But as much as I want to, I can’t stop the world from changing. Time passes. People change. Lives move on.
“I think you and Martin would be great together.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Really, truly,” I say.
She scoots closer and lays her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickles my nose. “Can I ask you something without you getting mad at me?” she asks.
“I can’t predict the future,” I say.
“Come on, promise me,” she insists.
“Fine, fine, I promise.”
“How come you changed your mind again about going to Dad’s wedding?”
I don’t have an answer for her, not really. The wedding just felt like too much, too many complicated emotions to deal with on top of everything that happened with X.
The last time I saw Dad was at graduation. Afterward he took me to Mariscos Chente for lunch. He decided our valedictorian was a genius and riffed on cheesy puns until my sides hurt from laughing too much. He even managed to combine a Mexican-food pun with a cheese one.
Q: Why should you always bring a bag of tortilla chips to a party?
A: In queso emergency.
He didn’t ask me again to go to the wedding and he didn’t call me sweet pea. For the first time I saw what our relationship could be like at some point in the future.
Danica picks her head up from my shoulder. “At least tell me why you’re so mad at him. Is it only because he left?” she whispers.
“What do you mean?”
She stares at me for a long time, scared of something. “You don’t think he and Shirley got together before—”
I know what she’s asking. She’s asking if he had an affair. I think about what knowing the truth has done to me. I think of what it would do to Danica.
Some illusions don’t need shattering.
I shake my head and hold her eyes. I am completely and totally convincing. “No way,” I say. “Dad would never do that.”
Her relief is acute, and I feel like a good big sister.
“You should come to the wedding,” she says again.
“Why?”
“Because he’s our dad and he loves us and he’s getting married to someone he loves and we should celebrate that with him.”
It’s so simple for her.
“Also, it’ll be easier if we do it together,” she says.
I look up at her and understand that this whole thing has been harder for her than I realized.
“Okay,” I say. “But I don’t have a dress.”
“How about that one?” she says pointing to the lavender one, the one I liked better.
I shake my head. “You didn’t need my help choosing a dress at all, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Your plan when you came in here was to get me to go to the wedding, wasn’t it?”
She laughs an evil laugh and tumbles off the bed before I can catch her. “Yup,” she says.
“Okay,” I say once I’ve stopped laughing. “Okay, I’ll go.”
CHAPTER 58
Answers
I WAKE UP the next morning knowing I have apologies to make. I ride my bike over to the studio and haul it—one last time—to the top of the stairs. Fifi is in the reception booth, explaining something about how to sign clients up for lessons to a woman sitting at the computer.
As soon as she sees me, her eyes go wide and then narrow again. “Oh, look who it is. The vanishing dancing queen.” She quick-steps it out of the booth, stops about a foot away from me and folds her arms. “Did not think I would see you again.” She’s not just being her usual Fifi self. I hurt her feelings.
I take a step toward her. “Fi, I’m sorry for running off and for not calling and for not saying thank you. I’m really sorry.”
She sniffs and taps her heels and considers. “Not nice to abandon people who care about you,” she says.
“I know. I’m really sorry, Fi,” I say again.
Finally, she smiles. “I’m glad to see you. Will not ask why you ran away from dance like girl who lost shoe in fairy tale,” she says.
By “will not ask” she means she’s about to ask me.
Lucky for me, Archibald and Maggie come gliding down the hallway.
“Well, isn’t this a wonderful surprise,” Maggie says, wrapping me in her rose-garden hug. “Has Fifi filled you in on all the wonderful things that have happened?”
“Most important news is that we hire real receptionist,” Fifi says, pointing her thumb at the woman in the reception booth. “Already, I throw away infernal ding-ding-ding,” she says, jabbing at her own hand to demonstrate how the desk bell worked.