“Ugh. They’re still refusing to put me in the kitchen. But you have such a pretty smile, Giselle!” she mimics, flopping onto my bed like a dying swan. Her never-ending arms knock my snuggly crocheted mushroom off his favorite pillow.
“Oi,” I say, reaching over to restore him to his rightful throne. “Watch it.”
“Don’t shout at me, Celine. I’m nursing wounds of the soul. If one more football hooligan comes waltzing out of the Forest stadium to take out his pent-up aggression on me…” Her elegant features screw into an expression that can only be described as murderous. Combined with the smooth curve of her newly shaved head, she looks like a vengeful spirit crossed with Alek Wek. “Well, they’ll learn.” She sighs and changes the subject. “So, I read your leaflet.”
This means nothing because I collect all kinds of leaflets. How are you supposed to learn about the different opportunities in the world if you don’t comb over the appropriate literature? “Mmm-hmm?” I murmur, turning the sound down on my phone and scrolling through a few more videos.
“Did you know Dad’s firm is partly sponsoring this Katharine Breakspeare thing?”
I drop the phone. It smacks me in the nose. “Shit.”
“Smooth,” she says.
“What? No. I…er…” My face hurts, which apparently inhibits my ability to lie. I rub my nose and give up. “How did you even find it?”
“Find what?” she asks. “Oh, you mean the leaflet you hid behind your bedside table? I just came into your room and thought, ‘Giselle, if you were a shady little shit, where would you put your illicit materials?’ And then I poked around.”
“So you went through my stuff.”
“I went through your dust and lies, yes,” Giselle says brightly. Then she sits up, settling against my cushions as if she’s planning to be here for a long time. My eyes flick toward the door, and she gives me a knowing look. “Mum’s gone for a drink with Maria, remember?”
Well, thank God for that. I try not to seem too relieved, though; it will only imply guilt.
“Why do you want to see Dad?” Giselle asks, each word cautiously placed like steps through a land mine.
A little dirt devil of uncertainty whirls in my gut. “I don’t.”
She is clearly unconvinced.
“I mean, not like that. I don’t want to see him, see him.” I don’t give a single solitary shit about the man. “I just…I’m going to be a BEP alum, you know? I’m going to be an Ultimate Explorer. I’m going to be up onstage at the Explorers’ Ball receiving an award and a scholarship to Cambridge because I’m so bloody brilliant, and his firm will be clamoring to forge ties with me as an up-and-coming corporate star, and he’ll have to…to see it.”
That was a perfectly valid explanation, but Giselle sighs pityingly the way only an older sister can. “Oh, Celine.”
“What? It’s not…I’m not…” My face is hot, but I fold my hands together and force myself to speak slowly. “I didn’t choose to do the BEP because Dad might—and it is, technically, a might—be at the ball. But if he is there, good.” A lump rises in my throat. I swallow it. “I bet he never even thinks about us. We are a government-mandated direct debit, Giselle. Meanwhile, Mum has done everything for us, been everything for us, and you know what? She did an incredible job, because we are amazing human beings. He should see that.”
Giselle snorts. “Amazing human beings? You’re an emo nerd and I’m a ne’er-do-well with delusions of artistic grandeur. What’s so amazing about that?”
“Shut up.” I smack her arm. “What are you being a dick for?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.” Her hand rests on my shoulder. Her eyes are black like the ink of a message I can’t quite read. “Even if neither of us ever did anything interesting in our entire lives, it wouldn’t matter. You don’t need to be special or significant to have value. You’re just important, always, and people either see that or they don’t. They either love you, or they don’t.” She bites her lip. “Dad’s messed up, Celine. They should’ve given him an Unfit for Purpose stamp at the parent factory. But he is who he is—”
I’m nodding, vindicated, my plan rushing out like I’ve secretly been waiting for someone to tell it to. Maybe I have. “Exactly. Exactly! So when he sees me at the ball, he’ll feel what a failure he is. I’m going to achieve everything he ever did,” I tell her, “only better. And he’ll hear all about it. I’ll get the highest grades in my entire school and they’ll put me on BBC News, and he’ll spit out his morning coffee.” It’s true what they say about the power of intentions because every word I speak wraps around me like magic, reinforcing my bones with steel. “I’ll dominate his field and in ten years’ time he won’t be able to move without hearing my name. I hope the shame suffocates him in his sleep. I hope he retires early with exhaustion. I hope he has the audacity to try and claim me as his daughter so I can tell him I have one father and her name is Neneh.”
There should, by rights, be a mysterious wind whipping around my bedroom as I lay a dread curse upon my sire. Giselle should be glowing with admiration and adding her own deeply positive affirmations to this moment. Instead, for some reason, she seems…upset?
“Cel. Babe. No.”
I stop. Blink. I have no idea what I’ve done wrong.
“Why do you care? Why do you think about him at all?” She stands up, hands on her hips, sadness on her face. “Do you even want to be a lawyer?”
“What?” I squawk. “Of course, I do. Like—” Katharine, I’m going to say.
“Like Dad?” Giselle accuses.
That’s so ridiculous, I laugh. “Him? No. I don’t want to be anything like him.”
Giselle stares down at me. “Then why are you planning your whole life around him?”
“I’m not! God. You think you know everything—”
She snorts. “More than you.”
“Just because you’re, like, five seconds older than me. This is for Mum,” I correct. “Obviously. To prove how…how wonderful she is, and how she didn’t need him, and…and that it was worth it.”
Giselle’s brow creases. “What was worth it?”
“Staying with us!”
My sister doesn’t reply; instead, she studies me with narrow-eyed urgency, like she’s only just noticed I have a third eyebrow and it’s blond. Meanwhile, I’m having a minor internal freak-out because I know when I’m winning an argument. I know when I’m making logically sound points. And all this stuff made perfect sense in my head, but when I say it out loud, it sounds more like the conspiracy theories I analyze.
But…but that’s okay because plenty of conspiracy theories are basically true. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to restore balance and order and meaning to a messed-up situation. And there’s nothing wrong with punishing someone who was supposed to love you but couldn’t do it right. Isn’t that basically what law’s about? Crime and punishment?