Whitney

by Jade Parker

  “You think your dad manipulated things so you would get credit for bringing an amazing laser light show to the water park?” he asked, his voice echoing incredulity.

  Was that what I thought?

  “Talk about your conspiracy theories,” he went on. “First of all, you came over to me —”

  I held up my hand to stop him from going on. He was right. So many different things had happened about the light show. My dad couldn’t have been responsible.

  “I’m sorry. I’m doubting everything I know right now,” I told him.

  “Not our friendship, I hope,” Robyn said.

  “No, that’s the reason I’m here. I trust you guys.” They had been stunned to learn that my dad owned the park. Thinking back on it, Jake hadn’t even questioned it. Now I knew he wasn’t surprised because he already knew. Like his dad, he’d been working undercover.

  Sean’s cell phone rang again. He looked at the display and said, “Jake.” He answered, talked for a minute, then lowered his phone. “Jake wants to know if he comes over whether you’ll talk to him.”

  “No.”

  “He says he can explain.”

  Shaking my head, I fought back the tears. What was there to explain? I knew the truth.

  Sean talked into his phone. “Maybe another time, dude.” He hung up and looked at me. “What now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I got up, took a couple of steps toward the door, walked back. I had nowhere to go and no way to get there. I had told David to go on back home. So here I was. In a pinch, I figured Sean could take me somewhere, but again, I had nowhere to go.

  I was mad at my dad for thinking he had to pay a guy to be with me, and I was angry at Jake for taking money to be with me. Was I really such a pathetic loser? Did my dad think I couldn’t get a boyfriend on my own? Did he think he had to buy everything for me?

  I just wanted to curl into a ball and cry.

  “Do you want to spend the night?” Robyn asked, like maybe she knew what I was thinking.

  “Would it be okay, do you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Your mom wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course not. We don’t have any plans.”

  “I didn’t bring any clothes.”

  “I’ve got some stuff you can wear. It’ll be fun. We’ll have a sleepover.”

  I called Aunt Sophie. She gave me permission to spend the night. She also said that Dad was upset that I heard him and Jake talking. He never meant for me to find out that he was paying Jake to “look after me.” According to Aunt Sophie, those were the exact words he had used. My conversation with her didn’t make me feel any better. It only confirmed that Jake had been hanging around me because my dad had paid him to.

  I felt like such a loser knowing my dad — my dad — thought he had to pay a guy to be my friend. “Here’s five bucks. Hang around with my daughter.”

  Only knowing my dad, knowing how much money he had, I figured he had paid Jake way more than that.

  And for Jake to be working wherever I was working, to always be in sight of me, the people in management had to have been in on it. They knew what Dad was doing, that he was paying Jake to hang around with me, so they made it easier for him to be wherever I was. It was a conspiracy, a conspiracy to ruin my life.

  I didn’t think I could ever show my face at the water park again. I knew how gossip worked, and while this secret had been held tightly, I knew it would come out eventually. I didn’t want to be around when it did.

  After Caitlin and the guys left, Robyn took me up to her room. It was really different from mine. Smaller, for one thing, but it still had space for two twin beds.

  “Caitlin spends the night a lot,” Robyn said as though she wanted to explain the beds.

  All the furniture was white, and the room was painted yellow. It was like stepping into sunshine. She had pictures of actors and bands — obviously the torn-out centerfolds from teen magazines — stapled to her wall. All the art on my wall was framed and original.

  Her room looked and felt lived in. Mine was like a showroom. I never really realized that before.

  “Here. You can sleep in these.” She handed me pink cotton shorts and a white tank top with pink flowers on it.

  I went into the bathroom and changed into them, even though I didn’t think I’d do a lot of sleeping. I figured I was going to spend most of the night brooding.

  I don’t know how long I stayed in the bathroom wondering about my next move. I knew I couldn’t stay at Robyn’s house forever, but I didn’t want to go home either. And I certainly wasn’t going to work. Maybe I’d stay with Aunt Sophie in her apartment. Maybe she could adopt me.

  When I finally left the bathroom, I was surprised to see Caitlin sitting on one of the beds with Robyn. Both were in shorts and tank tops.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Caitlin. Hadn’t she just left?

  “You don’t think you and Robyn are going to have a sleepover and not invite me, do you? I just had to go home and get my stuff.”

  That’s when I noticed the large tote bag on the floor by the bed.

  I guess I was surprised that Caitlin was there, but glad, too. At a moment like this, I needed friends. I sat on the other bed, with my legs tucked up beneath me, facing them. “Now what?”

  “Well, we used to talk about boys —” Robyn began.

  “Until she started dating my brother.” Caitlin held up her hands. “I don’t want to go there. Tonight we’re here for you. What do you want to do?”

  “Truthfully? I just feel like crying.”

  Caitlin reached across Robyn and grabbed a box of tissue that was on the nightstand. She tossed it at me. “Have at it.”

  I smiled sadly. “I haven’t cried since my mom died. Talking to my aunt about boys — it’s just not the same.”

  “So talk to us,” Robyn said.

  She made it sound so simple, so honest. I was used to everything being complicated, and looking for ulterior motives. But with her and Caitlin, maybe I could simply tell the truth.

