Childhood best friends to enemies to lovers.
Alina wants nothing to do with the rebellious bad boy, Liam Somner.
Which is difficult, because he goes to her school. And lives on her street. And keeps showing up at her apartment, and sitting in her ki...
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Oscar's gnocchi was for Dad.
My dad works in D.C. so we don't see him that often. His name is James Wallace and he left my mother for a much younger woman, which was the first shitty thing he did, and then he moved to Washington so we don't see him much, which was the second shitty thing he did, and then he continues to do shitty things, because it seems to be his M.O.
But I've kind of come to accept that that's what men do in life. They don't stick around. They leave, and whether that's to Washington after fifteen years of marriage, or to Berlin straight after making a promise to never leave, it's just something men do.
So honestly, when Dad texts me and Oscar to say he's not coming to the city this weekend and that we'll have to see him another time, I'm not that fussed. A weekend in the city with my dad usually becomes a cliche. He stays at a hotel in Manhattan and we go to an art gallery and see a show and he buys us expensive food and then he's in a cab to JFK and we won't see him again for months.
You'd think that Oscar wouldn't care that much either.
He abhors Manhattan. He hates busy streets and he hates people and he hates expensive restaurants and queues and tourists. But when Dad cancels on our weekend, Oscar tips out all his gnocchi into the trash, and then locks himself in his room and refuses to eat.
Which means I have to get on the phone to my father and give him a piece of my mind.
"Little mouse," Dad says, as soon as he picks up, which is irritating because that's my nickname from the Cooks and Kellers, and he belongs to neither of those families. He doesn't have the right to call me that. I tell him as much, before berating him for bailing on our weekend plans.
"Alina, may I please remind you that our great nation is currently being run by a spray-tanned chimpanzee who insists on throwing his own shit, and I'm one of the people on the ground trying to catch it?"
"You told Oscar that you would be here rain or shine," I say. "Any shitstorm you're dealing with comes under that umbrella. Rain or shine. Come what may. Remember?"
"I know, Alina, I know," he says. "But I really cannot just drop everything. There's a lot of pressure on me right now."
"And there's a lot of pressure on me!" I say. "If you haven't noticed, this school year I'll be applying for colleges and sitting my SATs, and I haven't seen my own father since spring!"
I have to make it all about me, because I know Oscar doesn't want Dad to know that he's actually the one that's upset. Oscar doesn't want Dad to know that he spent an evening making pumpkin gnocchi from scratch because Dad had it one time in a restaurant and said it was nice. Oscar doesn't want Dad to know that he's missing his father. Oscar doesn't want Dad to know that he's not actually attending NYU like he said, but that he's clinically depressed and barely ever leaves the house.
Yeah, it's a lot.
So I have to pretend that I'm the sad abandoned daughter and get angry at my dad, on Oscar's behalf. It's not hard. Turns out I've got a lot of pent up aggression and it's very easy to direct it down the phone line to my father.
