The Daughters Break the Rules

  Ava put her hands on her hips. “What about that two hundred dollars you still owe me?”

  Carina bit her lip. “I’m still working on that. And I promise I’ll get it to you. But for now, just let me get back to work.” She pulled her hair back from her face with her hands. “That sound okay?”

  Her hands still on her hips, Ava tapped her foot. “Fine. You’re rehired. But think of this as more of an unpaid internship.” She belted her sweater coat and headed toward the stairs. “And don’t forget those pastry bites. Those were awesome.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ava walked into the stairwell, and Carina could swear that she heard her sing a little under her breath as she clip-clopped down the steps.

  Hudson reappeared by her side. “I watched the whole thing,” she said. “Looks like it went well.”

  “You were right,” Carina said. “It sounds like the dance was gonna be a disaster.”

  “Whatever you do, get that DJ,” Hudson said as they walked into the stairwell. “If my first show is to an empty room, my mom’s gonna kill me.”

  chapter 30

  At seven thirty she climbed up out of the subway station and found herself back on the same bleak stretch of East Broadway she’d seen a month before. It looked even shabbier tonight, with nary a Christmas decoration in sight and an icy wind blowing in off the East River. She couldn’t remember how to find the entrance to Club Neshka, but when she saw the sad, blinking neon sign that read JOLLY CHAN’S she remembered the secret door. Please, God, let him at least smile when he sees me, she thought as she crossed the street. Or at least not be mad.

  She pulled open the heavy iron door and walked into the club. Unlike the last time she’d been here, it was almost empty. Without a sea of hipsters blocking the entrance she only had to wait a few seconds to adjust to the darkness and the twinkle of blue and white Christmas lights before she saw Alex, standing behind his turntables and nodding to the beat as he held a headphone up to one ear. It’s not about me, it’s about the party, she thought as she took a deep breath and headed over to him. Still, the lump in her throat was so big she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to speak.

  “Hey,” she asked as she came to stand in front of him. “You take requests?”

  His big brown eyes lit up just for a moment, and then turned cold. “Hey,” he said, lowering his headphone. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saying hi in person. Since it doesn’t seem to work over the phone.”

  Alex fidgeted with his headphones. “I’ve just been really busy. What do you want?”

  “Your help,” she said, deciding to cut right to the point. “The dance is going to be a complete disaster. Ava’s had the charity people plan it themselves and the DJ they got thinks Neil Diamond is hip. They need you. Desperately. Can you still do it?”

  Alex blinked. “It’s tomorrow night, Carina. And the last day of school before break. I have plans.”

  “He’s playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ as the first song,” she countered. “This is serious.”

  “And why should I care?” he asked as he pulled a Donna Summer album out of the milk crate.

  “Look, I know you’re mad at me,” she said, stepping behind the turntables. “And I don’t blame you. I was wrong. I screwed up. And I was a total coward on top of it. But now everyone at school knows I’m not who they thought. And I couldn’t care less.”

  Alex looked up at her. “You don’t?”

  “You were right. It was lame of me not to come clean to Ava. I mean, the girl wears leather jeans. Why should I care what she thinks?”

  Alex gave her a skeptical look.

  “Look. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin everything. I really didn’t. For you or Marisol. You’re one of the coolest people I’ve ever met, Alex. You really are. But even if you don’t want to be my friend again, please, please, please help us out. And if your sister can still loan us her artwork, that would be even better.”

  Alex dropped the needle onto Donna Summer. “Jeez. You really don’t beat around the bush.” He put down the album cover and looked right at her. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “You will?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I mean, what choice do I have? Neil Diamond?”

  “Thank you,” she said, clutching his arm. “Thank you so much. Really. You’re the best.”

  Alex glanced down at her hand on his arm. She let him go. She had to be careful with him now.

  “Well, I’m beat from exams,” she said, feeling her stomach growl. “But I’ll e-mail you the details and then see you tomorrow night. And thank you. Again.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said evenly.

