Senator Douchebag slams the newspaper down on the table. The photo of Katherine and I facing each other, eyes narrowed and lips turned up in snarls, with our middle fingers almost touching, is preceded by a headline that reads:
"HARRISON AND STERLING ENGAGED: CHILDREN FACE OFF!"
Katherine is across from me, her face chalk white. She doesn't look at me, just stares at the paper like she's completely transfixed. I have the impulse to take out my phone and get a photo of her reaction, but I think that would be pushing it, since the Senator's face is exactly the opposite of ghost-white. It's nearly purple.
"It's really a flattering angle, though," I say. "For me, anyway. It doesn't do Katherine nearly as much justice." That's not true. In the photo, her teeth are nearly bared and she looks practically feral. I shouldn't be so turned on by that, but I swear as I stand here looking at it, I feel my cock stir. This is probably not the best situation to display a hard-on for Senator Douchebag's daughter, though. He looks like he's going to have a coronary. My mother gives me a look, and I'm almost concerned she's going to cut out my trust fund right now.
"Caulter," Ella warns.
"What the hell were the two of you thinking?" The Senator brings his fist down on the table, causing the paper to bounce, his voice booming.
I glance at Katherine, but she still doesn't look at me.
"Honey," Ella says.
"It's not as bad as it looks, dad," Katherine speaks, her voice soft.
"Not as bad as it looks?" The Senator clenches his fist again. This dude seriously needs to do some meditation or some weed or something. Like, whoo-sah, man. If he weren't talking, I wouldn't believe he was even taking a breath. "Tell me, how exactly do you think it looks for the daughter of a United States Senator to be on the front page of the newspaper, directing her middle finger at the son of his fiancé?"
Probably better than for the headline to read Senator's children fuck around, I think. But I hold my tongue. Mentally, I congratulate myself for my superb act of self-control.
Katherine surprises me by speaking. "I mean, really, it's not the front page. It's the front page of the social section. And it's the Post, so..."
I hold back a laugh, but not very well, so it comes out more like a snort. The Senator turns his gaze toward me. "And you. You think this is funny?"
I roll my eyes. "Look. It's an article in the paper. It's not the end of the fucking world."
He crosses around to my side of the table, and I stand there, only because I can't really believe this guy is actually about to lose his shit, especially over something like this. I can think of at least twenty more scandals I've been involved in that are worse than this blip on the radar. It's when he grabs me by the collar of my shirt that I start to actually get pissed off. "Not the end of the fucking world?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. "You arrogant little shit. Your mother might cut you all the slack in the world, letting you piss away her money on clothes and drugs, but you don't come into my house and --"
I push his hands off me. "You want to get into it, Pops," I say, disgusted. "Let's go."
"Stop!" Katherine yells the words. Yells. The sound of her yelling is so startling that her father looks at her, open-mouthed.
"What did you just say?" he asks.
"I think we all need to calm down here," Ella says, standing at the far end of the table. "Ben, Caulter is not your child, he's mine, and I'll thank you kindly to not - "
"Oh please, Ella." I hold my palm up.
"I don't want to hear you refer to your mother by her first name like she's one of your friends," the Senator booms.
"It's a good thing you don't get a say in the matter then, is it?" I ask. "Since I'm not one of your employees you can order around."
"Ben!" Ella says. "I said, this is my child. Caulter and I are informal. And it's not your call to step in and change that."
"Your child is an adult," the Senator says, his voice louder now. "Not a kid. And it's time to start treating him like an adult. Both of you are adults and - "
Katherine yells again, her hands over her ears. "Jesus fucking Christ," she screams.
"Katherine Eva Harrison," the Senator said. "You will not take the Lord's name in vain in this house."
"I can't listen to another second of arguing!" she yells. "Yes, Caulter and I flipped each other off. Yes, it's in the paper. Yes, it's a PR problem. I'm sorry your engagement was announced this way. But if you want to talk about being selfish, we can talk about being selfish. You left like a bat out of hell after graduation to get back to work -- and by work, I'm assuming you meant Ella. You didn't think that maybe you should, oh, I don't know, give me any kind of heads up that you were getting re-married?" Katherine asks, her voice growing more high-pitched.
