MY GUT INSTINCT is to step back into the hallway, close the door, and try again. See if anything else greets me.
Dad yanks me right into a hug, thwacking my back so heartily it makes me cough.
“You sick, kid?” He draws back, gripping my shoulders as his sparkling green eyes give me a quick survey.
“A little,” I say, because suddenly I do feel feverish.
“Come on in, come on in,” he says, like this isn’t my home. He spins me toward the kitchen. “You finally get to meet Starfire.”
A wordless squeal emanates from behind him. He sidesteps, presenting with a full-arm flourish the woman who opened my apartment door.
Several feet behind her, Miles hovers in the entryway, looking as flustered as I’ve seen him. Which is to say, technically not very. But for Miles, every bit like a man who was just forced to let two strangers into his apartment.
I barely have time to register Starfire’s bubblegum-pink lip gloss before she’s wrapping me in a bone-crunching hug that smells like the inside of a Bath & Body Works minutes after a gaggle of preteens rolled through hyped up on Frappuccinos.
“You. Are. Just. So. Cute!” She rocks me hard back and forth in time with her pronouncement.
“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”
When she releases me, she keeps one of my hands in hers, her long, baby-blue fingernails slightly clawing into me. “Finally,” she says tearily. “At first I thought you were the tall one.” She jerks her head over her shoulder toward Julia, whose face plainly projects: I have already been through what you are currently experiencing.
My eyes flick toward Dad, trying to communicate that I have no idea who this woman is.
But my father and I never had the time to develop anything resembling an unspoken language.
He just beams. “You have no idea what it means to me to see my two girls together.”
For one second, I genuinely wonder whether Starfire is a half sister I never knew existed.
But whereas all Dad’s previous girlfriends easily could have fit that bill, Starfire has to be within a decade of Dad’s own age—though with the kind of filler and Botox that make it impossible to tell whether she’s ten years younger or ten years older than him.
“Should we go into the living room,” Miles pipes up, already guiding Dad down the hallway. “Daphne and I will grab some wine and snacks.”
“Sounds great!” Julia chimes in, dutifully looping an arm through Starfire’s.
Starfire, for her part, makes another wordless baby-talk coo in the back of her throat, and squeezes my cheek before she’s dragged off, a huge grin turned over her shoulder all the way, so that she keeps bumping into Julia and almost toppling over in her four-inch blue spike heels.
Miles ushers me into the kitchen, whispering, “They just showed up.”
“And you let them in,” I whisper back.
“He said he was your dad!” he hisses. “And that you were expecting him! I didn’t know what to do.”
“I mean, in the loosest interpretation of the word,” I say, “that’s my father, but I’m never expecting him.”
“And Starfire?” he asks.
“The missing sixth member of the Spice Girls,” I say.
“You’ve never met her,” he guesses.
“Never even heard of her,” I say.
Miles sighs and turns to open the wine cabinet. I grab a couple of glasses from the other cabinet. When I turn back, he’s laughing to himself, shaking his head. “Should we take bets on who shows up next?”
“At this rate,” I say, “I won’t be surprised if my dead great-aunt Mildred climbs through the window tonight.”
“Not even about the window part?” he says. “Was she a contortionist?”
“I’m just assuming ghosts have the Santa Claus effect, where they can turn into Jell-O and shimmy through tight spaces.”
“You ready for this?” he asks, and while I haven’t told him a ton about my dad, he’s clearly picked up on enough in the last three minutes.
“No,” I say. “But once I make it through the first bottle of wine, I’ll be better.”
He sniffs the air. “Am I . . . smelling . . .”
I nod. “That’s my dad. Hotboxing in our apartment.”
He winces. “Want me to ask him to stick his head out the window?”
“Be my guest,” I say. “In fifteen minutes, he’ll forget and light up again while he’s midsentence and you feel like you can’t interrupt him. The sentence will last twenty minutes.”
He touches my elbow. “Just text me if you need an out.”
My brow lifts. “You’ll cause a diversion?”
“If I have to.”
I turn toward the hall. “He never stays long. This is probably a thirty-minute interlude on their way somewhere better. We’ll get it over with. Or I will—you’re not obligated to—”
“I’ll stay,” he says. “Unless you don’t want me to?”
“No, I definitely want you to,” I admit. “It’s just that I absolutely do not expect you to endure this.”
He runs a hand over my elbow, and I do my best not to shiver: “Someone once told me I’m very good with strangers. Come on.”
As we walk into the living room, Dad blows out a puff of smoke. Julia’s stuff has all been moved into a tower in the corner, the air mattress three-quarters deflated and balled up at the bottom, so that our guests can sit on the couch, two pairs of intensely white teeth floating against sun-bronzed skin.