  There was a pause as he looked at her in the dim light, and he seemed about to say something more. But then he slid his headphones back over his head. “See you tomorrow night,” he said.

  She walked to the door, feeling a strange mixture of pride and sadness. She’d done it. Everything was back on track. But there was something even more awkward between her and Alex now. As if there were still things left to say. She shook off the feeling as she opened the door. They’d had their chance to start something. But she’d blown it, and now she just had to get used to it.

  chapter 31

  By the time she got home, she was so hungry she barely gave Otto a wave before making a beeline to the kitchen. She pushed through the swinging door, ready to devour the contents of the fridge, when she saw something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

  There, elegantly placed on a cake stand, was a collection of the most beautiful cupcakes she’d ever seen in her life. Decadent-looking red velvet, chocolate with vanilla icing, carrot cake, and more flavors than she could even begin to guess. She had no idea where they’d come from until she saw the pink box sitting just to the side of the espresso machine. SUGARBABIES, read the girly scroll lettering on top. Then she opened the fridge. Crammed onto every shelf were more pink boxes. There had to be three hundred cupcakes in their kitchen.

  The door swung open and in walked Ed Bracken, wearing a charcoal double-breasted suit and a surprisingly genuine smile. “Hello, Carina.” He nodded toward the open fridge. “So, what do you think?”

  “Who… who ordered these?” she asked.

  “Your dad,” he said. “Well, actually, my assistant. But your father must have reminded her about eight times.”

  She stared back at the pink boxes, momentarily speechless.

  “He mentioned that you were trying to make some yourself, and there was no way he was going to let that happen.” Ed smiled at her, and this time it wasn’t a sneer. “I just brought them over. Your father loves you very much. I know you probably don’t realize that.”

  “At least he shows it with cupcakes,” she said, a little dazed. She let her book bag fall to the floor. “I just don’t get him sometimes. Does he confuse you as much as he confuses me?”

  “Sometimes.” Ed chuckled. “But I know more about him than you do. Things that would probably change your perception of him.”

  “Like what?” she asked. “How he runs a board meeting?”

  He ran a hand over his vanishing hair. “No. Other things. Like what happened with your mother,” Ed said carefully. “Those kinds of things. The things that make him a little more relatable, you could say.”

  Carina felt her skin start to get prickly. She didn’t want to talk about her mother. But she was curious. And it bugged her that Ed was dangling information in front of her. “What sort of things?” she asked.

  “Well, the fact that she broke his heart, for one thing,” he said. “And he’s never gotten over it.”

  “She broke his heart?” Carina almost laughed. “What? Are you kidding me?”

  Ed just looked at her with his watery blue eyes.

  “That’s not true,” she said. “He left her.”

  “Because she was in love with someone else,” he said calmly. “She married your father for his money. He found out
. That’s why it ended.” He looked straight at her, as if daring her to respond. “That’s the whole story.”

  “That’s a lie,” she said heatedly. “My dad was the one who cheated on her. I know that for a fact. I was in this house. I heard them talking about it. She cried about it every night. You weren’t here. Of course he would make up some story for you to make himself look better.”

  Ed shook his head somberly. “No, he never cheated on Mimi. Not once. He loved her too much. He didn’t even want to end the marriage. But when he realized that she couldn’t give this man up, he knew that he had to end things. He was too proud to go on like that. That was why he wanted to raise you,” he said. “He didn’t want you to grow up with the kind of values your mother had. Putting money ahead of everything else. He didn’t want you to end up making the same choices she did.”

  Carina tried to grab hold of Ed’s words and absorb them but her head was spinning. It was too much to believe. Too much to accept.

