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"I don't quite follow you," I said. "The girls told me you knew they were at the party," said Mara.
I was sure I must have misheard her. "Excuse me?!"
She repeated herself, carefully enunciating each syllable. "They said you knew they were at the
party. Apparently you even picked them up in a cab when it was over."
I looked down at my stepsisters. Clearly they'd decided trouble is like a pie--the bigger my piece,
the smaller theirs.
"Are you implying that's not what happened?" Mara asked. She tried to make it sound like she actually cared about my answer, which was a total joke. No way was she entertaining the
possibility that her precious angels were lying through their teeth.
It was a good thing I'd put the glass down on the table because if I hadn't, I might have thrown it
at her. Was it only a few minutes ago that I'd been happy about the prospect of a meal with my
family? Now I had the urge to leap across the room and strangle all of them-- Mara, Emma, and
Amy. No, wait. Maybe what I should do was strangle my stepsisters, then rip one of Mara's
expensive Italian leather boots off her foot and drive the heel like a spike right through her heart.
The refrigerator clicked on in the silence. As its engine whirred, I picked up the juice glass, put it
back
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into the cabinet, walked over to the fridge, and put the juice away. The whole time, nobody said
a word.
When I got to the basement door, I turned and faced my stepmother. "You know what, Mara? I'm
not implying anything."
I opened the door to my dungeon and pulled it shut behind me.
It was almost noon by the time the cab pulled up and I heard my dad walking into the house.
"Hello?" he called. "Hello, anybody home?" Mara answered him, but I didn't. I just lay on my bed, listening to Roxy Music on my iPod and thinking about how mad I was. How mad I was at
him.
It didn't take long before there was a knock at my door.
"Lucy?"
"Yeah?"
He opened the door and started downstairs.
"Lucy, I need to talk with you," he said, his foot hitting the bottom step. His voice sounded tired, and I remembered he'd spent most of the night in an airport.
"I don't really feel like talking, Dad," I said. I didn't sit up, and I didn't take off my headphones.
For a second I let myself enjoy the insane fantasy that he wasn't coming to talk to me about what
had happened with Emma and Amy, he was coming to talk to me about something completely
different. Lucy, last night at O'Hare I had an
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epiphany. What a nightmare you've been living. I am so incredibly sorry for everything I've put
you through, and I hope you can forgive me. Mara and I are getting a divorce. You and I are
moving back to San Francisco. Please pack up your stuff and be ready to leave for the airport in
an hour.
"Lucy, this is all very upsetting to me. What exactly happened last night?"
I sat up. "What is it you'd like to know, exactly}"
He seemed surprised by my answer, or maybe it was just my tone. Either way, he hesitated for a
second before saying, "Well... I guess I'd like to know what's going on."
I took my earphones out. "Really, Dad? Would you really like to know what's going on?"
He shook his head from side to side, already annoyed. "Lucy, you--"
"Okay, Dad, why don't I tell you what's going on. Here's what's going on. You get married. You
move me out here, you leave me with these people I barely know, you act like we're all supposed
to magically become this family, and then you run back to San Francisco so you can get to work
on your 'big case.' So you can get to be the happy, bi-coastal newlywed who doesn't have to give
up the biggest, greatest, most important, most fabulous, most incredible, most important, most
mind-boggling case in the universe. You just dump me here and--"
"Lucy, I didn't dump you here. You live here. This is your--"
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"Oh, wait, wait, wait!" I said, waving my arms. "Let me guess. Um ..." I put my hand up to my forehead and closed my eyes, like a game-show contestant who just needs a few seconds more to
think of the right answer. "It's my ... home. Right? Am I right, Dad?" I nodded my head with
fake enthusiasm.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the banister. "Lucy, I thought we'd talked about how
sarcasm isn't really helpful."
"Oh really, Dad? Then you tell me. What's helpful? What's helpful, Dad? Because let me tell you
something. This is not my home." I pointed at him. "You're my home. You, Dad. Not Mara. Not Emma and Amy. You. Or you were. But I guess I don't really have a home anymore, now do I?
And I guess that's not all that important to you, is it? That's just not as big a deal as your great big
case." I stared at him for a long minute, and then I lay back down and felt around the bed for my
headphones.
For a long beat, my dad was quiet, and then he said, "Lucy, it's--"
"You know what, Dad, I really don't feel like talking to you anymore. So if you don't mind, could
you please leave me alone?" I slipped my earphones back on and turned up the volume as loud as
I could stand it.
My dad didn't move, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was gone.
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Chapter Twenty-six
I spent almost the whole weekend downstairs, sleeping or pretending to be asleep, not bothering
to pick up my cell when it rang or to check my voice mail. The last thing I could deal with was
telling Connor, Jessica, and Madison that I'd chosen the week before prom to tell my dad off in a
way that guaranteed I'd be grounded for life. When I heard my dad and Mara go out for dinner
Saturday night, I went upstairs and made a peanut-butter sandwich, then grabbed two bags of
baby carrots and a box of Muslix to see me through. Sunday afternoon, Emma and Amy's dad
dropped them off; later one or both of them knocked at my door, but I didn't respond.
I got up early Monday morning; the house was quiet and my dad's briefcase was still in the
downstairs hallway, which was unusual but not unprecedented. Once in a while he flew out to
California on Monday morning
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instead of Sunday evening. How ironic--the first time in months he was around for an extra night
and we weren't speaking to each other.
At lunch on my way to the studio, I ran into Connor.
"Yo, Red," he said. "Why didn't you call me back?" He slung his arm around my shoulder and started walking me in the same direction he'd been headed.
"Oh, god," I said. "I was having the worst weekend." It felt really nice to have Connor's arm around me as we walked together.
"That sucks, Red," he said. "You want to come to the gym with me?" He mimed lifting a set of free weights. "You know--root for the home team." He adopted the posture of a bodybuilder
posing for admirers. "Me and Dave and Matt are gonna lift for a while. It'll be so much cooler if
you're there."
Connor circled me, dribbling an imaginary basketball. "And he moves it up the court. He sets up