Chapter 4
Papa led Sake, still craning her neck after Bill, out of the foyer. Without Taylor scampering along beside her, she felt like she was missing a limb. Now, inexplicably, she realized that she didn’t want to lose sight of Bill Diamond, either.
Sake had always wondered what her father’s house looked like inside, and now, here she was. She peered up at the three magnificent arches, then circled the panoramic view of wall niches with sculptures and gold-framed paintings, narrowing her gaze down to a huge bowl of fresh-cut roses on a brass and glass table. The closest thing she had to compare it with was the lobby of the Palace Hotel, where Haha had once pulled her to escape a sudden downpour. Haha hadn’t been intimidated by the porter looking down his nose at them. But then again, Sake’s mom thrived on the new, the untried. She used men as casually as Sake chewed gum, discarding them as soon as they lost their flavor.
Come to think of it, regular change was the most consistent thing about Sake’s early life.
Papa motioned for her to take a seat. “So,” he said, settling into a corner of the plush couch across from her chair, crossing his legs. He had the kind of sharp-nosed face that always seemed to be trying to uncover what you’d done wrong. “I see you still have your earrings.”
Without thinking, Sake’s hand reached up to reassure herself that yes, they were still there. Since Papa had given them to her when she’d turned sixteen, they’d rarely been out of her ears.
“Now. Where were we?”
Sake had been dreading this. But that was the deal she’d made with Papa last Friday: his lawyer would make her PC 240 simple assault beef go away in return for Sake agreeing to fly up to her sister’s wedding on the spur of the moment. Aside from having to call off work, it had seemed like a bargain at the time. Now the helicopter was busted and Bill Diamond had refused to take her to the bus station. Her only hope at getting out of here and back to the city was to hear Papa out.
“Ma chérie, I must tell you again how relieved I am to be finding you. My lawyer has searched high and low for you and your mother. Every time he got a lead, you disappeared again. Why hasn’t one of you called me? After all these years, I feared there was only one possibility: your mother wished not to be found, and she had somehow convinced you to go into hiding, too.”
“Called you? With what?” She showed him the cheap cell phone with the cracked screen she kept close by in case Rico was trying to get in touch. “I just got this burner last year.”
Papa looked up at her through lowered lids. “Don’t be ridiculous. You could have contacted me any number of ways. Every library has free public computers . . . the traditional way, with a stamp and a letter . . .”
“I could say the same thing to you!”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? How can I contact you when your mother lives her life comme un gitan—like a—” he twirled an elegant hand while, impatiently, his eyes searched the ceiling for the right translation. “A gypsy, bartering herself for—” he bit his tongue and with visible effort, pressed his lips together.
The insult directed against Haha shot through Sake like a poisoned arrow, swelling the bitterness already lodged in her heart till it felt like her chest would explode.
Her father was every bit the bastard Haha had accused him of being. Sake’d be damned if she’d let Haha take the blame for their rift.
A bitter staring contest ensued. Papa thought he had a spine of steel? She was no slouch, herself—thanks to having to struggle for everything she’d ever got.
Finally he cleared his throat. “Very well. Moving on. On Friday you had begun to tell me what it is you have been doing with your life.”
Ha. Round one: Sake. She brushed away the hint of confusion that brought with it. If he hated her so much, why’d he cave so fast?
“I already told you, I work at a bakery.”
“How long have you been working at this bakery?”
“About nine months.”
“And you claim that you do not know where Emma Grace is? Where she has been?”
She wished she did know. Thoughts of Haha’s manic obsession with new places, new men, and new highs haunted Sake’s thoughts and churned her stomach. And yet, she couldn’t let go of her childish loyalty. Haha had brought her up pretty good until she’d been old enough to fend for herself. Anyway, show her the perfect mother. “I told you, I haven’t seen her since my birthday, last September.”
“You at least received my gift when you finished high school?”
Sake’s cheeks burned.
Papa’s eyes bored a hole through her. “Which is it? You did not receive it? Or”—with visible effort, he forced himself to voice the unthinkable—“you did not graduate?”
Papa’s face flooded with red. He leaned in. “All three of your sisters excelled at fine schools, and now they have successful careers. How do you expect to get anywhere in this life without an education?” he roared.
Sake felt her shoulders slump. Nothing made her feel lower than being compared with her sisters.
Papa must’ve noticed her lower lip quivering. With obvious effort, he pulled back. “How long has it been since Haha stopped providing for you?”
Limply, her hands in her lap turned palms up. “Sixteen?”
