CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eventually Oliver has to leave because he and his brothers are staying with their dad this week and he needs to get uptown. We all follow him out to say goodbye, and he seems surprised and then genuinely touched by all the fuss, waving before he disappears at the end of the block.
“Hey, gang,” says Teddy’s mom, holding her own version of what appears to be The Teddy. Despite being doctors, you can always count on his family to maximize their dessert horizons. “I’m being told to assemble the crew for cake in five.”
We file in and I scan the room for my dad, knowing he has a way of wandering away from crowds. When I don’t immediately see a tall head with slightly askew sandy hair I head over to the greenroom.
To be clear, the greenroom is anything but. It’s actually just as smack-you-in-the-face pink as the Milkshake Club itself, only instead of looking like Hello Kitty’s living room it looks like Hello Kitty threw a rave. I’m pretty sure there isn’t an inch of it that doesn’t sparkle. I find my dad standing in the corner, by the wall where the bands who headline get to sign their names. On the very edge of it is a height chart, two dozen little markers with scribbled dates that go all the way up to five foot four and then abruptly stop.
This is one of the rare moments I keep my voice quiet on purpose. My dad has a tendency of getting so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t hear people walk into a room.
“What are you up to?”
My dad still flinches, but he’s smiling by the time he turns to see me. But when he follows my eyes back to the wall, he lets out a sigh. “Just trying to figure out why we let you grow up.”
I walk up next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. “I’m stubborn that way.”
He wraps an arm around my shoulder and squeezes it. “I missed you.”
“Yeah. Me too,” I say.
For a moment neither of us says anything, and that is the inconvenient moment the guilt of what I’ve been doing starts to work its way up my chest and all the way to the space between my ears, where it feels like it’s suddenly roaring. Like if I don’t say something about it right now it’ll just come bursting out of me anyway, whether I want it to or not.
But then my dad takes his hand off my shoulder and sits down on a sparkly pink blow-up chair. “Listen,” he says, and then it becomes clear that he is planning to have a heart-to-heart in said sparkly pink blow-up chair. I take a seat in the one next to him. “I know the admissions department contacted you.”
I nod. “You told them I wasn’t coming.”
“I hope you know I wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it. I didn’t realize telling her I didn’t want to put a deposit in that day meant that they might give up your spot.” He fiddles with his glasses, something else still working its way out. “And anyway, I thought when you started taking the dance classes that maybe you were reconsidering the whole thing.”
In his defense, I hadn’t really planned on taking them. I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Farrah. A huge perk of the precollege is knowing that I got in already, even without the dance skills—I might not be so lucky up against legitimately trained dancers at the bigger-name schools.
“I … I still really want to go.”
“Okay. Well—how about this weekend, we take them up on one of those virtual admissions tours. Talk to some of the teachers.”
“Really?”
“I’m not saying yes. I’m just saying we’ll check it out. Get a feel for things.” He pats a hand on my knee. “I appreciate you being patient with me on this. And not…”
Overreacting is the word he’s looking for, but my dad’s too easygoing to ever come right out and say it. That’s Heather’s job. And if she were here right now, she’d know from one quick glance at my face that overreacting is exactly what I’ve done.
“Well,” I say hollowly. “It’s important to me.”
“I can tell.” He gets up abruptly then. “And I’ll try to keep an open mind. I hear cake helps with that.”
“Oh yeah?”
He opens the door to the greenroom for me. “Yeah. Plus, I heard a rumor a friend of Heather’s found a bakery that does Nutella between the layers.”
My mouth starts watering. “For real? What kind of—”
I see it the split second before my dad does, but not fast enough to process it. He walks out, sees Heather and Farrah pressed up against each other in the middle of one extremely passionate kiss in the back hall, and his jaw drops so fast I swear I can hear a clicking noise.
I yank him back and close the door. The two of us stare at each other with identically wide eyes.
There’s a knock at the door. “Millie? Are you in there?”
My dad and I continue to stare at each other, frozen. He finally nudges me to talk.
“Uh—yes?”
The door creaks open, Heather sheepishly stepping in front of it.
“So.” She touches a hand to her lips, like she’s half talking to us and half still out canoodling in the hall. “Farrah and I … are kind of a thing.”
“You are?” my dad and I ask at the same time.
Heather nods, so dreamy-eyed from the kissing that she doesn’t register our mutual surprise.
“Since when?” I ask.
My dad turns to me. “You know Farrah?”
Heather is apparently so far gone that she doesn’t even make the connection that my dad has, in fact, said Farrah’s name out loud.
“She’s Millie’s dance teacher.” After Heather says that out loud, it seems to rattle her back into the reality of what I have just witnessed with my bare human eyes. “I meant to tell you. It all just kind of—happened the past few days. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Uh,” I squeak. I blink, hard, but it does not erase the image of what very well may have been my aunt making out with my mom.
“She was only here because she left her MetroCard … but is it okay if she stays?”
“Of course,” I manage, because what am I supposed to say? Hey, good for you for finally getting over the manipulative asshat who’s been jerking you around for years, but maybe don’t do it with my potential mom?
Heather bops me on the nose with her finger. “Excellent. We’ll go get those candles ready.”
She leaves us standing in the open doorway, my dad just far enough behind me that I can’t see his face but can still feel his surprise. I close my eyes, but I don’t turn around. I know the moment that I do I’m going to have some kind of answer—I’ll see it in his eyes and know whether or not Farrah is my mom without having to ask.
But when I turn, his eyes are crinkling like he’s on the verge of laughing.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. “Except no. Because now I have to figure out how to tell my sister we’ve made out with the same woman without laying on the floor and hoping the elements take me.”
Let it be known that my flair for drama was not created in a void.
“Dad.”
He shakes his head again, more aggressively this time. “Nope, nope, I should not have said that.” He smiles, clearly waiting for me to tease him, and that’s when I know for sure: Farrah’s not my mom.