eighteen

IN THE TWO WEEKS since the event Brooke heard the cast referring to as Bonnetpocalypse, the drive home from rehearsals had been a silent affair. Brooke preferred this: Verbal sparring took a lot out of her when she’d already spent the day bellowing in the theater, and since Molly insisted on turning on NPR—which was so ancient and menopausal to Brooke that she started feeling actual hot flashes—Brooke needed no further prompting to jam in her earbuds and disappear into an eighties dance megamix. The only thing that kept her from fully enjoying the lack of conversation is that she suspected Molly preferred it, too, and the idea of them having anything but genetics in common was too much for Brooke to stand right now.

As Brooke bent down to fish a PowerBar out of her purse, Molly took the right turn into their driveway with enough gusto that Brooke cracked her head on the glove compartment. Clapping a hand to her head, Brooke unfolded herself and opened her mouth to scold Molly for being the worst driver in Los Angeles, then noticed that they’d pulled up behind a large truck. Workmen were lugging large slate-gray slabs with odd-shaped, multicolored knobs on them around to the side yard. It was either freaky gym equipment or bad modern art; either way, it meant Brick was back.

Brooke barely waited for Molly to apply the brakes before bolting out of the car, crossing over to the driver’s side door, and opening it chivalrously.

“Come on, Sis, Dad’s home!” she shouted, grabbing Molly’s arm.

“What is wrong with you? Are you possessed?” Molly asked, shaking free her limb. “Although, actually, that might be an improvement.”

“Shut up and follow my lead,” Brooke hissed. “Brick made us move in together so that we’d bond, right? And if he thinks it worked, he might relent, right?”

Molly blinked.

“Oh, my God, what do you need? Shorter words? Hand signals? Finger puppets?” Brooke huffed.

“No,” Molly said. “I was just surprised to hear you make sense.”

Brooke shook off the insult. The prospect of freedom was more important. She hauled Molly up the stone steps and inside the house.

“Daddy?” she yelled. “Are you home?”

“Girls!” Brick said, bouncing around the corner with a harness in his hand. “Come give your old dad a hug.”

He opened both arms and swept them into a three-person embrace. Brooke let herself enjoy the affection for a moment before cold reality intruded. Where was all this love when it was just the two of us?

Brick released them and held them each at arm’s length.

“You both look marvelous!” Brick said. “You must have read that article I e-mailed you about the cardiovascular benefits of jumping rope! I’m so proud.”

Brooke looped her arm around Molly.

“Of course!” she said. “We’ve been doing double Dutch every morning on the patio before school. It’s our new favorite ritual!”

“See? Didn’t I tell you that a little togetherness was just the ticket?” Brick beamed, rubbing his hands together. “I wonder if Hey! could use that story. But maybe I should wait until I’ve sold Kamikaze Dad. Don’t want anyone stealing the idea!”

“So how was Key West, um, Dad?” Molly asked, trying to wiggle out from Brooke’s grasp.

Brooke pinched her. We have to sell it, you moron, she thought, praying telepathy was real.

“It was brilliant!” Brick boomed. “We’re going to make the mountain scenes work with green screen and a climbing wall. Did you see them installing our new one outside? Turns out climbing is excellent for your inner thighs. I’m thinking of selling my own version and calling it the Berlin Wall.”

“That’s great, Daddy,” Brooke said dismissively. “I’m so glad you’re home. My Eliza Doolittle accent is coming along really well, but I need you—”

“Sure, Sunshine. Soon,” Brick said. “Tonight we have reservations at Campanile.”

Brooke brightened. Brick never got them dinner reservations; he always said he preferred eating at home, where he could control his butter intake.

“That sounds so fun!” she said. “I can try to pass myself off as British to the waiter, and you can critique me! It’ll be like an improv exercise!”

Brooke was already imagining the server filling her water glass and begging to know if she was royalty. But before she got to the part where she invented a connection that put her eighteenth in line for the throne, Brick drew in one sharp breath.

“Ooh. Actually, honey, I meant just me and Molly,” he said, grimacing slightly.

Brooke dropped Molly’s arm.

“You and Molly?” she parroted.

“You and me?” Molly asked, her voice the exact opposite of how Brooke felt.

“We need some father-daughter bonding time!” Brick told Molly. “We can work on your accent all day tomorrow, Brookie, I promise. No, wait, actually, tomorrow I’m auditioning actresses to play Lark Rodkin’s comely Sherpa, so maybe the next—wait, no, that day is—”

It was at times like these that Brooke desperately wished she didn’t love her father.

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I know you’re busy,” she said, her heart thumping loud, repeated objections to her magnanimity. “I’m really close to getting it perfect, anyway.”

“Wonderful!” Brick said. “You can surprise me on opening night! Now, Molly, you don’t have to be too formal for tonight. But just so you know, there will be a photographer there. So if I were you, I…”

Deflated, Brooke backed away unnoticed from the family powwow. For the first time in recent memory, she didn’t even have the energy for a tantrum.

