Father Of The Brat (5 page)

“Looks like the two of you are off to a pretty good start,” she said.

Rachel turned to look at her father. “So how about the nose piercing thing?” she asked. “You never said for sure.”

Maddy, too, turned to Carver, hoping for clarification.

“Rachel wants to get her nose pierced,” he explained. “Her mother gave her permission before she died.”

“Oh, I see,” Maddy replied, although she couldn’t see at all why anyone would want to do something like that to herself.

“So, can I?” Rachel asked again.

Carver turned to his daughter, trying not to buckle under what would be his first parental decision. “No,” he finally said. “Sorry, kiddo, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Maybe when you’re eighteen.”

“No?” Rachel said as she jumped up from her chair and glared at him.

Even if she was only twelve years old, she was already taller than Maddy, and Carver suddenly felt about as awkward around his daughter as he had around his adolescent nemesis. Rachel’s demeanor changed dramatically in a matter of seconds, from a nonchalant preteen to a raging tower of indignation. It was amazing, he thought, the energy that was wreaked by unstable hormones.

“No?” she repeated, her voice rising about ten decibels in that one syllable. “What do you mean, ‘No,’?”

Although he was taken aback by the suddenness of her attack, Carver was able to maintain a stoic control. He’d dealt with scary kids before, he reminded himself. Back when he’d spent a week at a New Jersey youth detention center for a story he’d done on juvenile offenders. The trick was to stay calm and never let them know how terrified you were of them, no matter how badly you wanted to bolt.

So Carver turned to look Rachel right in the eye, settled his hands on his hips and calmly repeated, “I mean, ‘No. You can’t do it.’”

Rachel gaped at him as if he had just slapped her. “I can’t do it?” she asked.

He sighed heavily. “That’s what I said. You can’t do it. Hasn’t anyone ever said no to you before?”

Instead of answering his question, Rachel ran an impatient hand through her hair and glared even harder. “Oh, man, I should have known what a bastard you were going to be.”

This time Carver was the one to gape. His voice and posture were deceptively calm as he asked, “What was that?”

“I said you’re a class-A bastard,” Rachel was quick to reply.

Carver blinked once, turned to Maddy for support, then saw that she was as surprised as he by the turn of events. He scrubbed a hand over his face, reminded himself that Rachel was just a kid—a kid who’d recently lost her mother— and tried to remain calm.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t we just forget you said that and start over. We can go home, get situated—”

“Go home?” Rachel cried. “Home is L.A. I’m not going anywhere with you, you sonofa—”

“Hey!”

Carver’s tone of voice was sufficient to stifle the girl’s outburst, but she continued to glare daggers at him as she crossed her hands over her chest. She tilted her head back, thrust her chin out and frowned.

“One more blowup like that,” he said, “and I’ll…”

He’d what? he wondered. What did he know about parental ultimatums except for what he’d learned being on the receiving end of them for most of his youthful years? And a quarter century had passed since he was Rachel’s age. The world was a completely different place. Kids were different, ultimatums were different. And what the hell did he know about either of them?

“I’m going back to L.A.,” Rachel said as he pondered his quandary.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, trying to ward off what promised to be a major headache. “No, you’re not,” he told her. “You can’t.”

“The hell I can’t. Just watch me. The first opportunity I get, I’m outta here. You’re bogus, dude. Just because you had a quickie with my mom doesn’t mean anything. I don’t care how much you look like me. You’re
not
my father. And I don’t have to do a damned thing you say.”

Carver looked at his daughter again, realizing then that there was a lot more of him in her than met the eye. “Oh, boy,” he said under his breath. Then, turning to his other female companion, he added more clearly, “Ever the optimist, aren’t you, Maddy? Well, something tells me this isn’t going to be quite as easy as you thought.”

C
arver stood outside his bathroom door wearing nothing but a pair of battered blue jeans and rapped loudly for the sixth time. He sighed as he halfheartedly performed the gesture, knowing what the response to his summons would be before Rachel even uttered it.