I step back, crossing my arms over my chest, not even bothering to hide the smile I can feel tugging at the corners of my mouth. I didn't think daddy's little girl had it in her. I can't believe I'm listening to her tell off her father.
"I thought you would prefer to hear something like that at home - " he starts, suddenly on the defensive.
"Yeah, dad," she says. "I totally want to walk in the door to the house to see the three of you standing there. I'm sure that's how they tell you to do it in all the parenting books. Make sure you choose a setting for maximum impact, right?"
"I made a decision that I thought was most appropriate for - "
"You've been keeping this entire relationship a secret!" Katherine yells. "Do you understand how big of an asshole you're being? You're about to punch Caulter in the fucking kitchen! You don't see the irony here? Mom would hate the person you are - and you know it."
At the mention of her mother, it's like all of the air is sucked out of the room. The color drains from the Senator's face.
Katherine keeps going. "You're bringing them - " She doesn't look at me, just points the direction of me and Ella. "To the summer house, to our house. To her house."
"She's dead!" The Senator yells. "Your mother has been dead for four goddamn years!"
"I can't talk about this," she says, shaking her head. She looks at the Senator with disappointment etched on her face, and brushes past me without a glance. I stand there for a minute, the silence in the room lingering. The Senator leans over the table, both palms flat, his head hanging. I'm irritated with him, but I feel badly for Katherine.
Ella looks up at me, her expression pained. "Caulter - " she starts.
I cut her off before she can say whatever the hell it is she has to say. "Fuck this shit," I say. "I'm out."
I take the stairs two at a time to the bedroom where my wallet is, but I'm honestly wondering if Katherine has left yet. I hit my room first and grab my wallet and my smokes, pausing when I reach her room. Her door is open about an inch, and I stand there for a few seconds, deciding whether or not I want to say anything. Then the door is yanked open, and she looks at me with surprise.
For second, I think she might be pleased to see me, but she sighs audibly and shakes her head. "Seriously, Caulter, I don't need your bullshit right now. I'm not in the mood. I'm on my way out."
"Want some company?"
Her eyebrow goes up. "Are you fucking kidding?"
"I'm not being a prick. Really." I feel defensive. I'm not a dick all the time, I want to say. There's something about her that just seems to bring it out of me.
"That's a first," she says. "What, you want to have some brother - sister bonding time?"
"I want to get out of here," I say, my tone noncommittal.
"Fine." She slings her bag over her shoulder, and I follow her out the front door. Beyond the front gate are three photographers this time, smoking as they loiter, and they stand quickly, aiming their cameras at us as we approach.
Katherine swears under her breath as we walk out. "Don't they have anything better to do?"
"Caulter, Katherine -- do you really hate each other? Do you have a comment for us?"
"Mind your own business," she says. "Seriously. Look, we're standing right here, aren't we? Why don't you take a photo of us together, not killing each other. We're friends. That's my comment."
I slip my arm around her shoulder. "Smile for the cameras." I give a thumbs up and Katherine looks over at me, finally breaking a smile before making a thumbs up as well.
The photographers roll their eyes, and we turn and walk briskly down the sidewalk for two blocks before either of us says anything. Then Katherine laughs. The sound is light, melodic. I look at her because I don't think I've heard her laugh -- not a genuine laugh -- in two years at Brighton. She's snarky, yeah, but she's so damn serious at school. Once she starts, she can’t stop, doubling over as she laughs, big laughs from her belly, until she has to wipe tears from her eyes.
When she stops, she looks up at me. “What?” she asks. “You’re staring.”
“You’re the one standing on the sidewalk laughing like a crazy person.”
“My dad is going to hate that photo, you know” she says. “I think we're supposed to wait for a staged media thing. His PR person is going to have a lot to say about it.”
