After class, Charlotte suggests we get an early jump on our project, so I invite her to come home with me. Julia freaks out when she sees Charlotte and doesn’t stop asking fangirl questions the entire drive home. “Julia, leave her alone!” I snap, embarrassed by my little sister’s inability to be cool. “I’m sure Charlotte gets tired of being pestered about her dad.”
Julia ducks her head to hide her blazing cheeks. I feel terrible for humiliating her, but apologizing would only bring more attention to the situation and embarrass her further.
“It’s okay.” Charlotte turns to smile at Julia in the backseat. “You guys should come to a game with me sometime. I’ll introduce you to my dad, and you can see that he’s really this huge, embarrassing dork like most parents.”
Glancing in the rearview mirror, I see that Julia’s face is still pink, but she’s smiling again. I try to catch her gaze to mouth an apology, but she doesn’t look my way. I think she’s ignoring me on purpose. “Really?” she asks Charlotte. Her normal buoyancy is gone, replaced with shyness.
“Sure. We have box seats, and I’m allowed to bring as many friends as I want.”
“That would be fun. Do you think Mom and Dad would let us go sometime, Bailey?”
I glance in the mirror again, and this time she meets my eyes. Her face holds a silent plea, because we both know it would be up to me. Mom and Dad would let us go together, but they’d never let Julia go into the city without me.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t really know Charlotte, so I’m not sure if she invited us because she really wants to take us to a game, or because I lied to Jake for her and she feels obligated.
When I don’t answer immediately, Julia thinks I’m saying no and sinks back in her seat, pouting. “I don’t know, maybe,” I offer, but it’s too little too late. She glares at me.
Tension settles over the car, so I try to get the conversation going again. “Is your dad really a dork?” I ask Charlotte. I’ve seen Xavier Mitchell give interviews. I can’t picture him like that.
“Oh yeah.” Charlotte laughs. “He’s awesome with his fans, but when I introduce him to my friends, suddenly he has to be the ‘fun, cool’ dad, and all his actual coolness disappears. He tries to be funny. It’s so embarrassing.”
I nod in understanding. “That’s like our dad. He’s a good dad, but when our friends come over, he tells ‘your momma’ jokes and talks about Kyle Hamilton and Adrianna Pascal. He still calls them Kylianna.”
“Ouch.”
Charlotte giggles and I wince. “Yup. But he tries so hard we don’t have the heart to tell him they broke up years ago and Kyle married someone else.”
My dad is a banker on Wall Street. He works for JP Morgan in their mergers and acquisitions department. The man buys, sells, and merges entire banking institutions—he’s really smart. But when it comes to what’s cool, he doesn’t have a clue. I don’t think he got it when he was a teenager, either. I suspect he was always a big nerd. I love him for trying, though.
When we get home, Julia stomps into the house without so much as a good-bye to Charlotte. “Sorry,” I say as I grab my backpack out of the back of the car. “She’s usually not so temperamental, but she seems to hate me more and more every day.”
Charlotte hefts her bag over her shoulder and walks with me into the house, all smiles as if nothing happened. “At least you have a sister to fight with. It’s just my dad and me at home, and he’s gone so much.”
“I think it would be fun to have an older brother,” I admit. “Then he could scare away all the boys for me. Thanks for saving me from Chase earlier, by the way.”
Charlotte laughs as we enter the house through the side entrance into the kitchen. “It was the least I could do after you covered for me with Jake. That was quick thinking with the dress shopping lie.”
“Lie?” my mother asks, her voice rising to make the word a question. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind about going dress shopping?”
I stumble to a halt and blink at my mother. I’m surprised she’s home, and even more shocked that she’s apron-clad and up to her elbows in cookie dough like some sort of Sitcom Sally. “Hey. No, that’s not what she’s talking about. What are you doing here? I thought you had your hands full with the fundraiser.”
She smiles, but it’s a little too big and bright. “I just thought I’d take the day off.”
She used to take lots of days off after the accident. That this day off comes on the heels of my skipping school the day before and my visit with Dr. Moscowitz makes me suspicious. “Cookies?”
Mom looks back down at the bowl and gives me a sheepish shrug. She knows I’m on to her, but she doesn’t own up to it. “Chocolate sounded good.”