“You have received none of the money I sent to her through my lawyer for the past six years for your care, your education?” Again, his hazel eyes grew dark with anger.
“I thought you said you didn’t know where Haha was?” snapped Sake.
“I didn’t say she didn’t cash my checks, faithfully mailed to her post office box. If not for that indication that she was alive and well, I’d have had the help of the authorities long ago.”
The sudden pang of a sharp childhood memory jolted Sake. Waiting alone in the locked car, eyes glued on the door of the check cashing place Haha had disappeared into, while just outside her window sullen young men with bad posture slinked by, and discarded candy bar wrappers skittered across the cracked pavement on a breeze.
Yet even though Haha would never be mother of the year, ratting on her felt like a massive betrayal of something deep and primal. Back where Sake was from, there was a code: you don’t rat on your crew. Simple as that.
She said nothing.
Across from Sake, her father massaged his close-trimmed beard thoughtfully, barely containing his wrath. “Never mind your mother. Let me be certain I understand. You have been employed steadily for the past nine months. You are not abusing drugs—”
The little Chihuahua bitch inside Sake clawed to get out. “I don’t even touch alcohol!”
“—and never before have been in trouble with the police?”
She wasn’t some kid; she’d be twenty-three in September. Been taking care of herself since forever. “No,” she bit out.
“Or simply have never been caught?”
“I’ve had enough of trouble heaped on me by other people! Why make more for myself?” She flounced back into the downy-soft cushions, folding her arms protectively across her breasts, though she knew acting childish only spoiled the impression she was trying to make.
She felt Papa’s hard gaze studying her secondhand dress. For the first time, she noticed that the heel of her bootie jouncing nervously across one knee was worn down to the quick.
“What about that—place where you live? Are you bound by a lease?”
“No.”
He sighed and his head sagged momentarily. “Something tells me that if I knew what kind of arrangement you have there it would only make me hate this Rico character more, so I won’t ask.” He gave her a slanted look. “So, here is what I propose. Number one. In preparation for your arraignment, along with the DA, my lawyers will be looking into your past to see if you speak the truth . . . that this is indeed your first scrape with the law.”
Sake’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t believe me!”
“Second, you must prove to me that you are as mature and responsible as you say you are by maintaining a respectable lifestyle. Here, under my roof, where I can observe you.”
Sake huffed her indignation. “You heard the lawyer—he already got the restraining order dropped. I can go back right now if I want.”
But Papa wasn’t hearing it. “And last, I refuse to accept that any daughter of mine would fail to achieve the minimum of obtaining a high school diploma.”
“I don’t need no diploma! I already have a job!”
“I will accept nothing less. You should be able to do all of your studying online, in this day and age. After that, if it is baking that you want to do, there is a fine culinary school—”
“I don’t have time for college!”
“—just north of town. Its name is CIA . . . Culinary Institute of America, and it will make you an expert in the field.”
She couldn’t believe it. Rico was the one who’d started this whole debacle. Was it her fault the bar down the street had refused to serve him because he was intoxicated?
“Tell me this. Do you have friends in the city, other than this degenerate, this Rico?”
“Of course I have friends.”
“Who?”
She threw up a hand. “People I know, who know me.”
“What people?”
“My coworkers at Bunz. The people who live downstairs.” Who drank with Rico while she was at work. The very same people who’d called the cops that night.
“It is as I thought, chérie, I have worked very hard so that I could provide you and your sisters with a roof over your head, an education. You would have these already, if your mother had fulfilled her promise to me. To attend to you as a mother should.”
She lashed out in a knee-jerk reaction. “Maybe if you’d stuck around after you’d gotten her knocked up, Haha wouldn’t have gone off with all those other—” She snapped her mouth closed.
Papa curled his lips inward. “Are you quite finished?”
She sighed with frustration. “Say I get my GED. What’s in it for me?”
“That all depends.”
“If I’m going to walk away from everything I’ve ever known, I need to know exactly what I’m getting in return.”
“You have nerve, just like your papa.” He shrugged. “Very well. A number comparable with what I gave your sisters would be in the realm of, say, a quarter of a million dollars.”
“A quart—” Sake choked out, salivating like a starving animal getting a whiff of steak on the grill. She’d lived on next to nothing for so long.
“One lump sum to replace the monthly checks which I sent to Emma Grace, which she was to have used to provide for you all this time.”
“That’s a lot of cheddar.”
“Consider. A private college costs in the neighborhood of fifty thousand a year. And an advanced degree, such as Sauvignon’s? Make the math.