  “I really liked Jake a lot.”

  “I don’t get why he was taking money to be with you,” Caitlin said. “I mean, at Pizza Palace, it looked like he was totally into you.”

  “He was just pretending.” It hurt to say that but I knew it was the truth. Just like Marci had pretended to be my friend. I had shared my life with her and she had plastered it on the Internet and sold it to a gossip magazine.

  “What if he wasn’t?” Robyn asked.

  “I know he was taking money because I heard —”

  “No. What if he wasn’t pretending? What if he did like you? Maybe the money was for something else.”

  “I don’t think so. I know what I heard. And if I was wrong? When I called Aunt Sophie, she would have told me to come home.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Robyn asked.

  I flopped back on the bed and stared at her ceiling. At home, I would be staring at the canopy of my bed. My room was designed for a princess. Right now, I didn’t feel like a princess. I felt like someone in need of a fairy godmother. But those existed only in fairy tales.

  “I’m not going to work tomorrow,” I said, my mind made up. “I may never go to the water park again.”

  “You’ll have to call in with an excuse,” Robyn said.

  She was a rule follower. I rolled my head to the side and looked at her. “What do you think they’ll do? Fire me.”

  “They might.”

  “Yeah, right. And even if they do, so what? I’m probably going to quit anyway. Besides, they won’t even notice that I’m not there.”

  “Sure they will,” she insisted.

  I sat back up. “I’m inconsequential. I’m a token employee. You heard what Sean told us earlier today. They put me at Splash because they knew if there was a problem, you’d take care of it. You saved a kid. Caitlin saved a kid. I took pictures at parties. How important is that?”

  “You g
ive people memories, and you come up with awesome ideas,” Robyn argued. “Like the laser light show for the Fourth of July.”

  I shook my head, doubting everything. “They did it because of who my dad is. Who knows if it was really a great idea?”

  “People loved it.”

  “Maybe. I guess.” I shook my head and lay back down. “Tomorrow is Marci’s party. I don’t want to be there. Can we talk about something else?”

  Avoiding my problems seemed like a really good idea at the moment. Somehow I had fallen into an alternate universe where I was living the year that nothing went my way.

  Robyn didn’t want to talk boyfriends, because she felt funny talking about Sean with his sister. Caitlin didn’t want to talk about Michael since Robyn and I weren’t talking about guys. So we talked about how in just a few more weeks, summer would be over and we’d all be going to school again.

  I thought about the private school I went to. I had always liked it there until the i’s had betrayed me. I wasn’t looking forward to going back. I wanted to go to the same school as Robyn and Caitlin. Of course, that meant going to the same school as Jake. And I wasn’t certain that I wanted to do that.

  Although I was talking big about not going back to Paradise Falls because I didn’t want to run into Marci, the truth was that I was avoiding Jake.

  How could I possibly look at a guy who had been paid to be with me?

  The next morning, I was the first one to wake up. I slipped out of bed and nearly stepped on Robyn, who had spent the night sleeping on a mound of blankets on the floor. She reminded me of a kitten curled up there.

  I knew I couldn’t hang out at her house all day. I was going to have to go home and face my dad. In the harsh light of morning, my reaction seemed a little over the top. I should have faced Dad and Jake right then and there in Dad’s library last night. I shouldn’t have run.

  I didn’t think Robyn would have run. Caitlin, for sure, wouldn’t have run.

  Dad wanted me to learn about the real world. That meant facing things that I didn’t like.

  I sneaked out of the bedroom. I had left my cell phone downstairs. My plan was to get it and give Aunt Sophie a call. She would come and get me. Maybe she could help me decide my next step.

  But when I got downstairs, I heard voices. Robyn’s house was small enough that the voices carried out of the kitchen. One of the voices was really deep. I recognized it immediately. It was my dad.

  I walked to the kitchen doorway. Dad was sitting at the counter talking with Robyn’s mom. They each had a mug of coffee. The mugs didn’t match. It was an odd thing to notice, but I did. Just like I noticed that they were smiling at each other as though they knew each other.

  “Great,” I said from the doorway. “This is just great. Tell me you didn’t pay Robyn and Caitlin to be my friends.”

  Dad jumped off the bar stool as though I’d caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. “Of course not,” he said. “I thought you’d be ready to come home this morning, so I came to get you. And met Ms. Johnson.”

  “Like I’m supposed to believe that.”

  Dad didn’t get after me for the sarcasm dripping from my voice. Normally he would have, but I figured right now he was feeling guilty that I’d discovered the truth. I could probably get away with a lot if I wanted. But I didn’t want to.

  “Why don’t you get your things and we’ll discuss this at home?” Dad suggested.

  I wasn’t sure if I was ready to discuss it, but I didn’t want to be a burden to Robyn’s mom either. I knew I was being difficult. Dad would get embarrassed and angry. Then I’d get angry and hurt. He was right. The best thing to do was to go somewhere else to discuss it.

