by Jen Calonita
“Who was that jerk?” Kate asks.
Margo looks at Kate incredulously. “Uh, he goes to our school.”
“He’s going to be a sophomore, too,” I clarify. “That’s Ethan Thompson.”
“And you know that why?” Kate’s never bothered to learn the names of people we don’t hang out with.
I blink. “He sits at a table near us in the cafeteria every day.”
Thud! Ethan returns with our drinks and angrily begins placing the glasses on the table. I’m so surprised, I forget to say thank you.
“Hey, Harper,” says a girl walking by our table.
“Hey!” I say pleasantly because I don’t know her name.
“Why’d you just say hi to her?” Kate snaps at me. Margo secretly rolls her eyes.
“She goes to our school, too.” I can’t believe I’m back on Kate’s bad side so quickly. “She’s going into eighth grade.”
“She’s in middle school,” Kate says. “You’re in high school.”
I don’t point out that when we were in middle school, Kate tried to talk to all the high school boys.
Ethan snickers, and we all look up. “Sorry,” he says as he places Kate’s water on the table. “Something in my throat. Must be that sixth grader I ate for breakfast.”
Kate looks like one of those Monster High dolls with her creepy smile. “I want our waiter. Now. I’m going to make sure you get fired for the way you’re acting.”
“Try it,” Ethan dares her, and I blink fast. “Why do you think nobody has come over yet? No one wants to deal with you three.” He gives each of us a dirty look, and I suddenly feel as if I’ve been blasted with air-conditioning.
Kate pushes her chair away from the table, and people turn to look at us. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this. I want the manager.”
“No need.” Ethan’s incredibly calm for someone about to have his head handed to him. Margo and I look at each other. “Today is my last day, anyway. Thankfully, where I’m going, I don’t have to deal with the spoiled, popular girls of the world like you three.”
Is he calling me a mean girl? I’m anything but, especially at Intermezzo. I even tip the lady in the bathroom who hands me a towel after I wash my hands!
“I…” It’s too late. Ethan is already walking away.
Kate throws down her napkin. “I don’t care if it’s his last day!” she tells us. “I’m going to tell the manager how he spoke to us.” She stomps off.
“Kate’s ego is so big I’ll be shocked if she fits through the door,” Margo says, watching Kate go. “Poor guy. I thought he was cool for trying to take her down a peg. No one ever starts with her.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.” I rush inside after Ethan.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do, or why I even think I need to prove myself to a boy I don’t know, but I can’t stop myself. I’m not that girl he’s describing. By the time I get through the pack of people waiting for an outdoor table, Ethan’s already got a beat-up backpack slung over his arm, and he’s hugging Mary good-bye. “Wait!” They both turn and look at me. Now I can’t remember what I was going to say.
“I wanted to give you a tip for all your trouble.” I reach inside my Tory Burch bag and pull out two twenties. I try to hand them to him. “Here.”
“Usually the waiter gets a tip after you drop the check,” he says, staring at my outstretched hand. “Not the busboy your spoiled friend just tried to get fired.”
“About that…” I fumble over the words. Mary looks sympathetic.
“I don’t want your money.” Ethan sticks his hands in his jeans. “See ya, Mary.” I watch him walk out the front door and head straight to the parking lot, where he begins talking to all the other kids milling about. I can see his hands going wildly, and I just know he’s talking about me. I groan inwardly.
The phone at the hostess stand rings, and Mary picks it up before I can try to explain myself to her, too. I give up and trudge back to the table, my thoughts alternating between anger at myself and anger at Ethan. Who is he to call us spoiled? I’m not spoiled! I just have money. There’s a difference!
The phone in my bag vibrates, and I pull it out to see the text. I’m assuming it’s Kate to see what’s taking me so long, but when I look at the phone, my bag slides down my arm in defeat. The worst kind of text is waiting for me.
The mad McDaddy variety.
McDaddy’s Cell: H, just got home and saw your latest AMEX bill. We need to talk. Pronto.