  But maybe, she thought, there was some truth in it. Why was it always so hard to reach her mom? And when she did, why was it so hard to have an actual conversation with her? Mimi would pick up the phone, but then she could never really talk for some reason. And when they would talk, they didn’t really talk. Carina hadn’t even wanted to tell her about being cut off. She knew that if she told her mom about it, she’d get nothing back, except for a lot of well-meaning words. It was as if her mom had let go of Carina after the divorce, little by little, first physically, and then mentally. Maybe if her mom hadn’t felt guilty about something, she would have fought harder to keep her.

  She picked up her book bag and turned toward the door. “I think I need to go upstairs now,” she said.

  “Carina? Are you okay? Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” he said.

  “No, no. I’m just… tired. Good-bye, Ed,” she muttered, feeling lost, and walked out of the room.

  She climbed the stairs up to her room and lay down on her bed, curled up on her side. The space inside her head felt like a merry-go-round. She shut her eyes, trying to calm the spinning feeling, trying to listen to the sound of her breathing. But she couldn’t. Every time she tried to clear her mind she went back to that night, the night she’d crouched in front of the closed door, listening to her parents fight.

  Maybe if you actually had feelings, maybe if you could be a person for a few minutes, I wouldn’t have to…

  She squeezed her eyes shut. This whole time, maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe her mother had wandered through the apartment with bloodshot eyes and cried in her bathroom not because of her father’s cruelty, but because she loved another man. Maybe she’d sacrificed love for security, and then she’d regretted it. Maybe the end of her parents’ marriage had been her mom’s fault. And all this time, she’d never known.

  She lay on her bed for a long time, thinking. Until there was a knock on her door.

  “Carina?” said her father through the door. “Can I come in?”

  She hoisted herself up. “Yeah!” she called out, trying to sound normal.

  The door opened, and her dad stood in the doorway. For a moment she thought back to that night just seven weeks ago, the night she’d posted that item online, when he’d burst through the door, out of breath and furious, his eyes like glittering dark coals. Now his eyes were gentle, his face soft, and when he got to the side of the bed he knelt on the floor beside it.

  “Ed told me he had a conversation with you,” he said stiffly. “I thought I should come in and try to discuss some of it with you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve tried,” he said gently. “So many times. That day in the kitchen, but you didn’t want me to.” He sighed. “And I never wanted to affect the way you thought of your mother. I know you still have a relationship with her.”

  “I wish I’d known,” she whispered, looking down. “I’m sorry I had the wrong idea.”

  “It’s okay, honey. You didn’t know. There was no way you could know. Not many people do.”

  Carina twisted the fringe on her pale blue throw pillow. “Did you really want me to live with you here?” she asked quietly. “Or did you just not want her to have me?”

  “Of course I wanted you,” he replied.

  “Then why don’t you look at me?” she asked.

  Her father blinked at her. “What?”

  “You don’t ever look at me. It’s like you forget I’m around. Or you don’t even want to remember.”

  His eyes got watery. “Oh, honey,” he said, his voice catching. “It’s just that you look so much like her. You’re the spitting image of your mother. It’s just hard for me sometimes.”

  The gentle tone of his voice was the only trigger she needed. Before she knew it, the burning in the back of her throat and behind her eyes gave way to sobs.

  She leaned into her dad, crying into his sleeve. It was as if all the years of not crying had built up inside of her into an unstoppable wave of tears. Strangely, she wasn’t even that embarrassed. He put his arms around her and she leaned against his suit, pressing her nose against his jacket.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She brushed the back of her hand across her nose and nodded.

  “We’re gonna be okay, C,” he said, tousling her hair. “I promise. We’re gonna be just fine.”

  There was still pain in her dad’s eyes but she knew that he was telling the truth. He was going to be okay. And she would be, too.

  He let her go and stood up. “By the way, there’s something else I want to talk to you about,” he said, steepling his hands. “I think it’s time we increased your allowance.”

  She sat up straighter. Despite her crying fit, she was definitely interested in this topic.

