By the time he got to work, Ryan felt back in control again. The refurbished three-story Art Deco lobby with its great sweep of CWF windows greeted him. He’d never quite gotten over the fact that, at thirty-three, he was COO of the company where his parents had spent their working life, his mother as a file clerk, his father as a painter. He’d earned his position, along with the respect of the employees, through hard work and dedication, and he never took it for granted.
The factory had a good safety record, and his OSHA meeting was going well when his secretary pulled him away from the plant tour he was conducting to tell him the principal at Gigi’s school was on the line. Eva never called him, and he quickly excused himself to take the call in the loading dock office. “Eva, it’s Ryan. What’s wrong?”
“I have Gigi here. I need you to come in.”
“Is she hurt?”
“She’s fine. But Chelsea Kiefer has a broken wrist. Gigi pushed her into a locker.”
“Gigi wouldn’t push anyone.” He rested his hip on the corner of the desk and gazed through the window onto the loading dock. Craig Watson, one of his senior VPs, had taken over the tour, but Craig wasn’t up to speed on all the new safety regulations, and Ryan needed to get back. “Chelsea’s Gigi’s best friend. I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding. Call Winnie. She’ll take care of this.”
“She’s in Memphis for the day. You’ll have to come in.”
He’d forgotten Winnie had a buying trip. He shifted his position to get a better view through the window. “I can’t leave right now, but one of us will be there around five.” If Winnie hadn’t gotten back by then, he’d juggle his schedule. An inconvenience, but he could manage it.
“This isn’t going to wait that long. Gigi is being belligerent, and Chelsea’s mother is furious. She’s talking about filing a police report.”
“A police report?”
“Yes, Ryan, a police report. Get in here right away.”
Gigi had never seen her dad so mad. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and the muscle at the corner of his jaw jumped up and down. He’d never hit her, but she’d never done anything this bad, and she thought he might want to.
He hadn’t said a word to her since they’d left the principal’s office. Part of her wanted him to start yelling, so they could get it over with, but the rest of her wanted to postpone it as long as possible. It wasn’t like she’d meant to break Chelsea’s wrist.
Just thinking about it made her stomach ache. Chelsea had been acting like a bitch all week, maybe because she’d been fighting with her mom, but that still hadn’t been any reason for her to say that Gigi had started acting all stuck up again because she was rich. Gigi’d finally gotten so mad that she’d told Chelsea she was getting fat, which was totally true. Chelsea had yelled back that she hated Gigi just like everybody else, and then Gigi had sort of pushed her, not to hurt her, just to push her a little, except the door to her locker was open, and Chels had fallen against it and broken her wrist. Now everybody was blaming her.
The piece of cafeteria pizza she’d had for lunch rose up in her throat. She kept hearing the sound Chelsea had made when her wrist broke, this choky little scream. Gigi swallowed hard to push the pizza back down.
When her dad had finally walked in the office, Gigi had been so scared about Chelsea’s mom saying she was going to file a police report that she wanted to throw herself in his arms and cry like she used to when she was little. But he hadn’t even looked at her, just like he wasn’t looking at her now.
Mrs. Whitestone had suspended Gigi for the rest of the week and sent her outside to wait on the office bench so the adults could talk. Chelsea’s mom had always liked Gigi’s dad. She’d even kind of flirted with him, which Gigi’d always thought was creepy, but was probably a good thing, because she’d finally stopped yelling. When he’d come out of the office, though, his face had looked like he wanted to kill somebody, and Gigi didn’t think it was Chelsea’s mom.
The other kids always told her she was lucky to have such young parents because they remembered what it was like to be a teenager, but her dad didn’t look like he remembered anything about being a teenager right now. Resentment gnawed at her. In high school, her dad had been named most popular boy. She’d seen it in his yearbook. And her mom never got into any trouble. Well, Gigi wasn’t like them.
She couldn’t stand the quiet in the car for another second, and she reached for the button on the radio.
“Leave it alone.” Usually, they listened to music together, but now he sounded like he wouldn’t ever listen to music with her again.
“Chelsea started it.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I knew you’d be on her side.”
He shot her a cold look. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”
She tried to, but everything was so unfair, and she hated that he wouldn’t put his arm around her and give her one of his bear hugs and say everything was going to be all right. “This is all because I’m not perfect like you and Mom used to be!”
“This has nothing to do with your mother or me. This has to do with the fact that you’ve been acting like a brat for months now, and today you physically assaulted someone. You’re lucky her mother decided not to file charges against you. Actions bring consequences, Gigi, and, believe me, you’re going to face some serious ones.”
“You broke a guy’s collarbone once. You told me that.”
“It was a football game!”
“That didn’t make it right.”
“Not one more word!”
That night after her mom got home, they made her sit down in the living room. Her dad did most of the talking, going on about how disappointed they were in her, and how serious an offense this was. She kept waiting for him to say that, even though she’d done something wrong, he loved her anyway, but he didn’t.
“We’re taking away your telephone privileges for two weeks,” her mom finally said. “You can’t watch television, and you can’t leave the house unless one of us is with you.”
“That’s so unfair! You don’t even like Chelsea. You think she’s a bad influence. But you
Her dad ignored her outburst. “You’re also going to be doing a lot of studying to make up for the classes you’re missing while you’re suspended.”
As if she couldn’t catch up in about three seconds.
“And you have to apologize to Chelsea,” her mother said.
Gigi jumped up. “She has to apologize to me first! She started it.”
“This isn’t negotiable. You broke her wrist.”
But neither of them would listen. They just started in again, not understanding that Gigi already felt like shit, and she didn’t need to hear any more about how evil she was. Her parents totally forgot what it was like to be a teenager, but everybody hadn’t hated them the way the kids hated Gigi. Her parents had been
She was like her aunt.
The word rolled around in her head like a big shiny marble.
The Seawillows talked about her a lot when they didn’t think Gigi was listening and how everybody had totally kissed her butt in high school. One time she’d heard Colin say that Sugar Beth had also been one of the smartest kids in her class, but the Seawillows hadn’t believed him, since she got crappy grades. Still, Colin had seen everybody’s test scores, so he should know, even though he wouldn’t tell any of them what their scores were.
Sugar Beth would totally understand what Gigi was going through. But Gigi’s dad had forbidden her to talk to her. He’d said if Gigi saw her someplace, she couldn’t even say hello because he knew how Gigi was, and she wouldn’t stop at hello, and nobody wanted old history dredged up again.
But this wasn’t old history. This was Gigi’s life. And she had to talk to somebody who’d understand. Even if she got grounded for the rest of her life.
