Who's Your Daddy?

by Lynda Sandoval

  Dylan was absolutely everything I did not want in a guy … and yet, the more I hung around him, the harder it became to ignore his major hottie factor. Plus, he could be sort of nice, and he wasn’t totally the cookie cutter guy I’d imagined him to be. SIGH. Get this: he actually has a tattoo of that cool striped monster from Where the Wild Things Are on his shoulder. I don’t know WHY I found that overwhelmingly sexy (other than the fact that I’d gotten a glimpse of his bare chest, back, shoulder, and abs the same time I spied the tatt), but I did. I mean, what a sweet choice for ink!

  Tattoo aside, the whole situation with us working as a team was unfair and unbalanced. I was subjected to his blinding hunkiness and intimate knowledge of his coolio tattoo every day, while he merely had an up-front and personal view of my giant butt in the heinous man pants. FAIR?!? I think not. (I can almost hear my dad’s voice saying, “No one ever said life would be fair, Lila.” Yeah, tell me about it.)

  I was absolute guy-repellent in my junior narc costume, and no one cared. Life was miserable. Having to look that horrid in front of one of the cutest guys in school was really more than I could handle.

  From day one of my sentence, though, I must say Dylan had been nothing but nice to me, even when I went out of my way to be a hag (which I did every day). I can appreciate that in a guy.

  Someone ELSE’S guy, Lila. Remember?

  I had to remind myself of that a lot now.

  His girlfriend was none other than the illustrious Miffany’s best friend and fellow cheerleader, Jennifer Hamilton. She’s petite and blonde, and I can guarantee her butt does not require its own zip code. She has this whole sweetsie-blecho persona going, but I don’t know. It seems more like a role she plays than who she really is. Sure she looks cute and bubbly at first glance, but she has this hard veneer you glimpse every so often when her guard is down. I mean, her best friend is dating my brother, and yet Jennifer’s never even made direct eye contact with me. Not once. If we do pass in the hall, or whatever, her gaze moves over me as if I were a fern or some wallpaper—just there, but not worthy of her time or attention.

  Regardless of my feelings about her, though, she was Dylan’s girlfriend. So, no matter how nice he was to me, or how much time we spent together, no matter how kickin’ his tattoo was in comparison to all the generic designs out there, Dylan Sebring was STILL Some Other Girl’s Guy. I’d be an idiot to even fantasize that the situation were different, not to mention that he is not, and would never be, the least bit interested in Lila Lawbreaker Moreno, of all people.

  Which is fine, because I don’t want him.

  [Sniff]

  No, really. I don’t.

  Sloppy cheerleader seconds? YEEEEEECH.

  My dad’s robotic Mini-Me? Not so much.

  My mission, hence, was to do everything in my power to show Dylan Sebring and the rest of the world that his charms did nothing for me, and I was not (even though I kinda was, but not really) crushing on him. Hiding my feelings would be a piece of cake, right? I have four pesky brothers. Snide disdain is an attitude I’ve raised to an art form out of sheer necessity.

  Sound and movement suddenly burst all around me, yanking me out of my ruminations. I blinked up at the pandemonium in the “briefing room,” trying to figure out what was going on. Dylan had apparently finished his stupid gung ho cop speech, because the rest of the narcs were scattering like happy little cockroaches, all bright-faced and pukingly chipper, ready to head out to Cougar Stadium.

  I, on the other hand, stayed in my seat, actively practicing poor posture and apathy. Believe me, I had no urgency to get this party started.

  “Excited about the game?” Lt. Oblivious-to-Body-Language asked, once we were alone in the room and he stood directly in front of me. He rubbed his palms together and smiled at me as though we had a rollicking good time ahead of us.

  Of course, I thought the question had been a joke, but it looked like he really meant it. Cool tatt or not, that was one heck of a dumbass question. I glanced up with a death-glare expression. “What are you, high?”

  “Aw, come on, Moreno.” He reached out and tugged on a lock of my hair, which gave me chills. “It’ll be fun.”

  I made a show of pulling away from him, scowling as I stood up, but secretly it was kind of cool how he just felt free to touch me all casual-like. Still, I couldn’t let on that he affected me in any way at all.

