CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Riley

IN ONE EAR, DAD IS telling me to dig out one of my nice outfits for dinner at some fancy-pants restaurant, and in the other ear, Phoebe is saying lewd things about dicks.

“Sorry, Dad?” I say, covering the phone’s mic with one finger. I’m pretty sure this does nothing, but Mom and I used to watch a lot of old movies, and in them people always covered mouthpieces when speaking to someone in the room.

And still I hear Phoebe say, “I’ll bet it’s all big and throbbing.”

The sensory distraction is intense. If I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, I’m going to look like an idiot. And I haven’t been making wonderful decisions lately, so this feels possible. I don’t want to tell Phoebe what I’m in the middle of being invited/instructed to attend. And I really don’t want to talk to my father about Brandon Grant’s groin.

Dad practically rolls his eyes. I know this look. It’s the indulgent expression he used to give me when I lived at home, when I was ignoring my household chores to gossip with friends.

“I said, are you sure you really want to come? It’s just boring. All business.”

And Phoebe says, “I’d like to get me some of that.”

I look at my father and try to make my face serious. It isn’t easy because my posture doesn’t exactly say professional. Dad’s looking at me like I’m a kid chatting inanely with my friends on the phone, and I’m lying in bed, on my stomach, legs kicked up behind me. And Phoebe is talking about penises.

“Of course, Dad.” I want to know all about the business.”

He clearly doesn’t believe me. I’m still his little girl. I like pretty things, and I’ve never suffered a day in my life as far as he’s concerned, other than what we both went through with Mom. I’ve never thought about business like he does and never will, because I can’t. That’s what his eyes say. So I sit up and move to the bed’s edge. I can’t make my face too straight-arrow, or it’ll look like I’m trying for an affect. I go for neutral while I hear Phoebe’s tinny voice saying, “So are you going to go for it with him or not?”

I can’t answer because I’m busy trying to appear interested in Life of Riley operations. But I’m sure Dad heard her, based on the way his face kind of sighs into Of course and Girls will be girls.

I hang up. Almost immediately, Phoebe is calling me back. Dad looks at the phone as if to ask if I’d rather continue my inane chatter about boys, so I stab it into Do Not Disturb almost as if I’m angry at it.

“Sweetie, why don’t you just stay home? I keep telling you, it’ll bore you to tears.”

If he hadn’t said “Sweetie,” I might reconsider. But my father’s eyes are moving between my phone, my pajama pants, and my bedspread, which is one of the old ones with princesses on it. I’m okay being a princess girl until I’m eighty, but not if it’s going to make Dad unable to see that I’m not still twelve.

“You always come back from dinners with good ideas. I want to be in on one.” I attempt to pull my ace. “I should be, if my name is part of the company.”

“Riley … ”

“That’s the name,” I say.

There’s a moment where it looks like he might challenge me, but then it passes and he sort of sighs. We’ve had this discussion halfway about ten times in the past month, and most of them have happened since I got home. In my mind, my trajectory is clear. Some day, my father is going to retire. I doubt that’ll happen for a long time — maybe thirty years or more. But until then, I want a piece of this company. Not in terms of money, but in terms of legacy. Today, I’m a lowly intern. I’m okay with working my way up in order to learn the ins and outs — and, really, I’d prefer it to senseless nepotism. But I’m only okay with it if I see my upside trajectory. If he’ll let me try what I want to try, and learn what I want to learn.

“It’s just going to be numbers and deals. And it’s at the Montgomery Club. Wouldn’t you rather go to — ”

“To the Nosh Pit?” I interrupt. “Or maybe the malt shop, to snap my bubblegum and swing dance in my poodle skirt?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not even that old. How the hell do kids your age even know 1950s clichés?”

“Clichés about being brainless teenagers?”

He softens another degree, his lips pressing together. He looks like he might sit beside me on the bed and explain why I should be realistic and aim lower, so I shift to the middle so there’s no room. I’m not looking for a condescending lecture. I’m looking for my father’s willingness to give me a chance. He doesn’t even need to respect me yet. I just need to see that it might come down the road, after I’ve proved myself a bit.

“Yes,” I say, backtracking all the way to the start of this conversation to answer his original question, “I’m sure I want to go.”

“I guess it’s just as well. I told him to bring someone. Maybe it won’t be all dry and dull.”

I’m about to comment that I want dry and dull — I want to know about expansion potential, capital investment, and ten-year plans — when something stops me.

He said him. I’d assumed there’d be a few of us at this business dinner, but apparently there’s just one other person. One other person who seems to be bringing a playmate to keep me occupied while the men talk business.

“Who?” I ask.

“Brandon Grant. I told you that.”

Maybe he did. I honestly can’t recall. I horned in on this the second I caught wind of it, but I did that with a bunch of stuff at once. I get to sit in the corner at the next board meeting and poke around in the restricted portion of the company intranet, too.

“Why are you having dinner with Brandon?”

And right then, my phone buzzes. I either didn’t put it in DND after all, or Phoebe can bust through Apple’s privacy settings.

Dad’s indulgent smile returns, and he glances at my phone as if to tell me I should take it because something juicy that only girls understand might be in the works. And just like that, my almost foothold is practically gone. He’s out the door … and the last thing he saw me do before leaving was react to Brandon’s name and to the siren song of my phone.

I answer, and Phoebe says, “Your phone accidentally hung up on me. So. Now. You were asking if I’d heard anything about what Brandon might be telling people about his job?”

No. I wasn’t asking that at all.

“I’ll bet he’s into you, too,” Phoebe says, not even answering her own question straight on.

“I don’t care what he’s into. I barely know him.”

But Phoebe is already distracted. Already off on something else. It’s like she has ADD with no recollection of the things she says from minute to minute.

But I’m not distracted.

My mind is laser-focused on tonight’s dinner.

And as much as I want to back out of dedicated time to embarrass myself in front of Brandon again — along with his date, if I’m reading Dad right — I sure can’t do it now.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t drool all over him.”

I shouldn’t have told her about our little side trip down to the creek. I shouldn’t have admitted to my little bout of missing my mother because of course Phoebe turned it into something about Brandon, who was just unfortunate enough to be there when I made a fool of myself.

I tell her that I have to go then hang up. And this time, I’m sure to hit Do Not Disturb.

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about Brandon so much. He’s probably too old for me. We’re too different. He’s got a beard. And he’s the man Dad seems to be grooming as a high-ranking right hand. The kind of person, in the kind of highly visible prestige position, that my father would expect me to go all girly over.