I start to close the door, but he puts his foot in the doorway to stop me.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
“Do not slam this door in my face. I’m your father.”
“But you aren’t!” I cry. “That’s what I’m saying. So can you leave me alone now? Do you really want to ruin another holiday?”
He stares at me like he really, truly, cannot comprehend my anger. And then he removes his foot. “I’ll wait for you to contact me, since you clearly don’t want to talk.”
He turns around and stalks back to his car, abandoning the lilies where they lay.
“Fuck that guy,” I say as I close the door.
“Yeah,” my mom calls, rushing in from the living room. “Fuck that guy!”
Bruce follows her with the party planner, wearing a concerned expression. “Molly honey,” he says, “I don’t like to wish ill on others. But fuck that guy.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the party planner says, “but fuck that guy!”
My mom gives me a hug. “Are you okay, sweets?”
“Yeah. But that was exhausting. I’m going to try to take a nap so I can be my sparkling self for your party.”
“Good idea,” she says. “No one likes a grump.”
“I know. That’s why no one likes me.”
She puts a big sloppy kiss on my cheek.
“I like you, Molly Malloly.”
Upstairs, I throw myself onto the bed and my back rejoices that I’m on a mattress rather than a thin layer of acetate on a hardwood floor.
I am so, so tired.
I don’t know what to do about Seth. I don’t know what to do about my father.
All I know is this: I have to change my plan.
I don’t want to be Roger Marks.
It’s as cowardly to expect Seth to see a screenplay as an apology as it was misguided to believe that my father’s offer of a career opportunity proved his love for me.
I need to stop doing what my father would do: writing a check to prove his affection instead of loving me in real life. What is my script except my own form of that check? Here, please accept this piece of paper in lieu of me telling you how I actually feel.
Maybe writing the screenplay was just for me.
What I need to do is go to Seth and simply say that I love him and want him back.
I can sleuth out from Kevin when he’s going back to Chicago and meet him there. Say what I need to in private.
Fix this.
For now, I need sleep.
I grab an eye mask and pass out in minutes.
I wake up to my mother knocking on my door.
“Molls? You awake? It’s almost seven o’clock. Guests are arriving at eight.”
I’ve been asleep for nearly four hours.
“Sorry,” I call groggily. “I’ll take a shower and get dressed.”
“Take your time. You can make a grand entrance in your party dress.”
I wince, thinking of the short, spangly number she said she found at Saks but that looks more like something you’d get at Forever 21.
Whatever. Fuck it.
Besides my mom and Bruce, no one I care about is going to see me tonight. I might as well dress myself up in Bratz doll cosplay. I go for it. Shimmery hot pink lips, fake lashes, stilettos, push-up bra, the works. By the time I start hearing the doorbell, I look hot. Entirely out of character, but hot.
I grab my phone to check my messages before I go downstairs, since I’ve been incommunicado all afternoon. There’s one from my mom from an hour ago asking if I’m up. And there’s a new email from Becky.
Just the knowledge that Seth’s name is going to be in it is enough to make my heart beat faster. I consider deleting it, but it has an attachment. I grit my teeth and click it open.
From: bma445@nyu.edu
