Don't Expect Magic (3 page)

“I have to run out for a bit.”

This isn’t what I’m expecting. I’m tensed up for a fight and now that energy’s got nowhere to go. I turn the volume lower.

“Where?”

“I have to help a client with something.” He sounds unsure, or maybe it’s just that his voice is muffled by the door.

“Really,” I say. “Right now.”

“It’s kind of urgent. I have my phone if you need me. You don’t have to wait up.”

“Why would I wait up?” I say. Nothing from the other side of the door. After a beat, his footsteps fade down the hall.

I move to the window and peer out through the curtains to the driveway. There’s a muffled click as the front door closes, and then I see Hank cross to the car. I don’t get it. What kind of life coach makes house calls at ten-thirty on a Wednesday night? And on the same night his only daughter has come to visit him for the first time in forever?

As Hank’s car pulls out, the headlights flash over my face and I drop the curtain.

Weird.

It’s midnight and Hank’s still not back. Posh never called. She must’ve left her phone in the library again.

I try to sleep, but it’s impossible to even relax in this room. The sheets are too stiff, the pillow’s too soft, and I feel like I’m being suffocated by cuteness. I should be crashing because of the time change, but nights are the worst. My brain just spins and spins. No way I can sketch or read when it gets like this, so I don’t even try. I could watch a video on my iPod, but instead I flip open my phone and call up the photos.

I scroll through them. Mom with chocolate all over her face at Hershey Park. Mom yelling when I got suspended for stealing library books, eyes bugging out, her mouth scary wide. She hated that picture at first, but later she thought it was hilarious. Mom and I cheek to cheek after getting bad haircuts at the mall. Mom smiling at me from her hospital bed. I don’t notice the tears until I see them land on the screen. I thumb them off and then swipe my palm over my face.

I’m pressing the stop key to turn off the phone, when it rings. “POSH,” the screen reads, over a photo I took of her last Halloween when she dressed up as Valentina Tereshkova, the Russian cosmonaut. I answer. “Final—”

As usual, I can’t even get a whole word in. “Oh my God, Delaney. I’m so sorry. I didn’t notice your message. I’ve been glued to the NASA live feed. You would not believe the nanoflares around these coronal loops they’re showing. Check out NASA-dot-gov-slash-topics-slash-solar-system-slash—”

“I’m not at my computer, Posh.”

“Oh, right. Okay. I’ll send you the link. Hold on.”

Posh keeps gushing about nebulae and light-refracting subatomic something, still in outer space. Hearing Posh’s voice makes me miss her so bad. She’s the only person I can talk to and she’s clear across the country. I can’t count down any longer. I need to get home. Right now.

“… so that’s three-fifty-seven your time. Look in the lower southwest quadrant of the sky.”

“
Posh
,” I practically shout, trying to get her back to earth. “I have to get out of here. You’ve got to talk to your parents.” I open my door. Hank’s left all the lights on and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust. I step out and head down the hall, bringing the phone with me. “Tell them they have to let me come back.”

“But you just got there.”

In the living room, I check anything with drawers or a lid. Decorative boxes. End tables. I find coasters with beach scenes on them, more letter openers than anyone needs and a set of old-fashioned fountain pens, but no cash.

“One day’s all I needed. Not even a day.” Across the hall from the living room is the dining room. There’s a cabinet
against one wall, but there’s no secret compartment behind the wineglasses or lockbox in the drawers under the leaf-print napkins. “He’s already abandoned me again.”

“What? You’re kidding!” I’ve finally gotten her attention.

“I know, right?” The kitchen’s another lifeless showroom, with marble counters and cooking-show-worthy appliances. Lots of cupboards and drawers, the utensils and silverware neatly lined up inside organizer-store dividers.

“As soon as we got here, he’s like, ‘I have to go see a client.’ ” One drawer is all take-out menus and loads of chopsticks. I throw everything out on the counter. “In the middle of the night? What’s
that
about?”