I shrug. “I guess I don’t give a shit about your fucking dad.” We’re walking, but I don’t know where. I pull my pack of cigarettes out and she gives me a look. “You want one?” I ask.
Katherine shakes her head. “Why don’t you just go back to Hollywood or wherever for the summer? My father will make up some reason for you not going to New Hampshire, a reasonable story for where you are. You don't want to put up with his shit all summer, do you?”
“Trust fund,” I say. “Ella’s holding it over me. Is it true the house in New Hampshire is your mother's house?"
She shrugs. "It was her favorite place. We lived in a farmhouse in Loudon when I was a kid, but he sold it for the lake house, since he was going to DC during the rest of the year. But my mother loved New Hampshire, so even though we were only there in the summer, it was her place."
"And he's bringing Ella there," I say. "It's kind of a dick move."
"It's whatever, you know? Not a big deal." I can tell she's lying. "Ella seems okay. I mean, it’s weird that you call her by her first name.”
We’re standing near the entrance to the Metro. “You mean, instead of mommy dearest?” I ask. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?” I’m jonesing for a smoke even though it’s only been like ten minutes since my last. Katherine makes me feel edgy. Or, rather, I feel edgy because of how it felt to have her standing beside me, with her arm thrown casually over my shoulder. That, and maybe I'm irritable because I haven't been laid now in ten fucking days.
"I don't know," she says. "I was just getting out. I didn't have any plans."
"You don't seem like the spontaneous type," I say. "And I don't have to go to your mom's house for the summer, you know. If it bothers you." I offer her a half-hearted out, even though what I really want to know is whether it bothers her that I'm going. I want it to bother her.
"What do you know what type of person I am?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. "I said it's not a big deal. I don't want to talk about her."
We get on the Metro, going who knows where. We're talking, about regular bullshit, nothing heavy. She seems to be less irritated now, and she's laughing at the stories I tell her about some of my mother's friends, Hollywood celebrities, and how our little middle-finger photo is small potatoes compared to the real scandals. She's laughing, and it sounds nice.
"Where the hell are we going?" I ask, when we get off a stop.
Katherine shrugs. "No plans," she says. "Just getting the hell away from the house. Do you have better plans?"
I hold up my hands in mock surrender. "Whatever you want, Princess."
She ignores me, and we walk for a while until we get to a park. I don't know jack about DC, so I've got no idea where we are -- New York and Hollywood, those are the places I know. But she seems to have some idea where we're going, and I'm following her lead because she's not as awful as I thought she was. We're actually getting along, and for the first time since I've known her, it's pretty comfortable to hang out with her.
"You're not so bad, Princess," I say. "I mean, for a stuck up bitch."
She laughs. "I can't believe you just called me that."
"Bitch?" I ask. "You know I'm joking. Not about the stuck up shit, though."
"Do people think I'm a bitch?" she asks.
The honest answer is yes, but I shrug. "Who cares what they think?"
Katherine looks at me long and hard. "Better than being a spoiled dickhead."
I grin. "Whatever you say, Harvard." We're in a secluded spot off this path, trees overhanging the trail, and the place is practically uninhabited. I pull out a joint, and Katherine gives me a look.
"Are you stupid?" she asks. "We're out in public."
"No one's passed us in like fifteen minutes," I say. "Come on. There's a building up there -- we'll scoot behind it."
Katherine sighs. "First the photo in the paper, and now you're going to get us arrested for possession. My dad will fucking kill us."
I grin. "Come on, Princess," I tease. "Are you chickenshit?"
She follows me to the other side of a building that houses a bathroom, and we stand near some trees behind it. "I'm not some kind of naive little girl," she says. "I have gotten high before."
"Sure you're not, Princess," I say. "You're practically a fucking rock star." I light up and hand her the joint.
"Shut up," she says, as she takes a hit. "You tagged along with me. If you have cooler friends you'd rather hang out with, then that's where you should be."
"Cooler friends than you, Princess?" I ask, as she passes it back to me. "Not possible. I'm not friends with any kids of future Presidents."
