Perfect Couple (25 page)

“No. I would be happy to help you both move on.”

“I’ll call my lawyer, then. Thank you, Harper.” She reached across the table to stroke my hair out of my eyes. “Hey, do you have that pocket camera on you?”

“Yeah.” I pulled it out and handed it to her.

She pointed it at me and snapped a picture before I could hide.

“Ugh,” I said, putting my hands over my face.

“Uh-huh.” She peered at the view screen, admiring the shot she’d taken. Satisfied, she handed the camera back to me. “Be sure to print that picture so you don’t lose it as technology changes over the years. I promise you this: When you’re my age, you’ll look at it and think, ‘I was gorgeous, with or without glasses, no matter what I wore or how I did my hair. Why did I waste my time worrying about how I looked?’ ”

I snorted. “God, Mom, that’s something old people say.”

“Listen to me,” she said, patting the table for emphasis. “We old people are not making this shit up.”

*   *   *

A few minutes later, I rang Granddad’s doorbell and heard him walk to the door. He didn’t open it.

“Granddad,” I said.

“Who is it?” he barked.

“Three guesses.”

“I’m busy.” He took a few steps away.

“Granddad,” I called through the door, “did you kill someone?”

“When?”

“Recently,” I said. “Are you hiding a body in your house?”

“No.”

“Let me in to see for myself.”

“No.”

“You know what? You’re leading me to believe something is very wrong in there. If you don’t open this door right now, I’m calling the police.”

“Go ahead!”

I thought for a moment. “I’m calling Mom.”

The door opened just the width of the security chain.

“All the way,” I prompted him.

His face appeared in the opening. He glowered at me for a moment, then opened the door wide.

Before he could protest, I ducked under his arm and dashed for the back room he used as a studio. “Harper!” I heard him shout, but I’d already run though the studio doorway and seen what he didn’t want me to see. I screamed.

“Eeek!” the naked lady squeaked.

“I am so sorry,” I told her as I retreated into the hallway with my hand covering my eyes.

“It’s okay, darlin’,” she called. In a moment, she came through the doorway in a luxurious silk wrap. Her red hair was piled on top of her head, and she wore a lot of tasteful makeup. She was between Granddad’s age and Mom’s, I
guessed, and her body was still beautiful. I could vouch for this, as I’d seen every inch of it. What hadn’t been showing when I burst in on her was depicted in Granddad’s paintings crowding the walls.

I extended my hand. “I’m Harper, the granddaughter.”

She shook my hand. “I’m Chantel, the nude.”

“Ha ha!” I said. “I beg your pardon. I was afraid Granddad was running an opium den or fight club or something back here. He’s been so secretive.”

“He’s the strong, silent type.” Chantel winked at me.

After backing out of that one, I returned to the front door, where Granddad was still scowling. “Granddad,” I told him, “you’re an artist. And you’re a man.”

“A
grown
man,” he added.

“Well said. And you’re within your rights to have Chantel pose nude in your studio. The only thing weird about this is that
you are being so freaking weird about it
!”

“I’m sixty-eight years old!” he shouted. “I’ll do what I damn well please!”

I sighed, frustrated. Granddad was right—he’d been weird for a long time. The likelihood was slim that he would change because I complained. But it was nice to know that if I turned out to be an old curmudgeon just like him, maybe I would keep a few happy secrets.

“I actually came to make sure you’re watching the weather,” I said. “The hurricane’s been downgraded to a tropical storm, but we’re supposed to get rain and maybe tornadoes tomorrow.”

“You think I don’t have a smart phone?”

I heard my voice rising, despite myself. “I have never laid eyes on your smart phone.
You never let me in your house.
” I took a deep breath to calm down. “Also, may I borrow your car? I’ll bring it back tomorrow after school.”

“No,” he said. “Same reason I didn’t want you to borrow it on Labor Day. Chantel and I may want to get ice cream later.”

I put my hands in my hair and pressed my lips together to keep from bursting into laughter, a yelling fit, or both. Granddad was being petty. But I was so relieved to find out it was because he was in love.

