Ella furrowed her brow. “They’re just instant. You know I can’t cook.”

Aria knew she was trying too hard. But if she was a model daughter instead of her sarcastic, grumbling self, Byron might realize what he was missing.

She turned again to Byron. Aria didn’t want to hate her dad. There were tons of good things about him—he always listened to her problems, he was smart, he made her Get Well Soon fudge brownies when she had the flu. She’d tried to come up with logical, non-romantic reasons why the Meredith thing had happened. She didn’t want to think he loved someone else, or that he was trying to break up the family. It was hard, though, not to take it personally.

As she took a spoonful of green beans, Ella’s cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen island, began to ring. Ella looked at Byron. “Should I get that?”

Byron frowned. “Would someone be calling you at dinnertime?”

“Maybe it’s Oliver from the gallery.”

Suddenly, Aria felt her throat constrict. What if it’s A?

The phone rang again. Aria stood up. “I’ll answer it.”

Ella wiped her mouth and pushed back her chair. “No, I should get it.”

“No!” Aria rushed to the island. The phone rang a third time. “I…um…it’s…”

She flailed her arms wildly, trying to think. Out of ideas, she grabbed the phone and flung it into the living room. It skidded across the floor, stopped against the couch, and stopped ringing. The Montgomerys’ cat, Polo, padded up and tapped the phone with his striped paw.

When Aria turned back around, her family was staring at her. “What is the matter with you?” Ella asked.

“I just…” Aria was damp with sweat, and her whole body throbbed with her heartbeat. Mike crossed his hands behind his head. Fuh-REEK, he mouthed.

Ella swished by her to the living room and crouched to look at the phone’s screen. Her crinkle skirt grazed the floor, picking up dust. “It was Oliver.”

At the same time, Byron stood up. “I have to be going.”

“Going?” Ella’s voice caught. “But we just started eating.”

Byron carried his empty plate to the sink. He had always been the fastest eater on the planet, even faster than Mike. “I have stuff to do in my office.”

“But…” Ella clasped her hands at her small waist. They all watched helplessly as Byron disappeared up the stairs and then came down about a half a minute later in rumpled gray pants and a blue button-down. His hair was still completely uncombed. He grabbed his worn leather briefcase and keys. “See you in a little while.”

“Can you pick up orange juice?” Ella cried, but Byron shut the front door without answering.

A second later, Mike stormed out of the kitchen without putting his plate in the sink. He grabbed his jacket and lacrosse stick and wormed his feet into his sneakers without untying them. “Now, where are you going?” Ella asked.

“Practice,” Mike snapped. He had his head way down and was chewing on his lip, like he was trying to keep from crying. Aria wanted to run up to her brother and hug him and try to figure out what to do here, except she felt stuck, as if grouted to the checkerboard ceramic tiles on the kitchen floor.

Mike slammed the door, making the whole house shake. A few seconds of silence passed, then Ella raised her gray eyes to Aria. “Everyone’s leaving us.”

“No, they’re not,” Aria said quickly.

Her mother went back to the table and stared at the remaining chicken on her plate. After a few seconds of pondering, she laid a napkin over it, uneaten, and turned back to Aria. “Has your father seemed strange to you?”

Aria felt her mouth go dry. “About what?”

“I don’t know.” Ella traced her finger around the porcelain dinner plate’s edge. “It seems like something’s bothering him. Maybe it’s about teaching? He seems so busy….”

Aria knew she should say something, but the words felt gummed up in her stomach, like she needed a toilet plunger or a vacuum to suck them out. “He hasn’t said anything about that, no.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Ella stared at her. “You’d tell me if he had, right?”

Aria bent her head down, pretending she had something in her eye. “Of course.”

Ella rose and cleared the rest of the stuff off the table. Aria stood there, useless. This was her chance…and she was just standing here. Like a sack of potatoes.

She wandered up to her room and sat down at her desk, not sure what to do with herself. Downstairs, she could hear the beginning strains of Jeopardy!. Perhaps she should go back down and hang out with Ella. Except what she really wanted to do was cry.

Her Instant Messenger made the bloopy noise of a new message. Aria went over to it, wondering if maybe it was Sean. But…it wasn’t.

A A A A A A: Two choices: Make it go away or tell your mom. I’m giving you till the stroke of midnight Saturday night, Cinderella. Or else. —A

A creaking sound made her jump. Aria whirled around and saw that her cat had nosed her bedroom door open. She petted him absentmindedly, reading the IM again. And again. And again.

Or else? And make it go away? How was she supposed to do that?

Her computer made another bloop. The IM window flashed.

A A A A A A: Not sure how? Here’s a hint: Strawberry Ridge Yoga Studio. 7:30 a.m. Tomorrow. Be there.

