What J.J. said about us being broke didn’t make any sense. Maybe he was exaggerating; he did that a lot. I knew because I babysat his twin sons all the time and he freaked out about stupid stuff, like the time his kids used his designer shoes as boats during bath time.
The water glass trembled in my hands under the fridge dispenser and ice cubes clattered to the floor. Toby crunched the dropped ice noisily, saving me the trouble of cleaning up.
I stared at the glass. The Tri Harvest logo swirled around it from top to bottom in gold lettering.
T-houghtful
R-esponsible
I-nitiative!
U-nleashes
M-agnificent
P-ositive
H-arvest!
I sighed. Those words were more important than any prayers or political beliefs in our house. As an AP English student, I despised the phrase with its incorrect punctuation, crazy capitalization, and fuzzy meaning. As my father’s daughter, I pretended to believe every word. There had to be something to it, right? Why else would so many people pay to listen to my dad talk about it?
I brought the glass to Mom and sat across from her. She stared into it before speaking. “I don’t really know what’s going on,” she said. “I’m hoping your dad will be home soon, and everything will be okay.”
“But what J.J. said about us going broke. Did he mean it? How is that even possible?”
Mom stood up and walked to the liquor cabinet, which surprised me. She wasn’t much of a drinker; she always said the extra calories weren’t worth the buzz. I watched anxiously as she poured amber-colored liquid over the ice cubes. She took a swig and turned to face me.
“Maybe you should go to the football game with J.J. tonight. You always have fun.”
Now I wondered if Mom was the one taking the blue pill. How could she expect me to go to a game and act like nothing was going on? And hang out with J.J., who was acting so weird? No way. I leaned over to rub Toby’s belly. His tail thumped softly against the rug Mom had imported from Turkey.
“No thanks. I’ll skip it.” I pulled out my cell and texted Dad. “Where r u? Call asap. 911.” He always called when I used our I-need-to-talk-right-now code, which wasn’t often.
“So do you think I’ll be able to get my car back?” J.J. had to be wrong about that.
“I don’t know, Darcy.” Mom sat across from me and took another swig of her drink. My stomach fluttered. Not only was she drinking in the middle of the day, she wasn’t exactly sipping, either. “We need to talk to your dad.”
I waved my phone at her. “I just texted him. 911. He’ll call any minute.”
But he didn’t call.
Mom and I sort of watched the first half of the football game on TV while we ate a gross frozen pizza. We spent more time checking our phones and texting Dad than we did watching the game. At halftime, I went upstairs to my room, wanting to get away from Mom, who’d switched from the amber liquor to wine.
I turned on my laptop, hoping to escape my worries for a while. I logged onto Instagram and scanned everyone’s latest pics, but when I saw what Ryan had posted, my heart stopped.
He’d hashtagged the photo “Repo Girl,” and had the nerve to tag me in it. The photo was of me, my mouth partly open in shock. Sal stood next to me, her arms flung up in exasperation. My car on the back of the tow truck looked fuzzy and out of focus.
My breath came in short bursts. How could he do this? We weren’t close friends, or anything more, much as I’d dreamed about that. But we were hardly enemies. We’d known each other for years. I wasn’t in his uber popular orbit, but he spoke to me in class, at the eco-club meetings, at parties. He knew me.
I scanned the comments, most of which mocked me and the repo, but not all of them.
“Dude. Why r u being a prick? Delete this or I’ll pound you.” That was from Mark, Sal’s latest boy toy. Mark was cool; even cooler than I’d realized, apparently. A few people had echoed his comment so maybe not everyone thought I was a loser. But judging from most of the photo likes and snarky comments, Ryan had managed to turn me into the laughingstock of the whole school.
I closed my laptop and flopped back on my bed. Toby jumped up and curled next to me. I rubbed his head while staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t believe Dad had just disappeared. Was he leaving Mom for good? My heart sped up to hyperdrive. I couldn’t imagine them divorcing. They drove me nuts but I loved them, and they seemed to love each other. I never heard screaming arguments. They spent long weekends together all the time, flying to resort towns and leaving me home with Toby.
