She had always spoken like an adult.
“I have to talk to you about something important.” I took a step inside, turned to shut the door behind me, then paused. A wave of nausea passed through me. I left the door slightly open. “Shannon told me she gave you something before she left.”
Clementine looked perfectly, authentically, adolescently bored. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. She gave you a phone. And you know that phones are against the rules.”
“Why would Shannon give me a phone?”
“Because,” I said, then stopped. “Well, how am I supposed to know why she does things?”
“So she told you that she gave me a phone, but she didn’t say why?” Clementine gave me a look. “How weird.”
A gust of panicked desperation blew through me. She knew. She knew what I was doing. If I wanted to find the phone, I would have to cause a scene, and there was nothing I resisted more than causing a scene, and Clementine. Knew. That.
“Clementine,” I said lightly. “Come on. Hand it over.”
“Handwhatover?”
“The phone.”
“You’re starting to scare me, Mom.”
“Enough. I’m your mother.Give me the phone.”
Clementine gave me a look of practiced confusion. “Do you know what I don’t get? You spend all day long staring at your phone. So why are you so freaked out at the idea of me having one?”
“You’re grounded,” I said, because I had no idea what else to say.
I expected her to whine,What for?But instead she leaned forward and said quickly, with a voice that snapped like a rubber band, “Does being grounded mean I don’t have to be in your stupid videos anymore? Or does it mean I have to be in them twice as much?”
At that moment, Caleb called my name from down the hallway.
“One minute,” I shouted.
“No. Right now!”
My bedroom was in full disarray when I walked back in. All the lights were on, and the bedding and pillows were all over the floor, and Caleb was standing at the foot of the bed, face as white as our sheets. As if he had woken to a tarantula in bed with him. No spider, though—just his phone, which he shoved quickly into my hands and stepped back. The tarantula was now shivering in my grip. I barely had time to read the preview for the first email—I hope this email finds youwell—I’m reaching out from Pop Weekly Magazine for comment on the assault allegations that haverecently—before another emaildingedonto the notification screen—looking forcomment—and then another—press inquiry!
“Natalie,” Caleb said, “you have to believe me. I didn’t hurt Shannon. I didn’t do anything to her, Iswear—”
“Shut up,” I snarled. There was no time to explain to Caleb what had happened.While Mama was cleaning up your mess, darling, she made a little oopsie herself!I threw the phone at Caleb’s chest. It hit him and he let out a squeak of fear.
“Call your father,” I hissed, then stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.
By the end of the week, we had a full legal team on retainer. Specifically, we hadDoug’slegal team on retainer, which meant we were paying thousands of dollars an hour for five sleek-looking New Yorkers to hover in the kitchen in expensive-looking charcoal suits and alternate between staring at their phones and glancing nervously at me out of the corner of their eyes, like a pack of greyhounds waiting for the bell to go off.
When Doug arrived at the ranch, the lawyers looked relieved that their owner was here. They pawed and whined at him excitedly while he took his coat off, all five of them speaking over one another to tell him how prepared they were, how much work they’d been doing while he was away. I resisted the urge to chuck a handful of kibble at their faces.
That night, we sat around the dinner table, the lawyers and Doug and Caleb and me, and devised a plan of attack.
“She’s going to come out swinging,” the lead lawyer said. A bald man named Paul who tended to talk with his hands. “Sources are telling us it’s more likely to be televised than a magazine feature.”
“That means she presents well,” Doug said to Caleb and me. “They think she can win in the court of public opinion. Not all television interviews are created equal, though: she might just get a little two-minute scene in between war updates and the weather.”
Caleb gave his father a guilty, worried look. “Are you worried about the campaign?”
Paul was typing away on his laptop now. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
