KITTY SAT ON A BENCH IN THE GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOM, ELBOWS resting on her knees. Her right leg bounced furiously against the tiled floor, creating a rapid, high-pitched squeak from the rubber sole of her cross-trainers. It sounded like a mouse caught in a centrifuge, a manifestation of the adrenaline-fueled anxiety raging within her.
The adrenaline part was normal. She was used to the rush she got when she jogged out onto the court for warm-ups before a game. It was a feeling she loved, a feeling she embraced like an old friend. It meant she was about to do the one thing she loved more than anything else in the world, and the one thing she was really, really good at.
Of course, an exhibition tournament for a whole panel of college scouts upped the ante, but representatives from all the top collegiate volleyball programs weren’t the reason her pulse was skyrocketing and her stomach was in knots. She had a bigger fish to fry.
The bench jostled, and Kitty’s head snapped around. Mika sat next to her, her dark skin sallow and her large brown eyes puffy, telltale signs of a sleepless night.
“Hey,” Mika said, manically picking at the cuticles around her thumb.
“You okay?” Kitty asked.
“No.” Then Mika laughed, short and breathy. “I’m scared.”
Scared was an understatement. Kitty thought of the photo of her sisters walking home from school. She was glad they were safe with their mom on the other side of town at their piano lesson. “So am I.”
Mika spun on the bench to face Kitty. “I can’t stop thinking about everything. Like what if—”
Kitty held up her hand. “Don’t. You can’t think about that right now. We have to trust that everyone else is going to do their job.”
That was the plan. The best one they’d been able to come up with. Kitty and Mika were to suit up and play in the tournament and Theo to assume his managerial role as if nothing was wrong. It seemed like the easiest assignment, since they weren’t combing the gym from rafters to basement looking for signs of foul play. That was left to John, Ed, and Donté. Kitty wasn’t playing lookout from the stands with Peanut and Olivia. She wasn’t stuck at home like Bree, or the hospital like Margot and Logan. Nope, she was a decoy, a passive player in the game that was about to unfold. It was a role Kitty hated.
“I don’t know how you guys dealt with it for so long,” Mika said after a pause.
“Dealt with what?”
“The stress. I mean, there was this awesome rush after we outed Rex and Amber, but afterward, I was so paranoid we’d get caught. It wasn’t fun anymore.”
Kitty nodded. She understood exactly what Mika had been feeling. Every time they pulled off a prank, she swore it would be her last one. She’d spend days convinced that Father Uberti was on to her. But then the paranoia would wear off, and they’d find out about something awful one of their classmates had been doing, some innocent being victimized by their peers, and the whole process would start again.
Kitty pictured the video of Mika and Ronny, the DGM mission that started them down the rabbit hole of death and fear.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” Mika stared at her lap.
“For what?”
“For telling Donté you joined the ’Maine Men.”
Kitty placed her hand on Mika’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” She smiled out of the left side of her mouth. “I didn’t exactly deal so well with you and Donté sneaking around.”
Mika’s eyes grew wide. “You thought I was messing with Donté?”
“Not exactly,” Kitty said, feeling foolish for doubting her best friend and her boyfriend. “But I knew you were keeping something from me.”
Coach Miles rounded the row of lockers. “There you two are!” she said, her booming voice echoing off the tile. “Everyone’s on the court for warm-ups. You gonna get your asses out there or what?”
“Yes, sir!” Kitty pushed herself to her feet.
“Wei,” Coach said, narrowing her eyes. “You got your head in the game today? I need you to be the focused team captain I’ve known for two years, not the flaky space cadet from the past two days.”
“She’s focused, Coach,” Mika said. “Trust me.”
Kitty smiled at Mika, thankful for her support. She’d missed it.
“Good!” Coach barked. “Oh, and Wei? I saw the roster for Gunn. Barbara Ann Vreeland is starting today.”
A wave of relief swept over Kitty. Finally! She’d been able to do something to mitigate the damage she’d inflicted on Barbara Ann. At least the scouts would get to see her talent.
“Thanks, Coach.”
“No problem.” She shoved her whistle in her mouth and gave it a sharp toot. “Now, move it!”
Kitty and Mika jogged out of the locker room down the long hallway to the gym. “You had Coach get Barbara Ann on the team?” Mika asked.
“Yep.” Of course, that was before Kitty knew she might actually be putting Barbara Ann’s life in danger by having her play in the tournament, but whatever. Nothing she could do about that now.
They hit the highly polished court. Mika paused and smiled at Kitty. “That just might make this whole day worth it.”