“Brooke? How are you doing in there?”

“Go away,” Brooke mumbled. She had about ten more seconds of privacy; Stan knew her too well to take “go away” for an answer unless it was followed by, “I’m naked.”

“Here, I thought this might help,” Stan said, walking in and tossing her a Three Musketeers bar.

Brooke let out a pathetic moan as the chocolate hit her pillow, just to remind both Stan and herself that she was in intense psychic pain. The heat from which would probably burn off the candy bar…

“He called her ‘Sunshine,’ ” she said, tearing off the wrapper as if punishing it for a betrayal. “I always thought that was his special name for me, but apparently, it’s just some dumb thing he says to anyone.”

“I know this has been challenging, Brookie,” Stan said, perching on the edge of the bed. “But you’ve got accept that Molly isn’t just anyone to him.”

Brooke felt tears starting in the back of her throat. Real ones, not just fodder for another crocodile sob fest. She hated feeling this out of control.

“It’s like he doesn’t even see me anymore,” she said wetly. “I know I’m supposed to be all sympathetic or whatever, because her mom is dead. I know that. I just don’t get why Daddy can’t pay attention to her and me at the same time. He used to tell the paparazzi he’d beat them up if they so much as asked me the time, and now he’s practically paying them to photograph her. I don’t get it. She doesn’t even want that kind of attention.”

“Nobody expects it not to sting a bit, sweetie,” Stan said kindly. “But Brick’s just trying to make her feel comfortable here.”

Brooke snorted. “So you’re siding with her, too. Great.”

“Come on, honey. You know I’ve got your back. I’ve been your buddy since you were born,” Stan said. “I just don’t think Molly is the one to blame here. Brick is the person whose behavior is making you unhappy, right? So maybe give Molly a chance. With your dad gone so much, you might enjoy having someone to hang out with that you actually like, and who doesn’t beat you at chess all the time.”

“We don’t play chess,” Brooke pointed out, through a mouthful of nougat.

“Exactly. You’re too afraid of my intellectual heft.”

Brooke hurled a throw pillow at his head, but missed. On purpose. Of course.

“Your sense of humor is as stale as her face,” she grumped, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Don’t you have a screenplay to go finish?”

Stan chuckled. “More like twenty,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to slam the door on my way out. But think about what I said, okay?”

“Sure,” Brooke lied, shoving the heel of the candy bar into her mouth.

All her life, Brooke had told herself that Brick’s inattentiveness was an innate part of his personality—like a form of extreme absentmindedness—rather than a reflection of his feelings about her. But the way he was jumping through hoops for Molly made Brooke wonder if, this whole time, he’d just been waiting for a better daughter to come along.

That the better daughter had everyone hoodwinked into thinking she was an angel made Brooke feel even worse. Yes, Molly had a dead mother, but Brooke had photographic proof she was, at the very least, a cruddy girlfriend, and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg. The girl was a fraud.

Brooke dropped the empty candy wrapper in the trash and flounced over to her laptop. She opened her in-box and found thirty-one unread e-mails: three from various Colby-Randall acquaintances, sucking up; a bunch of spam; Passport to Parker, Jennifer’s fan newsletter; and some random notes from various reality TV producers who’d decided her feud with Molly would make great basic cable programming. Like Brooke needed to stoop to Kendra Baskett’s level.

Bypassing them all, Brooke double-clicked on the message containing the photo of Molly and Teddy’s close encounter. She’d had Ari send it to her in case of emergency. This certainly felt like one.

Molly took the stairs to her room two at a time. Brick had just spent half an hour explaining that there would be a photographer from Us Weekly at the restaurant, snapping a “candid” of them clinking glasses for an online blurb about their father-daughter bonding. It sounded quick and uncomplicated, even to Molly. Plus, posing for photos for five minutes was worth it in exchange for some precious face time with her father.

When she reached the bedroom, Molly paused. It hadn’t escaped her that, when Brick revealed dinner plans that did not include her, Brooke had crept away in total silence. This whole mansion was usually one giant china shop in which Brooke acted like the Taurus she was. But Molly hadn’t heard a puff of indignation, a footstep, or even a slammed door.

But why should she care? It’s not like Brooke’s ever shown me any consideration. I’ve already got three calluses from all the sewing I’m doing for her play. So Molly pushed through the door, letting all her excitement show on her face. Brooke was punching away at her computer keyboard, mouth pulled tight around a pen with a giant pink feather plume exploding from the top.

“Off your diet already?”

Brooke removed the pen and tossed it into her Diaper Andy pencil cup.

“Don’t order the short rib,” she said. “It’ll go straight to your hips, and you’re full up.”

Molly was too excited about dinner with Brick to stoke a squabble. She riffled through the dresses in her wardrobe. Too casual. Too short. Too boring. Molly wanted to wear something just right. Smiling, she thought back to how freaked out she’d been not so long ago at the prospect of being photographed in public, and how much more comfortable she was now. Molly almost felt like Brooke got some credit for that—Brooke and Shelby, in fact, as much as they would have hated being lumped together in anything. But the events of the last several weeks had gotten Molly accustomed to judgmental eyeballs boring into her back. Dinner wouldn’t throw anything at her that she hadn’t fielded before.