I remember hearing that some people keep their money in the fridge. I open both doors and dig around, but all I find is about a thousand stacked boxes of “lite” frozen entrées, six-packs of souped-up yogurt and a bunch of premade salads and bean-sprouty-looking sandwiches. There’s no plastic cabbage with a hidden compartment and no roll of twenties in the butter dish. There’s also nothing remotely appetizing. I slam the doors.

“Oh my God,” Posh says. “It’s probably not a client. It’s probably a
girlfriend
.”

“Ugh.” I shudder at the thought.

On the other side of the living room is the den, but there’s nothing in it except a tan vinyl couch, a silver floor lamp, a flat-screen TV and a glass coffee table with a remote perfectly centered on top of it. “I can’t imagine what
kind of brainless hag would go out with him.” I snatch up the remote and toss it onto the couch just because.

“Uh, well, Delaney, you know … your mom …”

Right.
Mom
. She went out with Hank, obviously. But he must’ve been less of a loser then, right? I say this to Posh.

“Sure!” she chirps, relieved I’m not upset. Posh doesn’t do emotion very well.

Heading back down the hall, I spot a closed door across from my room. “Well, he doesn’t have to worry about me getting in the way of his skanking around. I’m gone as soon as I can dig up some cash.” The door’s unlocked. I turn the light on and smile.

Jackpot. Hank’s home office.

Copies of Hank’s books line one wall of shelves, and multiple miniatures of Hank’s face beam out at me from the spines. The desk is shiny clean, like it’s ready to pose for one of Hank’s book covers. The only thing not work-related in the room is a framed photo, but it’s of a carnival pier at sunset. There aren’t even any people in it. I’d expect him to at least have some fake friends—one or two celebrity-obsessed suck-ups. It’s all kind of sad. Or it would be if I cared.

“The plane fare’s like hundreds of dollars,” Posh tells me. “Plus, you can’t just walk into an airport and buy a ticket. They’d see your ID and know you’re not eighteen.”

“Then I’ll take a bus.” I open the top drawer of the desk and dig around. Nothing but phone bills, receipts
and scribbled notes. The next drawer is office supplies. “Or I could hitchhike.”

“You can’t do that!” The panicked whine Posh gets when she’s starting to flip out builds in volume. “You’ll never make it alive! It’s nothing but freaks and perverts out there. You’ll end up chopped in little pieces, stuffed in a bus locker or buried out in the middle of the desert!”

“Okay, okay, Posh. Calm down.” The bottom drawer is the largest. I tug on the handle, but it won’t open. There’s no lock, it’s just overstuffed. Maybe this is his emergency earthquake fund. I picture banded stacks of fresh bills, like a movie criminal’s stash.

I set the phone down on the carpet. Posh’s voice is now a tiny buzz as she begs me to wait and tells me that she’s worried about me taking the bus alone because buses have freaks and perverts too. I wedge my feet against the legs of the desk and grab the handle of the drawer with both hands. I’m about to yank when I hear a noise down the hall.

It’s the front door. I jump up and snap off the light. Posh’s words continue to spill out of the phone in a rush: she swears she’s going to work on her parents until they give in. She promises, promises, promises, and I have to believe her, pleeeease.

I snatch up the phone. “I do,” I whisper, “I know you will. I have to go. Hank is home.”

All my moves are careful and quiet: putting down the phone, dashing across the hall to my room, holding the
knob on the door as I close it and then slowly releasing it so the bolt slides in without a sound.

I wait. Hank’s footsteps approach, then pause. I hear the office door click shut. Hank takes another step and I sense him standing outside my door, listening, debating whether to knock. My heartbeat counts the seconds, crashing louder and louder in my ears, until, finally, the footsteps resume and fade, and I can breathe again.

Back in bed, I keep my eyes wide open. I’ll wait about a half hour and then peer out into the hall. If it’s safe, if all the lights are out, I’ll sneak back into the office and check out that last drawer. I know I’m going to find what I need in there.

