The Sassy One

Francesca pointed out several buildings, then parked close to the psychology labs. “My adviser has an office in here.”



“We aren’t going to see anything icky, are we?” Kelly asked as she climbed out of the car. “No cats with wires in their heads or anything?”



“Not even close,” Francesca said as she stepped onto the pavement. “We torture people here. Not animals.”



Kelly grinned. “Good.”



They walked along the pathway toward the double doors.



“So what do you do here?” Kelly asked. “You’re like still in college, but how is grad school different?”



“I already have a bachelor’s degree,” Francesca explained. “Do you know what that is?”



“Uh-huh. It takes like four years, right?”



“Yup. After that people can come back for more education. I’m in program where I’ll get both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. In fact, I’m supposed to be writing the paper for my master’s right now.”



“You just turn it in and get a grade?”



“I wish,” Francesca said, leading the way down the long corridor. “But there’s a little more to it than that.”



She briefly explained about research projects, committee approval, distilling data, and coming up with a topic.



Kelly’s eyes widened. “You could be going to school forever.”



“I hope not. I plan to have a life of my own eventually.”



“But you have to be willing to make a big commitment.”



“I agree. Some people have trouble with that, but getting my Ph.D. is really important to me. When you want to be good at something, you have to be willing to work hard.”



“Like my dance,” Kelly said as they climbed the stairs to the second floor.



“Exactly.”



They walked to the end of the hallway, then entered the main lab. A reception area fronted several observation rooms. The offices were on the left.



An older woman sat behind the front desk. She smiled when she saw Francesca.



“You’ve been avoiding us,” Marg Overton said with a grin. “I want to think you’ve been home typing your fingers to the bone, but somehow I doubt that.”



“Not even close,” Francesca agreed. “Marge, this is Kelly. Kelly, Marg. While there’s a department head in charge, Marg actually runs this place. We’d be lost without her.”



“Of course you would,” Marg agreed.



Kelly smiled shyly and said, “Hello.”



“What’s going on today? Any interesting work?”



“Dan is working on his association game with some four-year-olds.”



“Good.” She turned to Kelly. “You’ll enjoy watching that. I’ll get you settled before I head to my meeting.”



“Okay.”



Five minutes later Kelly sat next to a red-haired grad student in the observation room. Dan pulled out his computer-generated graphs and began explaining them to Kelly.



“She’s twelve, Dan. Don’t get into the calculus,” Francesca said as she walked to the door. “Kelly, if he starts to bore you to death, I’ll be in the first office on the left.”



“I’ll be fine,” Kelly said.



Francesca chuckled. Dan would probably be talking in techno-jargon in about thirty seconds, but he was a good guy with a real dedication to children.



She crossed to the first office on the left and tapped on the open door.



“Francesca,” her adviser said. “You finally remembered where to find me.”



“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Francesca walked in and settled in front of Emily’s desk. “I’ve finished my outline.”



“You’re kidding.” Her adviser, an attractive woman in her forties, picked up the papers Francesca held out. “I’ve been telling you that you can’t spend all your time tormenting innocent bystanders, but I wasn’t sure you were listening.”



“I always listen to what you say.”



Emily smiled. “If only that were true.” She drew on her glasses and pushed her dark hair off her forehead. “All right. What have we got here?”



One of the four-year-olds picked up a kid-sized chair and threw it at the boy across from him. Kelly’s mouth dropped open.



“Are they supposed to do that?” she asked, pointing at the second boy, who promptly hit the first. They both burst into tears.



Dan muttered something under his breath and raced out of the observation room. Kelly wasn’t exactly sorry to see him go. Some of his theories were interesting and stuff, but he’d gotten way too technical. At first she’d been insulted that Francesca had said she was only twelve, but after ten minutes of listening to Dan, she understood why.



She stood and strolled out of the room, back into the hallway. Francesca had said she would be about a half hour and that time was nearly up. She spied a chair by the office Francesca had told her she would be in and plopped down to wait.



She and her dad were supposed to play chess again that night. Last night Kelly had barely figured out how the different pieces moved. She knew now that she’d been tricked. It would be years before she was good enough to beat her dad and win that DVD player, but that didn’t bother her at all. He’d known what he was getting into when he made the offer. Maybe he was planning on keeping her around for a while. While he was kind of a stick in the mud about some things and annoying, he wasn’t really so bad. He was—



Kelly jumped as she realized she could hear what was being said in the office. She leaned back against the frosted glass window so the words would be more clear, then stiffened when she heard her own name.



“Kelly is the daughter of a friend of mine,” Francesca was saying. “She’s a wonderful dancer and takes classes all the time. We’re hanging out together this week. It’s been lots of fun.”



“Sounds like a great mini-vacation.”



