The Daughters Break the Rules

by Joanna Philbin

  “Did Jamie offer you something to drink?” she asked, blinking at Carina behind her glasses as if she couldn’t see her. “Or how about some of those cookies?” she asked, pointing to an opened plastic sleeve of oversized chocolate chip cookies on her desk. “Please. Have some. I’ve already blown my diet three times over.”

  “I don’t think you need to be on a diet,” Carina said.

  Barb gave her an odd look, and then smiled. “Please, sit down, Carina. Make yourself comfortable.” She gestured with a piece of paper in her hand to the plain white sofa against the wall. Barb Willis was a far cry from the icy Glamazons who ran her dad’s other women’s magazines, but so far, all of her imperfections had started to win Carina over.

  “We’re all a little out of sync today because of Thanksgiving,” she said. “And since almost everyone is gone, I think I’m going to be the one to interview you—oops!”

  The piece of paper in Barb’s hand floated to the floor. It was a test cover of Princess magazine, printed on regular-size computer paper.

  “That’s a cover try for the March issue,” Barb explained as Carina bent down and picked it up. “The design director just finished it.”

  Carina took in the familiar, hot-pink-colored PRINCESS logo in flowery script, and the cover lines crammed with numbers (“353 Ways to Do Your Hair!”). And there was the cover girl, a cable television actress who’d already graced several other magazine covers in the past six months, and had looked cooler and prettier on all of them.

  “What do you think?” Barb asked.

  Carina tried to think of something positive to say. “I like her hair,” she said.

  Frowning, Barb took the page back from her. “What don’t you like about it? It’s okay. Just tell me what you think. As a reader.”

  “Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m not a reader,” Carina said.

  Barb smiled. “Oh. May I ask why?”

  “It all just seems a little forced,” Carina said. “See this?” she said, pointing to the Princess logo on the cover page. “See how it’s in hot pink and in script and it has a heart to dot the i? It’s way too frou-frou. I’d say get rid of the heart, do the logo in a chunky boldface, and then you can get away with the hot pink. Funk it up a little bit. Make it a little edgy. Don’t be afraid to be bold. Bold can be girly, too.”

  Barb looked uncertain, but nodded with her chin cupped in her hand. “Go on,” she said.

  “Is this the rest of the issue?” Carina walked over to a bulletin board covered with more miniature pages of the magazine.

  Barb nodded. “Yes, that’s the layout right now.”

  “Okay, this section on trends,” Carina started, pointing to where the Trend Report page was tacked to the wall. “This needs to be edgier. Much edgier. Most of these things are in other magazines before this even comes out.” She pointed at one of the boxed photos. “And I really don’t think ponchos count as a trend. I mean, they kind of do to this one girl in my class, but she just looks ridiculous in one.”

  “O-kay,” Barb said slowly, sounding a little overwhelmed.

  “You guys should find a couple cool kids who hang out downtown and go to the flea markets and all those vintage stores,” Carina said. “Just have them talk about cool stuff they want to wear, or are wearing, and you could re-create the looks. This page needs to start trends, not find them. And these fashion stories,” she said, jumping over to the fashion pages on the board. “I mean, look at this.” She pointed to a layout featuring a girl in a silver tutu and tiara under a headline that read “Bring Him under Your Spell.” “What is this all about?”

  “That’s our prom dress story,” Barb said proudly. “The photographer is very, very well-known, and it was his idea to do something magical—”

  “Nobody’s gonna wear a tutu to prom,” Carina said bluntly. “Especially if it’s a lot of money. What if all your clothes were under a hundred and fifty bucks? If you show stuff like that, kids at least won’t feel so bad about themselves for not being able to afford them.”

  Barb straightened her glasses. “Is this something you and your father have discussed?” she asked nervously.

  Carina shook her head. “No. It’s just my own idea.”

  “I see,” Barb said, sounding relieved. “Well, we should probably start that interview,” she said, gesturing for her to sit on the couch.