My eyes blink, trying to close. I take deep breaths to wake myself up, but my energy seeps out of me, into the bed, pulling me with it … down, down. Words and thoughts flutter through my mind, but they don’t stick. They just dissolve, like moth wings, and I can’t fight it anymore.

I’m out.

In the morning, I wake up so tired I’m drenched with it, and at first I can’t remember anything. Where I am or even who I am.

I stare up at the bizarre canopy over my head, and images from my dreams come back. Flowering vines growing wildly and strangling me. Princess dolls that have come to life, forming an army of pink-clad zombies. Hank being left on a front stoop, abandoned and forlorn, as I drive off with Mom, who has come to my rescue.

I blink and blink, expecting to wake up back in my room, with Mom calling out that I’m late for breakfast, but it’s a man’s voice I hear, and I realize that I
am
awake.
Then it all comes back, like it always does, memory after memory, fast-forwarding to the present, even when I try to stop it before it gets to the stuff I want to forget.

Taking a shower washes away some of the fog. The bathroom off my room is all white and more white. Towels, soap, toothbrush holder. Even the wicker wastepaper basket’s been spray-painted white. It’s soulless, but at least it’s not pink. By the time I’m dressed, I feel almost semiconscious, which is pretty good for me.

When I open my door, I can hear Hank in the kitchen, humming along to some oldies rock-and-roll station. I consider a quick slip into his office, but Hank leans his head into the hall and sees me.

“Good morning!” His voice booms down at me, so fast and loud I feel like I should duck. I hope he doesn’t expect conversation—I don’t do mornings. “Did you sleep well?” I grunt in response. He waves a big, cheery “Come on” wave. I grab my backpack and trudge toward him.

On the kitchen table, Hank has lined up five brand-new boxes of cereal, the types that are all sugar and shaped like stars or little bears and have cheap plastic toy pirates inside. Further proof that he still has me trapped in his memory as a kindergartner. What’s next? A bag lunch? A Little Mermaid lunch box packed with string cheese and apple slices?

The bears are actually my favorite, though, so I pour myself a bowl. I make sure to roll my eyes at Hank so he won’t know I like them.

“I called the school yesterday,” he tells me. “They have your records. You just have to pick up your schedule from the office.” He waits for a thank-you at this fatherly bit of taking charge, but I don’t respond because I know it was Posh’s mom who had the records sent.

He sits down across from me. “Were you looking for anything in particular last night?” I pause midchew as I get a flashback of the mess I made in the kitchen and living room during my money quest. I flick a glance at the counters, but everything’s been put away. He must’ve gotten up before dawn to clean—nothing can be out of place in Dr. Hank’s world. It must be driving him crazy that I don’t fit anywhere. That he can’t stick me in some closet cubbyhole and close the door.

“No.” This seems like the safest answer.

Hank nods knowingly, even though I know he doesn’t know. He clasps his hands together, resting them on the table. “If you need something, Delaney, you just have to ask me.”

“Okeydokey.” I smile without meaning it and slurp my green-tinted milk.

Hank frowns a moment, but then quickly puts his “I’m very interested” expression back on. “So.
Is
there anything you’d like to discuss?”

He’s not going to leave it alone. Okay, I’ll play. “Yeah,” I say. “How was your
client
?”

Hank leans back and drops the intense gaze. “Fine.” He pushes away from the table and looks anywhere except
at me as he carries the cereal boxes back to the cupboard. “I’m sorry I had to go out, but it’s part of my job. The kind of coaching I do, I have to be on call around the clock.”

“Uh-huh.” It’s got to be a girlfriend, but why not tell me? How long does he think he can hide it? Maybe he’s just waiting, like I am, for me to leave.

I stand, finished with breakfast and the conversation. Hank tells me that the school is a few streets down and offers to give me a ride.

“I’ll skate,” I say. Before he can ask how, I answer by snapping down the retractable wheels on my snake boots.

Hank’s eyebrows go up in surprise and he leans to the side to get a better look. “I’ve seen the sneakers with wheels, but I didn’t know there were boots too.”