This Is All Your Fault, Cassie Parker

by Terra Elan McVoy

  “Seems you took my text to heart,” he says when we’re alone in the car. “I’m glad. Does it mean you’re able to talk to me now?”

  A defensive hot flush rushes over me. “Talk to you about what?”

  “About your unhappiness around this marriage. Or my relationship with Jennifer to begin with.”

  His bluntness is uncomfortable.

  “I haven’t said that.” I’m not ready for this. Blocking out thoughts of Dad and Jennifer all morning has kept me from preparing any good answers.

  “I know you haven’t. It’s why I wanted us to do this today.” He looks away from the road at me just long enough to make it feel unsafe. “Why I was glad we went shopping last weekend. It was my intention to discuss your feelings then, but something was going on with that friend of yours. I didn’t want to press, since it was clear you were so tense, and besides we were having such a good time.”

  I’m shocked Dad noticed anything that day.

  “You didn’t want to talk then,” he goes on, “and I suppose it’s okay if you don’t want to now. I need to tell you, however, that I see that you’re unhappy, and that does matter to me.”

  Words finally come to the surface. “But it won’t make a difference, Dad. You’ve said so a hundred times yourself; you and Mom are grown-ups, and I just have to go along with your decisions. You’re going to do this anyway no matter how I feel about it.”

  Dad maneuvers us to the curb of the restaurant to park. “Perhaps it won’t change anything in the grand scheme of upcoming events, you’re right. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

  We get out, and Dad gives his keys to the valet. I follow him across the wide driveway, up the porch, then into the quiet, open-air dining room: a place more for business people than kids and their dads.

  “Fiona,” he says, quiet, when we have our seats.

  I take a long drink of water so the glass can block my face.

  Dad watches me glug it down. “I want to know how you really feel about this.”

  I stop drinking, so I don’t choke. “No, you don’t.”

  “And you know this how?” His voice is angrier. “Have you tried?”

  It makes me angry, too. “Of course I’ve tried. I told you I didn’t want to go to Disneyland with Jennifer, because it’d be her and Leelu paired up all the time instead of the three of us the way it’s supposed to. I told you I don’t like how she buys us all those gifts as though that will help us like her better, or how whenever you’re not working you always want us to be with her. Like the park. Or dinner out all the time. We never get to have special time with you anymore, Dad. And now I don’t have it with Leelu either, because Jennifer’s always buddying up with her. But you’re marrying her so obviously you really don’t care what I think.”

  I haven’t been able to look at him the whole time I say all this.

  “How could I have the chance to show you,” he says, waving the waiter away to buy us more time, “when this is the first I’m hearing your feelings?”

  I look at him.

  He looks at me.

  “Really.” He shakes his head in astonishment. “I had no idea.”

  “I have told you,” I insist.

  “You may have told someone else, but you didn’t tell me.”

  To my surprise, I realize he’s right. I’ve told my diary instead, if anyone.

  “Fiona, my blossom,” Dad goes on, “how am I supposed to understand what you need, when you aren’t honest with me about what that might be?” His powerful lawyer voice is gone. Instead he just sounds sad. “I know these changes in our family have been difficult. I understand that you’re upset with me and my decisions, but I’ll only continue to frustrate and disappoint you if you don’t talk to me.”

  He looks over his menu, giving me space to process what he just said. While I run my eyes over the list of dishes without really seeing them, something about this feels like a conversation I’ve had before—or, rather, one I need to have.

  “I’ve a very loose idea of how you are,” Dad picks up again when the waiter leaves with our order, “and what’s happening in your life, but these are matters I hear about mainly through your mother. For example, I didn’t know about Cassie until she explained to me why you were so upset about Disneyland. I would prefer to learn these issues from you, though. You’re getting so grown-up, and I know things are moving fast in your world: with your friends, your interests, maybe a little romantically with boys. Or, I guess, girls. Whatever the case, I don’t want to miss out on who you’re becoming, just because you’re holding in your anger with me. I’d appreciate a chance to listen to your feelings, and share my own side. Maybe we’ll both learn something, and benefit. I would like that. But I asked you to this lunch because I need your help. I can’t accomplish this by myself; I could use you meeting me at least halfway.”