  Carina sat down. She knew that she’d probably offended Barb, and that there was a ninety-eight percent chance this would get back to her dad. But she almost didn’t care. It had felt good to be honest for a change.

  Barb perched herself on the edge of an upholstered chair and placed an old-fashioned tape recorder on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. “Okay, first question. You know that this is a story about your fabulous everyday life. So let’s start with what you did last weekend.” Barb leaned over and gave her a meaningful smile behind her glasses. “What did you do? How’d you spend your afternoon last Saturday?”

  Carina thought about this. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Sure,” Susan said gamely.

  “I made blue pancakes and I went to Trader Joe’s.”

  Susan frowned again. “Did you say Trader Joe’s?”

  “Uh-huh. And the blue pancakes were kind of an accident. But they were still really good.”

  Barb nodded slowly, trying to regroup. “Was there anything else you did?”

  Just then there was the sound of footsteps out in the hall, and before Barb’s assistant could announce him, the Jurg entered the room.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said, flashing the hundred-watt smile he saved for work events. “Hope I haven’t missed too much.”

  Of course he was here, Carina thought with a sinking feeling in her chest. She took a deep breath and tried not to look irritated.

  “Karl,” Barb said, running a hand over her electrified hair as she leaped to her feet. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Don’t get up,” he said, sitting down next to Carina on the couch. “I thought I’d just pop downstairs and sit in for fun. Hello, C,” he said, kissing her on the top of her head. “So, where are we?” He sat down next to her and clapped his hands over his knees. “Don’t let me get in the way. I’m just observing.”

  “I was just about to ask Carina about shopping,” Barb said, still beaming at him. “Of course that’s of big interest to our readers. So, Carina. What are your favorite stores?”

  Carina glanced at her dad. Maybe having him here for this wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. “You mean right now?” she asked. “I don’t have any.”

  “None at all?” Susan repeated.

  “I guess you could say I’m not shopping much these days,” she said evenly.

  “Now, that’s not exactly true, C,” said the Jurg good-naturedly. “You like that place, what’s it called… Intersection?”

  “Intermix.”

  “And she loves the Meatpacking District,” he added. “All of those stores. She can’t get enough of them.”

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered just a little too loudly.

  “And she’s been known to clean out the shops on Newtown Lane in East Hampton,” he said, grinning.

  Now she understood why her dad was here. He wanted her to stay on message. He wanted her to pretend that she was still living a “fabulous” life. She couldn’t believe it.

  “Right,” she said as sarcastically as she could. “I clean ’em out.”

  Barb darted her eyes from father to daughter. She’d caught the sarcasm in Carina’s voice. “Okay, what about travel? Where’s the last place you went?”

  “That would be California,” Carina said archly. “But it wasn’t a pleasure trip.”

  Barb looked down at her sheet once more. “Any extracurriculars?”

  Carina snorted. “No.”

  “Actually, Carina’s favorite thing to do is come into the office and learn about Metronome,” her dad cut in as he put his arm around her shoulder. “She’s already go
t quite an interest in business.”

  “Really?” Barb asked.

  “Yes, she used to love to come to the office when she was a little girl and sit at the head of the table in the boardroom,” he went on. “And then just recently she expressed some interest in interning for me—”

  Carina leaned over, found the stop button on the tape recorder, and pressed it. “I’m sorry, but could my dad and I have a minute alone?” she asked, her eyes on the coffee table. Her face felt hot.

  Barb stood up suddenly as if she’d just remembered she had a flight to catch. “Take your time,” she said.

  She walked out and shut the door behind her. As soon as they were alone, the Jurg put his head in his hands and clutched at his hair. “Carina, what am I going to do with you?” he asked.

  “Why did you come down here? Are you just afraid I’m not going to be able to do this right?”

  “I had a feeling you couldn’t be trusted to do this in an appropriate way,” he said. “And clearly, I was right.”