Charlotte steps forward. “It certainly does. I guess I picked the right day to come over. I haven’t had freshly baked cookies in a long time.” She holds her hand out to my mom. “Hi. I’m Charlotte. I’m new to Columbia High this year, and Bailey was nice enough to offer to be my partner for our history project.”
“Oh! Right, sorry.” My hospitality skills are severely lacking. “Mom this is Charlotte Mitchell. Charlotte, Marlene Atkinson, a.k.a. Mom.”
As the two shake hands, my mom’s face beams with so much pleasure her smile is nearly blinding. “Welcome, Charlotte. It’s a pleasure to have you.” Mom goes back to her stirring and raises her voice so that we can hear her while her back is turned to us. “So, what kind of project do you guys have to do?”
Charlotte and I drop our bags on the kitchen table, content to work on our project close to the baked goods instead of making the three-story trek up to my room. “We have to pick a person from modern US history—the 1900s or later—and do a report on them explaining how they impacted our country’s history and/or society.”
“Oh!” Mom stops dropping balls of cookie dough on to a baking sheet and whirls around with a spoon full of cookie dough in her hand so fast it nearly goes flying. “You should do Jackie Kennedy! She had such great fashion sense.”
See what I mean about ex-first ladies? “If we’re going to do a Kennedy, wouldn’t it be better to choose President Kennedy?”
Charlotte pulls the project outline out of a pink folder and chews on her pen as she scans the requirements again. “I don’t know. Mr. Thatcher seems like the kind of teacher who would appreciate originality. I mean, he gave us the freedom to choose anyone we want, told us to get creative with our presentations, and used Cinder and Ella as an example.”
Had he? I didn’t realize Mr. Thatcher was that cool. Then again, the only thing I heard in class today was Jake and Chase’s whispered conversation behind me about how if Charlotte and I became best friends it would be perfect for the four of us to go out. I shook my head, trying to stay focused on the conversation.
“Okay,” Mom says, “if we want to keep with the Kennedy theme but get creative, then maybe you should focus on Marilyn Monroe and highlight the alleged affair instead of the assassination.”
I do a double take, not quite sure I heard my mother right, while Charlotte laughs. “Scandalous. I like it.”
“Or you could do both women—the wife and the lover,” Mom continues as she slides the cookies into the oven. “You could still do your report on President Kennedy, but tell it from each woman’s point of view. Use them as a way to inform people about his life and career and just that time in US history in general.”
“Yes!” Charlotte practically shrieks, she’s so excited. “And we could totally dress up as them for our presentation!” She sizes me up and her eyes grow wide. “You have to be Marilyn. You would be perfect. You have the body and the hair. We’ll put you in that white dress of hers. And I can totally do the pearls, hat, and gloves look. Yes! Let’s do it! We can get a life-size cardboard cutout of JFK to stand in the middle of us.”
It actually sounds like fun, and Charlotte is so excited there’s no way I can say no. “Okay.” Both Charlotte and my mom cheer and clap their hands.
Charlotte and I both pull out our laptops. Charlotte’s fingers fly over the keys as she eagerly begins to research the thirty-fifth president. “This is brilliant,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I can’t believe your mom is so cool. I really don’t believe you about your dad being a nerd now.”
I’m not embarrassed that she said that in front of my mom. Dad is a nerd. Even mom laughs. “Actually, that’s true. Lance, bless his heart, does not have one ounce of cool in him anywhere. That’s actually why I fell in love with him. We both went to college at NYU. I was a fashion/design major surrounded by ‘cool’ people all day long, and every day on my walk home I’d see this guy in the coffee shop, studying away. He was just so helplessly…geeky. I couldn’t help but fall for him.”
Charlotte and I both smile at the story. Charlotte sees my grin, and her eyes twinkle. “Like mother like daughter, huh?”
It takes me a moment to get her meaning, but then my stomach drops. Mom sucks in a quick breath as well. Charlotte’s face pales when she realizes she’s hit a sensitive topic. “Oh, Bailey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—that’s the one thing everyone at school has told me about you, that you and your boyfriend were sort of a legendary beauty-and-the-geek couple. That’s why I knew I would like you. I didn’t think it would upset you. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“I’m really sorry.”
