Daddy's Little Angel (6 page)

“Please?” Lou said again.

“I’m sorry,” I spit out really fast. “I gotta go. My mom’s probably freaking out right now.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice softer. “She has no idea you were at the concert. I took care of everything.” I opened up my mouth to protest, but he held up his hands before I could speak. “Relax . . . I did nothing to harm her. I’d never hurt your mom. Not intentionally. She was my wife, after all, and she’s the mother of my child. I just gave her a very nice, long nap. She thinks you’re still upstairs.”

That meant I got to skip out on the rant about going to the concert without an adult. “Thanks.”

“I’m looking out for you,” he told me. “And I’m not giving up on us.”

I turned the doorknob and went inside. I had to get away before I did something I regretted—like inviting him to dinner or a square dance. There was no way I could let him be my dad.

“Everybody’s staring at me,” I said to Gabi as we walked into school.

“I told ya.”

She had. All weekend, Gabi babbled away about how getting to perform with Mara’s Daughters was going to help my popularity. Or more accurately, my lack of popularity. I thought everyone would forget by Monday, but from the constant whispers around me, it was pretty obvious that they remembered.

I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to smile, wave, look them in the eye, and say hi? I wasn’t used to this kind of attention. I wasn’t used to
any
attention, unless you counted Max. I didn’t want to blow my chances, so I focused on the tiles on the floor. That way no one would see the ginormous grin on my face. If there was one thing I did know, it was that I couldn’t come off as overeager.

A pair of leather ankle boots stopped right in front of me. I saw some celebrity wearing the exact same ones in last month’s
Teen Vogue
. Totally cute. I waited for the boots to start moving again, but they seemed planted. I didn’t need to look up to know who they belonged to: Lana Perkins, aka Courtney Lourde’s second best friend and obedient pit bull. She always had the best clothes and accessories. I peeked up to see why she wasn’t moving. My mouth dropped open, but I closed it quickly. She was looking right at me.

“Hi, Angel,” Lana said. I couldn’t believe she knew my name. I said hello and then looked over at Gabi. Her jaw was practically grazing her heels. Even
she
didn’t expect Lana to be one of my fans.

“Saw you at the concert,” Lana said.

She was really talking to me. For a split second, I thought maybe it was all in my head or an illusion that Lou rigged up. So I just stood there gawking. That is until Gabi elbowed me—hard. “Yeah. I love Mara’s Daughters.”
Ughh.
Why couldn’t my brain have come up with something funny and cool to say?
I love Mara’s Daughters
. Was I competing for an Obvious Award?

“How do you know them, anyway?” Jaydin Salloway asked, joining our little group. Jaydin was Courtney’s first best friend, and just the tiniest smidge less popular than she. If she did cheerleading or field hockey or something, she’d probably be number one. But she was too into painting, and spent a bunch of time in the art studio by herself. Courtney always put herself in the spotlight, which gave her the edge when it came to social rankings.

I stalled. How was I going to answer that one?
My dad is the devil, and he hooked me up?

Luckily, I was saved by the sound of a shrieking banshee. “Jaydin, Lana, get over here now.” Courtney was standing outside of Mrs. Torin’s classroom with one hand over her eyes and the other pointing to a piece of paper taped to the wall.

Gabi gripped my arm as the color drained from her face. She looked more nervous than when she met Lou. “They must have put up the cast list for
Charlie Brown
.”

“Let’s go find out.” I practically had to drag Gabi over to look at the list.

“Read it to me,” Courtney called out. “Wait.” She took a deep overdramatic breath. “Now.”

Lana ran up to the list and stared screaming. “You got it, you got it, you got it!”

I walked up to the sheet to check for myself.
Ugh
. Lana was right. Gabi didn’t get the part of Lucy. Courtney did. I went back to Gabi. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. I felt awful. I wanted to do something, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

Gabi gave me a tight smile. I could tell she was holding back tears. “No big deal. I didn’t want it that much, anyway.”

I searched inside my bag to find her a tissue. There had to be one in there. Why was I such a slob? My phone, iPod, and social studies book fell to the floor as I dug through my junk. Both Gabi and I reached down to pick them up.

