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  TIES

  Steph Campbell

  Liz Reinhardt

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  Published by Silver Strand Books

  [email protected]

  Cover design by: Todd Maloy

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2013 Steph Campbell & Liz Reinhardt

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN -13: 978-1492161240

  ISBN-10: 1492161241

  1 HATTIE

  “You can’t choose who you love, Hattie.” I look away as the useless words tumble out of my mother’s mouth so she won’t see the inevitable roll of my eyes. “And I did love your father at one time.”

  “Right, so you’ve said.”

  I readjust a picture frame on my desk, the dirt-smeared, smiling faces of some of my closest friends making my heart tight with happiness.

  The picture is from the day my high school field hockey team won the state championship--the first time our school did in ten years--and my coach said it had everything to do with my fearless offense and strong leadership as captain. Which made me glad I went ahead with field hockey, even though that hadn’t been my first choice when I got my glossy invite to the fancy private girls boarding school.

  My father sent me a tennis racquet for my thirteenth birthday, just before I had to decide on a sport for my freshman year at Harvanger Hall. What aggravated me was that I actually wanted to try out for the tennis team, and it got under my skin in a huge way that he took this totally wild guess and was so right about me like that.

  So I went to field hockey try-outs instead and took the racquet to the local sports equipment store, where I traded it in for a stick.

  I never admitted to anyone that I cried a little and held that tennis racquet to my chest the night before I switched it out.

  Today, I would have joined whatever the hell team I wanted, my father be damned, but back then I was trying to prove something.

  Something my calm, sweet mother seems genuinely confused about.

  I just don’t understand what she ever saw in the loser who knocked her up with me, then disappeared off of the face of the earth--save for the random, expensive birthday and Christmas gifts that showed up to put a tarnish on every extra special day of the year. They came from all corners of the earth, each wrapped up nicely and presented with flair.

  Each more meaningless than the last as his guesses about what I’d like got worse and worse.

  “Someday, you’ll understand what I mean,” she says, smoothing the wrinkles of the down comforter on my bed, her inky hair swinging in front of her face.

  “I hope not.” I perch on my desk chair and try to see if her eyes look as sad as I imagine they do. I can’t tell.

  “Oh, my Hattie.” She looks up, and her face does register sadness, but I have a feeling she’s sad for me, not herself. Which I just don’t get. “I don’t ever want to see you hurt, my girl, but someday you’ll learn that not everything is so cut and dry.”

  “I get it, Ma, you loved him. You married him. You had me. He sends gifts. That doesn’t make him my father, though. Family doesn’t cut and run,” I insist, my fingers gripping the seat of my chair until my knuckles go white.

  Mom just nods. She’s carefully danced around the facts and defended my father’s absence my entire life, claiming she knew how it would be from the time they met. That his soul refused to be tied down to one place or some equally ridiculous bullshit.

  They were all just excuses--and inadequate ones at that. There was nothing in my mind that would excuse him bailing on my mom. She may be fine with people who don’t follow through on their responsibilities, but I never will be.

  That’s why I’ve only had one serious boyfriend. He was gorgeous, with broad shoulders and longish black hair. He could speak six languages and play the guitar, and we laughed a lot around the campfire at the shore party where we met. But he wasn’t reliable; he didn’t take me or what we were doing seriously enough.

  He was late for one-too-many dates, didn’t return a few too many phone calls, made a few too many lame excuses. So I called it off and tossed the CD of the song he wrote the night we met and said I inspired.

  I don’t have the time or patience to not be a real priority.

  I know that might sound bitchy or self-centered, but I’ve been in all-girls academies since pre-school. Which means I’ve been the shoulder for dozens of my guy-obsessed friends to cry on. It’s as if living without guys for so much time each day made these fiercely intelligent, fun, caring women into blubbering, dependent lunatics.

  I happen to think it’s a waste of all we have going for us, and, personally, I’d rather err on the side of being super picky and happily alone than throwing it all away on someone who can’t even be bothered to listen to his voicemail over the course of an entire three day weekend.

  “I know this time of year is extra hard--” Mom begins. She reaches for my hand, and I let her pat it for one second before I pretend I need to get up and take care of putting some laundry away immediately.

  “It’s just a birthday, Mom. It hasn’t been a big deal since I was twelve. Everyone acts like it’s this huge thing, but it’s just a day when we eat cake and you spend too much on a present for me.” I keep my voice very smooth and calm, but I’m throwing the hangers back into my closet like I have a personal vendetta against them.

  “I spend too much? Your father sent you those tickets the Bahamas last year,” Mom points out, and I try hard not to get annoyed at the way she defends him. Again.

  It makes a prickle run up and down my neck, because I’d been planning on going to Germany with a friend who has family in Calw, but then my father’s tickets arrived and my mother tried to sell me on sandy beaches and rippling waves, frosted glasses of fruity drinks and long stretches of quiet with nothing but a book and a bottle of sunscreen.

  I chose the Black Forest and read my copy of Siddhartha with the dense smell of dark pines in my nostrils.

