The Daughters (26 page)

“Miss Summers?”

She turned around. Mr. Barlow stood in front of her, taller and skinnier and scarier than she remembered. “You’re here? I
thought you had somewhere else to be today,” he said in a voice that sent a shiver through her.

“Not anymore,” she attempted.

“That’s a shame,” he said, folding his long arms. “Because you’re suspended.”

Lizzie swallowed. “Mr. Barlow—”

“We know whoever called the school this morning wasn’t your parent. Those are the rules, Miss Summers. No unexplained absences.
Not even for…” His eyes drifted to her bizarre-looking crimped hair. “Jobs.”

“Okay, I had a photo shoot, for Martin Meloy,” she stammered. “But I walked out of it. I’m not doing it anymore. I’m done
with it.”

He held up a hand. “And I’m going to have to give you an F for your mythology project.”

“An F?”

“You didn’t show up.”

“I can make it up, though. I did the work. I can just do it later—”

Mr. Barlow shook his head firmly. “No.”

An F. She had never gotten an F in her life. Especially in English.

“Come on, Mr. Barlow. You know that I’m a good student. I mean, you loved my story, right?”

He let out a low, disappointed whistle and hung his head. “Not as much as I thought I would,” he said.

“Why?” she asked, starting to get panicked. “What happened?”

“When I gave it back to you, I said you just needed to cut some words,” he said sternly. “Instead, you wrote an entirely new
story. In the first version, the daughter was awkward. She felt inadequate around her mother. Now in this one she’s beautiful.
And the mother is trying to imitate her. It just didn’t ring true to me. At all.”

“But you said I could go in another direction.”

Mr. Barlow shook his head. “Another direction isn’t a totally new story. The first version felt riskier, more authentic. This
one…” He shrugged. “It felt like a cop-out. Like you chickened out. It didn’t feel like you, Lizzie.” He sighed. “They announced
the finalists today,” he confessed. “Yours wasn’t one of them.”

Her head was starting to spin. Now her story was out of the competition? “But I can change it back… can you let me change
it back?”

“It’s too late, Lizzie. The deadline passed. But I’d like you to read the story that
was
picked to be the ninth-grade entry.”

He gestured for her to follow him into his office, where he picked up a stapled printout from his desk. “It’s Mr. Piedmont’s.”

Now she was sure someone up there was laughing at her. She took the story, feeling her scalp start to burn with shame.

“He wasn’t afraid of being vulnerable,” Mr. Barlow added.

“Thanks,” she said, fighting back tears.

Mr. Barlow placed a warm, steadying hand on her shoulder, as if he could sense that she was overwhelmed. His kind blue eyes
looked down on her, twinkling like marbles.

“I’m sorry, Lizzie. But I hope you learned something from all this. You’re a talented girl. Too talented to have gotten this
distracted. You could have gotten an A on that project, and you could have been a finalist for that contest. But you lost
your way a little bit here.”

The bell rang. She stared at the floor as her face burned. Doors opened, releasing voices and footsteps into the halls. This
confrontation was coming to an end, thank God.

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “And I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Still keeping her head bowed, she turned on her heels and walked out. She had gotten an F. She was suspended. Even her writing
had turned bad.

This had to be the worst day of her life. But underneath the sadness, she felt a glimmer of hope. Mr. Barlow cared about her.
He knew who she was, even if she had temporarily forgotten. She was Lizzie the Writer. That was her real self. Now she just
needed to get back to that.

“Lizzie! You’re here!”

Lizzie turned around to see Hudson and Carina running toward her. Carina stopped short, agape at her hair. “Whoa. You look
like something from
Saved by the Bell
.”

“What are you doing here?” Hudson exclaimed. “What happened to the shoot?”

Lizzie pulled them toward the stairs. “Can we go to the diner, you guys? I kind of need to get off school property. Like now.”

“Why?” Carina asked.

“I just got suspended,” she replied.

Hudson looked stricken. “You got what?”

“Come on, you guys, let’s go,” she said, heading to the stairs.

They hurried down the main staircase and walked to the diner. On the way there, Lizzie attempted to fill them all in on the
shoot that morning.

