The Gossip File (10 page)

The first thing I do when I get to the café in the morning is fire up the oven. I need to bake. It's the only thing that might get my mind off the fact that Carrie and Taylor are ignoring me and that my dad may never speak to me again. I walk past the disgusting premade stuff and start hunting for ingredients. Since it's my last day at the café, who cares if I break the rules? At least I'll make food that people will actually want to eat.

I make trays and trays of cinnamon rolls and muffins and tea cakes. The café is packed for most of the day. People can't seem to get enough of my pastries.

“Whatever you're doing with these things, keep it up,” one of the resort lifeguards says as she bites into a cinnamon roll. “It actually tastes like cinnamon!” She laughs. “I'll definitely be back again tomorrow.”

By the end of the day, all the stuff I baked is gone and the registers are practically overflowing with cash.

“This is the best day I've seen since I've been here,” says Taylor, doing a little happy dance.

Carrie nods. “Definitely the best one we've had in years.”

Neither of them looks at me.

I should be happy with how popular my pastries were, but I can't stand that my friends are still giving me the silent treatment. The only good thing about Carrie and Taylor being mad at me is that they've totally forgotten about my contribution to the Gossip File. But that doesn't feel like a relief at all. In fact, it feels like a punishment, like a sign that I was never really one of them.

Finally, as we're closing up the café in total silence, I can't take it anymore.

“Carrie? Taylor? I know you're mad at me and you have every right to be, but I really am sorry. I never meant to lie to you.”

Taylor turns toward me, her face full of hurt. “Then why did you?”

“You guys assumed I was Ava, and after that, it…I guess it kind of spiraled out of control.” I don't want them to hate me. I want them to understand. “The truth is, I liked being Ava. I liked starting over and being friends with you guys. I wished that I really could be her because it meant being able to hang out with you.”

“So your dad is Ellie's boyfriend?” Carrie says. “And your name is actually Rachel?”

I cringe at the sound of her saying my real name. “Yes,” I say, not able to meet her eyes.

“What about your boyfriend, Evan? Is he even real?” Carrie says.

“Yes! I can call him up right now if you want me to prove it.”

“And the stuff about riding horses and having a farm?” Taylor asks.

I look at my toes. “Not true.”

“Why would you lie about all that?”

“Because I'm an idiot! I should have just told you the truth right away, but I was too much of a wimp. And then it was too late.” I swallow. “I know you must think I'm a horrible person. I'm as bad as Melody.”

Carrie lets out a long breath. “No, you're not.”

I look up. “I'm not?”

“Melody made stuff up to make herself sound more interesting than she actually was, but you're not like that. I could tell you were a good kid when I first met you. You got caught up in some stuff. It happens to everyone.”

“Really?” I say. “You're not mad?”

Taylor laughs. “We were, but I think we're over it. I mean, being mad doesn't undo anything, right?”

“You guys are the best!” I unclasp the horse necklace from around my neck and hold it out to Taylor. “Here, you should take this back.”

“It's okay,” she says. “You can keep it.”

“No, really. I don't feel right hanging on to it.”

I must sound pretty convincing because Taylor finally shrugs and takes the necklace from me. “I know what it's like to try to start over as someone new,” she says. “One time after we moved I tried to go all goth. But after a while I started to miss the old me. And it killed me that I couldn't wear pink.”

I shake my head. “The old me would never even be talking to you guys right now.”

“Why not?” Carrie asks.

“Because I would have been way too shy to even say hi to you!”

“In that case, I'm glad you could be Ava for a few days,” Taylor says, putting her arm around me.

My body floods with relief. “Thank you for giving me another chance after everything,” I say. “I promise you guys won't regret it.”

Carrie smiles. “I know we won't.”

As I'm getting ready for dinner that evening, there's a knock on the door. I'm surprised to see my dad standing in the hallway. I haven't spoken to him since last night. He doesn't look like he might explode with anger anymore, but he certainly doesn't seem happy.