According to the doctors, Olivia’s mom had been asleep for thirty-two hours. This, apparently, was normal in the case of barbiturate overdoses, one of the new and magical facts Olivia had learned since her mom had been admitted to the hospital. Ironically, while thirty-two uninterrupted hours of sleep was abnormal for the majority of the population, Olivia had watched her mom knock off for a whole day before, and she expected that June could go into hibernation for an entire weekend if her bladder were big enough.
While her mom had been asleep for a day and a half, Olivia hadn’t slept a wink in at least as long. She’d tried, curled up in what passed as an easy chair in her mom’s room, a seventies pleather monstrosity, barely wide enough to span her hips. She managed to rig a kind of lounger, by dragging the chair in front of a table so she could at least prop up her legs, and she ended up catching fitful naps all night long, nodding off every few minutes, then snapping awake when her head would loll to the side.
She hadn’t been home to shower, hadn’t done her hair or makeup, hadn’t left her mom’s side except for the DGM meeting at Peanut’s, and only then because the nurses promised that her mom wouldn’t regain consciousness for at least another six hours. Olivia couldn’t bear the idea of her mom waking up alone and scared, unsure of where she was or what had happened.
And now she was going to have to leave again. The volleyball tournament started in less than an hour, and Olivia couldn’t abandon her friends. Not now. But as she gazed at the sleeping figure of her mom, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was the last time she’d ever see her.
“Knock knock.”
Olivia knew the lilting British voice even before she saw Fitzgerald in the doorway. He was meticulously groomed as always, wearing his signature black turtleneck under a black sports jacket, his white pompadour hair expertly molded into place. He was all smiles as he stood there, but his light blue eyes—so like Olivia’s own, she now realized—lacked their usual sparkle, and there was tension in his features that Olivia had never seen before.
“Hi,” she said. It sounded so lame, but how were you supposed to start a conversation with the father you’d never known?
Fitzgerald appeared equally at a loss for words. Totally out of character. He opened his mouth to say something, then winced, as if whatever lines he’d rehearsed in his head suddenly seemed trite. Instead, he shifted his gaze to Olivia’s mother.
“How is she?”
“Sleeping.” Really, Liv? Like he couldn’t tell that already? “But she’s going to be okay.”
Fitzgerald nodded absently as he continued to stare at her mom. Was he searching for the young actress he’d had an affair with so long ago?
“The hospital called me last night,” he said after a long pause. “About the note your mother left.” He glanced at Olivia. “It’s true, then?”
“That my mom tried to kill herself?” Olivia said.
“Em . . .” He wrinkled his mouth, grasping for words. “No. The other part.”
He really couldn’t bring himself to say it, could he? That I’m your father.
In the bed, Olivia’s mom stirred. Olivia rushed to her side, hopeful that June was finally regaining consciousness, but her eyes didn’t flutter open, and her breath continued slow and steady. Still sleeping.
“Perhaps I should come back later,” Fitzgerald said.
That was probably a good idea. The last thing Olivia wanted was for her mom to wake up with the estranged father of her child looming over her hospital bed. But she needed to talk to him.
“Let’s go into the hallway,” she suggested.
In the stark fluorescent light of the hall, Fitzgerald scanned Olivia’s face. “I can see it now,” he began. “Before, I only saw your mother, but you have my eyes, and when I was younger, my hair was that same shade of strawberry blond.”
It definitely explained why Olivia’s fairness was so different from her mom’s dark beauty.
“She never told you, did she?”
Olivia shook her head. “She never talked about my dad. I mean, you. I mean, who you were.” Way to babble, Liv.
“I can’t pretend that I’d have been Father of the Year if I had known about you,” he said. “I don’t think I’m particularly parental. But I would have been able to help. I could have made your lives more comfortable.”
Olivia wondered what that would have been like. Maybe her mom wouldn’t have had to work as hard? Maybe she would have had more time for acting and been happier?
“I have something for you,” Fitzgerald continued. He reached into the breast pocket of his blazer and retrieved an envelope. “This doesn’t make up for all the years I’ve missed, but it’s a start. I realize I’ll see you this summer, but I thought, perhaps, you could use it now. To help you through this crisis.” Fitzgerald placed the envelope in Olivia’s hand, kissed her swiftly on the forehead, and then hurried down the hall.
Olivia stood there lamely for several seconds before her brain kicked in, then she broke the seal on the envelope with her index finger and peeked at the contents.
Inside was a check for ten thousand dollars.