  “You’re just afraid I’ll disappoint her,” she said, forcing herself to stay calm. “That Karl Jurgensen’s kid won’t turn out to be a real-life princess after all. Or anything else you approve of.”

  “Carina, please,” he said, rubbing his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. “You’re still privileged no matter how much money I give you.”

  “Because I’m your daughter?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath and looked at her. “Yes,” he said firmly.

  “Right. Because all you can see is that I’m your kid. That’s it. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t even look at me. It’s like I’m invisible or something. Why did you even want me to live with you?”

  “What?” The Jurg shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Mom wanted me. Mom loved me. Mom knew who I was. And she wanted me with her. But you wouldn’t let her have me.” She let out a choked laugh. “It’s pretty ironic when you think about it. Since you’re the one who cheated on her.”

  There it was. She’d finally said it. The thing no one had ever dared to mention.

  Her father’s entire body seemed to freeze. For a moment, he seemed too shocked to speak. “Go home,” he finally said. “Just go.”

  Grasping her book bag with one hand, she got to her feet. Her words still ricocheted between them, filling the air, making her dizzy. She couldn’t look him in the face anymore. He was right. She needed to leave.

  She turned the knob and walked out. In her peripheral vision, she could see Barb and her assistant huddled in the corner like a couple of teenage girls. They’d probably heard everything. But it didn’t matter. She hurried past them, her eyes on the carpet, and headed to the elevators.

  She wished she could have taken it back, but it was too late. She hated herself for saying such an ugly thing, but she hated him more because it was true.

  chapter 20

  Carina lay on her bed, staring out the window at a blinking helicopter as the afternoon dwindled into night. Her insides felt scooped-out and emptied, like she’d just thrown up. That’s what crying did to her. It made her feel weak. And she hated to feel weak.

  She scrolled down to Lizzie’s number on her panda phone. Normally, the three of them would have been huddled at Pinkberry by now, cheering Carina up over plain yogurt topped with Cap’n Crunch and Oreo pieces. But this was no ordinary fight with the Jurg. She wasn’t even sure this was something she could talk about with her friends. She’d never mentioned her dad’s cheating to them. And the memory of Hudson’s face that morning in class—quiet and scared—kept her from calling them. Even if they weren’t full-on mad, Lizzie and Hudson were probably a little annoyed at her. Leaning on her friends right now probably wasn’t the best idea.

  So she called her mom. She was stunned when someone actually picked up.

  “Hello?” It was a man. Behind him she could hear the dim racket of a party.

  “Hi, is Mimi there?” she asked.

  “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s with a private client. Who’s this?”

  “This is her daughter, Carina.”

  “Who?” the man asked.

  “Her daughter,” she said. “Can you tell her I called?”

  “Sure thing,” the man said. “Aloha.”

  “Aloha yourself,” she muttered as she hung up.

  Why was some random guy answering her mom’s cell phone? And why did he sound like he’d never heard of her before? Didn’t people know that she had a child named Carina?

  Her mother had always been too classy to say anything to her about her dad’s affairs, even during those four days at the Plaza. But she hadn’t needed to. Carina had figured it out herself. For the last few months before her mom had left, the Jurg had done everything he could to avoid his wife. If she walked into a room, he left it. If she wandered into his den while he was watching CNBC, he’d pick up his BlackBerry and make a phone call. During dinners, he’d wolf down his food as he read a pile of magazines, and her mother would stare at her plate, as if a movie were playing somewhere between her pounded chicken breast and steamed broccoli. Carina would sit between them, furiously texting her friends under the table to distract herself.

  It got worse as the school year went on. By the winter her mom had started crying in the mornings and walking through the house like a zombie on Xanax. When she’d finally asked her mom if she was all right, Mimi had just given Carina a weak, red-eyed shrug. “Oh, honey,” she’d said, and there had been novels of despair in those two words.