  Having Dad talk to me in such a grown-up way feels strange and a little scary. At first I’m not sure I know how to respond on the same level, until I think of Aja telling me that friends say things straight. Remember leaping into new experiences, even when I was scared.

  Maybe there’s a lot more I can revise besides my writing and my wardrobe, even if it takes several tries. Even if I still don’t know the ending.

  I take a sip of water, and then look Dad in the eye. “Okay.”

  We spend almost two hours talking. At first it’s hard to explain to Dad all the ways in which I don’t like Jennifer, and sometimes he argues with my statements, but he does listen. He’s surprised when I say all the gifts are excessive, and I’m surprised when he agrees that father/daughter time is important to keep. He confesses how badly he felt when I didn’t come along on vacation, and that he should have fought harder to make that work. I tell him how much I gained from creative writing camp, and how I’ve managed to create good things out of the bad ones that have happened. How brave I’ve felt getting through the most terrible moments. It doesn’t change the fact that he and Jennifer are still getting married, or that I’m not happy about it, but in the course of our conversation, something between us shifts in a better direction.

  As we wait for the car, Dad puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That we had to fight before you could come to me. You’re right, I haven’t paid attention, and your mother was right that I should have spoken to you and your sister about the engagement privately first. I wanted what I wanted, and thought what I thought, I guess. Sometimes I still expect Mom to speak out of anger instead of sense. But that’s unfair to who she is now, and it was unfair to you.”

  I nod, a tightness prickling in my throat and my eyes. Dad isn’t the type to apologize to people much, so hearing it feels strange, even if it’s what I’ve been waiting for all lunch without knowing it. That he understands Mom so well, and talked to her about this first, feels important, too. None of it magically fixes everything, but it has made a difference. Maybe not in ways I’d expected, but deep down, I still feel a knot inside me has loosened: one I wasn’t aware was there before.

  And I can think of someone else I might feel better talking to, too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I don’t think Mom will call me back immediately, since she’s busy with her importers in San Francisco, but after I message her she FaceTimes me right away.

  “Are you all right?” she wants to know.

  I assure her yes. “Dad and I had lunch today. We talked. About a lot of things.”

  Mom’s face relaxes. “I know he’s been wanting to have a conversation with you.”

  “Yeah, we did, but it made me realize I’ve needed to have one with you too. For a long time, I think. I just haven’t exactly known how.”

  “Well, I’m eager to listen, blossom.”

  I spill the more recent dilemma with Aja first, since we’ve at least discussed that together a little, but eventually I get to the important stuff about Cassie, and my diary, and why seeing Kendra in the library was so upsetting. I tell her about dumping
soda on Kendra, seeing Cheyenne at the thrift store, and missing Cassie even though I’m still angry about what happened. Wishing at least Cassie could know about it. That I wanted her with me, Sanders, and Evie at Teamer Park, too.

  “That’s a lot.” Mom looks a little overwhelmed. “I’m surprised you’ve had so much going on that you haven’t been able to tell me about.”

  I feel another guilty twinge, like I did with Dad. “It never seemed like the right time. And I didn’t think—”

  “You can tell me anything, Fiona. I hope you know that.”

  “Really, I was afraid you’d call Cassie’s mom. That you’d try to help but only make it worse.”

  Her nod is thoughtful. “Well, to be honest, Serena and I have spoken a little about you two not seeing each other. I don’t think either of us knew the scope, though.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve been processing it on your own.” She means my diary.

  But I know what she’ll say next. What I want to say, too. “Talking to people out loud might help even more.”

  “I just never want you to feel you have to hide.”

  I assure her I don’t anymore. That it’s better now.

  “Is there anything else you need to tell me?” she makes sure.