  “You’ve shown me that you can handle money. So let’s figure out an amount that sounds reasonable. But the Amex card stays with me.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “And one last thing. You might want to go in and talk to the Princess people,” he said. “Give them all your thoughts. I think you could really do them all some good.”

  “Dad, she’s totally in love with you.”

  “Who’s in love with me?” asked her dad, slightly alarmed.

  “Barb Willis. She’s totally got the hots for you. Just don’t break her heart too badly, okay?”

  The Jurg blushed. Carina was pretty sure she hadn’t seen that happen for years. “Uh, no. She does have the hots for someone. But not for me. For Ed.”

  “Ed?” she asked.

  Her dad nodded. “They started dating a couple of weeks ago. I’ve got to hand it to him. He came right out and called her up. Something’s gotten into him the past few weeks. He’s gotten much more… confident,” he said.

  Carina instantly remembered her love notes and fought the urge to crack up. “I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on him, you know,” her dad said. “He really does like you a lot.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “And I’ll call Barb. But only on one condition.”

  Her father raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “That you’re fine with the fact that I may never work for you,” she said evenly. “And that I may not ever go to Wharton. Or even get an MBA.”

  A small smile crept across his face. “You realize that you already have what it takes to be a ruthless businesswoman,” he said.

  “Dad.”

  “Okay, it’s a deal,” he said.

  “And thanks for the cupcakes,” she said. “I got rehired today, so they’ll definitely come in handy. That was very cool of you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “And if you need help with anything else, just ask me. Oh, I almost forgot.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Open it,” he said, handing it to her.

  Holding her breath, she slid her finger along the crease and opened it. Inside were two tickets to the Silver Snowflake Ball. Two
hundred dollars each. Already paid for.

  “Dad,” she said, stunned. “You really didn’t have to—”

  “I know.” Her dad shook his head. “You earned it. You worked harder for that than anyone else who’s going.”

  She gulped again. “Thanks,” she said simply. “But I don’t know who to take.”

  Her dad wagged his finger at her. “Just promise me it won’t be that Carter kid.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s so over with.”

  “Good,” he said, and smiled just before he walked out.

  Carina sat on her bed staring at the tickets in her hand for a long time. It was just a dance, and there was no Prince Charming in sight, but she felt like Cinderella. And as she sat there holding the tickets, she knew exactly who she would take.

  Maybe there really were happy endings in real life, she thought. Or at least new beginnings.

  chapter 32

  “Okay, this is good,” Carina said as Max glided to a stop at the curb. “Just wait here.”

  “Take your time,” Max said, winking at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Thanks, Max. Wish me luck.”

  She stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk, carefully avoiding a patch of ice in her four-inch heels. The wind blew up underneath her coat and across her bare shoulders, and the freesia perfume she’d sprayed on her neck wafted up from under her scarf. There’d been only a few times she’d gotten this dressed up before, and now as she walked past the usual flock of paparazzi into the apartment building, teetering on her heels, she felt them watching her. It didn’t matter that she was wearing a dress that she’d rocked a few times before and jewelry and a bag she’d borrowed from Hudson. She knew she looked pretty, and after the past several weeks of wearing turtlenecks and jeans, it felt wonderful.

  Inside the cozy lobby, a doorman looked up from his desk. “She’ll be right down,” he announced.

  “Cool,” she said, taking a seat on the couch near a tall, skinny Christmas tree. She tapped her foot nervously and scratched at a shaving cut on her knee. Of all of the people she’d disappointed and alienated over the past few weeks, Lizzie was the only one she hadn’t made up with yet, so it made sense to ask Lizzie to go with her. The drive down to the ball would be the most time they’d spent together in weeks. But the fact that she’d responded so quickly to her text about the dance had to mean that Lizzie wasn’t mad at her anymore, and that was a relief. Going to this dance without having Lizzie there would be like not even going to it at all. And of course, Hudson was already at the Pierre right now, preparing for her debut appearance.