I smirk at the thought of Jeremy trying the new flavor. He doesn’t need any help in the falling in love department. “Jeremy is working there now?” I ask. Man, that guy is unstoppable.
“Just here and there,” Jan says, laughing. “Don’t worry. Your job isn’t in jeopardy.”
Just then plumber guy starts griping again from under the sink, something about flanges and crimping. “I better go,” I say.
“Drop by after school so you can see your new creation in all its glory,” Jan says. “I have them right in the window along with a sign advertising the new truffle of the month.”
“Thanks again, Jan,” I say before clicking off and going to deal with more talk of flow meters and fill gauges. I sigh and put the phone on the counter. I would rather pick bubble gum out of Dom’s hair than talk about copper piping anymore. Just keep thinking about the nice running water. I put on my nicest smile and head around the corner.
The plumber finally leaves just as Beau’s truck pulls up in front. Mom isn’t home yet. She’ll be sorry she missed him, I know, but seeing him isn’t helping her actually get over him. I know they say it takes half as long as you were in a relationship to get over the relationship, but I’m not sure I can take any more of this. When I open the door, Beau is standing there with Batman and Cinderella. Sort of. Dominic looks normal from the waist down—cargo pants and sneakers—but from the waist up, he’s Batman. Lucy, on the other hand, looks like she went through a war where they used lipstick instead of bullets for ammunition.
“Don’t I look pretty?” she asks, sliding past me.
“Very,” I say. Beau looks like he’s also been through a war, but one I’m not sure he’s going to survive. “Long weekend?” I ask. There, a tiny piece of me that’s glad he’s gotten this glimpse of what it means to be a single parent, but most of me wants their visits to go well. Because whether I like him right now or not, he is Dom and Lucy’s father. And whether I’m mad at him or not, he is officially my father too, since he adopted me when I was seven.
“They are very high-energy,” Beau says. I look up at the ceiling above our heads, which is actually the floor of their bedroom and where they must currently be training elephants to jump through hoops. “So,” Beau says, leaning against the doorjamb. “How are you?” I’m surprised at his question. It isn’t like him to actually attempt a conversation. Usually he’s all about the drop-and-bolt.
I shrug. “Okay, I guess. Busy.” He nods and keeps standing there, so I try again. “You know, school, candy making—”
Something in his pocket beeps loudly. He pulls out his phone and looks at it. “I have to go,” he says. His voice sounds sad, but maybe he’s just tired. I nod. He stands there for a moment, like he’s unsure whether he should hug me or shake my hand or something. I just lift my hand as if to wave. He gives me a tired smile and turns to walk down the sidewalk toward his truck. I take a deep breath. My mother isn’t the only one who has a hard time seeing Beau. I close the door just in time to hear something very large and very heavy hit the floor above me.
“Dom! Lucy!” I yell in the direction of the stairs. I hear two sets of feet running toward the hallway, so I reason they are both still alive and at least still have the use of their legs. I decide that I need some food in me before I tackle whatever mess there is upstairs.
I quickly fix a few grilled cheese sandwiches and pour three glasses of milk. I add some apple chunks, knowing that they probably lived on takeout and sugary cereal all weekend. I call for them as I slide the sandwiches out of the frying pan. Lucy comes careening into the room first. She slides into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. The hem of her princess dress catches on the edge of the chair, and I hear a ripping sound as the tulle gives way. Dominic, close on her heels, jostles her briefly. Even though there are three other chairs pushed up to the table, they always want the same one. I plunk a plate of food in front of Lucy and another in front of an empty chair on the other side of the table.
Dominic takes the other chair and immediately starts tearing the crusts off his sandwich. He sneers at the apples, or at least I think he does. The Batman mask makes it hard to tell. “Why can’t we have Lucky Charms?” he asks. I resist the urge to pour the glass of milk over his head and instead set it on the table beside his plate.
“Where’s Mommy?” Lucy asks, dribbling milk down the front of her princess dress.
“She’s at the shop,” I say. Dominic tries to push scraps of sandwich through the mouth slit in his mask. I slide the mask up onto the top of his head. He frowns at me, but starts eating his sandwich with his own mouth.
“When’s she coming home?” Dominic asks.
“Soon,” I say.
“That’s what you always say,” Dom says. I can’t argue with that. He takes one last bite of sandwich before pushing away from the table. His movement upends his glass, sending a river of milk flowing toward Lucy. She screams and tries to get away from the table, tilting her chair so far back that she ends up on the ground and her dinner ends up on top of her.
I decide to move bedtime up about an hour. It only takes me ten minutes, four washcloths, and a round of toothbrush wrestling to get them in bed. They are nearly asleep before I’ve even gotten them all tucked in. I pull their door closed and head back downstairs, checking the clock on the way. Nearly seven.
I’m about halfway through the dishes when Jillian calls to tell me about the kickin’ earrings she and Claire found at Jump! I bite the inside of my cheek as she talks. I feel a funny twinge of jealousy at all the time Claire and Jillian have been spending together, but I tell it to be quiet. I’ve just been busy and Claire needs the company. Jillian starts in on The Plan again, talking about something called a mani-pedi, which I figure out has to do with having our nails done. I just listen and um-hum. At one point I even put the phone on the counter so I can dry the dishes with both hands. When I pick it up again, she’s moved on to talking about the truffles. She doesn’t even seem to have noticed that I was gone.