I cleared my throat. “May I please walk over and borrow your car before school tomorrow? I’ll bring it back as soon as class is over. Mom and Dad have a divorce hearing. Mom needs to be at the courthouse a lot longer than I do because of meetings with her lawyer. I don’t want to miss a whole day of school. I’m just testifying that their marriage is irretrievably broken.”

Granddad grinned—the first time I’d seen him smile in a long, long while. “In that case,” he said, “I’ll deliver the car to your house.”

*   *   *

The next day at noon, I sat on a polished bench in the marble-lined foyer of the courthouse in Clearwater, holding Mom’s hand and waiting for the divorce hearing. Her lawyer was there. My dad’s lawyer sat across from us, but my dad hadn’t shown. Mom whispered that maybe he wouldn’t, and the proceedings could go on without him interrupting them this time.

Thunder rolled outside.

Ten minutes before we were scheduled to appear in court, the front doors of the courthouse opened, and my heart sank.

But it wasn’t my dad. It was Granddad and Chantel under an enormous umbrella. Outside on the street, their taxi pulled away.

I looked over at Mom. Her mouth was wide open. I wasn’t sure what surprised her more: that Granddad had come to support her, or that he was guiding a glamorous lady friend by the elbow.

Granddad folded the umbrella and propped it up by the entrance, then brought Chantel over. Mom was all smiles as they moved away from the bench to make introductions and talk quietly.

I wanted to give Mom time alone with them. And I was too nervous to make small talk. I watched the clock and crossed my fingers.

Five minutes before we were scheduled to appear, the front doors of the courthouse opened again, and my heart sank all the way to the floor. My dad walked in, wearing his Coast Guard dress uniform, dripping from the downpour. He looked like a handsome, upstanding family man. I knew better.

He glanced around the foyer. His eyes skimmed across his lawyer and Mom’s, lingered on Mom and Granddad, and landed on me. “Harper,” he said curtly, like an order. He pointed to his feet.

Without even looking at Mom, I jumped up out of habit. It was only when I’d already hurried halfway across the room to him that I realized I was acting like his dog. But he was my dad, and I still had to do what he said—for a few more months.

He stared down at me sternly, trying to scare me. It was working. I considered crossing my eyes at him, because the tension was ridiculous.

He seethed, “If you testify against me in this court today, you are dead to me. Do you understand? I will pay child support until you turn eighteen because the law requires it, but after that, you don’t exist.”

Suddenly I realized how cold it was in the courthouse. I crossed my arms to warm myself and told my dad, “You’ve
been dead to me since last Wednesday, when you shouted at me. I’m glad we’ve got that straight.” I turned on my heel and walked back toward the bench.

Mom and Granddad looked over their shoulders at me.

I stopped in the middle of the foyer. This is exactly what I’d done yesterday: dumped Brody and regretted it instantly. Taking charge of my life was one thing. It was another thing entirely to throw important parts of it away.

I walked right back to my dad and put my hands on my hips. His jaw was working back forth, and he was blinking back tears.

I said gently, “I didn’t mean that. You’ll never be dead to me, no matter what. You’re my dad.”

No matter how I acted, I was still furious for what he’d said to me just then, and how he’d treated Mom for years. But I thought of him taking me to Granddad’s beach when I was tiny, before we left for Alaska, and twirling me around in the warm waves.

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Dad on the cheek.

17

ONLY A FEW MINUTES LATER, I walked out of the courtroom as the daughter of soon-to-be-divorced parents, thank God. I hadn’t even needed to testify after all. Dad hadn’t contested the divorce this time or asked the judge to send my parents to counseling. Mom hugged me afterward and whispered that I deserved the credit. The way I felt, I expected a bright blue sky and a rainbow when I swung open the courthouse door.

Instead, the tropical storm had arrived. The rain was coming down so hard that an inch of water stood on the sidewalk. I opened my umbrella and waded back to Granddad’s car.

Inside, I turned my phone on and checked my messages. I had a text from Brody, sent just a few minutes ago:
Where are you?
I hadn’t told him or anyone in study hall that I would be absent.

He cared about me, in spite of everything. I felt myself flush, which meant I was very far gone.

I texted him back,
Parents divorcing, hooray! Driving back from courthouse.
I threw my phone into my purse and my purse into the back seat so I wouldn’t be tempted to look at my phone again. Lately I’d been trying to embrace my daredevil side, but I wasn’t dumb.