  I went to the media room where I’d left my tote bag the night before. I grabbed it, then went upstairs and changed into my clothes. Apparently the Johnsons had company a lot — or maybe they just liked being hospitable — because they had a little basket with unopened toothbrushes and toothpaste and all sorts of little travel things like you’d find in a hotel. I brushed my teeth really quickly and did what I could to feel halfway human.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Robyn was standing near the door.

  “Your dad’s here,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go home.”

  “Are you going to come to work today?”

  “No.” As a matter of fact, I probably wasn’t going to go back ever again. What was the point? It wasn’t the real world. I was just playing at working, doing what I wanted to do. Everyone else carried the responsibility. Everyone pretended that I worked, and watched to pick up the slack when I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry if you had to work harder at the beginning of the summer because I wasn’t doing my job,” I said.

  “Puh-leez! I stood around and watched kids slide. How much work is that?”

  I was embarrassed to admit it, but I said, “Sean was right. I couldn’t have done the CPR. During class, I did just enough to get certified and then I forgot it all. I thought it was stupid, that I’d never use it. No one had ever drowned at the park before.”

  “Don’t keep beating yourself up about it. It’s over.”

  But it was the same at P&E. I had ideas, but Charlotte and Lisa made them happen.

  “I’d better go. Dad is waiting.” I headed for the stairs, stopped, and turned back around. “It was really weird, the way your mom and my dad were talking. Like friends. Are they, do you think?”

  Robyn shook her head. “I don’t see how they could be. But Mom always tries to make people feel welcome.”

  I nodded. She was probably right. That’s all it was.

  When I got downstairs, Dad was waiting by the door with Ms. Johnson.

  “Ready, kiddo?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” I thanked Ms. Johnson for letting me spend the night.

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “I hope you’ll come back.”

  It was weird — the way she smiled at me, then smiled at Dad. The smile she gave him seemed brighter, more inviting. I knew Robyn’s dad wasn’t around, had left her mom years ago. Still, I didn’t want to think about my dad dating anyone. Not yet. Maybe never.

  Finally, we were finished with our good-byes, and Dad and I were heading home with the top off his black Lamborghini. I had tried to talk him into a red one, but he wanted black. So Batman-ish.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  I hadn’t really stopped to think about it. I looked over at him. He was wearing sunglasses. The wind was lifting his dark hair. I wondered if Ms. Johnson thought he was attractive. He was. No doubt about it. He took good care of himself, except for all the hours he worked.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  Dad pulled into the parking lot of a pancake house.

  It wasn’t until Dad had his coffee and I had my orange juice that he said, “Can I explain now?”

  I guess he figured I wouldn’t go ballistic in a public place. He was right. I did have some pride. After what Marci had done to me, exposing my private moments to the world, I wasn’t going to do anything embarrassing with witnesses around.

  “What’s to explain?” I asked. “You paid Jake to be my friend.”

  Dad shook his head, took a sip of coffee, and grimaced. I didn’t know if it was the coffee or his conscience that he’d reacted to.

  He sighed. “Ever since we lost your mother, I’ve worried, not only about you getting hurt physically, but emotionally. When Marci hurt you, I felt bad that I hadn’t been able to do anything to prevent what happened. I want you to be safe from all hurts.”

  “Even I know that’s impossible, Dad.”

  “You’re right. It is. But I know there are a lot of kids at water parks, a lot of older kids. Parents drop them off, and no one watches them. And I worried that there might be some bullies and that they might give you a hard time. I also worried that if any employees found out that your dad owned the park, they might
get ugly. So, yes, I paid Jake to make sure that no one upset you.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “So he doesn’t work for the park.”

  “No, he works for the park. They just know that wherever you’re assigned, he’s assigned. And I pay him extra.”

  “How much extra?”

  “A hundred dollars a week.”

  Jake must have found watching me to be quite a burden to give that up.

  “But he doesn’t want me to pay him anymore.”

  “Because he doesn’t want to watch me.”

  Dad cleared his throat, sipped his coffee, set the mug down, and tapped the handle. “I think there’s more to it than that. You should probably talk to him when you get to work.”

  The waitress set our plates of food in front of us.

  “I’m not going to work,” I said as I poured syrup over my chocolate chip pancakes.

  “What? It’s your day off?”

  “Nope. I quit.”

  “You can’t do that, Whitney.”

  “Yes, I can. It’s a free country.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Yeah, well, Dad, neither is paying a guy to watch out for me. I’m not a kid anymore. Besides, it’s not the real world. Everyone pretended what I did was important because they didn’t want me to get upset. They figured if I was unhappy, you’d be unhappy.” I felt tears sting my eyes and blinked them back. “It wasn’t real, Dad.”

  None of it was. Not my job. Not Jake liking me. Maybe not even Robyn and Caitlin being my friends.

  “Are you sure you won’t be needing my services today, Miss Whitney?” David asked. He was usually so stern-looking, but now he seemed relaxed in his Dockers and polo shirt.

  I was stretched out on the lounge chair by the pool in my backyard — taking in the sun, doing nothing, trying not to think about everything that was probably going on at Paradise Falls. It was Sunday and the place would be packed. We closed at seven on Sunday, which would give the party planners an hour to get things ready before Marci and her gang showed up for the event of the summer.