She rolls her eyes. "That's the plan. Everything is about the plan. Always has been. My mother hated it, you know."
"The political thing?"
"Politics," she says. "I think she hated politics almost as much as she hated him. They fought a lot."
We're silent for a few minutes while we smoke, and I don't want to break the stillness that settles between us like some kind of spell. I wait until we're finished, walking back out through the park, to speak. "What about you?" I'm more curious than I thought I'd be about her.
"What about me?"
"The future President's kid - is that what you're about?"
She laughs, the sound bitter. "It doesn't matter what I'm about," she says. "That's the plan, don't you know? Anyway, it's not for a while -- his Senate re-election is this year, and he won't run for President in the next election. So it'll be the following Presidential election after that. Six years is a long time." She studies my face as we walk. "I'm not like you, you know."
"No shit." I can't think of a person less like me if I try.
"It must be nice to not give a shit what other people think," she says.
"You might want to try it sometime." The words come out with an edge they shouldn't have, especially since I'm high. Damn, she's got this way of being condescending. I can't stand it.
"That would be nice," she says. I think she actually means it.
We reach a park bench and sit shoulder to shoulder beside each other. I'm aware of our proximity, nearly touching. She doesn't say anything, so we just sit there quietly for maybe a half hour or so. It's probably the weed, but it feels easy to just sit with her.
When we get up to leave, I reach for her hand to pull her up, and as she rises to her feet, she stumbles against me and we're frozen there. My eyes go down to her chest, even though she's wearing this sleeveless white shirt that's not revealing; the fact that I can't see the tops of her breasts makes me want to see more, like some kind of reverse psychology thing. She inhales, her chest rising, and I'm fixated on her lower lip as it falls open in slow motion. When she flicks her tongue over it, I picture those lips wrapped around my cock and it goes rock hard.
I bring my mouth down on hers, crushing her lips under mine, and she moans into my mouth. Her tongue meets mine, and her hands are on my chest, gripping my shirt and pulling the fabric -- and me -- toward her. She presses against me, arching her back and pushing up her chest as she grinds her hips against my hard-on.
I grip her ass cheeks in return. I don't give a shit where we are; I want to want to rip off her clothes and fuck her right here in the middle of a public park.
Then as suddenly as it started, it's over. She presses her palms flat against my chest and shoves me, stepping back and wiping her mouth with her hand like I'm some kind of contaminant she can't wait to get rid of. I'm looking at her, trying to comprehend what the hell she's playing at here, but I can't think because there's no blood left in my brain. All I know is that my dick is hard as hell and she's standing there looking like she just ate some bad food.
"Don't, Caulter -- " she says, holding her hand up like I'm a rapist about to come after her. As if I fucking grabbed her and kissed her against her will. As if she weren't just moaning into my damn mouth, arching her back and pressing her tits into my chest, daring me to touch her.
"Don't what, Princess?" I ask. "You're the one who's rubbing up against my cock like it's a magic lamp."
Katherine shakes her head, her fingertips still pressed against her mouth. Her lips are swollen, the skin around them red from my kiss. "This isn't fucking happening, Caulter." The way she says it is like I'm throwing myself at her. Like I'm lucky to be getting a chance to touch her or something. Her attitude pisses me off even more.
"Don't worry, sweetheart," I say. "Just because I was high and wanted a quick lay doesn't mean anything."
She looks at me with an expression I can't quite figure out. I think it might be disappointment, but she's the one who's fucking rejecting me. It passes as quickly as it appeared. "Just -- just keep your hands off me, Caulter," she says.
"Keep my hands off you?" I can't hold back my laugh. "That's rich. Don't worry, Princess, your pussy isn't magic and I'm certainly not hurting for it. It won't be a hardship to keep my dick away from you."
