I’d missed out on lifetimes.
“Taliah,” he said, clearly trying to keep his voice calm. “I just don’t like that song. It’s not my type of music.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I know you’re angry with me. And you want to pick fights. But please.”
I shrugged. “I was just making an observation.”
A few long beats of silence.
“Come home with me,” he said. “It’ll give you the chance to make many more observations. And for me to hopefully redeem myself in some small way.”
“I am home.”
“You know what I mean.”
I glanced up. He was looking at me expectantly with those freakishly familiar eyes.
“Please,” he said. “We can spend the drive there fighting about music.”
“I don’t want to fight with you.”
“You know what I mean,” he repeated.
“You keep saying that. But I’m not sure I do ‘know what you mean,’ dude.” I didn’t mean to be so petulant, but I kept hearing my mother’s voice in my head.
“Be careful before you trust people, Taliah,” she would say. She’s an extremely guarded person, and I never quite understood why she put up such thick and tall walls. Part of me always wondered if it had to do with my absent dad, and the fact she’d unexpectedly gotten pregnant with me. Now, knowing about Julian, I wondered even more if it had something to do with how things had gone down in their relationship. Had he given her a reason to be so guarded?
I also think it had something to do with her being an immigrant. And an Arab, Muslim immigrant at that. Given the cultural climate, which only seemed to be growing more hostile, she protected herself and me by never divulging too much about herself to strangers or random acquaintances. But the problem with this strategy, as I knew all too well since Harlow was my only close friend, was that those random acquaintances never had the chance to develop into anything else. I understood why Mom always wanted to be cautious, but sometimes I wondered what that cost us.
“Sorry,” I said, staring at his face, which looked a little wounded. “I know I’m being difficult. It’s just this is … difficult.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “I understand.” He leaned forward, pressing his elbows against his knees. It was a childish posture for a man of his age to take, and that seemed fitting somehow. “Please come with me.”
“Mom would flip.”
“I want her to come too.”
“That’s going to be a little tough.”
He nodded in agreement. “But I think I can convince her.”
I paused for a moment and briefly enjoyed my position of possessing information that he clearly did not have. He seemed so confident. Like he knew that he had some sort of unearthly, magical pull over my mother. I wondered whether this magnetic confidence was a product of being a rock star, or the reason he had been able to become one. “Can you teleport her from Paris?”
He coughed and straightened his spine. “Paris?”
“Yeah. She’s currently in Paris.”
He exhaled. “Wow. Okay. I didn’t exactly expect that.”
“So does that mess up everything?” A sudden feeling of disappointment gripped me. I was worried he was just going to get up and leave.
He shook his head. “Not busted. Just different.” His face was blank and then a smile washed over it. “Maybe this is actually better.”
“What is?”
“You can come now without her permission. When does she get back?”
I momentarily thought about lying and then decided against it. “Sunday.”
His face scrunched up. “She left you alone for this long?”
I shrugged. “What’s wrong with that? Besides, she invited me. But I wanted to stay home.”
His eyes darted around the living room. “You wanted to stay here instead of going to Paris?”
“Yes.”
He smiled slightly. “Oh. That’s right. You are sixteen.”
I groaned. “Really? You’re going to mock me now?”
He quickly backpedaled. “Sorry, sorry.” His eyes met mine and he lowered his voice to that famous low-register octave of his. “Please come, Taliah.”
“Would you excuse me for a second?” I stood up from the chair. “I need a cupcake.”
Dear Julian Oliver,
I have to admit I’m a little surprised that I haven’t heard from you yet. Part of me really thought you would come rushing to meet me.
I’m choosing to give you the benefit of the doubt that my first letter got lost in the enormous pile of fan mail that you must receive on a weekly basis. So my new plan is to write you over and over again in the hopes that one of these letters will catch the eye of a curious intern and find its way to you. (You do have an intern, right? It seems like all famous people have assistants and those assistants in turn have interns.)
I thought you should know I worked up the nerve to ask Mom about it. And guess what? Her face drained of color. I could tell she was about to start crying. And I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever seen her cry. She said she wanted to tell me about this one day, but that she wasn’t ready yet. And that my father was no longer in our lives for a good reason.
But I don’t believe her.
I’ve attached a photograph of me smiling so you can see the resemblance between us. I’ll give you that I probably look more like Mom than I look like you, but look at my eyes. Don’t you see it? And the way my lips curve? I think we have a similarly shaped mouth. I hope that isn’t a weird thing to say. Okay, maybe it is a weird thing to say. But dude, I don’t think you are in the position to judge me for being weird.
Anyway, I have to go. I have a science report due tomorrow on the bubonic plague. Did you know that in the late Middle Ages, the bubonic plague wiped out one-third of the entire human population? Imagine that. And not to guilt-trip you or anything, but all the scientists are predicting we are due for another insane disease outbreak, and I’d sort of like to meet you before that happens.
Write me back soon?
Your maybe-possibly-probably daughter,
Taliah Sahar Abdallat
P.S. I’ve been doing some research on the illegitimate daughters of rock stars. (FWIW, I hate the word “illegitimate.” It makes me feel icky, but I’ll use it for now.) In my research, I came across the story of Liv Tyler and Steven Tyler, and it’d be pretty great if you could hook me up with a role in some blockbuster fantasy series. I have slightly pointy ears, so I might make a good elf.
P.P.S. I’m not sure if I get my ear shape from you. It’s hard to find a good photo of your ears.
V.
I found Harlow in the kitchen. She was sitting on one of the elevated wooden stools at the breakfast bar, devouring a freshly baked pistachio cupcake, jamming out to something on her iPhone. When she caught sight of me, she slipped off her earbuds and pushed the tray of cupcakes toward me. “Want one?”
I sat down beside her and grabbed a cupcake. I took a large bite. The nutty pistachio taste mixed with the sweet buttercream of the icing. Perfection. “These are so freaking good.”