Kat and Meg Conquer the World

by Anna Priemaza

  I POUND ON THE DOOR. THEN POUND AGAIN. AND AGAIN.

  After about a million knocks, it finally clicks open. Stephen-the-Leaver stands in the doorway in his plaid pajama pants and oversized T-shirt, lines from the sheets etched into his cheek as if he was already sleeping. Which he probably was. He always went to bed idiotically early.

  “Oh, you’re back,” he says, then yawns and turns to look at the bedside clock. “It’s not even eleven yet.”

  Turned sideways, he no longer fills the doorframe, and I push past him into the room. As the door clicks shut, we turn to face each other like we’re about to duel. “You left!” I shout. “How could you do that to me? How could you leave like that?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to come to—oh, not that YouTuber thing.” He wipes the sleep out of his eye and studies me. “You mean the divorce. Meg, you’re old enough to understand how these things work. Your mom and I, we just didn’t love—”

  “No, not Mom. I mean me. How could you leave me like that? You didn’t leave the halflings. You pick them up all those weekends, and on Wednesdays and special occasions, and I was just supposed to—what did you say, call you whenever I wanted? For like the first six months, you never even tried to call me.”

  He runs his hand over his scalp. “You were so angry. I thought you just needed some—”

  “What, because a girl’s never been mad at her dad before?”

  My cheeks flush hot, and I wish I could take the d word back. He doesn’t think of me like that—not anymore, and apparently not ever. He was my dad, but I was not his daughter. My eyes brim with tears, but I blink them back. I’ve cried enough tonight. I am not going to cry in front of him.

  I stand as tall and straight as I can. “I didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I might have ADHD and be annoying sometimes and have trouble holding on to friends and not understand math, but I’m brave and funny and . . . inspiring, even. You may never have thought of me as your daughter, but you still shouldn’t have treated me like that.”

  “Meg.” He takes a step toward me, rubs his eye again. “Is that what you think? That I didn’t think of you as my daughter?”

  “That’s what you told the judge.”

  His brow furrows. “Did your mother tell you that?”

  “No! Don’t bring Mom into this. I read it. In the court documents. They were in Mom’s desk.” I’ve pictured it so many times—how he must have stood there, in the courtroom, saying those awful words. “How could you say that? How could you say it in front of Mom and the judge and everybody?”

  His face falls. “Oh, Meg. I hate that you had to read that. Those were just legal arguments. I didn’t even go to court, my lawyer did. I would have had to pay way more money for child support than your mom needs, and my lawyer suggested— Never mind, I just— You and I were so close. I thought we could sort it out ourselves, without any court order. Just you and me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He closes the distance between us and crushes me to him. I don’t hug him back, just stand up straight, blinking and blinking away even the thought of tears. I refuse to cry.

  Am I really supposed to believe that? Am I supposed to believe he’d tell a judge—or let his lawyer tell a judge or whatever—that I wasn’t his kid if he didn’t fully, deeply believe it?

  He releases me and takes a half step back. “Meg, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made it about the money. I should have known that might hurt you, and you’re so much more important than money.

  “And I’m so sorry I took so long to call you after your mom and I split up. I told your mom you could call me anytime, and when I didn’t hear from you, I thought you were just taking your mom’s side. She was so angry with me. I thought with a bit of time, you’d come around and we could start figuring out time to spend together, maybe plan some trips together. I didn’t realize waiting would make it feel like I didn’t want to spend time with you at all. I should have asked you, should have talked to you right away. I’m sorry.”

  I shove my hands into my blazer pockets. “It’s fine. I get it. I’m not your kid.”

  “You are, though. How can I—I just—I want to—” He pauses, wordless, unable to argue further because there’s no further argument he can make. Then he reaches over to the side table and grabs a black wallet with fraying lime-green trim. “Look,” he says, “when people ask me about my kids, this is what I show them.” He holds it out to me. “Open it.”

  Open it? I can tell just by looking at it that it’s the one I gave him for Christmas a few years ago, but that proves nothing; I use his gifts all the time, and I still hate him.