“Mrs. Torin doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I told her. “You would have made a much better Lucy.”

“Puh-lease,”
a voice cackled.

I looked up to see Courtney looming over me. I hadn’t meant for her to hear that. I bit my lip and cringed. So much for my newfound fame. Courtney would make sure no one ever spoke to me again.

Only she didn’t ream me out. Instead she smiled. “You’ve obviously never heard me sing,” she said, “but I’m just as good as your friends.”

I quickly stood up. “Well, Gabi is—”

“I said
friendzzz
, not friend,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I meant Mara’s Daughters
.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut. It had to be better than saying the wrong thing to Courtney. She had many talents in addition to singing. She was a genius at being mean, and also a gifted mimic. Her routines were pretty funny—as long as you, or your friends, weren’t at the butt of them. Poor Max was one of her favorite “characters.” Gabi was a close second.

Thankfully the bell rang, saving me once again from my tied tongue. Courtney smirked at Gabi and then looked at me. “You’ll sit at my table for lunch. We’ll celebrate
my
part.”

There was no way I could leave Gabi. Especially not right after she found out that she wasn’t in the musical. And it wasn’t like she’d want to sit with Courtney or that Courtney would let her anyway. “I can’t—” I started to say. But Courtney was already halfway down the hall.

Mrs. Torin popped her head out the door. She told me to get to homeroom and asked Gabi to stick around a minute. She wanted to ask her something. I was dying to follow Gabi into the room, but I didn’t want to get in trouble for being where I wasn’t supposed to be, so I left. As I made my way to class, I couldn’t even keep track of all the people who said hi to me.

School was certainly getting a lot more interesting.

Everyone turned to look at me as I walked into homeroom. Even Cole. I swear it was just like I dreamed it. He stopped working on whatever homework he didn’t bother finishing last night and watched me as I made my way to my seat. Okay, it wasn’t quite as good as my fantasy, where he gave me a Gerber daisy and one of his big, crooked smiles when I reached my desk, but this was a close second.

“Hey, Angel,” Dana Ellers said as I passed by her.

“You were awesome at the concert,” Tracy Fine added. Marc Gomez and Rick Drager nodded in agreement. “But I knew you would be. You’ve always had that cool vibe thing going. I want to hear all about everything later,” Tracy continued.

Tracy never even acknowledged my existence before. Not even when I was her Secret Santa last year. Now she was calling me cool and acting like we were actual friends. This was so weird. “Sure,” I said, trying to mask my nerves. No one other than Gabi and the teacher ever spoke to me in homeroom.

I rushed to my desk and ended up tripping over my chair. I expected the class to point and laugh, but no one even snickered. Instead there were a few gasps and Dana even rushed over to check on me.

I took my seat behind Cole and thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest when he turned around to face me. “You okay?” he asked.

He was talking to me! Cole Daniels was talking to me! “Yeah,” I said. I considered pulling out my phone so I could snap a picture and document the moment forever, but I thought better of it.

“Sweet concert,” he said, and ran his hand through his dark brown waves. He had the best hair I’d ever seen. Shiny, kind of floppy on the top, with the occasional golden highlight. I wondered what it felt like. Probably supersoft. I wanted to reach out and touch it, too. My hand would be in hair heaven, until he smacked it away for being some sort of freakish hair perv.

I had to focus. I needed to answer him, to say something. This was not the time to have a brain freeze. “Yeah,” was the best I could do. On the inside, though, I was psyched. I hadn’t seen him at the concert so I wasn’t sure if he made it there. It’s a good thing, too, because if ever in my life I was crushworthy, it was at that concert all right. I was all prepped to ask him what his favorite song of the night was when Mrs. Laurel, my homeroom/science teacher, started talking, and he turned back around. But before he did, he smiled at me. An honest to goodness real smile. Just. For. Me.

“Hi,” Gabi whispered to me. I hadn’t noticed her come in. She raised an eyebrow and looked toward Cole.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I know!” I whispered. I really had no clue what was going on. But whatever it was, it was good. “Hey, what happened with Mrs. To—”

“Angel, since you seem to be a little chatterbox today, why don’t you read us the morning announcements?” Mrs. Laurel interrupted. She walked over and handed me a piece of paper.

