Chapter 2
Now that she’d escaped home, Minnie couldn’t bring herself to go back to school.
She couldn’t imagine ever going back. Her mother, Hannah, called into the high school office and said that Minnie needed a few days off, that she could do everything on the computer, and that Hannah herself would monitor the situation and make sure all her tasks were finished and all her books were read.
Minnie listened to her mother’s call from upstairs, sitting with her head on her knees on the top step, her heart pounding.
There was a sense of unreality to everything.
Just last night, Minnie and her father had been playing Ping-Pong, eating sushi, and laughing together.
Now, her father was gone. It was all her mother’s fault.
Minnie had been in first period English class when she’d learned about her mother’s article.
Cold, hard stares had come from all over the classroom.
A kid Minnie didn’t know well had asked if she knew her mother was a narc.
Minnie had pretended to know what that meant and told him to shut up, which had led to even more rancid comments from other classmates.
She’d hurried to the bathroom to check her cell phone.
She read the first few paragraphs of her mother’s article, which placed blame on numerous higher-ups in the political system and demanded that the legal system pay attention to what they were up to.
By the time she’d read her father’s name, Minnie had begun to sweat. She’d felt her life falling apart.
Now, after her call with the school, Hannah appeared at the bottom of the stairs, her fingers laced together. “Minnie, will you come downstairs? I really want to talk to you.”
Minnie scowled at her mother. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Hannah rubbed her forehead. Minnie knew that everyone thought she was the spitting image of her mother, that they had the same eyes, the same hair color, and the same way of moving their body when they spoke.
But Minnie knew she resembled her father more than anyone else, that she had his nose and his chin and his intellectual prowess. At least, that was what he’d told her.
She had no interest in looking like her mother, nor in being anything like her.
Before her mother could ask her again, Minnie shot to her feet, barreled into her room, and slammed the door behind her. But the drama of the morning was far from over. Waiting on her phone was a text from her boyfriend, Gavin.
GAVIN: What was your mom thinking?
Minnie thought she was going to collapse.
It was true that Gavin’s father was also listed in the article, that her mother had apparently found links between Gavin’s father and Minnie’s father and Stephanie’s father and Renata’s father, fathers from this very neighborhood who’d very recently barbecued at their poolside, talking about sports and business.
But what business had they been talking about?
Was it this business, the business of stealing money from taxpayers?
Minnie closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t!
More than that, she couldn’t believe her mother had gone out of her way to destroy her father’s career.
Even if what she’d written wasn’t true (it definitely couldn’t be true, Minnie thought), Hannah had ultimately destroyed Kendall’s reputation.
She’d also destroyed Minnie’s relationships with her friends and boyfriend, probably.
Unless Gavin listened to reason? He couldn’t break up with her. He wouldn’t. They already had plans to go to prom next weekend. They’d already talked about getting married when they left high school. They’d already named their first child!
Minnie called Gavin immediately. He texted back that he was still in class.
At this level of stress, Minnie had completely forgotten about school.
Impatient, she demanded that he make an excuse and get out.
A couple of hours later, he managed it, telling her to meet him at their typical place.
When her mother was in her father’s study, doing who knew what, Minnie slipped out, grabbed her bike, and rode to meet Gavin at the slurpee place five blocks away.
Usually, she listened to music while she biked, basking in the beautiful sunshine, smiling at everyone she passed.
Today, she felt morose and gray-faced. No song would bring her out of her panic.
When Minnie arrived, Gavin was on the phone, yelling, “Mom, I don’t know, okay?
How could I have known?” His eyes were rimmed red with tears.
“I have to go.” He hung up and threw his phone so that it bounced on the sidewalk.
When he saw Minnie, he sucked in his cheeks and gestured for her to sit down.
It felt entirely too formal, like they didn’t even know each other.
“Apparently, my dad took off this morning,” he grumbled, his face in his hands.
Minnie’s heart felt squeezed. “Mine did, too.”
Silence hung between them. Minnie scrambled for something to say.
“Do you think they went to the same place?” She imagined herself and Gavin leaving Miami and joining their wealthy, intelligent fathers wherever they were.
She imagined them all laughing about this in a week or so, maybe at an expensive restaurant in the Bahamas, or wherever it was people escaped to.
Gavin didn’t answer. Minnie’s palms began to sweat.
“Why did your mom do this?” Gavin demanded.
“I don’t know! I don’t know.” Minnie shook her head. “I had no idea she was planning this. I hate her. I never want to see her again.”
Gavin let his hands drop to the table between them. They hadn’t even gotten a slurpee yet. Usually, he got the blue one. She loved kissing him when his tongue was blue. She got the red one because she always had, ever since she was a little kid. She’d always imagined their kisses turning purple.
“Tell your mom to fix it,” Gavin said. “Tell her to write something and take it back.”
It sounded simple. Too simple.
“I don’t know if she will,” Minnie said in a small voice.
“Come on. You’re her only kid. Just tell her what you need her to do. It’s what everyone needs her to do. Otherwise, man. So many people are going to prison,” Gavin said. “That, or our dads are never coming back.”
Minnie was intimidated. Did she really have the power to make everything all right again? Knowing her mother and her mother’s long-held beliefs in journalism, she doubted it.
“If you’re not going to try,” Gavin said stiffly, “then we have to break up.”
Minnie felt it like a punch in the stomach. “No.”
Gavin gave her a terrible, cold look. He got up and brushed his hands on his cargo shorts. “Call me when you’ve fixed this,” he said, then turned on his heel, picked up his phone from where he’d thrown it, and headed back to his multimillion-dollar house.