“I thought we were meeting in the lobby,” I say as he comes into the room.

“We were, but there's something we need to discuss.” He closes the door behind him. Uh-oh. This can't be good. “The truth is, Ellie and I were talking, and we think that it might make sense to cut this vacation short.”

I stare at him for a moment, sure I've heard wrong. “You're sending me home? But what about Disney? What about—?”

“After everything that's happened, it seems like the best decision.”

I can't believe this. “Is it because of me going out in Carrie's car?”

“That and…” He sighs. “Let's be honest, Roo. Things haven't been going that well from the start. You've been arguing and making up stories, and just now Ellie told me that you've been breaking the rules at work. You didn't sell any of the pastries you were supposed to today.”

“You're going to send me home because I baked some stuff at a café?” I practically shriek. “That's crazy!”

“There's also this.” He holds out a piece of paper, and my stomach sinks right into the floor. Oh my goldfish. He has my notes for the Gossip File.

“Where did you get that?” I say. My mind starts racing as I try to remember the last place I put the notes.

“Caleb found it out on the balcony this morning. He showed it to Ellie, and they were both upset. Why would you write this, Rachel? What was it for?”

I could smack myself in the head for leaving the notes outside. How can I explain them to my dad in a way that won't sound terrible? “It wasn't for anyone. It was just…”

“Thanks to these notes, Ellie thinks Mark is mad at her for putting together the Renaissance festival, even though I tried to convince her that it's not true. And Caleb is barely speaking to Ellie because he thinks she's been lying to him about his father. Is that what you wanted? To hurt them?”

“No! I didn't mean for them to see it. I swear. Please don't send me home because of this.”

Dad shakes his head. “I think we miscalculated with this trip. Maybe we can have you come down another time.”

“But, Dad—”

“Sorry, Rachel. Ellie and I have talked it through, and we think—”

“Don't you see that this is what Ellie wants?” I cry. “She's the one who made you think this trip was a mistake. Once I'm gone, she'll have you all to herself again. She tells you what to do and what to think, and you do it!”

“Enough, Rachel! This wasn't Ellie's decision. It was mine.” He storms over to the door. “Ellie's looking into flights home right now. I'll call your mother tonight and see what works for her. Chances are, you'll be flying back tomorrow.” Then he leaves the room, and I stare after him in disbelief for what feels like an eternity.

•••

That night, Ellie and my dad go out somewhere, leaving me and Caleb alone. When I go into the living room to watch TV, I'm surprised to see that, for once, Caleb isn't working on his model.

“Where's the trebuchet?” I ask.

He shrugs and changes the channel. “I gave up. It was stupid.”

“What? But it was starting to look really good!”

“Who cares,” Caleb says. “My dad thinks I'm a loser. Even if I win the contest, it won't make any difference. He still won't want me to live with him.”

I sink down on the couch, feeling terrible. “I'm sorry you saw those notes,” I say. “I never meant—”

“It's not your fault. It's my mom's! She should have told me the truth instead of pretending that my dad's assignment got extended and that's why he didn't want me to come home. If she'd told me what was really going on from the beginning, then I would have…”

“What?” I say. “Would you really have been okay with it?”

“No,” he admits. “But anything's better than being lied to. She just wants to pretend everything is perfect all the time, even when it's all messed up!”

“She did it to protect you, you know.” I can't believe I'm defending Ellie after everything, but it's true. She might not be my favorite person, but she's a much better mom than Caleb gives her credit for. “I don't think she was trying to make things perfect. She just wanted to make them okay.”

Caleb sighs. “Are you really leaving tomorrow?”

I nod. “My plane's in the afternoon.”

“I wish you didn't have to go.”

I stare at him in shock. Caleb's been so grumpy and wrapped up in his models the whole time I've been here. Why would me being around make any difference to him?

“My mom's been happier since you've been here,” he explains.

“That's impossible. Your mom is always happy. It's my dad who's miserable, even if he doesn't admit it.”