Jillian and I agree that we shouldn’t force the truffles on the guys. Instead we’ll position ourselves with the chocolates and rely on guys’ general state of always being hungry to do the rest.
“Piper, you just have to be casual about it,” Jillian says. I roll my eyes.
“I got it,” I say. Then slowly, as if I’m writing it down, I add, “be casual.”
“I’ll leave your chocolates in your locker before zero period.” Most of us only take six classes, but Jillian goes to school an hour early to take Latin. She might act like a ditz sometimes, but she’s anything but stupid. “What are you wearing tomorrow?” she asks finally.
“I don’t know. My uniform?”
I can almost hear Jillian’s eyes rolling through the phone. “Wear your gray hoodie with the embroidered flowers all over it and your sandals with the vegetables on them. You know, casual chic.”
I squint at my reflection in the microwave door. I have never in my life uttered the word chic in a non-ironic way. “Listen, Jillian. I’ve got to go. I still have to finish my lab write-up for biology.” I start to say good-bye, but Jillian cuts me off with more beauty advice.
“Make sure you do something with your hair after practice. Don’t just let it air dry.” I make a note to put my hair dryer in my gym bag.
“Gotcha,” I say.
“As for makeup—” I pull the phone away from my mouth.
“Jillian—I’m going to lose you. I’m about to enter a tunnel.”
“Tunnel? What tun—” I click the end button on my phone and place it on the counter. I close my eyes for a second. Talking to Jillian makes me tired. The home phone rings and I shake my head. I pick it up and start talking fast.
“Jillian, listen. I really have work to do.” There’s silence and then the sound of someone clearing his throat. “Hello?”
“Hey there, princess.” I suddenly feel cold all over, like someone just dropped me into a pool of ice water. It’s weird how just three wor
ds can unglue you. Seemingly harmless words that, when delivered by the right person, can cut your heart in two. “You there?” I close my eyes and concentrate. Just focus on the words, I tell myself.
“Yes,” I say. I say it so softly that I have to repeat it. “Yes, I’m here.” I take a deep breath, willing my heart to slow down. Why after all this time is my father calling? “What do you want?” There’s more silence. My words came out harsher than I intended, but what does he expect after nearly two whole years?
“I just called to see how you are.” My heart starts thumping even harder. I hate my heart for that, like it’s betraying me. Stop it, I tell it, but it won’t listen. “Got a birthday coming up.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I do.” I remember my birthday two years ago, sitting alone in front of The Paper Lantern, waiting for him to show up.
“Seems like just yesterday you were blowing out the candles on your Cinderella cake.” I close my eyes. Cinderella was when I was six. The silence stretches between us again. Part of me longs for him to fill it, but the rest of me is glad he doesn’t even try. “Listen,” he says finally. “Is your mom around?” And there it is. I glance at the clock over the kitchen table. We couldn’t even make it three minutes.
“She’s at the shop,” I say. He’s quiet again.
“Maybe I’ll call her there,” he says. “It was good to talk to you, princess.” There’s more silence. “Listen,” he begins. And I do. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, hating that little spark of hope that flares up inside of me. There’s a click and the line goes dead. I stand there with the phone in my hand until it starts beeping at me to hang it up. I place it on the counter and walk upstairs. I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling over me. It’s the same ceiling I’ve stared at for eleven years. It’s the ceiling I stared at when my parents used to fight—when Jack left, then came back, then left again. It’s the same one I stared at when Beau and my mom started dating and then got married and then had Dom and Lucy one right after the other. Like they needed to hurry because the clock was ticking. Which I guess it was. He left when Lucy was only two. That’s two dads that walked out on us, walked out on me, in less than ten years. Yeah Charlie, I whisper to the ceiling. Maybe I am cynical, but for a good reason. Maybe instead of trying to find a potion that helps you fall in love, someone should come up with one that makes you stay in love. Then you’d really have something.
I feel a blanket being pulled over me. I open my eyes and see my mother standing beside my bed. I squint at the clock. Almost nine. I must have fallen asleep. My mom pushes my hip and I slide over, giving her room to sit beside me on the bed.
“You okay?” she asks. I can feel the heat behind my eyes. Tears that I refuse to let fall. Not over him. Not again. “Jack called the shop. Said he talked to you.” I nod.
“What did he want?” I ask.
“I don’t really know.” She sighs and looks away from me. “He asked me a lot of questions about you.” She looks back at me. I raise my eyebrow. “He wanted to know if you’re happy.”
“What did you tell him?” I ask, not sure what I would have answered if he’d asked me the same thing.
“I told him I thought you were.” She looks at me for a long moment. “Was I right?” I poke around inside of myself for a minute before deciding.
“I’m pretty happy,” I admit.
She gives me a small smile, then takes a breath. “He also wants to see you.” I close my eyes. She finds my hand under the blanket and squeezes it. Her fingers are cold against mine. “You don’t have to,” she says. “After all this time, he can’t really enforce visitation.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. My head says no way; it’s my heart that needs to think about it.