“It is. Kelly is really easy to be with. Basically a great kid.”



While Kelly didn’t appreciate the “kid” remark, Francesca’s words made her feel good.



“I saw you two walk in,” the other woman said. “She has beautiful hair.”



“I know. She hates the curls, but I think they’re amazing.”



The other woman laughed. “I tried to get a perm that would do what her hair does naturally. Eighty dollars and three hours later, I looked like a badly cut poodle. It was very disheartening.”



Kelly bit back a smile.



“She also has the most adorable freckles,” Francesca said. “I think they’re charming. Ah, to be that young and pretty. When I watch her dancing, I feel like an old crone by comparison.”



“Honey, by comparison, you are an old crone.”



Francesca laughed. “Gee, thanks.”



Kelly stood up and quickly walked to the far end of the hall. Her face burned and her stomach was all jumpy. Every time she’d overheard her mother talking about her—which wasn’t very often because only a few friends even knew she existed—Tanya said mean stuff. Nothing like this.



Francesca thought she was pretty. Francesca liked her. If Francesca and Sam got together, then Kelly might never have to worry about being sent away.



She thought about how her mother had always hidden her and ignored her. Francesca would never do that. She would never leave her child. She would never forget birthdays, or say things that hurt Kelly’s feelings. She knew a lot of her friends had stepparents, and while some of them were okay, others were really awful. What if her dad started seeing someone else?



That couldn’t happen, she told herself. Francesca was exactly who she and her dad needed in their lives. Somehow she would find a way to bring them together.



18



W ednesday morning Sam adjusted his tie, then stepped back into his closet to collect his cell phone, wallet, and jacket. He had another meeting with the Brazilian clients, then a working lunch with his office manager. A local business association wanted to sponsor a mini film festival the following summer and had asked Sam to meet with them to discuss security.



He glanced at his watch. Francesca was going to be taking Kelly to dance class that morning, so he could get into the office early and get a head start on his day. Without her, he couldn’t possibly get everything done. She was—



He reached for his wallet, but instead of grabbing it, he accidentally knocked it onto the floor, where it fell open. As he bent to pick it up, he noticed a strip of silver. Anger exploded.



“Damn her hide,” he muttered.



Straightening, he examined the platinum credit card. It was right where it was supposed to be. Right where it hadn’t been the afternoon before when he’d stopped and gotten gas.



“Kelly!” he roared as he walked out into the hallway.



His daughter poked her head out of her bedroom. She was already dressed for her dance class. Her hair was a mass of curls, and she held a white ribbon in one hand.



“Stop yelling,” she told him. “I’m right here. What’s up?”



She was so casual about it all, he thought, fighting the need to put his fist through the wall.



“You took my credit card,” he said, his teeth clenched.



“What are you talking about?”



She sounded concerned and baffled, as if she had no idea what he meant. But he’d known her long enough to recognize the slight tension in her thin shoulders and the stubborn set of her chin.



“Yesterday I noticed my Visa card was missing from my wallet. This morning it’s back where it belongs.”



She rolled her eyes. “Right. So you want to blame me. Maybe you misplaced it or didn’t see it when you looked before.”



“It wasn’t there. So I called and canceled it last night. Funny how there had only been one charge on it. To a clothing store on the Internet.” He narrowed his gaze. “I canceled the order, too.”



“You did what?” she demanded. “That is just so typical. You want to ruin everything.”



He’d caught her stealing, and he expected her to go on the attack, but he was still stunned by her blaming him for stopping the order.



“You stole from me!” he yelled.



“You stole from me, too,” she said as she stepped into the hall and glared at him. “You had no right to take away my old credit card. I wasn’t doing anything bad with it. And I wasn’t doing anything bad this time, either.”



“You were stealing. Maybe that’s okay in New York, but it’s damn wrong here.”



“I asked for an allowance, and you said you’d think about it. You haven’t said anything since, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t have a choice.”



“So this is my fault? What is wrong with you? If you’re grown-up enough to steal, why aren’t you grown-up enough to take responsibility for what you’ve done?”



“I’m only twelve. What do you want from me?”



“Better behavior than this. You’re grounded.”



“There’s news.” She folded her arms over her chest. “So you really like being a bully, don’t you. When you were little, did you beat up on the smaller kids?”



He hadn’t thought it was possible to get more angry, but he’d been wrong. “Do not make this about me, young lady. You are the one who stole from me. I can see I’m going to have to start locking up my money and credit cards, which is a pretty sorry state of affairs around here.”



“Why don’t you just lock me up, too?” she taunted. “It’s what you want to do.”



“It could just be me, but from where I’m standing, it sounds like both of you need to take a deep breath and calm down,” Francesca said.



Sam turned and saw her leaning against the railing by the stairs. Relief flooded him. At least she would know what to do.