Caleb shrugs. “All I know is, she got really excited about going to Disney and going mini-golfing and stuff. She'd never do all those things normally.”

“You know why she wanted to go to Disney? So she could propose to my dad.”

He blinks at me. “Wow, really? Do you think it'll still happen even though you're not here?”

Ugh. With everything that's happened, I hadn't even thought of that. “I don't know. But either way, there's nothing I can do to stop it now.”

“That's not why you came down here, though, is it? To stop them from getting married?” he says. “You just came to see your dad.”

“Yeah, but once I saw how unhappy he was, I knew I had to do something to keep them from winding up together. Too bad it all backfired and now I'm getting sent home.”

“So you're just going to leave like that, even though you and your dad aren't even talking?”

“What can I do?”

Caleb shrugs. “I don't know. But if I had a chance to make things better with my dad, I'd take it.”

“What do you want me to do? He's sending me home tomorrow!” I cry. But I know Caleb is right. Maybe I didn't get my perfect Disney vacation, but that doesn't mean I can leave things the way they are. If I go home now, with my dad and me so mad at each other, we might never have a chance to be us again.

“Fine,” I say. “I'll try to fix things with my dad if you still do the catapult contest. Deal?”

Caleb thinks this over for a second and then smiles. “Deal.”

Dad is already waiting in front of the café in the morning when I get there. I expect to be angry when I see him, but mostly I'm sad at how things have turned out.

“Hi, Roo,” he says softly when I sit next to him on the bench.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

“I can't stay long,” he says. “There's a scuba trip going out in a half hour.”

“Will you have time to take me to the airport later if you have a trip going out?” I can't help the bitterness in my voice.

“I'll manage. So what did you want to talk to me about?”

I want to tell him that I don't understand how things went so badly between us. I want to tell him that sending me home is the worst mistake ever. But what actually comes out of my mouth is: “How come we never have any Korean food or anything?”

He blinks at me in surprise. “Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?”

It isn't, of course. As usual, my mouth vomited out something without my brain's permission. But now that I've said it, I do want to know, especially since I might not have a chance to ask my dad about this for a while.

“One of the girls at work asked me about being Korean, and I realized I didn't even know any traditional dishes,” I explain.

“Ah.” Dad blows out a long breath. “I think that's partly my fault. When my parents came here from Korea with their families, they were both still kids, but they learned pretty quickly that being and acting different from everyone else wasn't the best idea, especially when you were Asian. It was after the Second World War, and if anyone suspected you were Japanese, well, you know…”

I shake my head because I really don't know. I remember learning that Japan was involved in the war, but when we talk about it in school, we mostly focus on Germany. And honestly, most of the time, I stare at the back of someone's head while my history teacher drones on and on.

“Let's just say it was better if people saw you as the friendly all-American neighbor,” he goes on. “So, years later, after my parents met and married and had me, I guess it's not surprising that they raised me to be as American as possible. That meant only speaking English at home, only eating American food, and all that.” He fiddles with the strap of his watch. “Now I wish I'd been more curious about where my parents came from.”

It's strange that I've never thought about what being Korean actually means. For most of my life, it's meant not looking anything like my blond mom, dealing with judgmental people like the guy at the airport, and putting up with people asking me if I'm good at math. But the fact that my grandparents felt like they had to hide a whole part of themselves to fit in makes me sad. I know a thing or two about that myself. Maybe it runs in the family.

“Do you ever ask Grandma and Grandpa about it?” I know Dad doesn't see his parents much because they're all the way on the West Coast, but he calls them every couple weeks to check in.

“Not as much as I should,” he says. “Next time I talk to them, I'll ask about Korean dishes, okay? Maybe you could even make us one sometime.” He smiles at the idea, but then I watch his smile fade. He's probably thinking the same thing I am, that I might not see him again for months. “We'll figure it out,” he adds.

I nod, but I can't shake the sadness sitting in my chest.