I had no complaints about that. I loved my time alone. I wasn’t the kid who threw wild parties when her parents were gone. I was the weirdo watching old movies by myself or making jewelry while I listened to music. I invited Sal over, no one else, though I sometimes wished I had a boyfriend to hang out with when my parents were gone.
Desperate to escape the fear and anxiety bearing down on me, I put on an old romantic comedy, hoping to cheer myself up. The movie lulled me to sleep and I woke hours later to the theme music playing over and over. I turned off my TV and stumbled downstairs to say good night to Mom.
But when I walked into the family room, lured by the sounds of late night television, I found Mom passed out on the couch, an empty wine bottle tipped over on the floor.
September 17
Dear Darcy,
I’m sorry honey. So sorry. I need to get away from Colorado for a while to clear my head and focus on the next step. I miss you and your mom and love you both. Remember we will be Tri no matter what happens.
XO,
Dad
Chapter Three
September 23
The Top Ten Reasons Darcy Covington Should Leave Woodbridge Academy
10. Her dad can’t afford the tuition anymore since he’s a QUITTER.
9. Repo Girl can barely afford the bus pass.
8. Woodbridge isn’t a school for spawn of criminals.
7. She’s
6. a
5. L
4. O
3. S
2. E
1. R
Chloe Hendricks had outdone herself. The photoshopped pic of my dad’s face had devil horns and blacked-out teeth. And dollar signs for eyes. Chloe had never liked me, maybe because it was easy for her to pick on a mouse like me.
“You need to report her,” Sal growled, tearing the sign off my locker.
“For what? Not being as funny as Letterman?” I tried to sound sarcastic, but failed miserably.
I’d hoped no one had watched Letterman last night. He’d used my dad as the butt of his Top Ten list. He must’ve been inspired by the CNN story stating my dad was on a leave of absence, combined with all the crazy rumors swirling on the internet.
Sal tore the sign into strips, making a big production of it for the crowd watching us.
Mark joined us at my locker. “Is it still a rule, that guys can’t hit girls? ’Cause I want to.”
I almost smiled at him. He was as big as a truck but he had a soft, squishy center, at least for Sal and me, if not for Chloe. “No, you don’t. And yes, it’s still a rule.”
He shook his head, huffing out a sigh. “I could key her car. Slit her tires.”
“No.” I punched him in the shoulder. “Go pick on someone your own size.”
He grinned at me. “There is no one my own size. At least not here.”
“You’re too nice, Darcy,” Sal said, glowering at me as she crumpled the remains of the sign and tossed it in the trash.
“Not really,” I said. “Mostly I’m a big chicken. Have you seen her claws? Plus she probably has rabies.”
The warning bell for class rang. Mark and Sal engaged in major PDA, then he took off for PE.
Sal hugged me before we went our separate ways. “Someday karma will bite that bitch in the ass.”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I believed in karma anymore. Mo
m and I sure didn’t deserve what was happening to us.
In the three weeks since Dad had disappeared, we’d been swimming upstream against a raging river of chaos, but at least we’d kept things a secret. No one knew that Tri Harvest had frozen our bank accounts, after Mom had spent days meeting with the board. Or that Dad had gone Kerouac, hitting the road with no destination, sending us random postcards. Or that J.J. had suddenly developed a Jekyll and Hyde personality, and was only showing scary Mr. Hyde to us.
Now everyone knew about my dad, including my long lost Uncle Charlie, who’d called last night after he saw Letterman. I’d answered the phone since Mom was passed out on the couch.
That was another new secret: Mom drinking herself to sleep almost every night.
I’d almost reached the library when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I didn’t recognize the number. My heart leaped, hoping it was finally Dad.
“Hello?” I slid into a tiny hallway alcove where no teachers could yell at me for being on my cell.
“Darcy? Is that you?” His voice sounded different, not quite himself.
“Dad! Where are you?” My heart ricocheted in my chest.