Minnie remained at the picnic table for a long time, staring at her feet through the holes in the wood. She kept telling herself to wake up from this nightmare. But she couldn’t.
Growing up, Minnie had always known her parents were different, so different that Minnie often wondered how they’d met and fallen in love in the first place.
Her mother was idealistic and well-read, and she often attended political rallies, made posters, got involved in various social movements, and had very little time for her father’s country club and “what the neighborhood wanted her to be.” Just looking at the way her mother dressed—so different from other Miami mothers—had embarrassed Minnie.
Would it hurt her to put on a little makeup every once in a while? Would it hurt her to style her hair?
Minnie’s father, Kendall, had always had something to say about her mother’s hobbies and choice of career. Sometimes he said it in front of Hannah, and other times, he didn’t.
“She’s wasting her time,” he’d said one afternoon when it was just Minnie and Kendall, out in the yard, Kendall practicing his putting while Minnie read a glossy magazine. Hannah had been off somewhere, pursuing a story or protesting. “Promise me you won’t grow up to be like your mother, Minnie.”
Minnie had laughed, like always, and promised.
“I need to teach you how to live in the real world,” Kendall had said.
“You’re going to be CEO of a major company one day.
Yes, sir. Nobody can say I’m not a feminist, right?
” He’d laughed, and Minnie had laughed along with him, blushing at the idea of herself at the head of a boardroom, wearing a suit jacket, her hair in a glossy bun.
During this fantasy, she’d imagined herself glancing out the window of the boardroom to find her mother down below, waving a poster and protesting whatever they were up to in the boardroom. She’d shivered.
Now, weeping after her breakup with Gavin, Minnie abandoned her bike and walked the neighborhood, unsure of what to do with herself or where to go.
Her phone dinged almost constantly with text messages from classmates, many of whom blamed her for her mother’s article.
“Your mom ruined my family” seemed to be the constant refrain.
Minnie tried and failed to compose messages back to illustrate how little she’d known about her mother’s plan.
As the hours went on, Minnie’s heart cracked deeper and deeper.
She was beginning to understand that her life as she’d known it till now was over.
She could forget about prom. Gavin was probably going to take Sarah Anderson or Jemima Plant, girls Minnie had caught him flirting with during their six months as a couple.
She imagined them kissing after the dance and cried harder, working herself into a panic.
Not for the first time since she’d learned about the article, she tried to call her father, but his phone went straight to voicemail.
She texted him to say that he could trust her; that she wouldn’t tell anyone where he was.
But the text didn’t send, either. She felt cut off from the only person in the world who loved her, who truly cared.
What was she going to do?
Eventually, Minnie knew she had to go home.
All of her friends hated her, and she knew they wouldn’t welcome her into their homes.
She saw all the lights lit up at her place from the far end of the street, and she went toward them, feeling as though she was walking the plank. What would she say to her mother?
When she reached the porch steps, she found her mother sitting at the table out front, her eyes enormous and watchful.
There were two pizza boxes, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of soda in front of her.
Minnie understood that her mother had been waiting out here, watching for Minnie, for a long time.
Maybe hours. She could already guess she’d ordered Minnie’s favorite kind of pizza, with feta cheese and black olives.
As though a pizza could fix anything.
Minnie wanted to scream at her mother. She wanted to ask her why she’d ruined her entire life. But as she mounted the steps, her hands tightening into fists, a look of fear flickered over Hannah’s face. Minnie stopped short. It felt like a face-off.
“Why don’t you sit down, honey?” Hannah said, her voice overly sweet.
Minnie shrugged. But eventually, her mother pulled out the chair beside her and all but demanded it.
Minnie went around the table and sat gingerly on the chair.
Her teenage hunger boiled in her gut. She hadn’t eaten all day.
She wanted to open the pizza box and inhale three slices.
But she had to maintain her sense of “adultness” in front of her mother.
“Today was a difficult day for both of us,” Hannah said firmly.
“I know that it hasn’t been easy for you.
And I’m sorry about that. But I can’t apologize for doing what I felt was the right thing.
” Hannah swallowed, hesitating. “When I began my research, I never imagined your father was involved in any of it. I never imagined it would tear our family apart. And, it’s important to say, Josh was fully onboard with the article, all the way up till this morning. ”
Minnie knew that Josh was her mother’s newspaper editor. He’d served as a sort of uncle figure for Minnie over the years. He’d given her an old-fashioned typewriter for her birthday. She’d always liked him.
“But Josh called a little while ago to tell me that I’m fired,” Hannah said, a soft smile playing over her lips.
Minnie’s ears rang with shock. “Fired?” She couldn’t believe Josh had turned his back on her mother like that, especially after agreeing to the article in the first place.
Not that Minnie supported the article.
“Apparently, the powers that be are putting pressure on him. They said either he’s fired, or we’re both fired,” Hannah went on. “I told him that I’d pack up and leave. There’s nothing left in Miami for you and me anyway. Not now.”
Minnie wanted to howl with anger. She thought she was going to throw up. “Was it really worth it, Mom?”
Hannah flared her nostrils but said nothing.
“Miami is our home!” Minnie cried. “Where are we supposed to go?”
Hannah rubbed circles into her temple, the way she did when she was getting a migraine. “We’ll figure it out, Minnie,” she murmured.
But Minnie didn’t want to talk to her mother a moment longer.
Terrified of what awaited them after this, terrified of what else her mother would put her through, Minnie took one of the pizza boxes and her bottle of soda and went upstairs to her bedroom.
There, she sat on the floor, ate cheesy slabs of pizza, and cried.