Harper McAllister @HarperMc
What’s scarier than a zombie apocalypse and an alien invasion combined? A daddy who has just seen your credit card bill. #deadmeat
2
IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT
“READY TO FACE THE MUSIC?” Margo asks me as her Land Rover turns down my long, tree-lined driveway. The music is pumping so loud I can barely hear her. Margo loves a good drivetime tune, and Harold, her driver, is hard of hearing, so it’s all good. Margo doesn’t drive yet, but she got a car and a driver in her parents’ divorce. I guess having a professional ballplayer dad who is never home has its benefits.
I stare at our Dutch Colonial warily as the car comes to a stop in the circular driveway. “I think McDaddy is really mad at me this time.”
“He’ll get over it,” Margo assures me. I was glad Harold dropped Kate off first tonight. I know we’re all friends, but sometimes I feel weird telling Kate family drama. Since Margo has plenty of her own, she’s always sympathetic. “My dad yells at me about my credit card bill all the time. He usually freezes my card in a block of ice to teach me a lesson.” She points to her noggin. “He forgets that I have the numbers memorized. I just do all my ordering online instead!”
I start to bite one of my nails, then stop myself. “I don’t use my AMEX that often, so maybe he’ll go easy on me. I really only charge when it’s an emergency.”
Margo snorts. “Yeah, those Chloé tops you bought us today were a real emergency.” I pale. “Just remember my motto: Deny, deny, deny!” Harold coughs.
“Margo, he’s seen the bill,” I remind her. “He knows what I’ve charged.”
“Oh.” Margo thinks for a second and then grins. “Say everything was for charity!”
I feel guilty even considering that lie. “I’ll think of something. I’ll call you after—if I’m alive.” I shut the car door behind me and watch her car pull all the way out of our driveway to delay going into the house for a few more seconds. Then I make my way up the path and use my key instead of ringing the bell. Our housekeeper/personal chef Marisol works full-time, so she usually lets me in, but today I want the element of surprise. If I can show off some of those B-pluses I got on my report card, maybe he’ll forget about those salsa lessons I charged after watching Step Up 4.
“Harper?” My dad calls my name before I even shut the door. Darn. His voice bounces off the marble tiles in the two-story foyer. “Could you come into the kitchen, please?”
“Coming, McDaddy!” I yell pleasantly. I’ve called my dad McDaddy forever. McAllister, McDaddy, get it? Mom says I started calling him that when I was three. (I tried McMommy for a while, too, but that didn’t stick.) Dad took to it so well, he named his company McDaddy Productions. It has a cool rap-music vibe going for it, even though the three-year-old in me never planned it that way. I guess I’m very forward thinking.
I slowly walk past the walls of family portraits and original works of art that are hung under warmly lit sconces in the hallway that leads from the foyer to the kitchen. It’s amazing how much my mom has done with the house in two years. She threw herself into decorating the minute we moved in and hasn’t stopped doing DIY projects ever since. She’s so obsessed with home renovations she started her own blog, HomeBody. She’s got over forty thousand subscribers. When I walk into our spacious kitchen, with the Sub-Zero fridge and Viking stove Mom never cooks on, I see everyone is in their usual spots. Mom is at her custom mini office tucked into the corner of the
room, Marisol is washing dishes, and McDaddy is at the table, eating sushi. He and I used to cook together all the time, but now that we have a personal chef and eat out so much, there’s no need.
“Happy Friday!” I drop my bag in the corner of the room, and Marisol frowns. I watch her shut off the water and pick up my bag, presumably to bring it back to its proper resting place in the foyer. I always forget those sorts of details.
I lean over to give Mom a kiss. “He’s itemized the bill,” she whispers. “Run.” Mom has her studious, dark brown glasses on. She wears them for blogging purposes (she was going to get LASIK until market research showed her fans preferred her in specs).
I smile at McDaddy while I talk to Mom. “Oh, is that today’s post? You turned an old hair dryer into a planter? Cool!” Then I whisper in her ear, “How bad was the bill?”
