Oh, my God. I felt frozen to my chair, my blood cold. My mind was catching up to my heart now.
“I don’t think that’s how she’ll see it. I think she’ll think it affects her most of all because then she’ll be the only one without a living father.”
I jumped up off the chaise before I could hear the rest and ran into my room and shut the door. I sat on the edge of my bed, catching my breath, and then decided that I had to go down there right now to confront them. I sat for a few minutes, trying to reason it out, trying to decide if this could possibly mean anything other than what I thought it did.I would be the only one without a living father... which could only mean...
“Oh, my God,” I said out loud. “Oh, my God.”
After what felt like an eternity of gathering myself, I swung the bedroom door open with conviction and then, looking down, realized I was wearing only my bikini. I stepped back out onto the porch to grab my cover-up, pulled it over my head, and saw Vivi and a friend there, on the floor of the porch, huddled around something that, when I got closer, I realized was a cigarette.
“Vivian Louise Beaumont!” I said sharply. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
She and her friend both looked up, wide-eyed.
I held out my hand. “Give that to me right now.”
I realized it was neither good for my health nor a good example when I put the cigarette to my mouth, cupped my hands around the flame, and inhaled. But if anyone had ever needed a cigarette, it was me now. I had just accidentally found out that Jack was Sloane and Caroline’s biological father. A cigarette was in order.
“Smoking is the worst thing in the world for you,” I said, as the two girls looked up at me. “You aren’t even twelve years old.”
“Actually, I am,” the friend piped up.
I looked at her sternly. “Smoking stunts your growth, ruins your lungs, and keeps you from getting boobs.” The last one wasn’t true, per se, but I could tell from the looks on their faces that it was way more effective than any lung-cancer photos.
Their eyes went straight to my chest, and Vivi whispered, “Is that what happened to you?”
Bitches. I inhaled again and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.” I exhaled slowly and said, “Your mother never smoked a cigarette in her life, which is why she’s tall and her boobs are huge. Let that be a lesson to you.”
It now occurred to me that Sloane and Caroline had boobs and I didn’t because Jack was their father and Dad was mine. On the bright side, they would never be able to play boys onstage with their C and D cups. My barely A cups were very versatile. I knew that Vivi’s drama was helping me procrastinate about focusing on my own. But also, her health and safety would always come first, even above soul-shattering, life-changing revelations.
I sat down on the porch beside them, taking the last drag and then flicking it expertly so that the butt detached from the ash in one swift motion, the light going out and both pieces sailing into the bushes downstairs. You could say this wasn’t the first time I had smoked a cigarette on this porch.
“What is going on with you and your mom?” I asked Vivi, realizing that something pretty major would be going on with my own mom and me in short order.
“I don’t want to be who she wants me to be, and she can’t get that through her head. I’m not her, and if I don’t want to have the kind of party she wants to have, that doesn’t make me crazy.”
I nodded. “Look, no one understands being controlled by your mother better than I do. But she loves you more than anything, and she only wants to make you happy. Sometimes people only know how to make people happy the way they like to be made happy. Does that make sense?”
Vivi nodded sullenly.
“So whatdoyou want for your birthday? If it’s not having a party here, I mean,” I asked.
“To stay in Peachtree Bluff and not go back to New York,” she rolled off.
Yikes. This was going to be harder than I thought.
“Um,” I said, looking out over the water, realizing that this parenting thing seemed pretty tough after all. “You know that’s not realistic. Your dad works in New York, and your life is in New York. Peachtree Bluff is the best place in the world to visit, but it’s not the kind of place you get to stay forever.”
“Gransley gets to stay forever.”
“I get to stay forever,” the brunette friend said.
I glared at her. She wasn’t helping my cause. Plus, she was trying to give my niece stale cigarettes. Not cool. Not cool at all.
“And I hate my dad,” Vivi said. “I don’t want to go back to live with him anyway.”
“I hate your dad, too,” I said before I could stop myself. I grinned sheepishly. “Look,” I said, “I’m kidding. Take it from me, you only get one dad, and when he’s gone, you’re always going to wish you had him back. He made some mistakes, but you’ll make some mistakes, too.”
And then I realized that, yes, Vivi would only get one dad. I only got one dad. But it seemed my sisters got two.