“I’m sorry, but if anyone made
me
wear tons of purple eyeshadow, and crimped
my
hair, and then said I needed to go see a
nutritionist
, I’d punch them right in the mouth,” Carina said as a waitress put a plate of fries in front of them.

“C,” Hudson said.

“I’m serious,” Carina said, popping a fry into her mouth. “I mean, I get that he has a
vision
but he’s still a total douche.”

“Tell me about it,” Lizzie quipped.

“Bottom line is, you were supposed to be his
muse
,” Hudson said. “He picked you because of who you were. Not so he could
improve
you.”

“Actually, that’s not really why I walked out,” she confessed, taking a large bite of her buttered bagel. “I mean, all of
those things were kind of annoying, yes. But the real reason is that I overheard Martin talking about my mom.”

Hudson and Carina stopped eating and looked up at her. “What’d he say?” Hudson asked, her eyes wide. Lizzie could tell that
she was horrified for her.

“That she was old. Over the hill. Stuff like that.” Lizzie pushed her cole slaw around with her fork.

“Ugh,” Hudson said.

“I know. My mom tried to warn me, too. But I was so into it and so excited and I so wanted to believe them all, that I just
didn’t listen to her. I guess I just really wanted to feel pretty.”

As close as they were, and as many times as she had joked about her looks, she had never admitted this to her friends. But
Carina and Hudson watched her, without judgment, just listening, waiting for her to go on.

“And I did, working with Andrea,” she went on. “And then it all just made me feel uglier. And if
my mom’s
being talked about like that, then how can anyone feel good about themselves in that world? So I think it’s time I go back
to the old Lizzie. Old Chia Pet Lizzie. And just accept it.”

Carina leaned her elbows on the table. “Lizbutt, you
are
pretty. You’re
gorgeous
. And maybe this all happened so you could finally believe that. And just remember it the rest of your life and, you know,
move on.”

Lizzie grabbed a fry and dragged it through Carina’s ketchup. “Deep thoughts with Carina Jurgensen,” she said in a mock-serious
voice.

But she knew that Carina was right. She had to move on. Maybe she’d never be totally at peace with her looks. Maybe she’d
always wish she looked different. But she’d never again let
other
people decide who she was—ugly, different, awkward, stunning. All that mattered was what
she
thought of herself.

“Oh, I have news,” Hudson said quietly. “I think I know who gave that tabloid my number.” She pointed her fork past their
heads. “Exhibit A in the corner.”

Lizzie craned her head around and saw, ensconced in a booth in the corner, Hillary Crumple. In a chunky orange roll-neck sweater,
and an even messier ponytail, she looked even more devious than usual. She was pretending to talk with her friends but darting
creepy obsessed looks at them every few seconds.

“Oh my God, you’re totally right,” Carina said.

“Yep, I bet you she did it,” Lizzie said.

“But how?” Hudson said, trying hard not to stare. “How would they get to her?”

“They can get to anyone,” Carina said ruefully. “All I know is, you’re no longer nice to her. Got it, Jones?”

“Loud and clear,” Hudson said, plucking a fry off Carina’s plate. “And maybe your revenge obsession isn’t as weird as I thought
it was.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you guys,” Lizzie remembered. “I’m getting an F for the project, too. I’m sure Todd’ll be
thrilled.”

Carina and Hudson exchanged a wary glance.

“What?” Lizzie asked, spearing her pickle with her fork.

Carina and Hudson looked at each other again. Something was going on.

“Spill it,” Lizzie said.

Carina folded her arms on the table. “Todd’s dad was arrested. For stealing money from his company. Or something.”

Lizzie put down her fork. “What?”

Hudson nodded soberly. “It happened this morning. Todd left school about an hour ago. He was pretty freaked out.”

Lizzie looked out the window at a young mom trying to zip up a jacket on her toddler. The art on the walls, the penthouse
apartment, Todd’s books… the out-of-control spending. As much as she didn’t want it to, it all made sense.

“Lizzie? You okay?” Hudson asked.

“Is he all right?”

Hudson shrugged. “He didn’t say anything to anyone. He just left.”