She narrows her eyes at me and her jaw clenches. "Good. I'm glad to hear it. We should be adults. Friends. We should be civil to each other." She stands there awkwardly, her words just hanging in the air, and I just stand there. I'm not thinking about what she said, though. I'm really thinking about the fact that my dick is not moving from where it's lodged, pressed up against the zipper of my jeans. I think her holier-than-thou attitude might have even made it harder.
Clearly, my dick has poor taste in women.
"Do you want to go back to my father's house?" she asks.
I shrug. "Nah," I say, taking my pack of cigarettes from my back pocket and opening the flap. "I think I'm just going to go out. There's no sense having a hard on and not being able to use it."
I say it just to hurt her, and it looks like it works. She blinks a few times, standing there with her hands balled up into fists at her sides, before she whirls around. "Fine," she says. "Whatever. Have fun."
I stare in the opposite direction, watching her leave out of the corner of my eye but not looking at her. I won't give her the satisfaction of looking at her. The way she wiped her mouth after she kissed me, like I'm some kind of sleaze she can't wait to get away from? She may have been a good lay, but great lays are a dime a dozen. I don't need her.
I've always loved summer in New Hampshire. When my father first became Senator, he sold the farmhouse in Loudon where I'd spent my early years, and moved us to DC for the school year. But my mother and I would come to the house on Lake Winnipesauke for the summer. My father would join us, flying between New Hampshire and DC during early summer and only coming back full-time when the Senate broke for summer session. He never liked the state, even though he's tied to it politically. He returns here, but spends most of the summer bitching about being out of the loop and finding excuses to fly into New York or DC for fundraisers and political events.
Me, on the other hand? I love this place. I cried when he sold our first house. He said it wasn't healthy to be attached to something like that ("It's just a goddamned house, Katherine"), and I was seven, so I said I'd never get over it. But I did. The summer house became my favorite place in the world, and it stayed that way after my mother died because she was my tie to it.
So coming here for the summer isn't so bad, even if it means doing what my father wants as far as the re-election campaign goes. He's the incumbent, and honestly, the election is no big deal. He'll win by a landslide, just like he always does. He just thinks it's the biggest deal in the world. And besides, until summer session breaks, he'll be flying in and out, so I get this whole place to myself. Or I would, if Caulter weren't in the picture.
I still might, though. I don't know where Caulter is. After what happened in the park, he never came home that night. I know, because I was listening for him. The fact that he went out and screwed some chick after kissing me, just because he had a hard-on, is so disgusting it makes me hate him. So when Ella said that Caulter was going back to Malibu for a few days, excuse me for being happy.
If I'm lucky, maybe I won't ever have to see him again.
The problem is that I can still feel his lips on mine, that bruising kiss in the park lingering even now. My body craves him, and I hate it.
I just have to think about something else. Like how great it'll be to be back here for the summer. I love this place, with its white painted walls and airy spaces. I love the wraparound porch, and the little balcony outside of my bedroom where I sit and sketch when I want peace and quiet. I wish I could spend the summer here alone. I don't want Caulter and Ella here, intruding on this place that used to be my mother's and mine. I don't want their presence tainting my memories of her.
And I especially don't want Caulter here, reminding me of that night every time I look at him. I don't want him here, reminding me of the fact that he's awakened feelings in me, even if the feelings are simply lust. Ridiculous, inappropriate lust. It's ridiculous and inappropriate not just because he's about to be my step-brother, either. It's ridiculous and inappropriate because of who Caulter Sterling is. He's a crude, caustic prick who can't keep his dick in his pants.
The problem is, I just can't stop thinking about that prick.
I can't stop thinking about that kiss in the park, Caulter's lips pressed hard against mine, his touch rough and unyielding. The thought of it sends a shiver down my spine even now, and I try to banish it. I should want someone more appropriate. I shouldn't want Caulter, with his vulgarity and stupid rebel-without-a-cause attitude problem. I shouldn't want Caulter, who's obsessed with sex.
The problem is, I'm beginning to think he's done something to me, messed with my head. Because ever since that night, I can't stop thinking about sex either.