  I consider. “I don’t like Jennifer. Or”—I think more clearly—“I don’t like her around all the time, and that when she is, it’s like I lose Leelu to her.”

  Mom chuckles in empathy. “That girl worships you. But if you’re scared of someone else coming between you—whomever it is—you’re the only one who can keep it from happening.”

  I’m not sure how I can keep Jennifer and Leelu from fusing together, but I thank Mom for the good talk.

  “Oh, thank you,” she says. “I’m so sorry you felt you had to struggle on your own.”

  It hits me, clear: “Maybe I needed to.”

  We trade I love yous, and Mom says we can talk more when she’s back.

  Without too much thought after we hang up, I knock on the wall that separates my room and Leelu’s: “Hey, sissie?”

  She knocks back, two times, which means I can come in. She’s propped up on a stack of turquoise and pink pillows in her pajamas, reading a book she found at our last trip to the library.

  “You know our list?” I ask.

  “Yeah. We’re almost finished. There’s only, like, four things left.”

  “I know. So I was wondering if, before school starts, we could go back and revisit the most fun things.”

  Her dimples pop out. “You mean like Legos?”

  I’m glad this morning is already considered a highlight for her. “Sure, that. But I was thinking, tomorrow night, just you and me, maybe roller-skating?”

  She nearly trips out of the bed to grab me in a hug, and then runs down the hall, calling for Dad. He’s clearly in an extra-big Please the Daughters mood, because he drops us off together at the rink the next night, without even insisting on staying himself. Nobody in my grade really skates anymore—it’s for littler kids, or else the big ones in college—but Leelu loves the lights and the music, and unlike me, she’s fearless on her skates. A lot of the time she zips around between other skaters, lapping me over and over, though at slow songs we clasp hands while she skates backward and I skate forward.

  We’re doing this during one of the first slow skates when I decide to ask her.

  “Hey, Leelu?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We haven’t talked yet about Dad and Jennifer’s announcement.”

  She makes a confused face.

  So I ask straight out. “What do you think about Jennifer, really?”

  “She’s pretty. And, she’s fun.”

  “Fun because she always buys you presents and does whatever you want?”

  “No. Fun because she plays with me. Better than Dad anyway.”

  “I play with you.”

  “You’re the best player, but now you’re always busy with your writing or your friends. Like when we were at the park and you just left me behind to jump off that big cliff. You didn’t even want to go on vacation with me.”

  Since I’m steering, I am afraid to look fully down at her, but I don’t need to see those big brown eyes to feel her sadness.

  “You’re always so excited when she’s around, though,” I say. “And you were having so much fun in all those Disneyland pictures—sharing your own suite—I didn’t think you missed me at all. I thought you liked it better with her. Every time she’s around, you’re jumping up and down.”

  “Disneyland was fun,” she agrees. “But it would’ve been way funner with you there. We had to split up on a lot of the rides. If you had been with me, we could have ridden together and they could be in another car. Plus, Dad’s no good at I spy in line. He always has to check his phone or something. And Jennifer does it too easy. They were holding hands and kissing a lot too—I didn’t have a pair to be in.”

  I’d been so worried about being left out of the Jennifer-Leelu partnership, I didn’t consider that, without me there, something similar would happen to Leelu. If she felt left out or like a third wheel, it’s my fault.

  I remember Dad’s apology to me, and how good it felt.

  “I’m sorry I did that to you, Loodeeloo. I wasn’t thinking about how it would seem from your side.”

  She nods, but she’s still sad. We skate together in quiet, under the blue and red lights, the spinning of the multiple tiny disco balls on the ceiling. I’m not sure what I can say to her next.

  “You don’t like Jennifer.” She’s not asking me, she’s saying it.

  “I don’t . . .” Like how she gets in our business all the time, I think, but that’s not the real truth: the deep one inside me being covered by the other story I’m telling myself. “I don’t like that our family got broken up, or that Mommy has to live in the condo and we have to live in Dad’s new place instead of our big house, all together. I don’t like it that Dad wants to be married to someone else.”