Charlotte is worrying her lip with her teeth, and there’s a shine in her eyes as if she’s on the verge of tears. I don’t want her to feel bad about bringing up Spencer. I’m tired of him being an elephant in the room.
“Really,” I promise. And I mean it. The pang of grief has already passed. I picture Spencer in my mind. The image makes me smile. “Beauty and the geek. Spencer would have loved that. He used to wear this shirt when we went out together that said ‘It’s because I’m made of chocolate.’”
Charlotte lets out a breath, and I watch as her shoulders visibly relax. She smiles again, but it’s not quiet the brilliant smile I’ve already grown used to seeing on her face. “He sounds fun.”
I nod. “He was. And he was so sweet, and nice, and considerate, and romantic.”
“So…the opposite of Chase Lansing, then.”
I’m startled out of a Spencer daydream and answer her before I remember that my mother is in the room with us. “More like the opposite of Jake. Chase isn’t so bad, but he’s definitely no Spencer, and I’m absolutely not going to homecoming with him.”
“Bailey!” Mom nearly drops a piping-hot cookie sheet as she pulls it out of the oven. “You were asked to the dance and you didn’t tell me? Did you say no to someone?”
It’s not the scolding in her tone that makes me defensive but the disappointment bleeding from her eyes. “I didn’t say no to anyone. Liz said Chase was thinking about asking me, but he never got around to it, and then Charlotte mentioned going stag together.”
“Though I never got an official answer on that question,” Charlotte says, making a face at me.
Suddenly, I had both Mom and Charlotte staring me down. Charlotte shut her laptop, and Mom sat down at the table, holding a plate of warm cookies hostage as they waited for me to tell them I would go. Both of their faces suggested it was the only acceptable answer.
My heart rate picks up as I look at their no-nonsense faces. I’m not good with peer pressure, and I know Mom and Charlotte are only the beginning. If I don’t say yes to them now, chances are I will end up saying yes to someone. Better I give in to Charlotte than Chase.
A sigh escapes me, and both Charlotte and my mom clap and cheer because they know they’ve won. “We’ll have fun,” Charlotte insists.
I meet my mom’s eyes across the table, and her small, secretive smile is just for me. She pushes the plate of cookies toward me—a peace offering—and says, “It’ll be good for you.”
I’m not convinced, but what’s done is done. All I can do now is pray being at the dance without Spencer doesn’t break what’s left of me.
Charlotte takes the plate of cookies from me and goes to town on the gooey chocolate-filled creations since I haven’t bothered to touch them. I’m not hungry at the moment.
Mom gets up to pour Charlotte a glass of milk. Once Charlotte has sucked down half a glass, she puts her laptop away. Apparently we’ve done enough on our project today by simply deciding on a subject for our report. As she zips her backpack closed, she grins at me again. “Hey, since you already told Jake and Chase that we’re going to go dress shopping in the city this Saturday, do you want to do it for real?”
“I didn’t make that up. I did promise my mom I’d go with her and Julia. I just wasn’t planning on picking out my own dress.”
Before I can invite Charlotte to come, Mom beats me to it. “You should come with us,” she says, clapping her hands together as if it’s the most brilliant idea she’s ever had. “We’re making a day of it—just us girls. Mani-pedis, lunch in a restaurant that’s much too expensive, and every shoe store in Manhattan.”
Charlotte, surprised by the offer, bites down on her bottom lip, wanting to say yes so badly she’s about to burst, but her brows pull together and she shakes her head. “I wouldn’t want to impose on your mother-daughter day.”
Charlotte’s voice wavers on the word mother. I shoot my mom a look, but it’s not necessary. She’s noticed Charlotte’s emotion, too. “Nonsense,” she says. “You’ve talked my daughter into attending a dance she’s been fighting me on forever. That earns you honorary Daughter For the Day privileges. Plus, since you obviously carry more sway than me, I’m going to need you there to make sure she actually follows through and buys a dress. Please come. We’d love to have you.”
Charlotte gazes at my mom with a sense of hero worship. Eyes glistening, her face breaks into a brilliant smile, and she laughs as she enthusiastically bobs her head up and down. “Okay.”