“Just a minute!” she called out from the other side.

“You’ve been saying ‘Just a minute’ for more than half an hour,” he called back. “What the he…” He sighed fitfully. “What on earth are you doing in there?”

“Just a minute!”

Carver spun around on his heel and went to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. The clock on the stove reminded him that he should have left for work fifteen minutes ago if he was going to arrive when he normally did, and he hadn’t even had a shower yet. Rachel had commandeered his bathroom just as he was reaching for the doorknob himself, shouldering him out of the way with enough force to shove him back against the hallway wall. And she hadn’t come out once. He’d heard water run briefly, but had detected
not a sound since it shut off. He couldn’t imagine what a twelve-year-old girl would need with forty-five minutes in the bathroom. She was only doing it, he was certain, to annoy him.

Annoying him had seemed to be Rachel’s favorite pastime since her arrival the day before. On the drive to his apartment, she’d prohibited any opportunity for conversation by snapping on the radio and fiddling incessantly with the dial. When she had finally found a station she deemed appropriate, she had turned the volume up so loudly, it had almost blown out his speakers. And today’s music was nothing but garbage, something Carver had taken great pleasure in pointing out to Rachel. Naturally, she had taken exception to his pronouncement, and had assured him he couldn’t relate because he was too old.

“Kids,” he muttered under his breath as he topped off his coffee.

Upon their arrival at his apartment, Rachel had taken one look at the spare room, had told Carver he had
got
to be kidding, then demanded a couple hundred dollars to do the place up right. She’d unpacked by removing piles of wadded-up clothing from her suitcase and heaving them haphazardly into drawers and onto the closet floor, and had assured him she
never
did her own laundry. And when he’d pressed her about that taking care of herself business, she’d only shrugged in that maddeningly nonchalant way he was quickly coming to hate.

“Damn kids,” he mumbled as he sipped his coffee.

Then, last night, just as Carver was settled into bed and on the verge of sleep, she’d cranked up the stereo in the living room until the whole apartment building shook. Within seconds, his phone had been ringing off the hook, virtually every neighbor within a four-block radius calling to complain about the noise. And when he’d gone out to confront his daughter about her nocturnal activities, he’d found her sprawled on the couch with the music blaring, watching television with the sound turned down, a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray beside her. She had been eating pizza—
the piece Carver had been saving for breakfast the following morning—and washing it down with a beer she’d evidently also swiped from the fridge.

And when Carver had demanded to know what the he…what on earth she thought she was doing, she’d swallowed a mouthful of beer, inhaled deeply on the cigarette and turned the music up louder. Then she’d told him it was what she always did to unwind in the evening.

“Damn unreasonable kids,” he grumbled into his coffee.

He was about to make another assault on his bathroom when someone knocked at his front door. There was something familiar about that rapping, he thought as he went to answer it. And something a little ominous, too. Reluctantly, he opened the door and found, not much to his surprise, Maddy Garrett standing on the other side. She’d returned to her masculine form of dressing today, and wore a rumpled gray flannel suit with an equally rumpled white shirt, and scuffed, flat-heeled shoes.

It bothered Carver to see Maddy rumpled and scuffed. She’d been neither in high school. Back then her clothes— although more than a little unstylish and stuffy—had always been as starched and pressed as she was herself. Maddy Saunders wouldn’t have been caught dead being rumpled. Maddy Garrett, however, evidently had no such qualms.

“Morning,” she said as she brushed past him without waiting for an invitation. Once again, she sounded and looked weary and run-down. “IIow’s it going with Rachel?”

Carver uttered a derisive laugh as he closed the door behind her and hoped he didn’t sound too hysterical. “Well, aside from her having some pretty awful personal habits, and aside from her indulging in a remarkably bad diet, and aside from the fact that she’s noisy, obnoxious, loudmouthed, self-centered…”

“Gee, she sounds a lot like her old man,” Maddy interjected with a smile.