I need to get Caulter out of my head, and being here this week by myself is the best way to do that. Until Friday night, I'm rid of my father and Ella and their whole love-struck teenager act. I don't have to give my opinion on wedding plans, and I don't have to deal with Ella's perpetual cheeriness. And I don't have to deal with Caulter and any early morning encounters in the bathroom. Maybe Caulter will decide to stay in Hollywood, and he won't come with them on Friday night, just in time for the Saturday morning pancake breakfast.
I pause, my pencil on the page, mid-stroke. The Saturday morning pancake breakfast is a yearly tradition, this lame PR thing my father does at the beginning of every summer at this mom-and-pop cafe in town. We eat pancakes and smile and he kisses babies and talks about how meaningful this place is to him.
"Katherine," a reporter will inevitably ask. "Does he do this at home?" And I will smile sweetly and hold up a fork with a bite of pancake on it. "When I'm home from school, he does it every Saturday morning. Pancakes and hot cocoa, just like when I was a kid."
I fucking hate pancakes.
I lose myself in my thoughts, my charcoal pencil moving over the sketch pad, the sound of the short, smooth strokes almost like white noise. Art is like my version of meditation. It's what got me through after my mother died, and I have boxes in the bedroom closet, filled with my paintings and sketches from that time.
The knock on the door is what jolts me out of my thoughts. I slam the sketchpad closed, slipping it back into its hiding place underneath the mattress on the bed.
Rose stands in the doorway, clad in a dress and apron. She's the other reason this place feels like home. Rose took care of me when I was a kid before we moved to DC, but she returned full-time every summer. She took care of my mother when she got sick. And after my mother died, she's the one who stroked my hair and spoke softly to me as I sobbed, stretched out on the window seat in the library with my head in her lap.
When I look at her, I'm immediately afraid she'll be able to tell what I've been doing. I glance back at the bed as if the sketchpad filled with drawings of Caulter's naked body might have somehow jumped out of its hiding place under the mattress and displayed itself in full view. But of course it's hidden away.
"Kate," she says, wiping her hands on her apron. "It's two in the afternoon. It's not good for you to be hidden away up here all day."
I shrug. "I'm just drawing."
She shakes her head and makes a clucking sound with her tongue. "I'm making cinnamon rolls and bread. You should eat. Pretty soon you'll be skin and bones."
I laugh. "Rose, I gained weight during finals. I can barely button my jeans as is." But I follow her out downstairs anyway.
She clucks her tongue as we walk, and gives me a disapproving shake of her head. "Barely button your jeans," she mutters. "You kids these days."
"What about us?" I ask, sliding onto one of the tall stools surrounding the large island in the middle of the kitchen. The marble surface is covered with a dusting of flour, baking implements scattered across the countertop. Rose reaches into one of the kitchen cabinets for a plate, before presenting me with a cinnamon roll practically the size of my head, drenched in frosting.
"Eat," she orders. "In my day, if you were skinny, it was because you couldn't afford to buy food."
"Yes, ma'am." I don't have to be told twice to eat a giant cinnamon roll. Tearing off a piece with my fingers, I pop it into my mouth, and my eyes roll back in my head. It's still warm from the oven, homemade all the way, not that crap from the refrigerated section of the store.
When I open my eyes, Rose looks at me expectantly, with one flour-covered hand on her hip and the other holding the rolling pin, paused mid-air. "Well?"
"Well, what, Rose?" I ask, smiling.
"Don't sass me."
"These are amazing. Of course."
She smiles, and goes back to rolling out her dough.
"You're to blame if the newspapers talk about how the Senator's daughter is now fat, instead of the re-election campaign," I say, shoving a bigger piece of the baked good into my mouth.
Rose snorts and gestures at me with the rolling pin. If she didn't look almost exactly like Mrs. Clause, with her gray hair piled on top of her head in a bun and her glasses sliding down to the end of her nose, she would almost be menacing. "Don't ever let me hear that word come out of your mouth again, Kate Harrison."
"What?" I ask.
"You know what I'm talking about. That word. Fat."
