BooksBarbecue
Back Admission
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Julie Buxbaum
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. CHAPTER ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  54. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  55. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  56. What’s next onyour reading list?

I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them again. Fortunately, no one is nearby. Still, I know I should be more careful. Last thing I need is some tabloid cover announcing MISSY’S REAL-LIFE KID’S OUT OF CONTROL BEHAVIOR ISSUES.

“Darling, trust me. It’ll be fine. I know you think I’m wacky but let’s make a vision board together tonight. We’ll put a 1600 on it and the SCC logo and maybe some dorm room decor ideas. It will help. I promise.”

“Okay,” I say, because the vision board thing came originally from Aunt Candy, who, after seeing the idea on Oprah a million years ago, put a picture of Steve Jobs on her own board and the next day met Uncle Charles, a billionaire, who, unlike Jobs at the time, had a full head of hair. Since then, my mom swears by the method. She thinks it’s how she landed the Blood Moon role.

Really, she got the role because of nostalgia. The millennials who grew up watching her on My Dad wanted to see her play the immortal queen mother of a prince vampire. If she can’t be their actual mom, they want to see her continue to play one on TV.

Also, it helps that she doesn’t age.

I wipe my eyes with a napkin.

“I got you, kid. You never have to worry about a thing,” my mom says, and pulls me in for a hug. And that’s when I hear the telltale click of the camera. I look up.

The ice cream scooper puts down her iPhone.

“I’m sorry. I never do this, I swear. Last week, Ariana Grande was here and I didn’t even blink, even though I knew my stepbrother would be mad that I didn’t get a selfie. It’s just that my mom used to love Missy. She was a book person, not a TV person, but there was something about My Dad,” she says, with an apologetic smile, and then realizing she’s accidentally said too much, she wipes at her eyes, which I notice are wet.

My mom makes strangers cry with joy.

“Sorry,” she says again, and then she slips back inside as quietly as she came out, taking the photograph of my mother and me, still with my ice cream mustache, with her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Now

Isla and I don’t go to school on Wednesday either, because no one tells us we should. I’ve barely seen my parents since they returned from court. They’re too busy with the lawyers, who’ve come wearing frowns and dark suits and have camped out in the living room with their laptops and their cell phones. They run extension cords across the rug, and my mom, who would normally freak out about possible ridges, doesn’t say a word.