Joe clasps his hands. “Daphne, darling. If you’re Joe Vince’s daughter and you graduate from a place like Olympus Hills, you won’t have to audition for scholarships anywhere. Schools will throw money at you to attend. Not that you’ll even need it now. But only if you come with me—”
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
My mother sweeps into her office, and Joe stops speaking midsentence. He looks at her wide eyed, almost as if he’s a little afraid of her, and I can’t help but notice that even the glossy woman with the briefcase and the slick chignon is taken aback by my mother. The two are polar opposites. While the woman is petite, and gives off a very even, uncluttered tone, my mom stands over six feet tall and is wearing her signature green maxi dress and the pollen-stained apron I’ve rarely seen her without. Instead of heels, Mom’s feet are bare. My mother never wears shoes, as if all those NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE signs don’t apply to her. It’s like she believes the grass won’t grow and the flowers won’t bloom if she doesn’t glide over the earth with her naked feet each day. Her hair tumbles about her shoulders like waves of golden wheat, and her eyes, bright blue like the color of delphinium blossoms, pierce right into Joe. The tone that comes off her is like the crescendo of a symphony. I’m tall like my mother, and people say I look just like her, but I don’t know how I can even compare when it comes to presence. She’s like a force of nature.
“Don’t even try me,” she says to Joe.
He clears his throat. “As I told you on the phone, Demi, I have a court order.”
The woman in the suit dress snaps open her briefcase and pulls out a document that supposedly proves that Joe is my new legal guardian. How he got a judge to grant him custody of the teenage daughter he’s seen only four times since I was born is beyond me. I mean, Joe doesn’t make the tabloids because of his more sober exploits. Then again, he probably has enough money to keep half the lawyers in California on retainer.
Mom doesn’t even look at the paper. “I don’t care what that document says. You can’t just waltz in here and take my daughter away.”
“Our daugh … ter,” Joe says, but Mom gives him a look that makes him stammer.
“I don’t care what I have to do to block your so-called court order. I don’t care if I have to sell my shop to pay for it. I will not let you take Daphne out of Ellis Fields.”
It’s at this moment that I make up my mind. The shock and numbness of the situation have started to wear off, and I know what I have to do. Because there’s no way I’m going to let Joe destroy my mother’s dreams all over again. There’s no way I’m going to let her sell her shop—her paradise—because of me.
“I’ll go,” I say, stepping between my feuding parents.
Through the grate, I can hear Jonathan and CeCe gasp. Indie makes some sort of high-pitched, hiccuping noise.
My mother turns toward me. “Daphne, no.”
I square my shoulders and look right at her. “I’m going,” I say as definitively as I can. “I want to go. This school is everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m going.”
My mother looks as though I’ve smashed one of her prized oleanders onto the floor and then kicked the dirt at her feet, and a low, disappointed tone comes off her.
Joe blinks at me in relieved surprise.
“We need to leave,” the glossy woman says. She taps the screen of her phone. “We’ll lose our spot for takeoff if we don’t get to the airport ASAP. Daphne, you have seventeen minutes to pack your essentials. We’ll send for the rest later—assuming there’s anything worth sending for.” She puts her phone into her briefcase and then takes me by the elbow to escort me out of the office. I look back at my mother, but she’s turned away from me.
“Wait,” I say, breaking away from the woman’s grasp. “Mom, look at me, please.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Little Miss Glossy says.
“Yes, we do.” I stand next to my mother. I place my hand on her shoulder. I’ve always been able to read people by the tones and sounds that come off them—but at the moment, I wish I couldn’t. There’s a raging ensemble of emotions behind my mother’s stiff expression, a chorus of anger, feelings of betrayal, remorse, and fear.
“I’m sorry, Mom. But I have to do this. As much as this store is your life, music is mine. And just as much as it would be impossible for me to stop singing, it would be even more impossible for me to watch you lose this place. Not when the solution is so easy.”
“Leaving your home is that easy for you?”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I squeeze her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Mom. I’ll be back for Christmas break.” I glance at Joe and he nods, confirming that this would be part of the plan. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Bad things happen out there. Believe me, Daphne, I know.” More remorse wafts off my mother, and I know she’s thinking of her one excursion outside of Ellis Fields as a teenager—spring break, her senior year, with some high school friends. That trip was how my mom ended up with an ex she barely knew, and a baby she’d never planned on. Not to mention one of her best friends had run off to New York City with some guy, never to be heard from again.
“Some good things happen out there, too,” I say, and give her a look that says, “How else would you have gotten me?”
All the stiffness in my mother’s face melts away. Water fills her eyes and she grabs me in a close hug. “I know,” she says. “You are my everything. That’s why I don’t want to ever lose you.” Her grip on me tightens. “Please, my little sprout, stay here.”
I bite back the urge to tell her that I’ve changed my mind, that I am never going to leave, but I can’t fight the tears that roll from my eyes as I let my mother hold me like I was a little kid who’s fallen and skinned her knee.
“We now have thirteen minutes until we need to leave,” the glossy woman says.
I break away from my mother’s hug. Anguished notes fall off her like teardrops as she realizes that her pleading won’t keep me here.
“You know, you could always come with me,” I say. “Open up a new shop in California?”