“There she is!” Dad says, followed by a hacking cough.
“Here I am!” I set the wineglasses on the coffee table before perching on the very edge of the chair perpendicular to the couch. “And you. And Starfire.”
Starfire beams at me. Dad beams at Starfire. Miles and Julia exchange a bewildered glance.
“These are for you,” Dad says, scooting forward. He balances his joint on the corner of the coffee table and produces an—admittedly beautiful—bouquet from down on the rug. “We thought they looked just like you.”
“Your aura, of course,” Starfire puts in. “It’s hard to judge in pictures, but JayJay was drawn to these, and we compared them to the picture he keeps in his wallet.”
At my blank stare, Dad chimes in, “Your old senior photo!”
News to me that Dad has a copy of that. I’m pretty sure Mom and I agreed they were so bad it wasn’t worth getting any printed, and just sent the file for the least awkward one to my school to use.
“Thanks,” I say stiffly, leaning over to accept the bouquet.
“That’s something I loved about him right away,” Starfire says dreamily, looking up at Dad as if a halo floats above his head. I’ve seen that look on plenty of Girlfriends Past. “He never shows up empty-handed.”
As a kid, I loved that about him too.
Until I realized his gifts were consolation prizes: Yes, I canceled our spring break visit, but my buddy gave us tickets to an amusement park!
I missed your choir concert, but isn’t this candy my chocolatier girlfriend makes amazing?
I set the bouquet on the coffee table, and Julia jumps up. “I’ll put that in water,” she says, and flees the scene.
Miles, genius that he is, starts filling the wineglasses and asks, “So, how’d you two meet?” He sits back onto the other chair, mimicking my ready-to-run posture.
“Starfire is my life coach,” Dad says, after a gulp.
Starfire nods, a smile still stretched tight across her lips. “But we actually knew each other before that.”
“Apparently, we were married in a past life,” Dad says, like, Can you believe that coincidence?
Starfire nods. “Several times.”
“Oh,” Miles says. “Well. Congratulations.”
“I was an heiress on the Titanic,” Starfire explains. “And Jason was a handsome artist, but he was so, so poor. My social circles never would have approved. But we had a torrid affair, and he saved my life.” She goes back to nodding, a very earnest bobblehead.
Miles and I make eye contact. He looks like he’s trying so hard not to laugh he might throw up instead.
“So just,” I say, “exactly the plot of the movie, then.”
Starfire’s head cocks to one side. “What movie?”
“What brings you into town?” Miles, with the assist. “You live in California, right?”
“That’s right.” Dad relights his joint. “But we’re on our—”
“Excuse me,” Miles cuts in, smiling pleasantly. “Would you mind waiting to smoke until you’re outside?” He says it so warmly and naturally. He really does have a superpower.
Just as unflappably affable, Dad says, “Oh, sure! Of course,” and tucks the joint back in his T-shirt pocket.
“So, California?” Miles says.
“Right,” Dad says. “But we’re driving across the country to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” I ask.
“Oh, Daffy,” Starfire says, officially the first adult to ever abbreviate my two-syllable name that way. “Our union.”
Dad frowns, a vague look of hurt around his eyes. “Didn’t you get the card?”
“What card?” I say.
“The birthday card,” he says. “Where I told you we got married!”
“You told me in a birthday card?” I say.
“You didn’t see it?” he says again, still the injured party.
“When was your birthday?” Miles asks, brow furrowing.
“End of April,” I say.
He frowns at that, no doubt doing the math, realizing I was already living with him.
“I must’ve misplaced the card,” I tell Dad.
Actually, since his birthday cards rarely contain anything other than my name and his signature, when they come at all, I’d opted to put it exactly where I put the murder-house beanie he’d mailed me last year: in the trash.
The last thing I needed was another halfhearted gesture from a man who sort of loved me.
The other last thing I needed was a reminder that I was turning thirty-three and had no one at all to celebrate it with.
Starfire is still smiling like if she lets even the corners of her lips touch, the apocalypse might be triggered.
And after everything she endured on the Titanic, who can blame her for being so cautious?
“So you’re passing through,” I say. “Headed somewhere fun?”
“Well, eventually,” Dad says, “we’re going to Starfire’s family in Vermont. But we figured we’d stick around here until Monday, if you could stand to have us that long.”
My skin prickles. My blood runs cold. I wonder if this is how animals feel when a tornado is brewing.
I’d braced for this to be an offensively short pit stop. Now I realize it’s so much worse. We’re a free place to stay while they break up their transcontinental drive: Here are some beautiful flowers that reminded me of you; can I sleep on your couch?
This apartment is quickly becoming the set for a terrible sitcom.