“Darcy, it’s Charlie. Your uncle.”
My heart had slowed way down. “Oh.” My voice was barely a whisper.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, if you thought I was him.” He sounded sad and worried.
“It’s okay.” That had happened last night, too. Who knew brothers could sound so alike? I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Dad’s younger brother or even talked to him. I’d been a little girl. I barely remembered his ponytail and scruffy beard. But he always sent a special gift for my birthday. And he laughed a lot; I remembered that much.
“I called your mom again today, but she hasn’t returned my calls.” I’d given him both our cell numbers last night.
She’s probably still in a wine coma, said my inside voice. But my outside voice said, “I’ll remind her to call you.” Right. Like Mom would call.
He sighed into the phone. “Please do. And you can, too, Darcy. Anytime.” He hesitated. “You should come see me. At my shop.”
“Yeah.” My dad hated that Charlie worked in a crummy pawn shop in the ’hood, as Dad called it. “But I don’t have a car anymore.”
“You don’t? What happened?”
I sighed into the phone. “It’s a long story.”
It was his turn to sigh. “Let me think about this, and get back to you.”
“Okay.” I shrugged, like he could see me. What was he going to do? See if his pawn shop had any spare cars lying around?
We said our good-byes, and I snuck into a quiet corner of the library and shoved in my earbuds. I should’ve listened to music, something to calm the stress balloon expanding in my stomach. But instead I pulled up Letterman on YouTube.
On my tiny phone screen, Dave smirked. Up popped his Top Ten list from last night, which he read aloud while his studio audience laughed and applauded.
The Top Ten Reasons Tri Tyler Covington is in Hiding:
10. He didn’t get the memo that self-help gurus are a relic of the 20th century.
9. Those old videos of him singing with a Christian punk band back in the 1980s resurfaced on YouTube.
8. Grecian Formula stopped making his shade of blond hair color.
7. Clients started asking for refunds when their “harvest” ended up being a stack of unpaid credit card bills.
6. He was turned down as the replacement shill for Oxi-Clean.
5. Even the family dog won’t listen to his spiel anymore.
4. He tried out for Dancing with the Stars but even Florence Henderson AKA Carol Brady wouldn’t dance with him.
3. The Denver Broncos have been on a winning streak without his pre-game pep talks.
2. PBS called. They want their tote bags back.
1. He really did abandon his family and his business to run off to a hidden island with all the money.
The video already had over 300,000 views. I wondered how many were from my classmates, thanks to Chloe.
I might as well shave my head and move to Tibet. My life was over.
O-V-E-R.
Chapter Four
After the Top Ten locker humiliation, I was hoping Mom would be home, but she’d left a note that she was at a job interview. I couldn’t imagine where she’d apply, but she’d told me since all our accounts were frozen, we’d been living on credit cards, which was a bad idea.
I started some homework, but it was hard to find the motivation to finish it. I fixed myself toast and dug a wilted bag of salad out of the fridge. I missed gourmet chef Mom.
My cell rang just as I swallowed a bite of lettuce that was way past its prime.
“Darcy, it’s Charlie. Again.” He laughed softly, making me smile a tiny bit. It had been days since I’d heard someone laugh in a nice way rather than behind my back. “I want you to come see me tonight, so we can talk. I’d come to you, but I’ve got a ton of donations to sort through. We can talk while I do that here at my shop.” He told me the address.
“Um.” I hesitated. “I’ll have to check the bus schedule, and figure out the transfers.” Unlike most of my classmates who called the bus the “ghetto ride,” I’d discovered I liked it, since it gave me time to read and listen to music.
“No need for that. I’m sending a driver.”
“What?” Since when could my supposedly poor uncle afford a car and driver?
“Probably not the type of limo service you’re used to,” I heard the grin in his voice, “but I think he’ll get you here in one piece.”
What the heck? I chewed my lip nervously. “I’ll need to check with my mom.” Before I get into a car with a stranger to whisk me away to the wrong side of the tracks.
“Already did. I texted her and she said it’s fine, as long as you’re home by ten or so.”