  I rip open the Velcro clasp. If he wants to try to bribe me with money, that’s better than nothing. I think.

  The wallet opens like a book. One about the halflings. Because there’s Nolan on the left, serious and worried, glasses slightly askew—his most recent school photo—and Kenzie on the right, with her goofball grin and more plastic ponies than she should be able to hold clutched to her chest. Kenzie and I look more like Stephen than Nolan does, but they’re his blood and I’m not, and that’s the only thing that matters, apparently.

  I snap the wallet closed and shove it back at him.

  “No,” he says. “Not that.” He opens it again, to credit cards this time, then flips past bank cards and memberships, back to Nolan and Kenzie at the front. Then one more flip, to the very first page.

  It’s me, beaming, mid-laugh. Behind me, a swimming polar bear clings to a floating barrel. It’s from that day at the zoo. I’m wearing the faded yellow T-shirt I still have tucked away in the back of my closet, even though it hasn’t fit me in years.

  I look happy.

  “Your mom gave me this year’s school photos,” he says, “but I like this one best.” He closes the wallet and taps it against his palm. “This is what I show people when they ask about my kids. All three of you.

  “Meg, I’ve been trying to connect with you. I’ve been calling, texting, asking your mom to have you call me. I’ve got a bedroom for you all set up at my place that I keep hoping you’ll use.”

  “You do?” I’m not sure what to say to that. Has he had a bedroom for me this whole time? Kenzie and Nolan have never mentioned it. Maybe he just means a guest room. I can’t bring myself to ask.

  The blankets on the bed behind him are thrown back. A sleeping mask and earplugs lie abandoned on the nightstand. He was definitely sleeping. The fluorescent red letters on the clock read 10:59.

  It’s true that he’s been calling. Or at least, he was before I blocked him. So maybe it’s true that he tells people I’m his kid. Maybe I do have a bedroom—a place where I belong—at his house. Or maybe he’s lying.

  Or maybe he’s not.

  He’s never lied to me before, but even if he’s not lying, is any of that enough?

  The numbers on the clock transform to 11:00, and an obnoxious beeping blares out of it.

  “My alarm,” Stephen says sheepishly as he strides over to it, “to get up and make sure you were back.” He smacks the button on top, silencing it. I tug at one of my curls, then catch myself and stop. He said I had to be back by eleven, but I didn’t think it actually mattered to him. I didn’t think he cared. He turns back to me. “You are inspiring,” he says once he reaches me. “You are witty and adventurous and brilliant, and you make every minute of life interesting. But I need you to understand something.” He takes me by the shoulders again, stares straight into my eyes. “Even if you weren’t—if you were obnoxious and conceited and the most boring blob of nothingness to sit on the face of this earth—I would still love you as my daughter.”

  “Shut up,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure whether I actually want him to. He’s giving me the words I need to hear, and they feel like a gift—though I’m not sure yet whether they’re more like the tablet or the skateboard or the polar bear or something else entirely.

  “Meg, the fact that I’ve missed out on almost two years of your life
is the saddest thing in mine,” he says, then wraps me in another hug.

  I still don’t hug him back; I’m still not sure how I feel. But this time, when the tears come, I let them.

  CHAPTER 25

  KAT

  THE CONVENTION CENTER SWARMS WITH PEOPLE, BUT IT’S OKAY BECAUSE they’re all nerds like me, and because Meg has her arm through mine, so it’s pretty much impossible to get separated and lost. (Universe, please don’t take that as a challenge.)

  We stayed up late last night—talking, and watching Friends reruns, and eating salt-and-vinegar chips and Rolos and Kit Kats from the vending machine—but I don’t feel tired. I am at LotSCON. In Toronto. With my best friend. Who looks more alive than she has in months. Her eyes are still red-rimmed from all the crying, but whatever powerless darkness kept trying to move in there is completely gone.

  “What do you want to do first?” I ask. “We could go to the vendors’ hall or the play-testing area, or go line up for that panel.”

  “Are you kidding? You know Syth is here, right? You have to go meet him!”