  Jennifer Hamilton. Jennifer Hamilton. Jennifer Hamilton.

  That did it. My surliness quotient jumped a notch. “You have a twisted idea of fun, Sebring. What do you do for a date? Lock your girlfriend in the trunk of your car?”

  He just laughed as if my fury were more amusing than a pile of puppies. Was he practicing to be my dad or something? Oh, yes. HOW could I forget? That’s EXACTLY what he was doing. HORK. My resolve to resist strengthened even further.

  “Look,” he said, draping his arm over my shoulder as we headed for the door, “you seem nervous, but don’t sweat tonight.”

  I shrugged his arm off, even though it had felt pretty nice there. Step away from the Lila. “Please,” I said, with a giant scoff. “Like I am.”

  “Well, it is your first time on duty, so I thought—”

  “Look, I prayed to the Virgin Mary about it before I got here, okay?” I said, in a sarcastic, and probably blasphemous, tone. “I think I’ll muddle through.”

  Another laugh. To be honest, he was annoyingly unaffected by my venomous attitude, which was annoyingly reminiscent of my FATHER. Again. “Whatever,” he said lightly. “Just hang with me and I’ll walk you through everything.”

  “Yeah, thanks. But I really don’t think I need a lesson on how to rip a ticket, Dylan. Oh, I’m sorry. I meant Lieutenant Sebring.” I viciously yanked up my ugly parka zipper, wishing I had a deep hood in which to hide my face.

  His head cocked to the side like a curious puppy, and he studied my face. “You’re fun, Lila. You know that?”

  My tummy jumped and got kind of warm, so I didn’t say anything. But I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling, then managed a huge “whatever” eye roll.

  “No, really. Most girls are just sort of … nice. But you’re totally not. It’s refreshing.”

  Huh?!?!? I wanted to take it as a compliment, and I’m sure he meant it that way, but he’d just told me I wasn’t nice. SWELL. I mean, sure, I wasn’t exactly trying to be nice, but still. “Gee, thanks, sweet talker.” I punched him in the vicinity of his Wild Thing tattoo. Hard. “With lines like that, I’m surprised you don’t have the girls banging down your door … carrying loaded shotguns.”

  He laughed really hard at that one. “See?” he said, all happy-camperish, flipping his hands palm up. “You’re totally not nice. In fact, you’re practically like one of the guys.”

  Greeeeeeeeeat. Now I was one of the guys. And, GOSH, lucky for me, I had the man pants to prove him right.

  Why couldn’t someone take me out of my misery?

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and kept my gaze directly on the wintery ground in front of me as we traipsed en masse into the fenced-in, outdoor stadium adjacent to the high school building. Huge mounds of snow from the big post-homecoming storm still piled up against the fences and sheds, and a thick white blanket of the stuff covered the hills outside the stadium. The maintenance people had done a good job of clearing the football field and bleachers, but there was still a bit of snowpack on the sidewalks. I listened to the crunch of it beneath the treads of my Rocky boots; it sounded like we were marching off to war.

  I peeked out of the corner of my eye to see if Caressa and Meryl had shown up yet, but I didn’t see either of them. It was wicked cold, so people had just begun to trickle in. Thanks to my double-grounding and the fact that all my time was being taken up with this awful junior narc stuff, we’d hardly had time to talk since the day after the dumb supper. I was looking forward to catching up. I was dying to know what, if anything, was up with Meryl and Ismet, and to see if Caressa had come to
her senses about the CD guy.

  The rockers, stoners, and rebels had begun to congregate beneath the bleachers, looking all casual and so not high schoolish. None of them gave a rip about the game, which I’d always found so cool. They just came to hang out in the down under with their peeps.

  I released a soul-deep sigh of mourning as I studied their ripped denim, worn leather, and long hair. Surely none of those guys would ever give me a second glance now that I was a junior narc on TOP of being the chief’s daughter. BIG double red flag.

  Dylan and I set up shop just inside the chain link gate, at a table provided by the Booster Club. Someone’s ultra-peppy mother was there with us. She was kind of annoying with her perkiness and her attempts to be “one of the kids,” but otherwise pretty nice, I guess. I got the feeling she was trying to relive her own high school years through being totally involved with the boosters, which was sorta pathetic and made me feel sad for her. But, hey, at least she was involved. You sure couldn’t say that about a lot of parents.