Carver ignored her jab. “And aside from her having made it impossible for me to answer the call of nature in socially acceptable surroundings,” he added, “everything’s been just hunky-dory.”

As if to illustrate just how perfectly she and Carver were getting along, Rachel chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom, dressed almost exactly as she had been the day before. She crossed to the kitchen and came out with a cup of coffee and a lit cigarette, then slouched into a chair and picked up the TV remote. Without bothering to ask Carver if he was following the story on CNN, she switched the channel to MTV and, as always, pumped up the volume way too loud.

“Rachel,” Carver said, his voice laced with exhaustion, “put out the cigarette.”

Rachel continued to watch TV, completely ignoring the two adults.

“Rachel,” he repeated.

“What?”

“Put out the cigarette.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s bad for you.”

“So?”

“So you shouldn’t smoke.”

“You do.”

“I’m an adult. I’m allowed.”

“Mom never minded it.”

“Well, I do.”

Instead of following Carver’s command, Rachel lifted the cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs for a good ten seconds before expelling it in a series of perfect, wispy white O’s.

Carver sighed wearily. “Okay, let’s try another one. Rachel, turn down the TV.”

Once again, Rachel acted as if Carver and Maddy were nowhere in the room.

“Rachel,” he tried again.

“What?”

“Turn down the TV.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too loud.”

“So?”

“So the neighbors will complain.”

“Who cares what other people think?”

“You will, when the police show up at the door.”

“Mom never minded it.”

“Well, I do.”

Rachel picked up the remote control and aimed it at the television, but instead of urging the volume lower, she pushed it up even louder.

Maddy watched the girl with a practiced eye, seeing in Rachel a typical twelve-year-old girl who was crying out for attention, discipline and affection. Obviously she hadn’t received enough of any of those things in her previous way of life. Still, Rachel was actually one of the lucky ones, Maddy thought further. Maybe she hadn’t gotten everything she’d needed from her mother, but from what Maddy could tell, she hadn’t been physically or emotionally mistreated. A lot of kids would love to be in Rachel’s position. At least there was some hope for her and her father to build a solid, lasting, loving relationship. It wasn’t going to be easy, Maddy knew, but with her help, Rachel and Carver were probably going to be just fine. Eventually.

“Hello, Rachel,” she called out in a voice that was the picture of politeness.

“Hey,” Rachel replied without looking over.

Carver arched a brow at Maddy in silent question, as if to say,
You’re the one who’s supposed to know how to handle moody kids. What am I supposed to do with this one?

With a reassuring smile for him, Maddy turned back to the girl. “Are you ready for our appointment? We should all be leaving soon if we’re going to make it on time.”

When Rachel said nothing in response, Carver asked, “What appointment?”

Maddy stared at him incredulously. Surely he hadn’t forgotten. “At school,” she reminded them. “Rachel starts
school today, and we have to meet with the principal to finish up the paperwork.”

He looked startled. “I thought you were going to take care of that.”

She shook her head. “No,
we’re
going to take care of that.”

“But I have to work today.”

Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Work? Aren’t you going to take some time off? I’d think with Rachel here—”

“Her presence is irrelevant. I’ve got a job to do, Maddy.
I
can’t just take time off whenever
I
want to. I’m in the middle of a story right now.”

“You’ve also just become a father. I don’t know if the Family Leave Act would come into play here, but surely your boss would give you a couple of days off to get acquainted with your newly discovered daughter.”

“Yeah, he probably would,” Carver conceded. “But I’ve got people to interview and some legwork to do that won’t wait. She said she can take care of herself, and I believe her. Look at her. She’s a big girl. She’ll be fine.”

Maddy did as he asked and saw a young girl who was sitting stock-still, pretending she was watching television when in fact she was hanging on every word the two of them uttered about her. It was bad enough that they had been talking about Rachel as if she weren’t there, without even using her name, as if she were some insignificant nobody. But Carver had also had to make that pointed reference to her presence being irrelevant. If that wasn’t enough to make a kid feel unwanted, nothing was.