  “Uh, no, that’s okay. Maybe if there’s time later. Let’s just go to—”

  “Dude! You went to the airport and rode on a plane and found my hotel room and sat in a dark hallway for hours all by yourself. You can definitely manage to say two words to a guy you’ve already talked to about a million times.”

  One heart attack . . . two be brave . . .

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay. I’ll send him an email.” I pull out my phone before I can lose my nerve. “No guarantees that he’ll get it in time, though. What should I tell him? I could meet him somewhere tomorrow. Maybe at two, after the cosplay contest?”

  Three I can do this . . . four I can—

  “I already texted him. I told him you’d meet him at the food court at eleven.”

  “Oh. Okay. Um. Okay.” I lock my phone, stick it back in my pocket. “Wait, eleven today?”

  “Correct. Let’s go.” She steps away from me and gestures for me to follow her like I’m a small child.

  “Meg, that’s in like ten minutes!” Whatever bravado I felt a moment ago is gone. My hands are instantly clammy. Five stutter . . . six awkward silence . . . seven I can’t do this . . .

  Meg grabs my arm and pulls me through the convention center. My feet move as if they’re disconnected from my brain. Because my brain is saying, “No, abort, abort! Stop! Don’t move!” But as Meg guides me along, my feet just keep moving.

  Then we’re at the food court. I don’t know how we got here, because I didn’t see the vendors’ hall or the information booths or the bathrooms, or anything other than the hazy outline of my ballet flats. I force myself to look around.

  It’s not even really lunchtime yet, but the food court is already buzzing with people.

  Eleven I can’t do this . . . twelve overcooked pizza . . . thirteen I can’t do this . . .

  “How’re we supposed to even find him?” I ask, a little more frantically than I would like. “I don’t even know what he looks like.”

  “I sent him your picture like a million years ago. He’ll find us.”

  “You what?”

  “There. See?” She points.

  A lone guy in jeans and a blue knit sweater is winding his way through the crowd, only a few tables away. I can feel Meg stepping away from me. “Don’t leave me,” I whisper, but when I look over my shoulder, she’s grinning at me in a way that makes me think, just for a moment, that I actually can do this.

  Then she’s gone.

  And then he’s here.

  He’s tall, and scrawny thin, with white skin, blond hair, and a spattering of freckles across his nose. Behind his thick-framed glasses, his brown eyes are warm. He’s cute, in a nerdy sort of way.

  “Kat?” he asks.

  “Dan?”

  He holds out his hand, and we shake, like we’re having a business meeting, which for some reason calms me a little.

  He pushes his glasses up with one finger. “I thought you weren’t coming to this.” It’s strange hearing a voice I know so well coming out of a stranger’s mouth. We’ve never used video chat. I worried that he’d be too handsome and I’d be terrified to talk to him. And sometimes, on days I’m not so proud of, I worried that he’d be too ugly. But he’s neither.

  “It was a last-minute thing,” I say.

  “You haven’t been online in a while. I was starting to worry. Is everything okay? Like, with Meg?”

  I’ve been so busy worrying about Meg lately that I’ve barely had time to play. “Yeah, I think it is now. Thanks.”

  We talk for a few minutes about nothing—about the convention, about the friends he came with who are off at some panel, about the weather—and as we do, the voice starts to fit better and better with his face, like when you’re staring at a Magic Eye and you finally get your eyes to relax, and suddenly the 3D picture pops into view.

  “Hey,” he says, pushing his glasses up again, “I didn’t get a chance to tell you my good news.”

  “Good news?” I parrot.

  “Yeah.” He puts his hands on his hips, then into his pockets, like he’s not quite sure what to do with them. “I got accepted to the University of Alberta. In Edmonton.”

  My heart and my throat and my stomach all constrict at once. If he came out to Edmonton, then he’d probably want to meet in person again. Which would be okay, I guess, but then what if we started dating, and he liked me, but then he stopped liking me, and then we stopped dating, and then he was stuck in the endless winter of Alberta with no family nearby for four whole years and it was all my fault?

