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rude thought. I shake it from my head.
    “One minute, I’m talking to this guy, and the next I’m being escorted in a police car back here!”
    I should be ashamed of the twinge of jealousy I feel as my mind runs away with another mean reaction.
What guy? Where is he now? Why am I stuck picking up the pieces of this night and not him? Where’s that girl she brought to dinner with her – isn’t this her job?
    I look around. “Where’s, um…”
    “I can’t even find Danika,” she murmurs into my shoulder. My shirt is now wet with her tears, but I don’t care. They’re celebrity tears, which are probably like Holy Water or something. “I’ve texted and called – stupid idiot! What am I paying her for if she can’t even be with me at a time like this?”
    My thoughts exactly.
“Oh, so she is your assistant,” I conclude.
    “How can I go on without them?” Cherie cries into me. “Oh, Daddy!”
    I hesitate, digging into my mental rolodex of things people used to say to my mom when she’d cry like this in our mandatory post-Dad family therapy sessions. “You’ll find the strength.” The reasoning fits, so I go with it. “You’re a strong, brave person, and you have a lot going for you. A lot of people love you. You’ll be okay.”
    “No! No, I won’t!” she hiccups, pulling away from me to reclaim her breath. “Oh, God…why? Why did this happen?”
    I shake my head, spilling more memorized lines. “No one knows why God lets these things happen, but we can’t let them break us. We just have to keep going.”
    She quiets.
    I’m good at this,
I think proudly.
All those months of therapy were good for something.
    Wrong. All wrong. She looks at me like I have four heads. “How could you act like this is no big deal?”
    I’m a sputtering, fuel-less engine again. “I – I didn’t mean – it’s just – ”
    She’s angry with me. If she could grow spikes and a tail, she would. “I just lost not one but
both
of my parents, and you tell me to move on?!” Holy God is she mad.
    “I’m sorry; I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never…” I stop and think. I’ve never had someone close to me die except my grandparents, and that was years ago. Well, then Dad left, so maybe that’s kind of like losing someone.
    I turn that thought off like a light switch. “I’ve never lost someone before,” I tell her. “Maybe I should get Chloe or Claudia…their mom died, you know.”
    She’s looking at me funny again, and I realize she probably already knew that. Her eyes narrow into slits. “You just made all that up?”
    I shrug sheepishly. “Kind of. I’m sorry.”
    She sniffs and drags her sleeve beneath her nose. “You’d make a pretty good actor.” She looks longingly at the window.
    Thank you, a different topic, no more crying!
I nod slowly. “Yeah, but I’ve got a perfect face for radio.”
    She turns, and a ghost of a smile plays on her lips at my joke. My insides are pretzeling as I ponder how to keep her on this path and not the crying one. I’m great with jokes, not good with crying.
    “Don’t be silly; you are definitely pretty enough.”
    Pretty
? “Pretty?” I ask, almost offended, although I’m not really sure if I should be offended. I would prefer “hot,” “handsome,” or “heartthrob.” Pretty is a word reserved for girls. But Cherie Belle just called me pretty, so that’s probably a good thing.
    “Yeah, like little boy pretty. Trust me, they like that at my studio; I could set you up with an audition.” Her chest falls suddenly and she slumps. “Oh my God, I can’t go back to work like this! This is going to be all over the news – I’m going to have to give all sorts of interviews…”
    I watch her collapse into the couch, silent tears running down her cheeks again. People think of the weirdest things when they’re devastated.
    “Do you have to go back to work?” I ask meekly. “Maybe you could just take a break and stay home.”
    She looks at me.