We pull into the garage. The car’s not even off before she grabs for the door handle. I lock the doors quickly. The sudden finality of the door lock’sthumpmakes her jump a little. She looks forward, her back ramrod straight as she sets her jaw.
“What’s with you, Sasha?” I ask her. “A month ago, you were talking about cheerleader practice and trying to con me into getting you a pair of Red Bottom shoes. Now, all of a sudden, I catch you with boys in your room and going to strip clubs. What am I supposed to do with you?”
She doesn’t say anything. She just sits and stares out the windshield.
“Answer me, Sasha.”
She huffs. “I’m not a baby anymore, Dad,” she says. “I’m practically an adult.”
“You’re fifteen. You are nowhere near being an adult.”
“In three years, I’ll be going to college,” she says. “I’ll be able to vote, join the army?—”
“If you want to go to strip clubs with your idiot friends at eighteen years old, that’s an entirely different conversation. Right now, tonight, you are my fifteen-year-old daughter. You don’t get to do whatever you fucking want. You understand me?”
She rolls her eyes.
“Don’t, okay? You’re on thin ice as it is.”
She takes a beat, looking at her nails tentatively. “So, now what?” she says softly. “I’m grounded for another month. Great.”
“Yeah. And this time, you’re not about to sulk in your room every day. Tomorrow morning, I’m sending your uncle to pick you up. You’re going to help clean up the back rooms at the club before school.”
Her face immediately scrunches up in disgust.“What?”
“You heard me.”
She just gapes, her mouth turned down in a pre-vomitous scowl. “Dad, I can’t clean up jizz off the floor of a strip club! I’m, I’m underage!”
“Oh, sonowyou want to be a kid?”
“I’m serious. That’s… that’s illegal or something, right? You can’t make a kid clean up after strippers and alcohol and, and…” She trails off, unable to truly vocalize her disgust.
“The club won’t be open,” I tell her. “There won’t be any drinks being served and you will be under the close supervision of the cleaning crew. You will get up early, every single day, and go help clean up the club. When you are done, your uncle will bring you back here to get ready for school.”
“I can’t believe this. You can’t make me go to school after that. Dad, I can’t go to school smelling like a strip club every day. You can’t do that to me.”
“It’s already done.” I look over at her. She’s pleading with those big, brown eyes of hers. There was a time when all she had to do was look at me like that and I’d cave. It used to drive her mother crazy.
“Dad,” she says. “Please.”
I look away and unlock the doors. “Go to bed, Sasha. You’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
She gets out of the car, slamming the door. As I watch her stomp through the door and into the house, I sigh heavily. Whoever said raising kids was easy?
And now that the smoke’s clear, there’s one person I need to apologize to. I really lost my shit tonight when I saw Ember with Sasha. It was like all I could see was some grand conspiracy playing out right under my nose. If Junie hadn’t noticed Ember going into the VIP rooms in the first place, I might never have known about all this.
No. That’s not true. Ember would have told me or made Sasha tell me. I can’t picture her keeping something this from me. She was trying to save me from exploding on my kid. She failed at that. Right before her eyes, I turned into that monster I told her I was. Telling her and having her see it for herself are two different things.
I may have chased her off. I mightstillhave chased her away even after I apologize. I pull out my phone. The screen glows the time—three a.m. Ember’s probably closing the books at the club right now.
I call her. Hopefully, she answers. The line clicks over after the line trills almost four times.
“Yes, Mr. Orlov?”
Ouch.“All right. I deserve that.” I take a beat, listening to the sound of her soft breath over the line. “I apologize for losing my temper with you. I just lost my shit when I saw Sasha at the club. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you. I realize you were just trying to protect her.”
She pauses so long that I think that she’s hung up. Finally, she says, “Did you talk to her? Like talk without yelling, I mean?”