“Bad.” Mom turns the volume up on the iPod dock next to her desk in the hope that our conversation can be drowned out, even though McDaddy is less than five feet away. “Tuba lessons, Harper? Really?”
“It sounded fun at the time.” I took one lesson and realized my lungs didn’t have the strength to support such an activity. I also didn’t like how I looked holding a tuba. Maybe I should have held one in front of a mirror before I signed up. “I gave the lessons to Kyle and now he’s in the band, so it all worked out.” I flash an upbeat smile.
“Yes, but as part of the marching band, your brother could have had lessons for free,” Mom reminds me. “He didn’t need private ones that cost a thousand dollars.”
Darn. She’s got me there.
Mom has always been a defender of my need to fit in to this very privileged community that is as different from Mineola as Earth is from Mars. When we moved, my twin brother, Kyle, had it easy. His life has always been sports—soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and lacrosse in the spring—so he’s supremely busy year-round and only has time to hang out with other sports people. Thanks to his various teams, he instantly had a whole new group of friends. But me? I sit out gym class whenever I possibly can. (If you need someone to raise money for children in Syria, I’m your girl. If you want an extra player for the volleyball team, I can’t help you.) And all the other non-lame activities I had my eye on were already full. Where was I supposed to meet people? During class? Who knows what would have happened if Kate hadn’t rescued me that day at lunch. So if she wants to take tuba lessons, then we take tuba lessons. Okay, Kate did cancel hers before our first class and never told me, but five other girls signed up so at least I wasn’t alone. And look at all the girls I introduced to the tuba! The school should thank me for the wealth of musicians they have to choose from now.
“Girls, you know I can hear you, right?” McDaddy eats another piece of sashimi, a look of amusement on his face. He’s dressed in his standard uniform: jeans and a black V-neck. Jeans are to a video producer what tuxes are to James Bond.
I drop into the seat next to him and catch a whiff of his woodsy cologne. It reminds me of camping in our backyard when I was a kid. He’s worn the same cologne since I was a baby. Mom says McDaddy is a creature of habit. “Your mom and I want to talk to you about your spending and your behavior lately,” he says seriously.
I groan. “You’re not going to give me the ‘you’re not the girl you were in Mineola’ speech again, are you?” I ask. Now is not the time to bring up Cancun, that’s for sure.
“Bingo!” McDaddy drops his chopsticks in frustration. He wastes no time getting to the point. “You’re going to be in college in three years and the way you’ve been acting lately makes me think you’re completely unprepared.” His brown eyes get squinty. “I hate to say this, but since you’ve moved here, you’ve become completely spoiled, Harper.”
“Rick!” my mom scolds. “That was harsh.”
I try not to look as hurt as I feel. That’s what Ethan called me earlier, too. Spoiled. I’m not spoiled! I pull my report card out from behind my back and slide it across the table toward him. “Look at this lineup of beautiful Bs. I did great this year.”
“Your grades are not the problem,” he says with a sigh. “It’s your friends. You’re different with them.”
“I thought you liked Margo and Kate,” I say. I feel my stomach lurch. I hate conflict and try to avoid it.
McDaddy looks twisted like a salt-free pretzel. “Margo is a good kid, but Kyle says Kate is one step down from being a character in Mean Girls.”
“That’s not true,” I say, even though now that he mentions it, Kate does have a Regina George thing going on.
“You were never this preoccupied with money till you met her.” Mom steps away from her computer and joins us at the table. “I’ve tried to be supportive because I know how hard the move was for you, but we’re worried.” She looks at McDaddy before continuing. “You’ve become—how do I say it?—superficial since you started hanging out with Kate.”
“You think I’m a poseur?” I feel like I’ve been slapped.
“We didn’t say that,” McDaddy says quickly. “We’re all a little different in Brookville. Who knew how much one video shoot would change our lives?”
None of us did, but that’s exactly what happened. Within a year, McDaddy Productions was getting calls from everyone who is anyone in the music industry. McDaddy himself was getting invites to things like the Grammys and bringing Mom to Rolling Stone parties. Jay Z suddenly knew our home number. Carrie Underwood sent him Edible Arrangements as thank-you gifts. London Blue thanked my dad in her American Music Award speech. It only made sense that we upgrade our lifestyle along with all of that.