“Come here,” Maddy said as she gripped Carver’s arm with strong fingers and tugged hard. “We have to have a little chat. In private.”

Without waiting for his response, she dragged him down the hall, to the room farthest removed from the living room. Belatedly, she realized it was his bedroom. Belatedly, she realized that he was only half dressed. And belatedly, she realized just how warm and solid the flesh beneath her fingertips felt. She tried to tamp down the errant images of
sexual opportunity that paraded into the forefront of her brain. Enough was enough, she told herself. Rachel was the one who was of Maddy’s utmost concern here. She had to stop all this ridiculous, adolescent fantasizing about Carver.

“Ow, Maddy, let go. You’re hurting me.”

He tried to tug his arm free of her grasp, but she only squeezed harder, telling herself the action was a result of her anger and nothing more. When she finally did release him, she spun around quickly with a barely suppressed, “Don’t tempt me.”

“What?” Carver asked. “What did I do?”

She lifted a hand to her forehead, sighed heavily and began, “Look. Your life is never again going to be what it was before Rachel entered the picture. Just accept that now and learn to live with it.”

Carver negligently rubbed his arm and met her gaze. “Hey, just because Rachel is here doesn’t mean I have to-”

“Yes, it does,” she insisted before he even finished his statement. “Whatever it was you were about to say, it’s going to have to change now.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not just you anymore, Carver. So you can’t go on doing things as if the only repercussions of your actions will be on you. Rachel is your daughter. And it doesn’t matter if she’s been around for twelve years without your knowing it. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t there to change her diapers or witness her first steps or send her off on a big yellow bus for her first day of school. She’s yours
now.
Regardless of the way you two have come together, you’re the only stable thing Rachel has in her life. And don’t think she doesn’t realize it, too. She’s got her eye on you, Carver, and she’s taking all her cues from you.
Don’t
blow it.”

Carver watched her and waited for her tirade to end, then touched his hand to his chest where his cigarettes would normally be. Maddy almost smiled at his nervous reflex. Until he dropped his hand back to his side and glowered at her.

“Are you finished?” he asked.

She thought for a moment. “Not yet.”

“Oh, then by all means, do continue berating me.”

Maddy bit her lip thoughtfully. “You’ve never been around kids, have you?”

He rolled his shoulders in what she could only liken to a defensive gesture. “I’ve been around my sisters’ kids.”

“Who are how old?”

She could see that he was trying to remember and was realizing much to his chagrin that he didn’t know exactly the ages of his nieces and/or nephews. “They’re not in school yet,” he finally said.

“I remember your family pretty well,” she went on. “And if my memory’s correct, then I bet your sisters’ kids probably have very loving homes.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So in my job, I see kids who don’t come from very loving homes. At best, they’re neglected. At worst…” She sighed and did what she had to do everyday. She tried not to think about it. “At worst, they get hurt. Badly. Rachel out there is one of the lucky ones. I’m working with her because she’s got no one else to help her make a transition from one parent she didn’t know well to another she doesn’t know at all. Unlike most of the kids I see, she has hope, Carver. And that hope is you.”

He looked uncomfortable as he asked, “Meaning what?”

This time Maddy was the one to roll her shoulders, trying to work out a knot of tension that seemed to overcome her every time she was in close quarters with Carver. Finally, she clarified, “Meaning you can’t be the focus of your life anymore. Rachel has to be.”

He seemed to think about what she said, then nodded curtly. Maddy suspected her admonition still hadn’t quite set in, but it wouldn’t be long before he realized the truth in it. Despite their history of antagonism, she was willing to admit that when all was said and done, Carver Venner was a decent guy. Once he fully understood what was required of
him in his newfound status as parent, he’d do the right thing by Rachel. Maddy was certain of it.

“So what time is this appointment at school?” he asked.

She glanced at her watch. “We need to be there in half an hour.”