She’d actually replied to him? Shocker.
I let out the breath I’d been holding. I didn’t have anything else to do, except stay home and feel sorry for myself, ignore the rest of my homework, worry about Dad, and eat too much ice cream.
Toby whimpered at my feet. He’d been spending too much time alone, just like me. “Um, can I bring my dog? Is that okay with your driver?”
I heard muffled voices, then, “Does he get carsick?”
I snorted. “Of course not.”
“Good,” Charlie said. “Lucas will be there in about half an hour. Probably less, the way he drives.” He paused. “Lucas is my repairman, in my shop. He’s a great guy, so you don’t have to worry about riding with him.”
I pictured a balding, overweight old guy in grungy jeans wearing a sagging tool belt. With my luck he’d have a plumber’s crack, too. I sighed. “Okay.”
“You haven’t moved lately, have you? Still on Humboldt Street?”
“Yep.” Charlie was right; I had ridden in fancy town cars with drivers, usually going to and from airports. This definitely wouldn’t be the same.
After we hung up, I trudged up to my bedroom, Toby at my heels. What would my uncle and I talk about? Should I pretend it hadn’t been years since I’d seen him? Tell him the gory details of my family’s tale of woe? Ask him for a loan to get my car back?
I froze, my hand on the banister. Wasn’t that what pawn shops did? Buy stuff from people? I ran up the rest of the stairs. In my room, I yanked open a dresser drawer and removed an old-fashioned hatbox, also a long-ago gift from Charlie. It held all my expensive jewelry from Tiffany’s and Needless Markup, jewelry I never wore because I preferred to make my own with beads and wire.
Selling my jewelry might be a way to get my car back. I had one week before the repo was a done deal, and Mom said there was no way we could come up with the cash the bank wanted. What would Charlie think if I asked him to buy jewelry Dad had given me?
My memories of my uncle were mostly impressions, of hugs that smelled like coffee and cinnamon,
and lots of laughter. Every year when I opened my birthday package from him, I was excited to see what pepper shaker he’d sent, since that was what he always sent. My favorites were the yellow Labrador, a Fred Flintstone, and a cherubic red devil kissing the air. Once my dad had suggested I throw them away, but I’d refused.
“What good is a pepper shaker without its mate?” Dad had asked.
“Not everything has to be useful,” I’d argued.
I sat at my vanity and opened the drawer where I’d hidden all of my uncle’s birthday cards. On each of them, he’d sketched an image of the matching salt shaker. My fifth birthday card showed a whimsical drawing of a tiny blond angel with puckered lips, to match the red devil on my dresser. “One day these two will meet and sparks will fly!” The words swirled across the card in beautiful calligraphy.
My eighth birthday card showed a yellow Labrador puppy lying on its back, with tiny holes for salt in its stomach. “Toby needs a friend, don’t you think?” said the note.
When I was young, the shakers had been my favorite toys. I’d set up elaborate adventures with all of the characters, including a pink Siamese cat and a surprised-looking chef. As I held the Labrador shaker, rubbing my fingers over the smooth ceramic, I wondered what my uncle thought of his disappearing brother.
Seventeen pepper shakers lined my vanity table. As I stared at them, I remembered when I’d last seen Charlie. It was my seventh birthday party. Dad had argued with Mom after Charlie left our house.
“He’s a loser, Marilyn. I don’t want him coming to her birthdays anymore.”
“But Ty, he’s your brother.”
“He’s a hippie working in some crummy pawn store. That’s not the type of role model I want around for Darcy. He doesn’t even own a car, for Christ’s sake.”
I opened another drawer and pulled out Dad’s latest postcard. It had arrived yesterday, postmarked Tennessee, with a picture of Graceland. I hoped that Elvis wasn’t his new role model. Even though I was mad at him, I didn’t want him dying of a heart attack on a toilet.
“Darcy—I know things must be hard for you and Mom right now. I’m sorry about that. Do what you need to do.”
How (Not) to Fall in Love Page 2
