Wicked Jealous: A Love Story by Robin Palmer Page A

trip.”
    As close as my brother and I were, I didn’t tell him that that’s exactly what I was hoping. Not that I wanted to be trapped in a house where I wasn’t even sure there’d be English programming on the cable channels, but just the idea that my dad wanted me there would make it bearable.

    To most people, having to have your dad’s assistant pencil you into his schedule doesn’t exactly scream “I want you!” but it was either that, or hope to run into him at home at some point. Which had been happening less and less over the last few months. Dad spent more and more time at the studio rewriting scripts after the star of
Ruh-Roh,
Andrew, married his twenty-years-older-than-him acting coach, who had lots of ideas of how his character should evolve and therefore wouldn’t sign off on the scripts.
    “Sorry I’m late,” he said as he rushed into his home office the next night, which, thanks to the feng shui expert Hillary had hired, had been moved out to the garage. The room that had originally been his office was now a walk-in closet for Hillary’s things.
    “That’s okay. Thanks for making the time to see me,” I replied. I felt a little nervous, like I was meeting with the guidance counselor or something.
    He pecked out an e-mail. “Okay. Done. And now for some time with my favorite daughter,” he said. He powered off his iPhone. “I’m even going to turn this off.” He flashed me a smile. “So! How are you?”
    “Fine.”
    “You know, not that you didn’t look good before, honey, but the weight loss really suits you.”
    “Yeah?”
    A sad smile came over his face as he nodded. “You’re looking more and more like your mom every day.”
    I felt a golf ball grow in my throat. “Thanks.” I tried not to think too much about how things would have been different if I had a mom. Because when I did, this is what happened.
    “But I will say that Hillary’s a little worried about you. She thinks you’re getting too skinny.” He glanced over at his iPhone but, to his credit, didn’t reach for it.
    Yes, I had definitely lost weight, but there was no way anyone could accuse me of being too skinny. Brad and Nicola had decided that I was more like the women on that TV show
Mad Men
. (“Not fat, but definitely hauling a caboose,” said Brad.)
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied. Whenever Hillary said something—that I was getting too skinny, that I should think about wearing pink lipstick to lighten up my lips—that was the stock answer I gave her. I wasn’t agreeing with her, but it was enough to shut her up. “So Dad, listen. What I wanted to talk to you about—”
    “I have to say, it really warms my heart to see Hillary take such an interest in you kids.” This time as he looked at the iPhone, I saw his hand twitch.
    I waited for the “KIDDING!” that should have followed that phrase, but all I got was the goofy smile that appeared whenever he talked about her. “Yeah, anyway. So what I wanted to ask you—”
    “Don’t you love what she’s done with the house?” he asked. “At first I was worried that she was going a bit overboard, but I’ve really come to appreciate how driven she is. She knows exactly what she wants.”
    She sure did. Like, say, disinviting me from the family vacation, when she wasn’t even part of the family. “I guess that’s one way of putting it. So listen—”
    “And I think that was very sensitive of her to take your feelings into account with the vacation.”
    “How so?”
    “Well, about how you’d probably be bored hanging out with two old people like us.”
    “Dad, Hillary’s not even
thirty
.”
    “You know what I mean,” he said.
    “So what you’re saying is that you think it’s a good idea that I don’t come.”
    He looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t say
that
. I just meant . . .”
    I didn’t need to know what he meant. I had my answer. At that moment, my veggie cravings flew out the window. I wanted nothing more than