  “Which was a really stupid gift that I never used,” I point out.

  “Well, you were able to cash them in and use the money for your flight to Germany. At least he sent something.” She quirks the tiniest smile my way, almost like she enjoys seeing me get all riled up.

  Maybe there’s some truth to that.

  My lawyer mother did always like coming to my debate team matches.

  “That’s something you say about a great uncle who sends you a unicorn journal, Mom. A father? He should at the very least attempt to contact his daughter once a decade so he’d be able to say to himself, ‘Hey, that smart, well-traveled kid of mine would never want to go clubbing and drink alcohol out of coconuts on some island. She’s actually been dying to see the Gaudí's Sagrada Família.’” I put a finger on my chin and knit my eyebrows like I’m thinking. “Oh, I’m sorry. That would require, you know, him actually giving a shit.”

  “Did they ever finish construction on that?” Mom asks.

  “I think it’s slated for completion in, like, 2026. Are you trying to change the subject?” I narrow my eyes at her and she winks.

  “Nope. Just trying to point out that you and your dad might be able to
go see that cathedral together someday. He’s fluent in Spanish, you know.”

  She leaves the room before I can say, No. I don’t know.

  I know nothing about this man who is one half of me genetically.

  This man who made my brilliant, sensible lawyer mother lose her head and follow him like he was the freaking Pied Piper. And who is so charming, apparently, that my mother not only put his last name on my birth certificate, but still lets his nonsense slide, even though she is always an accountability drill sergeant with me.

  ***

  Two things happen on my twenty-first birthday that make it the worst yet.

  The study abroad summer program on French architecture I had planned on attending got cancelled at the last minute. One of the professor’s kids came down with mono and she had to drop out, and any possible replacement for her had prior obligations. We all got a full refund and the opportunity to take a comparable class on campus to make up the lost credit. But I didn’t need the credit. I was going for the travel, for the onsite experience, and it was too late to enroll in another program now.

  Not that I was interested in Welsh anthropology or beginner’s Portuguese anyway.

  Then my best friend, Mei Kingston, got the internship she applied for. Competition had been fierce. Beyond fierce. But if anyone could defy any odds, it was Mei. And while I’m so happy she did, now she’ll be spending her summer in a hospital in Chicago, doing whatever they need her to do at a clinic that performs cleft palate surgeries on kids around the world at no cost to the families. She’s amazing, and this opportunity will be the cherry on top of her impressive resume. I could not possibly be any happier for her.

  I’ve been trying hard not to be a mope-ass when Mei comes over for birthday dinner.

  Mom is making pancit palabok like she’s done every year for my birthday since I was just a little kid. I love listening to the crackle of the pork frying on the stove. She uses real shrimp, heads still on because she says they have a better flavor that way, and annatto seeds, freshly soaked, so the entire kitchen smells like my grandma’s summer home in the Philippines.

  “Hey, birthday girl!” Mei cries, throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing tight. “I got your text about France. What the hell? You know that’s because Janison’s son is a party whore. If he stopped making out with so many random sorority sisters, he wouldn’t have gotten mono.”

  I love how lowdown mean Mei can be on my behalf.

  “There’s nothing I can do about it now. I just really hoped I wouldn’t be spending the summer manning the desk at the tutoring center. It’s bad enough when Jethro and Sarah are around, but they both have plans for the summer.”

  Mei accepts a glass of Riesling from my mother after she hugs her hello, then frowns over my dilemma.

  “I don’t think anyone will be around this summer. You can always crash at my aunt’s in Chicago.”

  It’s a sweet offer, but we both know it’s unthinkable. Mei will be immersed in her work, and I would feel awkward sitting on one of her many aunt’s floral couches, feeling like a perpetually uncomfortable guest.

  “Thanks, hon, but you know I go stir-crazy if I’m not constantly keeping busy. Downtime and I do not mesh.”

  I’m sinking into a gloom, not looking forward to this long stretch of summer boredom, when a knock gives me something to do at least in the moment.

  I jump up and march to the door, past my mother, clutching her bamboo spoon to her chest, past Mei, curling a strand of silky black hair around her finger and yanking--a nervous habit she’s had since junior high.

  A man with a bushy mustache and a jean jacket smiles nicely when I open the door. “Morning, ma’am. Delivery for Ms. Harriet Beckett.”

  “That’s me,” I say dryly as he hands me a clipboard to sign. “What is it this year?”

  “Ah. Birthday gift?” he asks. I nod as I scrawl my name on the line. “I think you’ll like it. Someone obviously loves you, kid.”

  I snort and hand the clipboard back.

  “Somebody has guilt issues,” I clarify.

  The man’s eyebrows, as dark and wild as his mustache, shoot up. “That’s a whole lot of guilt.” He turns to the side so I can see the ridiculous gift my dad got me this year.

  “Are. You. Kidding?” Anger that’s been simmering since I found out France is off and Mei is leaving bubbles over. I gesture to the road. “This is lunacy. This is decadent stupidity! This is a joke.”