“Apparently it’s all over the news,” Carina added. “I never thought I’d say this, but poor Todd.”

She thought of Todd alone in his apartment—no father, no mother. It wasn’t even a question. “I gotta go, you guys,” Lizzie
said, getting up. “Sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

“You’re going to see him
now
?” Hudson asked carefully.

“Lizzie,” Carina said. “The guy was a jerk to you.”

“Maybe,” she said, throwing on her jacket. “But he’s my friend. And I have a feeling I may have been wrong about him.”

“Then go,” Hudson said, smiling.

Lizzie hugged her friends quickly and raced to the door. Out on the street, she pulled out her phone and called him. It rang
and rang and rang, before it finally reached voicemail.

“Hey, this is Todd. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you—”

She hung up. Of course he wouldn’t be picking up his phone. She had to go find him, wherever that might be.

A cab with its lights on was headed up Madison. She stuck out her hand and stepped as far into the street as she could without
getting hit. The cab stopped right in front of her, and she got into the backseat and slammed the door.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

Todd probably wouldn’t be home—who would be there with him? He wouldn’t be with his dad, wherever the police were holding
him. Who else did he have to go to in a crisis? Who else besides her?

His brother
. That’s where Todd had been coming from, that very first day she saw him. He went to NYU. Had he mentioned the dorm? All
she could remember was the corner.

“Bleecker and Thompson,” she said to the driver. “As fast as you humanly can.”

The driver made a sharp left toward Fifth Avenue, sending Lizzie falling against the door. Beside her on the seat, her open
bookbag fell over. An avalanche of papers, pens, tissues, and books spilled out, all over the seat.

She righted herself, clipped on her seat belt, and started to shove the mess of papers back into her bag. No matter how often
she cleaned it out, there was always a mess of loose papers in there—they seemed to multiply somehow.

And then the title page of Todd’s story caught her eye. She turned it right side up.

ACROSS THE POND

By Todd Piedmont

She turned the page. The first line leaped out at her.

He was ten years old and eating a red velvet cupcake the night he fell in love.

With a lump in her throat that she couldn’t explain and tears in her eyes, Lizzie leaned back against the warm vinyl seat
and read.

“Looks like this is as far as I can go.”

Lizzie looked up from the last page of Todd’s story. They were already on Bleecker Street and she hadn’t even noticed. Through
the cab’s windshield, she could see a pair of orange and white cones blocking the rest of the street from traffic, as a few
men in hard hats and fluorescent vests worked around an open manhole.

“I can let you out here,” the driver went on.

“No problem.” She paid the driver, thrust Todd’s story into her bag, and got out of the cab. At least she was just a few blocks
away from the dorms. She pulled out her phone and called the NYU Student Directory.

“Jack Piedmont,” she said. “He’s a freshman. I just need his address.”

The woman on the other end of the line told her to wait, and then came back on the line. “Brittany Hall. 55 East Tenth Street.”

Lizzie dropped her phone in her bag and picked up her pace. She slid past a knot of tourists, jumped over a dachshund tied
to a lamppost, and almost ran into a speeding taxi as she crossed the street. She had no time to waste now. Now that she knew
everything she needed to know.

Todd’s story had been about her. It was about a boy named Austin, who was hopelessly in love with his childhood friend from
New York, “across the pond,” as the English called it. The night before his family moved from New York, he kissed her as they
ate red velvet cupcakes. Then, living in London, he dreamed about her. He wrote imaginary letters to her. He rode shiny bright
red double-decker buses and the London Tube, thinking about her, waiting for the day he might go back to America and see her
again. A girl who was so pretty it made his chest ache. A girl with long wobbly legs like a newly born horse and hair like
an explosion of copper. A girl he had known all of his life, but who he was sure only considered him a friend. And once he
got back to America, he realized that she still did. Especially when he finally tried to kiss her, and she bolted with a flimsy
explanation, and he decided to give up.

Lizzie’s heart pounded as she ran. All this time, all these weeks, he’d liked her. Even as he’d dated Ava. That night at his
house, when he held her hand. The night at Ava’s party, when she pretended she was happy for him.

But now she’d blown it. Now he thought she was a fool. It was too late.