  Finally, there’d been the night when she passed her parents’ closed bedroom door and heard shouting.

  “Do you have to treat me like this in front of our daughter? She notices, Karl!” her mother yelled. “She notices everything! For her sake, can’t you be a little decent?”

  “I can do whatever I damn well want,” her dad yelled back. “And you deserve it if you’re going to be so selfish—”

  And then someone’s hand was on the doorknob, twisting it to open the door, and Carina fled down the stairs, all the way down to the first floor, where she hid in the powder room and sat on the toilet lid, holding her breath.

  For a few minutes she could only hear their voices on a loop inside her head, like a recording she couldn’t stop. And then finally, it came to her.

  He’d cheated. Of course he had. There’d always been women around her father. Even as a little girl she’d sensed his power over them. And now something had gone too far, and he’d broken her mother’s heart. It made her sick to her stomach. But it also made perfect sense. He always got what he wanted. As upsetting as it was to think about him with other women, down deep inside she knew that it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  Ka-CHUNG!

  The chime of her cell phone brought her back to the real world. Carina sat up on her bed and eyed her battered cell phone, which was sitting on her dresser. It was probably a text from her dad, telling her in no uncertain terms how disappointed he was in her. She lay back on her bed, waiting to get up the necessary courage to look at the message. But when she finally got up and walked over to it, she saw that it was a text from Alex.

  U free tonite?

  She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since their shopping trip at Trader Joe’s. But right now he was the only person on the planet she felt like talking to.

  Yep, she wrote back.

  Lincoln Center. Fountain. Half an hour.

  She would have thought that New York’s opera, ballet, and classical music center would be far too stuffy for someone as hipstery as Alex, but then again, he was an unpredictable guy.

  C u there, she wrote back. Then she said a small prayer that whatever he had in mind cost less than five dollars.

  She took the Fifty-seventh Street crosstown bus and got off at Broadway. It was fully dark out by now, and a damp wind blew against her face as she walked uptown. Lincoln Center was another place that reminded her of her mom. Every December when she was little,
Carina and her mom would come up here to see a matinee of The Nutcracker, and then get hot chocolate and apple torte at Cafe Lalo. Her mom called these trips their “girl dates,” and Carina had loved them. But in fifth grade, they’d come to a screeching halt, thanks to her dad’s antics. Her dad had ruined everything, she thought as she dodged a woman running for a cab in front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. There was no reason to feel bad about their fight today. He’d deserved everything she’d said to him and more.

  She bounded up the white limestone steps to Lincoln Center Plaza, and when she reached the top, a smile came to her face. She’d forgotten how beautiful the fountain was at night. Steam drifted off the golden-white jets of water as they bubbled up into the sky, while the sound of rushing water blotted out the horns and sirens. People crisscrossed the plaza, hurrying to get home and out of town for the holiday weekend. But one person stood still in front of the fountain, waiting for someone. It was Alex. He wore a long, military-style coat and knotted red scarf. His normally spiky dark hair seemed to have been smoothed over with some gel. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that he’d dressed up just for her. But she already knew that this wasn’t a date. How could it be, after how much he knew about her?

  “Hey,” she said as she walked over. She felt suddenly embarrassed that she’d only worn jeans and a black Gap turtleneck under her coat. “You look nice.”

  “Thanks,” Alex said. She thought she saw a slight reddening in his cheeks. “I know it was kind of last minute.”

  “So are we seeing something here?”

  “Maybe. Just think of this as Music Ed, pre-Lady Gaga.” He grinned.

  “We’re seeing classical music?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll survive,” he deadpanned.

  As they walked down the block to the gleaming glass cube of Alice Tully Hall, she said, “I wouldn’t think that a guy who’s into German electronica would also be into Beethoven.” They stepped inside the sleek, glass-walled lobby. It was nearly empty. An usher standing by the escalator ripped their tickets.