  “It’s a good little car. Gets thirty miles to the gallon, highway. Sturdy.” He squints at it, then at me, and I wonder why the hell everyone sides with my father. “The dealership is really flexible if it’s not the color you wanted.” I can hear from the flat way he says it that he thinks I’m a total troll for not being suitably happy over this gift.

  Ugh. Talk about guilt.

  “It’s not the color,” I explain. “I mean the color is fine.” It’s not. Baby blue? My Mazda 3 is shiny black, dark grey interior. Understated, comfortable, stylish--very me. “I have a car,” I explain lamely.

  I shouldn’t be explaining anything. I don’t have to defend the fact that I can’t stand my father or his idiotic gifts to anyone, especially not a total stranger.

  “Ah.” His mouth pulls to the side in sympathy. “Well, he tried right? Unfortunately, I gotta leave it here or I get reamed. I hope the dealership can help you out with this.”

  “Right. Thanks.” I stick my hands in the pockets of my jeans and glare at the sickeningly cute light blue Beetle, pissed that, on top of everything else, I now have to figure out what to do with this stupid gift.

  “Happy birthday, Harriet,” the man says, tipping his cap.

  “Thank you very much.”

  I say it sincerely. As obnoxious as my father can be, there’s no reason to shoot daggers at the messenger.

  When I turn back to the door, I see the curtains in the front window swish back closed and blow a frustrated breath through my teeth.

  My mother, who’s usually on my side about all sensible things, will argue for why this is actually a really nice, thoughtful gift.

  Mei, who loves all things sporty and cutesy and custom, will tell me to consider trading my Mazda in. She never gets it because she just can’t. She can’t imagine a world where a father doesn’t think his little girl is the most amazing being ever created on earth. Her father is a heart surgeon who dotes on her and finds it incredible that she’s both a silly, adorable girl and a brilliant, cutthroat student.

  Her father knows her, respects her, and loves her with a fierce pride that would make me choked with jealousy if I didn’t love them both so damn much.

  My hand is on the doorknob when an idea hits me like a speeding baby blue Bug: I’m going to find him this summer.

  I’m not going to waste away in the dusty tutoring offices alone, wondering what my friends are up to. I’m going to find my father and tell him that the bullshit gifts and half-assed relationship stops. Now. And I’m going to demand he get to know me or get away from me for good.

  Mei and my mother are doing a terrible job of pretending they weren’t spying. Which translates to them giving their full attention to the intricate task of setting the table and pouring wine.

  “Who was that, Hattie?” Mom asks, spooning fragrant food onto my plate. Her brows furrow when I snap my linen napkin out over my lap and pick up my fork.

  I know she expects a tirade. Mei gives her a subtle eyebrow arch and shrugs one shoulder, and Mom opens her almond eyes wide.

  “That was just a delivery man.” I take a bite of pancit palabok and moan. “Ma, this is the best you’ve ever made. Heaven. In. My. Mouth.”

  Mom pushes some rice noodles around with her fork and clears her throat. “I’m glad you like, sweetie. About the delivery...?”

  “Hattie, that car is adorbs! You’re keeping it, right? You look so right in light blue,” Mei gushes.

  “Oh, I’m definitely not keeping that car,” I say between slowly chewed bites. They b
oth watch me, forks clutched in their palms, waiting for me to crack. “I’m giving it back.”

  Mom’s sigh practically ruffles my hair across the table. “Sweetheart, that’s going to be complicated to do on your own. The dealership will want to have contact with the person who paid for it, and there’s going to be all kinds of craziness--”

  “Right,” I interrupt. “Which is why my father can have that headache. I’m returning it to him. Directly.”

  “Wha...” Mei asks, trailing off, her face rigid with shock, a noodle half-hanging out of her mouth.

  I’m nothing if not stubborn, and I’ve said for as long as the two of us have been friends that I have zero interest in connecting with my father.

  At all.

  Ever.

  Zero.

  “Sweetheart, we don’t know his permanent address or if he’s off on work. All I have is a number.” Mom presses her lips together.

  “I’ll ask Ashwin if he can help me--”

  Mei clears her throat, and I eyeball her across the table.

  “What?” The word comes out harsh and jagged because I know why she’s objecting to my plan with her sneaky throat clearing.

  “Nothing. It’s just. Um. Is that, you know...legal?” Her mouth is pursed, warning me to be cautious.

  “Ashwin would never do anything to get himself in trouble,” I rationalize.

  Her eyebrows jump up, letting me know that she knows damn well I’m full of crap. “Ashwin would cover up a murder for you. Who are you kidding?”

  “I’m going to go check on the bibingka,” Mom says, and hightails it to the kitchen.

  “He’s with Amrutha Preet now. And his parents are overjoyed,” I whisper to Mei, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Mom can’t hear. She’s humming as she pulls the rice cakes sweetened with sugar and coconut milk out of the oven. “He wouldn’t murder for me, anyway. He wants to get into the FBI.”

  “Oh, he’d definitely murder for you, and don’t pretend like he wouldn’t. Why are you not together? Did he come fifteen minutes late for a date? Forget to call at your assigned check-in time?”