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“I got in trouble here, too,” I said, and he straightened up.

“Don’t do it again, Teal.” His eyes were clouding like a sky being prepared for a fierce thunderstorm.

“Now,” he said in a softer tone, “I want you to spend your time thinking about your future, thinking about what you’ve done with your blessings. You and I will sit and talk about what you want to do with yourself.”

“When?” I asked, looking up quickly. He had never offered to do that before.

“As soon as you show me I won’t be wasting my time,” he said.

“Oh.”

“No ‘oh.’ I’ll do it when you prove to me you’re worth it, Teal.

I want to see an improvement in your school work as well as your behavior. I don’t want to see you giving your mother any more aggravation. If you show me you’re mature and you can behave like an adult, I’ll treat you like an adult and talk to you like an adult.”

When will you treat me like your daughter? I wanted to reply, but I bit down on my lip and trapped the words in my mouth.

He walked to the doorway, carrying my phone, and then turned back.

“You’re grounded now. You don’t go anywhere but school and back, Teal. Do you understand?”

Instead of replying, I put my earphones on again and lowered myself to the pillow to stare up at the ceiling. I didn’t know how much longer he stood there looking at me. All I knew was when I lifted my head some time later, he was gone and the door was closed.

I was just as alone as ever.

3

Drifting

My three-day suspension did not pass quickly. When you have so much time to spend by yourself with no responsibilities, the clock becomes arthritic, its hands creaking reluctantly along. One of our maids who also prepared our dinners used to tell me that a watched pot never boils. Every time I asked if dinner was ready, she would recite that. I suppose there was some truth to it. I found the more I looked at the clock, the slower it seemed to move.

Without any transportation, I really couldn’t leave the house. I suppose I could have called for a taxi or snuck a ride in Mother’s Lexus SUV when Mother wasn’t around, but there was no place for me to go during the day anyway. All my real friends were in public school. Late the first day of my suspension, a taxicab did arrive, but that was because the driver had been hired to deliver my homework assignments. I could just see my brother Carson adding that cost to his profit-and-loss statement on me. I found out Mother had asked Mr. Bloomberg if I could be given the work so I didn’t fall too far behind. I didn’t know how to break the news to her that I was already far behind. My report card was sure to be in Christmas colors, with failures twinkling like holiday lights.

Out of boredom more than anything else, I diddled with the assignments, getting slightly interested in the history chapter on the American Civil War. Mr. Croft sent a pile of grammar exercises, more than he was giving the rest of the class, I felt sure. I knew he used homework as punishment or as a means of revenge.

On Friday, I was permitted to return to school. Even though the snob birds looked so self-satisfied about my punishment, I handed in the assignments and sat in class like a perfect little angel. There was a great temptation to chew off their feathers and wipe those gleeful smiles off their faces, but I was operating under the hope that if I didn’t get in trouble right away, my father might grant me a reprieve.

At dinner that night, he cross-examined me on my day, and I tried to give him the answers I knew he would like. I had passed a science quiz with a seventy-eight and a history quiz with an eighty-two and showed them to him. He looked them over carefully, studying the grades to be sure I hadn’t tampered with them. I had done that before, changing threes to eights and ones to nines.

“Well,” he said, tapping the papers, “this is not terrific, but it is an improvement of sorts,” he relented.

I threw Mother a mournful look.

“I’m trying,” I declared. “The other kids have been attending this school for years. They’re used to everything,” I moaned. “It isn’t fair to judge me the same way. You’ve got to get used to new teachers, get used to the building, everything.”

He looked like he was softening, so I continued.

“It’s always harder when you attend a school or do something you’ve never done before. It was probably hard for you when you first went to college, wasn’t it?”

“No,” he practically bellowed back at me. “I had good study habits and I had a determined purpose,” he said, continuing to hold on to his steel spine. “Challenges weren’t challenges if they weren’t hard. You can’t be proud of yourself for hitting soft balls, Teal. If you want to survive in this world, you have to toughen up.”

“Well, I’m trying,” I whined.

“See that it continues,” he said, glancing at Mother, whose neck muscles were straining. They always did when there was any sort of tension, especially at the dinner table.

I lowered my head and returned to my seat. Then I looked up as if I had just remembered something.

“Can I go to the mall tomorrow? I’d like to do some shopping,” I said. “I need some things.”