Theresa Rebeck - Three Girls and their Brother

“Oh hi,” Rex said. “Yeah, hi.”

She didn’t say anything. She just turned white.

“Nice picture. I mean, the thing in the New Yorker , that’s …” Rex trailed off. He was totally giving himself away. Amelia looked at the ground.

“Thanks,” she said. That was it. She was not too nice about it, either.

“Amelia and her brother came by to apologize about what happened at W the other night,” Maureen narrated, expressionless. I thought it was weird because she had been so nice to us and now here was Rex and she was suddenly a block of ice.

“Yeah, whatever,” said Rex. “Just finish it up, huh? I mean, it’s okay for you to use this place, but I wish you’d clear it with me ahead of time.” Maureen looked at him, sort of like a mother who is thinking about whether or not slapping her own kid is maybe a good idea. He looked back at her, like one of the shitty kids on the playground who’s getting off on being a jerk. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Not at all,” said Maureen, pulling out that dazzling smile. “As I said, we were just finishing up.”

“Whatever,” he said, and he grabbed the doorknob and turned to go.

And just as he did he snuck another look at Amelia. I saw him do it. And it was so clear, just in that one little sneaky look, that the asshole had the hots for her. I’ve seen it enough times, it’s not like I’m likely to miss it. That guy was forty years old, at least, and he had the hots for my fourteen-year-old sister.

But anyway, then he was gone and we were going. So Collette reached over and held Maureen’s hand meaningfully for a few seconds, smiling at her sincerely.

“I really appreciate your helping us through this,” she said.

“Of course,” said Maureen. I reached for the door.

“There’s just one thing,” she added. We all turned. Maureen, looking out the window, sighed. “It’s wonderful that you came by and apologized,” she noted. “But this really is so private. And the whole … event … wasn’t private, was it? Was it, Amelia?”

“What?” said Amelia.

“I just mean,” smiled Maureeen, “for an event that public—the apology will have to be public too, won’t it?”

CHAPTER FIVE

The next thing we knew, Daria, Polly, and Amelia were on Regis and Kelly .

This took an endless amount of time to work out, even though it happened by the end of the week. Collette was on the phone with everybody in town for hours, but at first most of them were so mortally afraid of pissing Rex and Maureen off that none of them would touch us. So even though Maureen was the one who had insisted that the apology had to be public in the first place, it was apparently impossible to set up a public interview because that might make Maureen and Rex more angry, even though Maureen was the one who wanted it. It was like a Möbius strip of stupid logic that went on and on and on until almost out of the blue the whole situation flipped on its head and what we had was an exclusive on Regis and Kelly , the perfect chance to get those girls out in front of the public so that everyone could see that these were really very sweet and adorable teenagers, nothing like what had been reported by other media outlets. And, during this exclusive, Amelia would find the perfect opportunity to apologize to Rex, on the air, for biting him.

By this point, we were all just doing whatever Collette told us. Of course we were; we were in deep shit and the only way out, seemingly, was to let that shapely barracuda call the shots. Everyone even let her pick out the outfits they would wear, which for Amelia turned out to be a subtle variation on the blue jeans/T-shirt ensemble she had on in the Herb Lang photo. “We want them falling in love with you because you’re such a great kid,” she announced. “You need to wear something simple. No one likes a sexy fourteen-year-old.”

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