“He gave me his new number,” she says. “I put it on your desk.” I look over at the piece of paper sitting there, tucked under my crystal heart paperweight. It’s small, just part of a piece of paper, but it seems to push some of the air out of the room. “I was worried,” Mom says. “I tried to call the house, but the line was busy.” I think of the phone I dropped on the counter without hanging it up. “You didn’t answer your cell.”
“It’s downstairs,” I say.
“I was worried,” she says again.
“I’m okay,” I say. I look at her. She’s staring at my face. “Really.”
“Pinkie-swear?” she asks. I find her pinkie with mine and squeeze it. “Don’t forget to set your alarm. Charlie came over to tell you he’d be out front at ten after and not to be late.”
“Charlie came over?” I ask, reaching for my clock. I set it for five A.M. Yuck.
“Apparently he couldn’t get through on the phone either.” She smiles at me. “He also said good job on the new truffles.” She pulls my door shut as she leaves. I put my clock back on the bedside table and pull my biology lab book from my backpack. Just then, what my mother said hits me. I leap out of bed and run out into the hall.
“Which truffles?” I ask.
“The new ones. He said he stopped by Jan’s today to see you and he loaded up on free candy.” She shakes her head. “It’s a wonder that man is able to stay in business with everything he’s always giving away.”
I smirk. If there is such a thing as a love potion, Jillian will be pretty excited to know that Charlie ate some of our truffles. “Better get to sleep. Big day tomorrow,” I say, kissing her fast on the cheek. She smiles and shakes her head at me. I trudge into my room and climb into bed. This is exactly why I wouldn’t use magic even if it did exist. There’s too much randomness in the world. I’d probably a) cast the wrong spell on b) the wrong person. Ugh. I completely refuse to get caught up in the insanity of Jillian’s plan. But, I am in this for as long as Claire is. Like Jillian said, she needs it.
chapter nine
I lean over and tilt my head, trying to get the water out of my ear. I can feel it sloshing around in there. The good news is that our coach still has the same rule from last season. If someone throws up during practice, we get out fifteen minutes early, and if two people lose it, we end practice immediately. The bad news is that this morning, I was the second puker. I let Charlie talk me into drinking some new protein shake his coach recommended. It’s horrible, full of spirulina and kelp. It tasted bad enough going down. It was worse coming back up.
“Nice work, Paisley!” I look over and see Peter (Mr. Row Butt) giving me the thumbs-up. I wave at him weakly. I can still taste the seaweed in my mouth. He walks over to where a girl with long blond hair is leaning down from the bleachers, waiting to talk to him. She giggles at something he says.
“Didn’t take him long,” I mutter, picking up the stack of kickboards. Another of coach’s rules. The pukers get to do cleanup.
“Didn’t take who long to do what?” I look over to where someone is kicking half a dozen pull buoys toward the storage bin.
I feel a flutter in my stomach that isn’t the seaweed. It’s Ben Donovan. “Umm…” I can be so witty under pressure.
Ben looks over to where Peter is still flirting with the blonde. “He’s really broken up about you guys,” he says. I shake my head and hide a smile, both because he’s being so nice to me and because Ben Donovan actually noticed I was going out with Peter.
“He’s brave to hide it so well,” I say.
“Crying on the inside.” Ben Donovan leans over and picks up one of the pull buoys and chucks it at the back of Peter’s head. “Hey, Pete. You owe me breakfast.” Peter smiles over at him and shakes his head. “It’s your fault I urped,” Ben Donovan says.
“Dude, it’s not my fault you didn’t train over break,” Peter says.
Ben Donovan looks over at me. “Does he owe you breakfast, too?” I shrug. “Hey, Pete, you owe Piper here breakfast, too.”
Peter acts like he’s about to make a smart remark at my expense, but he looks over at the blonde who’s still admiring him like he’s Adonis in a Speedo. “You hungry?” he asks her. She nod
s, but she seems uncertain. I can’t help rolling my eyes. Another girl who can’t eat in front of guys. I dump the last pile of kickboards in the bin and heft my bag from where I put it against the wall.
Ben Donovan walks toward the locker room and I wonder if any of that was real or just guy talk. He catches the door and turns to look at me. “Meet us in the caff in ten,” he says.
“I have to drop by my locker,” I say, then realize with a smirk that this might be the perfect time to casually give him the chocolates.
“Okay, then in twelve.” He winks at me, which makes my heart thud a little harder. “I’ll save you a seat.”
I hurry through my shower and pull on my uniform. I say a silent thanks to Jillian that she had her little fashion meeting with me. It takes me three minutes to blow-dry my hair. I start to put on some of the lipstick I dropped in my bag at the last minute, but decide against it. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard. I grab my bag and start toward my locker. The halls are still mostly empty, just a few students here and there putting up flyers and wandering around. I twist my combination and pull my locker open, expecting to see my usual messy jumble of books and a couple of boxes of chocolates, but there’s also something else. Hanging from one of the hooks meant to hold jackets is a small brown bag. I pull it down and peer inside.
Love? Maybe. Page 8