  “I mean, I wouldn’t come out there just ’cause of you or anything, of course,” he says quickly, as if he can read my mind. “But, you know, they’re the only ones who’ve offered me a scholarship so far, so, um, it’s the obvious choice.”

  I don’t mean to frown. I don’t mean to feel sad at all, but I do, suddenly. He’s coming out for the scholarship, not for me. I look down at my feet. “That’s cool.”

  “But Kat?”

  I look up at him. His eyes are so deliciously, perfectly warm, like hot fudge. “Yeah?”

  “If I did come out there—I mean, to Alberta—I mean, to go to school and stuff—would you, um, would you go on a date with me?”

  I bite my lip, then stop. Meg is always telling me to stop that.

  One balloons . . . two rainbows and lollipops . . . three newborn kittens . . .

  “I—yeah, I would. If you asked me.”

  He grins. His smile is a little crooked, the kind of imperfection that only makes him more adorable.

  I’ve talked to Dan for hours at a time on VoiceChat, but suddenly, I can’t think of a single thing to say.

  Meg bumps into my side, coming out of nowhere. “Hey, Syth,” she says.

  “Meg, hey.” He’s still grinning.

  “We were going to go to the Wereboars versus Mutant Rabbits panel,” Meg says. “Want to join us?”

  “Sure. If that’s okay.” He looks to me for confirmation, and I nod.

  Meg loops her arm through mine, and then we’re off, with Dan trotting along after us. The conference room’s already filling up when we arrive, but we manage to find three empty seats in the fourth row from the back, and we file in—Meg, then me, then Dan. His knee bumps against mine as he sits down next to me.

  As the panel starts, Meg leans toward me and whispers in my ear. “Dude, why are you smiling?”

  “Oh, shut up.” I elbow her in the ribs. She just winks at me.

  But I am smiling. I’m smiling because my best friend is beside me, because I’m at a super-nerd convention, because I survived a deathly plane ride to get here, and because, as the panelists begin to debate whether a wereboar or a mutant rabbit would win in a fight, Dan slips his slightly trembling hand into mine.

  MEG

  WEEKENDS ARE WAY TOO SHORT. LIKE, SERIOUSLY, THEY SHOULD PASS A LAW to make them longer, because who likes them that short, really? />
  Sunday evening, Kat and I are in the airport, waiting for our flight in the deathly boring seating area at our gate. All they have is chairs and a television too quiet to hear. Whoop-de-do. Would it kill them to maybe bring in some musicians or dancers? I’d even settle for a magician.

  Kat doesn’t look bored. She’s just staring off into the distance, grinning stupidly. It’s better than her thinking about the flight, though. She already puked once this morning thinking about having to fly back alone, but after some negotiating at the check-in counter, complete with some particularly charming arguments from yours truly, we managed to switch the flights around so Stephen took her spot and she could fly back with me, and she’s been better since then. Less white face, more googly eyes.

  When we saw Stephen—Dad? I haven’t decided if I should go back to calling him that—off at his gate, I let him hug me again, and that was okay. He still smells of sweat and wood, even after being away from the shop for an entire weekend. I don’t know how he does it. Maybe next time I’ll hug him back. Maybe.

  I texted Grayson yesterday. Nothing rambly. Just, I’m sorry about before. I thought he wasn’t going to respond, but this morning my phone chirped with his reply. Me too.

  Kat’s still grinning. I elbow her for like the hundredth time.

  “Shut up,” she says, for like the hundredth time. Then she sits up straight. “Oh my gosh, Meg, look. Over there.”

  I try to follow her finger, but the airport is busy with people. A middle-aged East Indian man buying a newspaper and a chocolate bar. Two young white kids running up and down the enormous hallway, shrieking with laughter as they chase each other in a seemingly lawless game of tag. A young white woman knitting a fuzzy orange scarf without even looking at her needles. I have no idea where Kat wants me to be looking.

  “Come on.” Kat hops up and hurries away. I grab my bag and hurry after her. She weaves through the shrieking children, loops around a Starbucks kiosk, and marches toward another gate, stopping just short of the last row of chairs. She looks down at the guy sitting in the final seat. His legs stretch out less than a foot away from her.