Molly pulled out a cute, high-necked, sleeveless black dress with intricate straps artfully woven across its open back—perfect for L.A. in mid-September, which was still comfortably warm and summery. She and Laurel had made the dress together for one of Molly’s awards banquets, which was one of the happy memories she’d bottled up when Laurel got sick, so that she could uncork it when she needed it most. Laurel had looked beautiful and proud when Molly accepted the Most Valuable Athlete award; Danny had beamed like she was the only person in the room, and even rejected tequila shots at the after party in favor of making Molly feel like it was her night. It was one of her favorite nights of the last few years, and wearing that dress always made Molly happy.

“Is that BCBG?” Brooke asked.

“No, it’s a Laurel and Molly Dix original.”

“That explains why the back looks like a tragic rope-climbing accident,” Brooke snorted.

“Well, the last time you told me you liked a dress, it earned me days of Little House on the Prairie cracks in the hallway,” Molly noted. “So I’m going to follow my gut.”

“Fine, but no one’s going to see the back if you’re sitting down,” Brooke noted.

Molly ducked back into the closet. Brooke had a point, which she hated to admit. She considered a lower-cut sundress that was one of the few store-bought ones she possessed, but eventually dismissed it and slipped into the black one anyway. Giving America something interesting (like her cleavage) to gawk at was a lot less important to her than having a piece of Laurel with her.

When she popped out of the closet again, Brooke was stretching over near the bookshelf, staring at a photo of Molly and Danny from the sophomore fall dance.

“My back hurts,” Brooke said, as if answering a question. “So is the Cornbread King here the guy you’re always calling from the balcony?”

“Why do you care?” Molly asked.

“I’m just making conversation. I have to keep my vocal cords warm or I’ll never be able to project.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Of course,” she said. “That’s Danny. My boyfriend.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic,” Brooke said.

“Why do you even care?” Molly asked again.

“I told you. I’m bored.”

Molly sighed. “We’ve been on and off basically since we were kids,” she explained as she tried on a couple different pairs of shoes. “And he’s great. But I guess I’ve been wondering lately if it’s really going to work out in the long run, or if we’re just fooling ourselves, you know, with the distance and everything. It’s hard to connect sometimes.”

“You should wear my Manolos. They’re fabulous with anything,” was Brooke’s response.

“Remind me again why I should believe anything you say?”

Brooke shot her a withering look. “I would never lie about shoes. I have morals.”

It was interesting to know Brooke lived by some kind of code, even if it only involved footwear. Molly picked up the towering Manolos and crossed to the bed. They were amazing, albeit a half size or so too big for her. It was a miracle that someone as tall as Brooke didn’t have Paris Hilton–like canoes for feet, but even more incredible that the Manolos seemed to forgive Molly’s minor size difference and embrace her anyway. Maybe they could teach Brooke a thing or two.

“So, why haven’t you cut the kid loose, then?” Brooke pressed.

“Excuse me?”

“Come on. You’re in Los Angeles and he’s in a barn or something. You just said yourself it was a problem.”

“It’s creepy that you suddenly have an interest in any of this,” Molly said, fastening the ankle strap on her left shoe.

“It’s either you or homework,” Brooke retorted.

“Fine,” Molly said. “If you must know, it’s tough because… well, it’s not like Danny’s done anything wrong. It’s just the mileage. He was so awesome when my mother got sick.”

“What, did he milk the cows for you?”

“He brought me a sunflower every day that she was sick, right up through her funeral,” Molly said hotly. “Sometimes he hid them so that they’d surprise me, like in my car or along my road-race routes. He visited my mom at the hospital. He made sure I didn’t flunk out, he didn’t treat me like an egg that was about to break, and he made it so that I wasn’t angry and bitter all the time. It’s hard to dump a guy like that even if you’re growing apart. Or living apart. Or both. Is that enough information for you?”

Brooke cocked her head, deep in thought. Molly wondered if they were having a Moment.

“Yeah, you know what? I’m more bored now than I was before,” Brooke said.

She skipped back to the computer and started typing with great verve, if not any increase in speed. Molly blew out her cheeks. Obviously, Brooke had just wanted to get under her skin in an attempt to ruin her evening with Brick. The girl was more transparent than a window.

It hadn’t worked: Molly was jazzed. With no offense to Danny, this date was one of the most important she’d ever been on in her life. She took one last look at herself in the mirror and then checked her watch. Six fifteen. She’d be right on time.

I hope this goes well. I hope he likes me.

It felt like a ridiculous thought to have after weeks under Brick’s roof, but somehow, Molly still felt like she was auditioning for a role she hadn’t nabbed yet. Everything else faded into the background as Molly gazed at herself and saw Brick’s dimple in her nervously smiling face and hoped he would see it, too.

Please, please like me, Dad.