just one shot of the two of you. C’mon, man.”

Dad walks slowly, and when I look back, he’s talking to them.
Traitor.

“Please. I’m just trying to take my daughter out for lunch. Go back to Hollywood, huh?”

I swing open the door of the restaurant and immediately go to the bathroom. I pull out my phone and dial.

“Benny?”

My voice is shaking and I’m not strong I can’t do this I’m a coward why can’t I just tell him to fuck off and why why why did I get in that car oh God please—

“Chlo! Where are you?”

“Don Ricardo’s.”

“What’s going on?”

I look at myself in the mirror—dark circles under my eyes and stringy psych-ward-escapee hair. It occurs to me that MetaReel might be listening in on Benny’s phone even though I’m using my prepaid one. Right now I’m too upset to care.

“I have no idea. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

Benny swears, and I hear him muttering to someone near him. It’s lunchtime at Taft. “Hey, Patrick wants to say hi. Hold up.”

I can hear the chaos of the cafeteria for a few seconds and then, “Hey, you.”

“Hi,” I say, my voice soft. I can hear the yearning in it—can he hear it, too?

“Do you want me to kick his ass?” Patrick’s voice is dry, but the undercurrent of emotion in it suggests he’s not entirely opposed to the idea.

I laugh. “Would you?”

“Actually, yes. I think I would. I’m not violent by nature, but you sort of bring that out in me. Er, not you. Rather, the people around you. Hey—hold on a sec. What?” I can hear someone talking to him, then, “Tessa and Mer say they’re willing to Taser him.”

I try to laugh, but it comes out as a grunt. “Well, I’ll text you if it comes to that.”

There’s a pause and then, “Seriously. I’ll come pick you up. You don’t owe him anything.”

Refusing is not something I’ve ever been allowed to do. I don’t know what the consequences would be if I did. I’m tempted to take his offer, to have Patrick shield me against all the Vultures and whisk me away to somewhere quiet and safe.

“That sounds…” I sigh. “I have to deal with this.”

“I know.” He pauses, but because I can’t see his face, I’m not sure what’s weighing down the air between us. “Don’t go home until I get to see you, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Benny gets back on. “One call, and we’ll come out and rescue your scrawny ass.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Benny’s worried. I can tell visions of me popping pills are dancing in his head. I hang up, then splash some water on my face before I go out into the restaurant. Dad’s sitting at a table in the back, away from the windows. He looks anxious and a little bit lonely, which makes me sad. I realize I’ve never seen him alone. Ever. This seems statistically impossible, but it’s true.

I look at the lime green drink beside my place setting and raise my eyebrows.

“I ordered you a margarita,” he says.

I plop down into the chair across from him. “You’re aware that I’m seventeen?”

He grins, magnanimous. “My father let me drink when I was a senior in high school.”

My grandfather, it must be noted, died eight years ago from a busted-ass liver.

I look at the drink and then decide, What the hell? I put the straw between my lips and take a tiny sip. It’s delicious—tart and salty and warm when it hits my stomach. Dad settles back and gives me a long look. I tuck my hair behind my ear self-consciously, and he smiles.

“I missed you, honey.”

The mariachi music being piped through the speakers on the wall is too cheerful for this conversation.

“Your fault, not mine,” I say. “I guess MetaReel made it worth your while?”

I feel like I’m getting away with murder, being this openly disrespectful.

He bites his lip and looks up at the ceiling. “They offered me
access
—access I haven’t been able to get for years.” I snort and let my eyes drift over the southwestern décor. “Sweetie, when you get older, you might understand a bit more.”

“What’s to understand? You cheated on Mom, you left. It seems pretty simple to me.”

I take a big sip of the margarita and then another when my eyes start to water. I’m not going to cry in front of him. He doesn’t deserve it.

“Bonnie™, I know that’s how it looks, but it’s actually pretty complicated—”

He stops himself as the waitress comes up.

“You guys ready to order?”

She’s wearing a traditional Mexican dress that accentuates her curves. Dad meets her brown bedroom eyes and smiles.
Goddammit, can’t he just be a normal dad for three seconds?

“I’ll have the enchiladas—cheese. And another one of these.” He points to his margarita—he’s already drained it. Typical. “Bon?”

“Cheese enchiladas,” I mumble.

“La Cucaracha” plays in my head, and I wonder if he’s thinking of the same thing.

The waitress leaves, and Dad puts his hand over mine. “Look at me. Please.”

I take my hand away and bring it to the straw in my drink, taking another long sip.

“Go easy, hon.”

I narrow my eyes. “You want
me
to go easy? I thought you were the one with the drinking problem.”

Seasons ten through thirteen have well documented that. Dad sighs and leans back.

“What can I do, Bonnie™? I’m here. I’m trying. I love you—I love
all
of you.”

“Then where have you
been
?” I say, the words ricocheting around the empty restaurant. “You broke your promise. You said you’d come back. But you didn’t. And I’ve been waiting and waiting and then Mom married Kirk and—”

My voice breaks. How many times have I rehearsed this monologue? In my head, it is perfectly edited, each phrase crafted for the express purpose of making him hurt as much as I do. My words are supposed to be daggers thrown at his heart, not half-coherent complaints. I grip my knees with both hands and try to hold my body together. I’m about to rip at the seams; if I cry, everything inside me is going to fly out. When someone opens the door, pieces of me will be borne away on the wind. I’ll never be able to find all of them. I’ll never be whole.
I’ll never be whole
.

When he speaks, Dad’s voice is low, placating. “Honey, I know. I
know.
I wanted to keep that promise so badly. But I couldn’t. Your mother and I … Bon, we hate each other. You know that. And the arguments were getting worse—you must remember how bad they were. When you took those pills—”

My dad stops, picks up his glass, and drinks half of it in one sip. He doesn’t even get brain freeze. He motions for the waitress to bring another round.

“When you took those pills and we almost lost you—I blamed myself.”

I roll my eyes. Right. He blamed himself, which is why he, what, ditched us?

He leans forward, his eyes bright. “I know why you took them. You wanted me to come back. You wanted everything to be like it was before … before I left.”

“You mean before the affair.”

He sighs. “I mean before your mother and I stopped loving each other.”

I finish my drink and close my eyes so that I don’t have to see the pain in his. Instead, I picture the amber tequila flowing down my throat and into my veins. It turns my blood into gold. I’m warm and made of rubber.

And I want more tequila.

The waitress brings the drinks and our enchiladas. I’m obviously underage—I even have my backpack with me. I wonder how my dad charmed her while I was in the bathroom. Or are these celebrity perks? I can tell the margarita is going to my head because I’m having trouble maintaining control of the cold ball of anger that was rolling around in my heart a few minutes ago. Now I just feel depressed.

Which is so much worse than angry.

When the waitress leaves, Dad takes a bite of his enchilada and smiles. “Better than mine?”

This is an olive branch. Should I accept it?

I stab at the enchilada—the taste holds so many memories. I swallow, then permit the corner of my mouth to turn up. “No. But good.”

We eat in silence for a while, and I’m surprised how much of it I manage to get down. After a few minutes, I take off my sweater.

“God, it’s hot in here.”

Dad picks up my drink and puts it on his side of the table. It’s only half finished, but he slides a full glass of water close to my hand.