Dad’s still talking, but I’m hearing his voice as the warble of Charlie Brown’s teacher.
“I’m sorry,” I finally get out. “What did you say?”
“We’re on no set schedule,” Starfire says. “So we can stay as long as you want!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Julia walking into the room, with the flowers in a vase. She, very smartly, turns and heads right back into the kitchen.
Dad says, “We’re so happy to be here, kid. Starfire’s cousin Sandra says we have to go see the dunes while we’re here.”
“She’s a psychic too,” Starfire tells me, nodding enthusiastically.
“Who?” I say.
“Sandra,” she says. “She’s got the gift.”
Too bad she didn’t warn them there was no space for them in our apartment.
“I’ve got a bit myself,” Starfire goes on. “My therapist says I’m an expath.”
“You mean empath?” I ask, momentarily distracted from my overall goal.
She shakes her head. “No, mine’s the other kind. I project powerful emotions.”
I take a beat to retrace my steps to where this conversation went off the rails. “We don’t have a guest room,” I tell Dad. “We don’t even really have a couch right now. Julia’s staying with us.” I wave feebly toward the tower of clothes, pillows, and bedding.
Dad’s dark blond brows knit together, a look of confusion, probably at being denied something he hasn’t even fully bothered to ask for yet. Then he lets out a laugh. “Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head. “We wouldn’t dream of imposing.”
Since when?
“No, no, I got us a motel room,” he says. “It’s a ways outside of town, but we don’t mind ferrying back and forth.”
This is a surprise indeed.
“Wait a second.” Starfire’s eyes widen. “I thought there were two bedrooms in here.”
“There . . . are?” Miles’s eyes narrow, like if he focuses, he might be able to see her logic drifting through the room.
“And you don’t use one as a guest room?” she asks.
“There are two of us,” I point out.
“You two don’t share a room?” Dad says, dismayed.
For the first time, Starfire’s smile falters. “Oh no.” She almost sounds like she’s going to cry. She looks between Miles and me. “Do you want to talk about it? We can be, like, your mentors. Your love mentors.”
“What,” I say, as Miles says, “Love?”
Starfire drops her voice to a whisper, like somehow that will keep the rest of us from hearing, and leans over to pat Miles’s knee. “You two will get through this.”
“Get through what?” Miles shakes his head, squinting again.
Unfortunately, I’m not as lost as he is. “We’re not together.”
He flinches when understanding hits.
“Oh no,” Starfire cries. “You broke up?” Her shoulders hitch. I genuinely think this woman I’ve never met is about to cry for a relationship that never happened.
“We’re friends!” Miles clarifies, a little too frantically. “Just friends. Separate rooms.”
“Oh, phew!” Dad eyes me and jerks a thumb at Miles. “I like this guy. Glad I don’t have to dislike him now. Especially after what happened with the last guy! So is anyone hungry? Would love to have a little belated birthday, kiddo.”
“Of course we don’t want to intrude.” Starfire drapes a manicured hand over the crook of Dad’s elbow. “Since you weren’t expecting us.”
“Definitely,” Dad says. “We’ll work around your schedule, take whatever time you can spare for a couple of old coots.”
Starfire scoffs and swats his arm. “Oh, you take that back, JayJay. You’re only as old as you feel.”
“This one feels about twenty-two most of the time,” Dad tells me, adoration sparkling in his eyes.
It triggers a confusing flurry of emotions in my chest.
A softening toward this new incarnation of him, the one with an age-appropriate partner and the foresight to book a motel room.
But also, a reawakening of the old hurt. The reminder that my father never found a person he couldn’t love more than he’d ever loved me or Mom, a place he didn’t want to be more than he wanted to be at home.
“What do you say, kid?” he asks. “You got time to play tour guide for your dad and stepmom?”
Miles shoots me a look, brow raised, waiting for me to signal, Leap over the coffee table and light something on fire while I climb out the window!
And maybe I should—maybe Dad’s just setting a box of cupcakes atop a trou-de-loup booby trap.
But he’s here. With a wife, and a room already booked, and for the first time I can remember, he’s asking whether I’m free, rather than assuming I’ll drop everything because he’s deigned to show up.
“Is there room for two more in our plans?” I ask Miles.
His head cocks. I can tell he’s waiting for more of a signal than that, so I add, “We could probably make it work, right?”
He holds my gaze for a second, giving me a chance to change my mind, to scream “Ryan Reynolds!” at the top of my lungs.
I don’t.
He turns a tamped-down version of his impishly charming smile toward them. “You all bring bathing suits?”
Julia pokes her head back into the room without a hint of shame that she’s obviously been eavesdropping from one foot out of sight. “I knew it! We’re going on the boat, aren’t we?”