  I don’t know where the team was, but the band was on the field practicing our fight song. It’s funny—I don’t even know the real words to it, because we always change it up like this:

  Cheer, cheer for White Peaks High.

  You bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the rye,

  Send those freshman out for gin,

  Don’t let a sober sophomore in.

  We never stumble, we never fall

  We sober up on wood alcohol,

  Loyal peeps of WPHS,

  Step up to the bar for more!

  My dad, the principal, and the superintendent—überscary Dr. Judith Cannon—all despise the fact that the entire student body practically screams those words instead of the real ones whenever we’re supposed to sing along. We’ve even had assemblies about it, believe it or not, during which they get together, all seriousfaced, and issue one big group smackdown to us.

  It doesn’t change anything.

  Frankly, I think they ought to lighten up. The stupid song has been sung that way practically since they were high school age. It’s not like we REALLY sober up on wood alcohol, for God’s sake. I don’t even know what wood alcohol is. But, the made-up lyrics are amusing, whereas the real words are so booo-o-oring.

  I was standing at the table, sullenly fiddling with the fuzz inside the pockets of my parka, when Meryl and Caressa be-bopped up and sort of grabbed me.

  “Thank God you guys are here.” I leaned in for a group hug, then turned my butt toward them and looked back over my shoulder. “How hideous are these pants?” I whispered.

  “You look really cute!” Meryl said.

  I gave her a sick smile. Nice fashion sense. “Right.”

  “How’s it going?” Caressa asked, not commenting on my garb whatsoever, which said a lot, coming from Caressa.

  “It’s going.”

  “Hi, Dylan,” Meryl said, looking past me.

  “Hey.” He grinned. “Hi, Caressa.”

  “Hello.” Caressa sort of jostled me from the side. “How’s our little prisoner treating you?”

  “Caressa!”

  Dylan just laughed. “She loves it so far. Don’t you, Moreno.”

  “Bite me, Sebring.”

  He wagged his finger and looked at me all playful-like. “Now see, you still haven’t asked me nicely, or I just might.”

  ACK!!!!!

  I averted my gaze. “Do you mind if I talk to my friends for a few minutes? I haven’t seen them at all since I’ve been on house arrest.” It irked the hell out of me that I had to ask permission, but he did have to give progress reports to my dad.

  “Of course I don’t care. Go on.” He glanced around, then lowered his voice and pierced me with a knowing expression. “Keep in mind your dad will probably show up in a half hour or so. You might want to be over here before then.”

  “Oh.” It felt good that he sort of had my back. It was the first glimpse I’d had of him not being a total yes man with my dad, and I liked it. “Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Meryl, Caressa, and I walked over to the refreshment kiosk and bought ourselves hot cocoa. We stood in a little huddle off to the side, talking to each other through the wisps of steam rising from our paper cups. There were too many people around, so we didn’t bring up the dumb supper at all. It was one thing to be desperate enough for dates to conduct a metaphysical ritual like a dumb supper … another thing entirely to openly talk about it in front of schoolmates. So, we chatted about classes, parents, my grounding, the junior nares. Caressa told us a little about play rehearsals (she hated them). Meryl told us all about how she’d been doing some self-study about Bosnian culture, Ramadan, and the Bosnian dialect of Serbo-Croatian that Ismet’s family spoke, so she could be more respectful of his life. (That Meryl!)

  After a few minutes of chatter, though, my best buddies veered off in a new direction with zero warning. “So, Lila, I totally think Hutch was flirting with you,” Caressa said calmly.

  I jolted. Inside my chest, a warm ball of pleasure blossomed, but I couldn’t let it show. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I rasped. “He has a girlfriend, need I remind you. A perky blonde cheerleader. He’s only hanging out with me because he has to.”

  “Sure, he has to hang out with you. But he doesn’t have to like it,” Meryl said, raising her eyebrows in this knowing way that always makes her seem ten years more mature than the rest of us. “But he’s totally liking it.”

  “How do you know?”

  Caressa and Meryl exchanged this amused glance. “It’s completely obvious,” Caressa said.

