Indelible. Dawn Metcalf

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СКАЧАТЬ this was just a friends thing?” she asked. “Not a date-date?” Her father looked as rattled as she felt. She twisted the napkin tighter, a matching feeling in her chest. It had been an innocent question! They never talked about stuff like this. Why here? Why now? She didn’t want to be having this conversation. In this restaurant. At this table. They were in public, for Pete’s sake! Other people were watching, listening, like the old guy behind the Plexiglas sneeze guard wearing the white paper hat—he knew as much about her father’s love life as she did!

      “Is this the real reason for your late nights at work?” Joy asked.

      “No, no. No more office romances for me,” he said. The words hit her like a slap. Joy knew her mom and dad had met at the office. She stirred her straw around the hurt. “Just trying to get ahead at work. You know what they say, ‘If you can’t be a yes-man...’”

      “‘...be indispensable,’” Joy muttered. It was cruel to use one of her mother’s old sayings right then. “So what’s her name?” she asked hollowly.

      “Shelley.”

      “Shelley?” Joy repeated. “As in Michelle, or is her name really Shelley?”

      “I don’t know,” her dad admitted, chewing. “I didn’t ask.”

      “How could you not ask?” Joy said. Had they been talking on this date, or doing something else? She scrubbed that mental image. Ew.

      “Well, are you going to ask?” she said.

      “Is it important?”

      “Yes. No,” Joy snapped. “I mean, are you going to see her again?”

      “Well, not just to ask about her name...”

      “Dad!”

      “Yes,” he said, finally, with a strange look on his face. “Yes, Joy. I want to see her again. But I want you to meet her when I do.”

      Her stomach fell, a punched hole through her seat. A circle of her insides and recycled molded plastic should have been lying on the floor.

      “Is it serious?” Joy asked.

      “Not yet,” her dad said. “Maybe not ever.” He folded his napkin carefully into fourths. It crinkled softly, muffled under his hands. “But you’re my family and I wanted you to know.”

      Joy examined the lines of her paper cup even though she couldn’t really see them. Her eyes were open, but nothing registered. Ice sloshed around like kaleidoscope beads.

      “Does Stef know?” she asked.

      “Not yet.”

      That was something. Petty, but something. This time, whatever it was, she knew it first.

      The need to talk to Stef burned in her throat.

      Joy looked at her father, the worry creasing his hands and the corners of his mouth. This was too hard. She wanted to give him a break. But it hurt more than she’d thought it would.

      “So...” she said, “this wasn’t really about you meeting my theoretical guy as much as me meeting your actual girl?”

      “Something like that,” he admitted. “So what do you think?”

      What did she think? Her thoughts were a jumble.

      Mom. Dad. Doug. Shelley. Gordon. Monica. What did she think? What about me?

      She gazed out the window, seeing the spark zip by each time she blinked. Shots of color winked orange and purple, silver and white, echoes of shadows and carousels and all-black eyes. Her mind whirled.

      What did she think?

      “I think I have to go to the doctor.”

      Dad frowned. “You feel sick?”

      “No, just that bit of light whenever I blink,” she said. “It’s annoying.”

      There was a long pause. The only sound was the rumble of ice cubes inside her paper cup.

      “I’ll make an appointment,” he said softly and stuffed their trash into the bag. Standing up, Joy instantly wished that she could take it back, rewind and record over, but then, she wished that about a lot of things.

      They got in the car and, just like that, everything went back to being unsaid.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      JOY DRIFTED THROUGH the school day. She barely listened as Monica chattered endlessly about Gordon Weitzenhoffer, age seventeen and a half. No word from Stef. No email, no text, no IM, nothing. He had a new answering message recorded during a loud party. It sounded like he was having fun. Her brother hadn’t been half this popular when he’d lived at home. Instead of feeling happy for him, Joy wanted to smack him with her phone.

      She’d been stabbed with a knife, weirdos were stalking her and Dad was dating some unknown person named Shelley. Joy knew Stefan would somehow understand, but if he was busy with some new girlfriend, it might be weeks before he remembered to call. And if Dad hooked up with this Shelley person, then he’d be busy, and Monica would marry Mr. Gordon-ocious, and Joy would end up living alone in an attic apartment with too many cats.

      Returning home, Joy punched in her code and found a plate of cookies on the kitchen counter, proof that last night’s father–daughter bonding over Subway sandwiches had met with Dad’s approval. She snagged two, stuffing one in her mouth as she vaulted the couch. She welcomed the slightly sick, stuffed feeling of eating unhealthily on purpose, and promised herself she’d have something low-calorie for dinner. Sugar never tasted as good as gymnastics felt. She ate the second cookie just to smother the guilt.

      Joy cracked open her homework. It started to rain. Around six-thirty, she made a frozen Lean Cuisine and ate while reading about the French Revolution. She wiped a spot of marinara off the textbook page and tried to ignore the sound of frightened squirrels on the roof.

      There was a skittering of tiny nails, a nervous tickle across the ceiling. She followed the sound with her eyes. Being on the second floor meant that she was used to the local wildlife using the roof as a communal playground and convenient highway between trees. The pok-pok of acorns and drumming rain against the shingles often forced her to wear earphones to bed.

      The noises made her twitchy. She couldn’t concentrate. Pushing back from the table, Joy washed her knife and fork in the sink. Wind and rain pelted the new window, copious steam obscuring the glass. Scrubbing, Joy wondered what was on TV, but as soon as she shut off the water, she heard the squirrel sound again.

      But it wasn’t on the roof. It was inside the building.

      Something scrabbled past the front door and faded down the hall. Every hair on her arms rose and all her senses cringed. She didn’t believe for a moment that it was a squirrel. But instead of fear, she felt a hot flare of rage.

      Joy slammed down her dish. She’d had it! If this was another one of those creepy things with a message for Ink, she was going to tell it to leave her alone! If it was small, maybe she could scare it. Maybe it would just go away.

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