This I could handle. “The cast list for
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
is posted outside Mrs. Torin’s classroom,” I began. “Everyone who auditioned did a wonderful job. Congratulations to the new cast.”

I couldn’t read anymore. And not because I didn’t want to. All the text on the page started spinning. What was going on? Was I about to pass out? I closed my eyes.

“Is there a problem, dear?” Mrs. Laurel asked.

“No,” I said, looking back down at the paper. But there was a problem. A big one. And it had Lou written all over it. The words on the page had changed. In place of the school announcements was a brief note that repeated itself over and over again. It said, “
Angel, please reconsider. Talk to me—Love, Dad
.
”

“We don’t have all day, dear. Keep reading,” Mrs. Laurel chirped.

How was I supposed to do that? “Actually, I’m not feeling too well. Can I skip this today?”

“Fine.” Mrs. Laurel’s gigantic smile seemed to crack a little, which meant she was getting frustrated, but at least she wasn’t going to make me continue with the announcements. “Bring the paper up to me.”

“
No
.”

“What?”

I couldn’t let her have it. It had my name on it. There was no way I’d be able to explain how all the words changed. “Sorry. Just feeling dizzy.”

She shook her head and walked over to me. “Maybe you should go see the nurse.”

“That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a minute.”

Mrs. Laurel held out her hand. I just looked at her. “The announcements,” she said.

I didn’t know what to do. But I didn’t have much choice. I handed her the paper and slunk as far down in my chair as possible. What if she read my dad’s note out loud? My life was about to end.

Gabi gave me a questioning stare and then spoke up. “I’ll read it,” she offered.

“Helping out a friend. Very nice. One extra credit point for you,” Mrs. Laurel said, beaming like Gabi just helped a dozen old ladies cross the street.

I wanted to grab the paper back and tear it up into a million little pieces. This was going to be my undoing, and it was all in the hands of my best friend. I prayed she’d make up the announcements or give Mrs. Laurel some crazy excuse for why she couldn’t read them either. But Gabi was an awful liar. She had a huge guilt complex, so I waited for the worst.

“Exciting news from our swim team,” Gabi read. “They beat the Dillon Ducks to make it to the quarter-finals.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. The paper had turned back into the real announcements. That or Gabi was the best actress in all of Pennsylvania. Either way it didn’t matter. I was in the clear.

I relaxed in my chair and went back to my favorite hobby, studying the back of Cole’s head. As I tried to spell out my name in Cole’s curls, I noticed something swinging off a strand. I moved in a little closer for a better look. I prayed I wasn’t seeing clearly. But I was. Lou, in miniature form, was attached to my crush. He was moving like Tarzan from lock to lock while waving at me with his free hand.

“Go away,” I said in a harsh whisper.

Cole started to turn around. “What?”

“Not you,” I squeaked, stopping him. A few people looked over at me. I hoped they didn’t think I was talking to myself. That would certainly counteract any positive effects the Mara’s Daughters concert had on my popularity.

Lou continued to wave at me.

“Go,” I mouthed.

“Sure. When you agree to give me a chance,” he whispered.

I jumped up. Did Cole hear that? Did he think it was me? Lou was practically inside his ear. I had to stop this. I reached out to grab Lou. But, suddenly, he disappeared. I was left standing there clutching onto Cole’s hair.

He reached back and grabbed his head. “What the . . . ?”

I let go and looked over to Gabi. Her hand was over her mouth. Yeah. This was disastrous. Humiliating. Mortifying.

All of the above and then some.

“Bee,” I said meekly, sliding back into my seat. “I didn’t want you to get stung.”

He was still rubbing the back of his head.

“Sorry.” I looked down at the loose strand of hair in my hand. “Do you want this back?”

Did I really just ask that?
Do you want this back?
What was wrong with me? I swear I wasn’t usually this demented on most days. I stammered. “I mean . . . ” How did I make this better? I couldn’t. It was impossible.