If I'm Being Honest(72)

He and Brad head for their seats.

I grasp on to the one chance I have to remind him I’m worthwhile. “Dad, do you know when your company will tell me whether I got the internship?”

“I’m not in charge of recruiting, Cameron,” he says distractedly.

I try one final time. “Well, do you want to get dinner when this is over?”

“I can’t. I’m only in town for the night, and I have to get drinks with a couple clients.” He takes his seat without even a backward glance.

I watch him, disbelieving. He could have pretended. He could have said, “Next time.” I don’t understand how he can invite a boy he hardly knows to coffee while he can’t even fake wanting to have an evening with his own daughter.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mom working clumsily through the chairs, trying to get a seat closer to him. I remember the meeting’s going to start in a couple minutes. I have to go, and it’s kind of hard to breathe in here. I leave the library, not about to force myself to watch whatever plays out between the two of them.

The night is welcomingly cool, but it’s not enough to ease the hurt fury roiling under my skin. I don’t know what I expected. He can come to my school’s board meetings, can chat up Brad and the headmaster, but he can’t even spare me a minute, much less an evening. I wouldn’t have even known he was in town if freaking Deb hadn’t texted my mom. I hope Mom does make a scene. I hope she embarrasses him.

But it’ll be different when I get into Wharton.

I recognize the faint voice whispering comfortingly into my ear. I hold on to the words. Unlike the night, they calm the bad blood coursing through me. If I can prove I’m like him—if I can get into UPenn and get a job like Brad’s—my father will see me for who I am.

He has to.





Thirty-Four



I WAIT ON THE CURB IN FRONT of school, hugging my elbows in the November wind. I wish I’d driven myself here and could drive home. Instead, I have to wait, wondering how long my mom’s going to linger in hopes it’ll be different this time and it’ll be a PTA meeting where he’ll finally get down on one knee. She’s imagining a Cinderella story twenty years late, my Homecoming dress for a gown and a library of parents and teachers for a ball.

I want to text her to ask whether she’s going to leave the meeting early, except I know it’ll be futile. She won’t leave until Dad does. She definitely won’t reply if she’s preoccupied, or if I’m bothering her, or—

“Need a ride?”

I glance up from my shoes. In the school’s semicircular driveway, with the engine running, waits a black beaten-up sedan. Paige peers out the open passenger’s window, her neck craned from the driver’s seat.

“What are you doing at school this late?” I ask.

Paige shrugs. “Didn’t want to go home. Nobody was at Mordor because Charlie and Abby have chess club.” She nods in my direction, presumably noticing my posture of cold-resistance. “I’m not going to wait here forever, Bright. You want a ride?”

I give school a backward glance. If I keep waiting I’ll have to contend with whatever versions of my parents come out of there. My mom, flirtatious and triumphant or depressed and diminutive. My dad, cunningly charming or cold and distant.

I walk purposefully to Paige’s car and open the passenger door.

“Thanks,” I say, closing the door behind me. Paige pulls out of the parking lot. Neither of us speaks while she drives for a couple minutes on quiet tree-lined streets until she turns east onto Wilshire toward my house. Even though she’s only driven me home once before, the night of Rocky Horror, she doesn’t ask for directions.

“What were you doing at school this late?” she asks finally.

I face the window determinedly. I really don’t want to discuss it. Even with Elle, I never went into detail about the particulars of my parents’ relationship. There’s no point. Being vulnerable would only open me up to unwanted pity and false reassurances and force me to wallow in my feelings. It’s like crying—useless.

“My mom’s at the PTA meeting,” I say. It’s not an answer, and I hope I’ve said it definitively enough Paige knows I don’t want to give one.

We wait for the light to change, both saying nothing. I move my foot and bump something heavy on the floor. I nudge aside what I realize is a book, America’s History, the junior-year AP US History textbook. There’s a distinct possibility the book is Paige’s and has remained in the passenger seat under the dash for a whole year, but it’s probably Brendan’s.

For a moment I’m grateful Paige was alone at school tonight and I don’t have to contend with my feelings for Brendan, and then I realize what it means Brendan’s probably up to.

“Where’s your brother?” I ask masochistically.

Paige eyes me, on predictably high alert. “SAT tutoring,” she says gingerly, likely planning how she’s going to trap me into a confession of my ardent love for him.

“I can’t believe your parents have him in tutoring—and on a Friday night—when he has a practically perfect score,” I reply, determined to thwart her efforts. I remember their dad’s expression while he lectured Brendan, his uncompromising demeanor, the way he appeared to believe it was to Brendan’s benefit. I wonder if Paige got the same treatment. I can’t imagine her, with her shaved head and her vampire posters, just going along with her parents’ pressure. “Did you get a perfect score?”