“The problem is your spending,” he says. “Before we moved here, you were happy to spend a Friday night at Chili’s. Now, you think it’s okay to pop into the Gucci store and buy yourself a new bag and key rings for all your friends.”
“Some people would say that makes me generous,” I say defensively.
He slides my credit card statement in front of me. I am ashamed to admit the charges are two pages long. “Generous is one thing. Excessive is another. Your brother only uses his AMEX to buy sports equipment, and he asks me first, but you…” He points to a charge. “An espresso cart rental for seven hundred dollars?”
“The basketball team lost five games in a row. Kyle and his friends needed a pick-me-up.” And I needed a way to get Pat St. James to notice me. It didn’t work.
“Six hundred dollars at Red Door Spa?” he asks.
“We had tension headaches before midterms.” Because Kate didn’t study, and I was stressed knowing she didn’t prep. It was a nightmare.
Mom gives me a look. “Three hundred fifty dollars on school spirit wear?”
“I thought it would be cute if our entire English class had matching T-shirts to wear to the Long Island Poetry Slam,” I explain.
“While I appreciate that you want to share the wealth, this is insane. I can afford a Porsche, but I didn’t run out and get one. I still drive my ’94 BMW because I love it, and you shouldn’t buy half the school just so they’ll like you. I’ve been so busy that I didn’t see this earlier, but…” McDaddy seems so hesitant I’m not sure what to make of it. “You need a dose of reality, and I’m going to give it to you whether you like it or not.”
He passes me a faded pamphlet that has a picture of a cabin with pine trees on it.
I’m not sure what I’m staring at. Is he doing an ad for Pine-Sol?
“You’re spending your summer at Whispering Pines sleepaway camp,” he says, and for a minute I think he’s speaking a foreign language.
Sleepaway camp? Me?
I burst out laughing. “Where’s the camera?” My parents look baffled. “Is this for that new TV show you’re producing? This prank has kind of been done before, but that’s okay. I’ll go along with it.” I sit back down. “Say it again, and this time I’ll cry.” I take a deep breath, push my hair out of my eyes, and smile big and wide.
“Harper, this is not a joke.” My mom is looking at me like I
inhaled some of her aerosol craft sprays. “Your father is driving you up himself. You leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I feel slightly dizzy. “I have the beach club opening tomorrow.”
“Actually, you have camp orientation at ten o’clock.” He points to the flyer again and smiles cheerily.
“You can’t be serious.” They both nod, and that’s when I feel the gravity of the situation. He’s not joking. “I’m not going to camp! I already have plans for the summer!” They don’t look moved. “Do you know what will happen if I’m not here?”
“Yes. You might remember who the real Harper is,” McDaddy says calmly. He pushes the rest of the uneaten sushi away, and Marisol swoops in to pick up the tray.
“I know who I am.” I pull at the front of my Stella McCartney sundress self-consciously. “Mom.” I stare at my mom with the widest eyes I can muster. Mom is like my own personal on-staff lawyer. She can’t turn her back on me.
Her face tells a different story. “I’m with your father,” she says quietly. “We miss the down-to-earth Harper we used to know. I think camp is the way to help you find her again.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” I whisper, feeling my hands begin to shake. “You’re just going to abandon me in the middle of nowhere’s-land?”
“The Catskills are hardly the middle of nowhere,” McDaddy says. “And you won’t be alone. Your brother is going, too. Whispering Pines has an excellent reputation for sports, and Kyle’s always wanted to see where I went to camp.”
A swirl of images comes charging at me like a freight train. Wood cabins, muddy trails, a musty dining hall, and way too much nature. McDaddy took Kyle and me there when we were eight because he had a camp reunion. Even when we couldn’t afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to go to sleepaway camp, I had no desire to go there. They don’t even have central air! How is a person supposed to survive without that most basic of needs? “So that’s it?” I sound shrill. “I don’t get a say at all?”