Haunting Olivia Read Free Page B

Zach had received a phone call from Blueberry Middle School’s assistant principal. Your daughter has been caught smoking on school property for the second time. She’s therefore suspended for one week.
    And so he’d postponed his meeting—good thing the client was a parent herself and assured him they’d reschedule—and driven down to the school and sat in a stuffy room with a sullen, defensive Kayla; the gym teacher who’d caught her red-handed in the second-floor girls’ bathroom; and the assistant principal, who’d reminded Zach that she’d had to call him in to discuss Kayla’s behavior six times since the school year began.
    So much for the New Year’s resolutions he and Kayla had made a month ago. Getting her to sit down and think about what she wanted from the coming year was hard enough, but she’d actually gotten into it, disappearing into her room, door closed as usual, music blaring. The next morning she said she had made her list but it was private.

    HAUNTING OLIV IA
    21
    “Is one of them for you to try to accept that I’m dating Marnie?” he’d asked.
    “No,” she’d said, grimacing, her hazel eyes narrowed. “Definitely not.”
    He’d handed her a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. “Well, share one of them.”
    “Okay,” she had said. “I resolve to make a certain boy, who’ll go nameless, like me by spring break.”
    That he wasn’t so sure he would get through.
    Now, as he pulled out of the school’s parking lot, Kayla’s triumphant smile over getting out of school for a week turned into a frown. “She thinks she’s so great,” Kayla said, staring out the window at a blond girl getting into her mother’s car. “Just because she’s popular. She’s only popular because she has big tits.”
    Oh, God. Zach let out a deep breath and silently counted to ten, willing the powers that be to give him strength to get through the next—what? Five years? Ten?
    “Kayla, I’d appreciate it if you’d use the proper words to describe parts of the body,” he said. “Your body is something to respect, not to put down.”
    “Fine, breasts, ” she said.
    Why was Kayla so comfortable talking about tits with him anyway? Shouldn’t she be fidgety and uncomfortable?
    He really needed that guidebook.
    “Are you popular?” he asked, having no idea what he was supposed to say or how best to deal with this new jealousy issue. His instincts told him to be careful with her self-esteem, give her some room with her thoughts, let her express herself without jumping down her throat.

    22
    Janelle Taylor
    “Who cares about popularity?” she snapped. “It’s totally fake. The popular girls aren’t even nice—
    except to boys. At least I’m not a fake.”
    Nope, fake she was not. What you saw was what you got.
    So. She wasn’t popular. But she had a couple of friends: two girls from the neighborhood who were her best friends one week, her mortal enemies the next. It had been that way since Zach and Kayla had moved back to Blueberry eight years ago. Right now, Kayla wasn’t talking to the girls, who’d dared to tell her that she had big feet.
    They drove the few miles to their house, a white colonial that Zach built himself. He pulled into the driveway, hoping all the answers would magically come to him before they got inside.
    “Kayla, I know you’re a smart girl,” he said, as they both got out. “I know you must be aware that smoking causes cancer. That’s not some lie parents make up to keep their teenagers from smoking.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Like I’m going to get cancer. I’m only thirteen. And I don’t smoke that much. Like one cigarette a day. Two maybe.”
    “That’s too many,” he said. “And you could get cancer anytime, Kay. Kids younger than you have cancer. I’m dead serious. And I’m going to tell you right now so there’s no misunderstanding. You are not allowed to smoke. If I catch you smoking or if I hear you’ve been smoking, you will be