“But before I give you a centime, you must prove to me that you can fulfill the minimum requirements I have set forth. After that, I hope you will reconsider and further your education, either here or somewhere else. If not, you can use the money to start a business or live on until you find a real career.”
“What’s the catch?” There was always a catch.
“You have until your twenty-third birthday—coincidentally, the same date as your arraignment. By then the lawyers will be ready with their findings.”
September first. Two and a half months.
Sake uncrossed her leg and planted it on the carpet. “I told you, I have a job I have to get back to—tonight,” she said evenly. “A three a.m. shift. How’s that for responsible?”
Teeny was meaner than a pit bull on crack. She’d already missed one shift. She couldn’t miss another.
“The bakery.”
His thoughts were transparent. A bakery job meant nothing to a man like Xavier St. Pierre.
“What is the name of this bakery?”
He was merciless. “Bunz.” What seemed so hip down in The Mission sounded so lame when she said it here, in this fancy room, to him, her self-righteous father. She felt no more related to Xavier St. Pierre than she did to the president of the United States. Already her head was back home. Life in the Mission District might be not easy, but at least it was familiar, and she knew her place in it. Here, she could never measure up.
And what about Rico? Now that he’d sobered up, was he sorry he’d let her be taken away after the neighbors called the cops on their mouth battle? She’d been checking her phone nonstop all weekend for a text or missed call. Maybe Rico’d run out of minutes. That would be just like him.
“I can’t do three months. I gotta get back now, today.”
“And is this your life’s goal? To bake bread?”
“It’s not just baking bread,” she huffed.
“Of course. Then tell me. What else is it?”
“We do croissants, éclairs, macarons . . .”
“The ‘s’ is silent.”
“Come back?”
“Even when you are talking about more than one, the words are pronounced like croissant, éclair, macaron.”
He was going to make this hard. So hard. And fine. So she didn’t get to create the fancier pastries at Bunz. All Teeny let Sake do was mix up the dough for baguettes, proof it, then scale it out, shape, and bake it. But she’d looked over Teeny’s sweaty, white T-shirted shoulder countless times. She was sure she could make all those confections and more, given half the chance.
“This is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. Why you need an education. How much do they pay you at this bakery?”
Sake gave him a withering stare, knowing he’d only scoff if she told him.
“Allow me to hazard a guess: not much more than minimum wage. All that aside, chérie, do you really want to return to a man who would have you locked up for abuse?”
Papa stood then, towering over her. “I am finished discussing it for now. I was on my way out to meet with my vineyard manager when you arrived, to oversee the spraying before the sun gets too hot. I will have Jeanne show you your room.
“While you’re in Napa, there are any number of charming venues to explore nearby, vehicles at your disposal in the garage. You will find all the keys hanging next to the kitchen door. And you still have the credit card I gave you when you bought the dress for the wedding, do you not?
“Your sisters come and go frequently. I hope you will become better acquainted with them while you work toward your diploma. Is there something else you have need of?”
Sake’s tongue felt all cottony. She scrambled for any excuse she could find to get him to change his mind. “What about all my stuff? All I had time to do Friday was grab enough for the weekend.” It was none of Papa’s business, but she still had pay waiting for her at Bunz. She wasn’t about to let that slide.
“Have your things packed up. I will send a truck for them.”
“Have it packed up,” he says. Who did he think was going to “pack it up” for her? Her maid? And a truck? How much stuff did he think she had? Everything she owned fit in her old moving box. It might only be an hour’s drive, but this world might as well be on the other side of the ocean from hers. Papa had no clue.
“I repeat: you have until your birthday, September first. In the meantime, if you have need of clothing or other personal items, you have the card.”
“I’ll stay on the streets before I’ll live without Taylor.” Wouldn’t be the first time.
Papa thought for a second. “I will leave that problem to you and Madame Jeanne. I am confident you two can work something out.” With that, he bellowed for his cook.
While the seconds ticked by, Sake and her father looked around the room at anything and everything but each other.
“Monsieur.” A slight, clean-cut man in a navy suit appeared in a doorway, hands clasped behind his back. “Madame is in the herb garden. May I help?”
“Bruno,” Papa said with some relief, “I would like you to meet my daughter Sake. Jeanne has prepared the west guest room for her. Would you be so kind . . . ?”
“Of course.” Bruno turned to Sake with a polite smile. “Mademoiselle.” He looked around the floor. “Your bags?”
Sake slapped her backpack over her shoulder, with a look defying him to comment on her extreme luggage deficit.
Bruno just nodded and spun on his heel. “Follow me.”