"I'm saying that's what the media would say," I protest.
She shakes her head at me. "You sound like that woman," she says. That woman is Rose's way of referring to my father's PR manager. I think the official term is communications director. Mona. Rose knows her name but refuses to use it. "That woman, the one who dresses you up and talks about brand."
I sigh, thinking about what Mona will say the next time she sees me, the lecture I'll get on the "absolute catastrophe" I've created for my father with the picture in the newspaper of Caulter and I giving each other the finger. I'd love to see her face if she knew that Caulter had given me more than just the finger. "You know her name, Rose," I say. "It's Mona."
She goes back to rolling out dough. "You look more and more like her, you know?"
"I do?" I ask, my mouth full, picturing Mona, tall and stick-thin, with her fiery red hair clipped in a perfect bob and suits meticulously tailored to her model figure. "I don't look anything like Mona."
Rose waves at me dismissively with a spoon in her hand, then dips it into the bowl and ladles cinnamon filling across a swath of dough. "Not Mona. Don't be daft. You look like your mother."
"My mother was elegant, polished," I say. "I'm the exact opposite of that. I was trying to be polished. But after the photos in the newspaper..."
Rose hasn't mentioned the photos in the newspaper yet. I know she's seen them. She clips the ones that mention me and saves them all in a scrapbook. She doesn't look up from her dough, but I think she might be smiling. "I saw that one of you and that boy, the new --"
"The new step-brother."
She rolls pieces of dough into pinwheels and lays them out in the pan. She's on her second tray of cinnamon rolls and I'm beginning to be afraid she's cooking them all for me. "Step-brother. I guess that's what you'd call him."
"Have you met Ella?" I ask. I wonder if my father has already brought Ella here. I wonder how long he's been keeping his little secret.
Rose purses her lips. "It was news to me too," she says. "Although the fact that I didn't know about it wasn't surprising."
"She's a big celebrity."
Rose raises her eyebrows. "That part isn't surprising, either. You know your father's political aspirations."
I grunt my response as Rose adjusts the dough and slides the pan into the stove. "They'll be here tomorrow, you know."
"I'm prepared." I'm lying through my teeth, and we both know it. I'm not prepared to see them. But I'm more unprepared to see Caulter.
"Uh-huh." She rinses her hands under the faucet, her back still to me. "That's why you've been wasting away inside here all week instead of being out in the sunshine, down at the beach the way you used to be." She turns toward me, her hands on her hips. "It's not healthy, you know, moping around your room. She's not going to replace your mother."
"That's not it," I protest. It isn't. I'm not a little girl who thinks a celebrity is going to come in and replace her. I'm irritated with the way he sprung it on me after being hypocritical enough to insist on dictating every part of my life.
Every part of my life except for that night with Caulter.
"Then what is it?" she asks.
"Nothing." I can't tell her what happened with Caulter. I remind myself that nothing of consequence happened with him anyway. Nothing that bears repeating anyway.
Rose raises her eyebrows. "Get out of the house," she orders. "Go do something with your friends. Jo called the home phone number, said she's been texting you and you haven't answered."
Jo is one of my childhood friends, one I see every summer when I come home. My father hates her, mostly because she's not "one of us," which really means she goes to public school. He once grounded me for two weeks for hanging out with her a couple years ago, until Mona suggested it might be seen as elitist if it got around that his daughter was ditching a childhood friends because of the friend's blue-collar background. I've been avoiding her because she'll want to know all the juicy details about my new family, and I just don't feel like dishing gossip. "I'll call her."
Rose hands me the phone and walks out of the kitchen. "I have laundry to do. Go have fun. Get some sun. Be a normal kid."
"I'm not a kid anymore, Rose," I call to her retreating back. "I'm an adult now. I have been for a month."
"Go be a kid," she yells. "You can be an adult when your father gets here."
I scroll down the call history, looking for Jo's number. Screw being an adult. So far, the only thing good about turning eighteen has been, well, that night with Caulter.