Read Father Of The Brat for Free Online Page B

demeanor told her he wasn’t quite as unhappy about this situation as he’d first let on.
    “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