Dad glances at his watch. “Rachel, I really need to go soon. I assume there was something else you wanted to talk about?”

I nod, knowing I need to spit it out. “I want to apologize. I know I messed things up, even though I didn't mean to, I promise. I was so excited about coming down here, about hanging out with you again.” Hopefully he'll see how sorry I am and change his mind about sending me home.

He sighs. “I'm sorry too. I know I'm partly to blame for how things have turned out this week. I was really looking forward to spending time with you.”

“Then why didn't you?”

“Roo, you know I have to work—”

“That's not true!” I say. “You can get out of work to bring Ellie lunch, but you can't spend it with me? And why can't we ever do anything with just the two of us? This whole trip you've been making excuses and saying you want to spend time with me but not actually doing it!”

The words hang between us for a long moment. “I'm sorry if it's seemed that way to you, Roo. I guess I didn't realize how badly I was managing everything.” He sighs. “The truth is, I was so busy trying to make everyone happy that I wound up disappointing all of you in the process.”

I stare at the ground for a long while. “Dad, are we ever going to be okay again?” I finally ask.

He lets out another long sigh. “We used to get along so well. Now whenever we're together, we keep getting on each other's nerves. Why do you think that is?”

I remember what Marisol said the other day. “Maybe because we've both changed since you left.”

He cringes at the word “left,” like I've stabbed him with a toothpick. “I didn't leave you, Roo. Not on purpose, anyway. I hoped things would work out differently.”

I know he means that he'd hoped my mom and I would have moved to Florida with him, but my mom refused to uproot our lives on one of his whims. At the time I was furious at her about that, but now I think she was right. What would we have done here? Lived in a tiny place with both of my parents scrambling to find jobs? Things at home are tight, but at least they're getting better. I don't know if I've ever seen my dad as down as he's been since I got here.

“Dad, please don't send me home. Not like this. I promise I'll try harder.”

“Will you stop fighting me about Ellie?” he says. “Will you accept that I'm with her now?”

I bite my lip. I want to lie and say that I'll welcome Ellie with open arms, but the words won't come out of my mouth. Instead of answering his question, I ask something that I've been wondering since I first landed in Orlando. “Dad, are you really happy here?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Because you don't seem happy! And if that's true, then what's the point? Why would you stay so far away from me if you don't even like it here?”

“Oh, Roo.” He pats my knee. “Is that what you think? That I'd rather be here than with you?”

“Well, you are here instead of with me, aren't you?” I can't help pointing out.

“It's not that simple. Being an adult means making hard decisions.”

“I'm sick of that ‘being an adult' stuff!” I cry, surprising both of us. “If you really wanted to be home, you'd be home. It's that easy. If you want to be here, then stay here, but don't pretend it's because you have no choice.”

“Honey—”

“I don't want to argue anymore. I wanted this trip to be good, for us to finally spend time together. Instead, all you've been doing is working and acting like a totally different person.”

“Roo, you don't understand what it's like to worry about money all the time.”

I can't help it. I let out a honking laugh. “Dad, are you kidding me? I've done nothing but worry about money since you left! You have no idea how hard Mom and I have been working to stay in the house. I know you send what you can, and I know it helps Mom out, but it's not enough compared to how we were doing before you quit your old job. Don't tell me I'm a kid and I shouldn't have to worry about money and that I don't understand. I do understand! I wish I didn't, but I do.”

“Rachel—”

“If you're happy here, then fine. Stay. But don't say I didn't warn you about Ellie, about you working too much, about everything. You talk about being a grown-up, about making mature decisions, but I don't think I'm the only one who needs to learn to do that!”

I jump to my feet and head toward the hotel.

“Rachel, we're not finished!” my dad calls after me.

But I'm done talking. I'm sick of feeling bad for everything I do or say. I may not always make the best decisions, but I make them to protect the people I love. I wish I could say the same about my dad, but I'm not sure I understand him anymore. Maybe Marisol is right. Dad and I have both changed so much that it's hard to remember what we have in common.