  I bought time sipping my hot chocolate, wondering how I would feel if Dylan really did have a thing for me. I mean, he had so many strikes against him. My surreptitious gaze strayed over toward him, but my stomach contracted sourly when I saw Jennifer Hamilton and her rah-rah posse gathered around him all worshipfully. He said something, and a burst of girlish tittering ensued. Blech.

  Newsflash: those girls were nice.

  I wasn’t.

  He dated them.

  He supervised me. Because he had to.

  Yeah, right. Sure, he was flirting with me. SNORT. I turned my back on the nauseating display and addressed my friends. “Look, Hutch wouldn’t even be in my galaxy if it weren’t for this punishment.” I leaned in and added, “He told me I was like one of the guys.”

  “He what?” Caressa shrieked.

  “Yeah. It’s that bad. So, let’s drop it. He’s not my type anyway.”

  “How could he not be your type?” Meryl asked. “He’s hot!”

  Hot, schmot. I tried to completely put Dylan out of my mind, focusing instead on one particular rocker guy I found truly hot. His name is Tristan Vallejos, which totally doesn’t fit him. Why do parents saddle their kids with names like that? We have another guy in our school named Crispin, of all godawful things. He accidentally blew something up in chemistry last year, completely burning off one half of his unibrow and a sideburn. Everyone has called him Crispy Critter since, but what did his parents expect after giving him a name like that? It’s no wonder he wears black all the time, even on his lips and nails, and has pierced everything but his actual eyeballs.

  As for my hottie rocker, no one calls him Tristan, thankfully, because it makes him sound like he should be a fashion expert on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or something (not that I don’t LOVE that show, of course). Instead, everyone calls him Zap, for Frank Zappa, who is this really ancient rock star who once recorded a song called “Broken Hearts Are for A**holes.” He’s famous for other stuff, but that’s the only song that stuck in my head, for obvious humor-based reasons. Anyway, Zap and I had done the mild-to-moderate-flirting-with-potential thing in detention about a year ago until he realized the identity of my dear pa-pa. That ended that, but I still found him to be superyummy.

  Zap stood right on the edge of the bleachers with some of his buddies, smoking a cigarette. In truth, I don’t really like smoking … but Zap looked cool when he
did it. Zap looks really exotic, with his dark complexion and long black hair. He plays in a garage band and speaks fluent Spanish. I lifted my chin toward him. “Now, THAT is my kind of guy,” I told my friends.

  They followed my gaze. Zap took one last drag on his cig, squinting through the smoke. He held the cig pinched between his thumb and forefinger as he blew out a smoke ring, then raised one boot to rest on the opposite knee and ground out the smoldering stub on his thick rubber soles. It was such an übercoolio move, I almost wished I smoked so I could do it, too.

  “Zap’s a great guitar player,” Caressa said, as if she was looking for reasons to like him.

  “I know.” I sighed. “Dreamy.”

  Meryl, on the other hand, cut right to the chase. “Lila, give it up. Zap Vallejos is cute, sure, but he will never give you the time of day,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Face it. Stoners frown on the idea of dating cops’ daughters.”

  “Whatever.” I pouted, but she was right. Didn’t mean I wanted to admit it. I glanced at my watch. “Look, I have to get back. If my dad shows up and I’m not glued to Hutch like an artificial limb, he’ll kill me.”

  We hugged good-bye, then Caressa and Meryl tromped up into the stands. I stopped at the kiosk and bought a refill of hot chocolate, deciding at the last minute to get one for Dylan, too. I was just trying to be thoughtful. If I was this cold, he had to be cold, too.

  When I walked up to Dylan and the blonde gaggle holding the steaming cups, Jennifer Hamilton and her entourage froze in mid-titter. All their faces turned toward me, and Jennifer’s smile went sort of brittle. They stared at me like I was a sex offender, fresh from jail and unleashed onto their neighborhood. It was the first time I could remember any of them looking at me rather than through me, and it made me highly uncomfortable.

  “Soooo, baby,” she purred to Dylan, moving closer to lay a proprietary French-manicured hand on his shoulder as she drilled me with that evil stare, “is this your new little recruit?”

  Dylan sort of rolled his eyes, but Jennifer missed it. “This is Lila. Lila, this is Jennifer and … everyone.”