As I drove from Clearwater back home, I kept thinking I heard my phone beep with more texts. I suspected they were from Brody, and I was dying to know what they said. But I couldn’t even be sure I’d heard the beeping. The rain was torrential, pounding on the car like a hundred high-pressure fire hoses. When I drove faster than thirty miles an hour, it was hard to keep the car on the road.

By the time I finally pulled into the school parking lot, the rain had stopped. I suspected the calm was only temporary, though. The air was thick with steam and the smells of rain and hot asphalt. The sky was light gray and swirling strangely.

Leaving all my stuff in my car except my camera and tripod, I hurried across the parking lot packed with cars but empty of people, into the football stadium. So quickly that my legs ached, I ran up the stairs to the highest point and looked over the guardrail.

Beyond the school campus stretched a residential section
of town. Roofs peeked above the lush canopy of palm trees and live oaks. Then there was a thin strip of white beach, and the ocean: an endless stretch of angry gray waves.

A waterspout—a tornado over the water rather than the land—snaked down from black clouds to dip its toe in the water elegantly, like a dancer. It glowed white against the sky.

I was glad I had lots of practice setting up my tripod, attaching the camera, and adjusting the settings. In seconds I was snapping photos, then switching the settings and snapping again, so I was sure to get at least one perfect photo out of hundreds.

Several minutes passed before it occurred to me that if there was one tornado, there might be more. We didn’t have tornado sirens in Pinellas County, so I wouldn’t know until it hit me, unless I saw it coming. But as I looked behind me at the landward side of town, I didn’t see another twister. All I noticed was Brody standing way down at the stadium entrance.

“Lightning!” He pointed at the blinking southern sky.

I glanced back at my waterspout and snapped one more rapid-fire set of shots as it twisted up into the sky and disappeared. Then I swept up my tripod without pausing to detach the camera and hauled ass down the stairs.

“There’s a tornado warning,” he said, following me with his hand on my back as we hurried toward the school. “The
rotation is close enough that everybody’s crouched in the halls with their heads down, but I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to get in because the doors are locked. Ms. Patel said I could come look . . . for . . . What are you doing?”

I sat down in Granddad’s car. “Get in so we’re not struck by lightning.” I opened my laptop and plugged in my camera.

“You’re getting online?” he asked, astonished.

“I photographed the tornado, and I’m about to sell the picture to the Tampa newspaper.”

“Harper,” he said as I typed. “Harper, remember when I told you that you should take risks only when you can get away with them? If that picture is published, the school will figure out you were on top of the stadium during a tornado. You might get suspended. Save it for your portfolio, maybe—”

“I hadn’t checked in yet, so the school wasn’t in charge of me.” I finished composing my e-mail to the Tampa newspaper editor and attached the photo.

“You’re not just trying to prove how daring you are to get me back, are you?”

“Hold on for a minute.” The photo loaded, and I hit send. “What were you saying?”

“Nothing,” he said, eyeing me across the car.

“I would love to date you again,” I burst, riding the
adrenaline high I hadn’t even registered until now. “We had so much fun, and I don’t want to throw that away. The school is on crack for
not
pairing us together.”

He grabbed me in a hug across the seat. I settled my head against his shoulder. He squeezed me gently and ran his fingertips through my hair.

Then he released me and sat up. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, grinning. “Now let’s go back, before we get in trouble.”

We dashed across the parking lot. Inside the school, students lined the walls three people deep. As we were about to sit down too, the bell rang to cancel the warning. Everyone got up as one body and stretched.

“While we have a minute,” I said, putting one hand on Brody’s chest, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe if I told Mr. Oakley I would sign back on as yearbook photographer, he would make a few concessions. The Superlatives section isn’t due to the publisher until Friday. I could ask to redesign Kennedy’s ugly Superlatives pages and replace our Perfect Couple photo.”

“Do you have an idea for it?”

I pulled my camera off the tripod, adjusted the settings, and handed it to Brody. “You take a selfie because your arm is longer. The camera’s set to take five in a row, so just grin through it.” We put our heads close together. “One, two—”