Jesus Christ, what is she thinking?
Fiona straightens up as fast as if someone poked her in the back with a pencil. Right away, Sam straightens up, too. “So, listen,” he says, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, “you should think about the reboot.”
Fiona feels her entire body drop, involuntary, like someone pulling the plug on a novelty pool float. Probably good, she reminds herself, to be clear about exactly what he’s been after all day long. “I . . . will definitely not be doing that,” she promises him brightly. “Take care of yourself, Sam.”
“I—yeah,” he says. Fiona has no idea what exactly she feels so disappointed about. “You too.”
She takes a moment to gather herself once he’s gone, standing outside the front door of the house as the taillights of his ridiculous, embarrassing car disappear around the corner. It occurs to her that being with Sam felt like being onstage—not like she was performing, exactly, but more like she was lost in something besides her normal life. Like she was someone else for a while. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.
Inside the house her father is sitting in the same exact place where she left him this morning, the light from the TV flickering across his face. “Hey, Dad,” she says gently, knocking on the doorframe like it’s his bedroom, which honestly it might as well be. For a moment she remembers how he used to be back when she was a little kid, growing basil in big pots on the patio and making Special Scramble on Saturday mornings after her swim meets. “How was your day?”
He looks up—surprised, though Fiona isn’t sure if it’s because he didn’t realize she was back or because he didn’t realize she was gone to begin with. “Fine, honey.”
“How about a shower before dinner?”
Her dad shakes his head, eyes on the screen. “I’m not hungry, sweetheart.”
Fiona bites her tongue so hard she tastes iron. Sometimes she gets so mad at her mom for leaving that she almost can’t breathe. Fiona deserved it; she knows that about herself. But Claudia didn’t. “That’s not really what I said, Dad.” She forces herself to smile. “Come on, quick rinse.”
Eventually her dad sighs and shuffles off toward the bathroom. Fiona resists the urge to stand outside the closed door and listen for the sound of the running water, but barely. Instead she heads out into the backyard, where Claudia is sitting on the patio reading some four-thousand-page fantasy book and rubbing one bare foot along Brando’s bristly back. Claudia found Brando wandering crookedly down their street when she was twelve; he was flea-bitten and emaciated and had a giant scar on one side of his neck that suggested an extremely checkered past, but as soon as he saw Claudia he stopped, rolled over, and begged to be petted. Fiona’s father is allergic to dogs, but Estelle isn’t, and so Brando has lived with her ever since, although periodically Fiona comes into Claudia’s room to wake her up for school in the morning and finds him curled into the shape of a doughnut at the bottom of her sister’s bed.
“Oh hello,” Claudia says now, marking her place with her index finger and peering at Fiona through a pair of cat-eye glasses with no lenses. “How was your date?”
Fiona comes up behind her and scoops Claudia’s hair off her neck, liking the thick, silky weight of it in her hands. “It wasn’t a date,” she says, which is true, though there’s still a tiny part of her that feels pleasantly dazed in the aftermath, like maybe he kissed her after all. He wants her to do the show, Fiona reminds herself firmly. That’s all any of that was.
Claudia looks unconvinced. “Did you eat?” she asks.
“Yes,” Fiona admits grudgingly.
“Date.”
“Oh, right.” Fiona tugs Claudia’s hair lightly, dragging Claudia’s head back to peer at her upside down. “Is that how it works at school?”
Claudia snorts. “Uh, no. Definitely not.”
“Just for olds like me?”
“And Estelle,” Claudia says. “Probably for Estelle, too.”
“Nah,” Fiona says, letting go of Claudia’s hair. “Estelle is on the apps.”
“Down to fuck,” Claudia agrees, and follows Fiona back inside.
For dinner Fiona makes chicken quesadillas and microwaves some broccoli with butter and salt, tucking a folded paper towel under the silverware beside Claudia’s plate. She always makes Claudia sit at the table, even if she’s the only one eating. “We’re not animals,” she says, when Claudia complains.
She’s headed for the fridge to see if there’s any sour cream left when she catches sight of her reflection in the glass of the microwave door, then frowns and lifts a hand to her earlobe. “Shit,” she mutters. She drops to her knees on the floor, running her hands over the tile and coming up with a palmful of crumbs. “We should vacuum,” she observes.
“What are you doing?” Claudia asks, peering down at her with consternation.
“I lost an earring.” Fiona grimaces. “Mom’s earring. The pearl.”
Right away, Claudia scuttles down off her chair and crouches beside Fiona, her hair making a curtain around her face. “When was the last time you saw it?” she asks, peering under the table.
Fiona shakes her head. “This morning, maybe? I don’t know.” She retraces her steps, the patio and the living room and the front yard, but it’s useless. The thing is probably in the pocket of some cigarette-smelling blazer at the East Hollywood Goodwill, or down the garbage disposal at the diner with leftover hash browns and the curly rinds of orange slices. “It’s okay,” she says finally, sitting back on her haunches, though it doesn’t feel okay. “We’re not going to find it.”
“Probably not,” Claudia agrees, and something about the way she accepts the inevitability of disappointment makes Fiona feel about three inches tall.
“Come on,” she says, scrambling inelegantly to her feet and holding out a hand. Their dad is still shut in his room. “Let’s go get doughnuts.”
Claudia grins.
They get in Fiona’s car and head for the twenty-four-hour Krispy Kreme on Crenshaw, neon lights streaking by outside the glass. They started doing this after their mom left, Fiona waking her sister up at two or three in the morning and loading her into the car for the long haul across the city, both of them singing along to Stevie Nicks or Pat Benatar on K-Earth 101. Krispy Kreme has a drive-through but Claudia loved to stand outside the plate glass window on the side of the building and watch the doughnuts rolling by on the conveyor belt, and Fiona loved how much she loved it enough that she was willing to let Darcy’s goons take her picture from time to time.
Tonight they stay in the car, Fiona taking the box from the girl at the window and handing it carefully across the gearshift to her sister. “Careful,” she says, breathing in the warm smell of sugar and fry grease, the night air thick and soupy through the open window. “Still hot.”
Chapter Six
Sam
He’s definitely too broke to be eating out more than once a day, so when Erin calls to see if he wants to get dinner that night he tells her to come to his place in WeHo for tacos instead. “By which you mean, you want me to make tacos?” Erin asks.