17

DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL HAS A SECRET

Hanna stood six inches from her bedroom mirror, closely inspecting herself. It must’ve been a freak reflection at the mall—here, she looked normal and thin. Although…were her pores looking a little bigger? Were her eyes slightly crossed?

Nervous, she opened her bureau drawer and pulled out a giant bag of salt-and-pepper kettle chips. She shoved a big handful into her mouth, chewed, then stopped. Last week, A’s notes had led her into the horrible binge/purge cycle all over again—even though she’d refrained from the habit for years. She wouldn’t start doing this again. And especially not in front of her father.

She rolled up the bag and looked out the window again. Where was he? Nearly two hours had passed since her mom called her at the mall. Then she saw a forest-green Range Rover turn into her driveway, which was a winding, wooded, quarter-mile-long road. The car easily maneuvered around the driveway’s twists and turns in a way that only someone who had lived there could. When Hanna was younger, she and her dad used to sled on the driveway. He taught her how to lean into each turn so she wouldn’t tip.

When the doorbell rang, she jumped. Her miniature pinscher, Dot, started to bark, and the bell rang again. Dot’s barking became more high-pitched and frenzied, and the bell rang for the third time. “Coming!” Hanna growled.

“Hey,” her father said as she flung open the door. Dot began to dance around his heels. “Hello there.” He reached down to pick up the tiny dog.

“Dot, no!” Hanna commanded.

“No, he’s fine.” Mr. Marin petted the miniature pinscher’s little nose. Hanna had gotten Dot shortly after her dad left.

“So.” Her father lingered on the porch awkwardly. He wore a charcoal gray business suit and a red and blue tie, as if he’d just come from a meeting. Hanna wondered if he wanted to come in. She felt funny inviting her dad into his own house. “Should I…?” he started.

“Do you want to…?” Hanna said at the same time. Her father laughed nervously. Hanna wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him. Her father took a step toward her, and she took a step back, bumping into the door. She tried to make it look like she’d meant to do it. “Just come in,” she said, the annoyance in her voice showing.

They stood in the foyer. Hanna felt her father’s eyes on her. “It’s really nice to see you,” he said.

Hanna shrugged. She wished she had a cigarette or something to do with her hands. “Yeah, well. So do you want the financial thingie? It’s right here.”

He squinted, ignoring her. “I meant to ask you the other day. Your hair. You did something different with it. It’s…Is it shorter?”

She smirked. “It’s darker.”

He pointed. “Bingo. And you don’t have your glasses on!”

“I got LASIK.” She stared him down. “Two years ago.”

“Oh.” Her father put his hands in his pockets.

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing.”

“No,” her father answered quickly. “You just look…different.”

Hanna crossed her arms. When her parents decided to divorce, Hanna thought it was because she got fat. And clumsy. And ugly. Meeting Kate had just felt like more proof. He’d found his replacement daughter, and he’d traded up.

After the Annapolis disaster, her father tried to stay in touch. At first, Hanna complied, having a couple of moody, one-word phone conversations. Mr. Marin tried to tease out what was wrong, but Hanna was too embarrassed to talk about it. Eventually, the length of time between conversations became longer and longer…and then they stopped happening altogether.

Mr. Marin strolled down the foyer, his feet creaking on the wood floor. Hanna wondered if he was assessing what was the same and what had changed. Did he notice the black-and-white photo of Hanna and her dad that hung above the Mission-style hall table had been removed? And that the lithograph of a woman going through the yoga sun salutations—a print Hanna’s father hated, but Hanna’s mom loved—hung in its place?

Her dad flopped on the living room couch, even though no one ever used the living room. He never used to use the living room. It was dark, way too stuffy, had ugly Oriental rugs, and smelled like Endust. Hanna didn’t know what else to do, so she followed him in and sat down on the claw-foot ottoman in the corner.

“So. How are you doing, Hanna?”

She curled her legs underneath her. “I’m all right.”

“Good.”

Another ocean of silence. She heard Dot’s tiny toenails tick across the kitchen floor, and his little tongue lap up water from his dish. She wished for an interruption—a phone call, the fire alarm going off, even another text from A—anything to take her away from this awkwardness.

“And how are you?” she finally asked.

“Not too bad.” He picked up a tasseled pillow from the couch and held it out at arm’s length. “These things were always so ugly.”

Hanna agreed with him, but what, were the pillows at Isabel’s house perfect?

Her father looked up. “Remember that game you used to play? You put the pillows on the floor and jumped from one to the other, because the floor was lava?”

“Dad.” Hanna wrinkled her nose and hugged her knees even tighter.

He squeezed the pillow. “You could play that for hours.”

“I was six.”

“Remember Cornelius Maximilian?”

She looked up. His eyes were twinkling. “Dad…”

He threw the pillow up in the air and caught it. “Should I not talk about him? Has it been too long?”