  Leelu nods again. The slow set ends, and the white lights go back up. Couples around us separate, and kids Leelu’s age start chasing each other around the rink again. Leelu turns to skate forward too, but she doesn’t let go of my hand.

  “Do you think Jennifer will have a baby?” she asks, timid.

  I nearly laugh and stop skating, it surprises me so much, but when Leelu looks up at me, I can see how distressed she is.

  “Have you been worried about that?”

  She bites her lip. “Uh-huh.”

  I guess I’m not the only one who hasn’t been saying things. I skate a few strides, trying to think how I would feel about a baby. If they had one right now, I’d be graduating high school when it started kindergarten. I would hardly know it at all. I’d still be the biggest sister, though. Leelu would have to give up being the baby herself.

  “I don’t know if Jennifer or Dad want a baby. But if they do, I don’t think they’re going to have one any time soon.” I didn’t think they’d be getting married so soon, either, but I don’t need to worry Leelu more. “If they do, Daddy will be there to talk to you about it, I promise. Even though he works a lot, he really does care what we think.”

  I see her not exactly believing me, but she’ll find out, the way I did, when she needs to. Before this week, nobody could have told me I’d have a conversation like the one I did with Dad yesterday, either.

  “And besides”—I wiggle my wrist, making our hands flop between us—“if they do, that baby will have a big sister like you, which means it will be very, very lucky.”

  “You’re teasing.”

  “No, I’m serious.” I let go and put my hands on my hips, sassy. “I’ll be too busy with my writing and my friends, as you say. Who else will teach it all the best movies and songs, or how to play Rescue Mermaid, and the rules for TVD?”

  She giggles at this. “Yeah, you’ll be too big then. All you’ll care about is your phone. And kissing.”

  “That’s
right. Don’t forget checking my skin for pimples, either.”

  “Ew! Or armpit hair!” she squeals.

  I fire back, “Horror movies and surfing,” and our conversation derails into all the gross and dumb things teenagers do, which is only interrupted by an old Taylor Swift song we love but haven’t heard in a long time. We swing our hips and mouth all the words as we skate, not caring what anyone around us may think. Round and round we go together the rest of the night, until we’re sweaty, tired, and leaning on each other in the backseat of Dad’s car, where I feel, for the first time in a while, that my sister and I do have something that no one else can destroy, after all. Not even a wicked (or just super-enthusiastic) stepmother.

  It’s not until we’re home and getting ready for bed that I remember the world outside my family, and think to check my phone.

  Hi Fiona! Evie wrote while Leelu and I were skating. Do you know about the party tomorrow?

  Just got this—what party? I type back.

  She answers fast, even though it’s late: I hope it’s okay but I talked to Aja. She wants you to come, and said she’d invite you herself, but I guess she’s too embarrassed to ask. She said she’d tell Tyrick not to be there if you don’t want him to come. She feels bad.

  I consider this. I suppose I’ll need to get used to Evie telling other people things even if I’m not ready for her to yet, but I’m not mad. It’s just hard to picture what it might be like, seeing Aja or Tyrick, after so much time. And everything in between.

  What kind of party is it?

  A pool party.

  Who’s coming?

  She’s inviting a lot of girls from chorus. Some boys too. River’s friends. It should be fun.

  Do you think I could bring Sanders? I tentatively send. It’s probably too late to ask him, and it might be weird for me to bring someone to Aja’s party whom she doesn’t know, but having both Evie and Sanders there will make sure I have a good time, no matter what happens.

  I will tell her to let you! He’s so fun!

  There really isn’t time to think about any of it, since Sanders and Dad say yes right away when I ask the next morning, and the party starts at eleven. There’s barely a moment to even consider what I’m wearing before Evie, and then Sanders, is ringing our doorbell, chatting and laughing in the living room like there was never any awkwardness between them. I’m glad, for more than one reason than that it helps distract me from my nervousness about seeing Aja.