I spotted you across the room,
Making all the girls crazy,
Making all the girls wild,
Boy (boy, boy, boy)—
Your lips, your smile, your bright eyes.
Come to me, come to me.

—“COME OVER HERE, BOY,”
STAR BECK
ALBUM: POP STAR

Chapter 10

“Daughter?” I repeat. The woman shuts off her hose.

“You are looking for the Mechams, right?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say after a moment. I’m trying to keep the wobble out of my voice. “Did you say they have a daughter?”

The woman nods. “Alison. She just started kindergarten. They’re just away for the weekend; they’ll be back day after tomorrow. Who did you say you were?”

“I’m . . . a family friend,” I say. The woman peers at me closely, squinting her eyes.

“You look so much like little Alison,” she says, squinting at me. My heart lurches. “I thought you might be a relative,” she says.

For a moment, I can’t speak.

“I kind of am,” I say finally. Then, because I’m afraid of what I might say if I stick around any longer, I thank the woman and hurry back to my car. She watches me until I’ve rounded the corner out of the neighborhood.

I think I might be sick. I mean, really, truly, I might just throw up in the passenger seat of this old Beetle. I’m shaking as I drive, taking deep breaths, drinking in the air in hungry gulps. I can’t seem to get ahold of myself.

Daughter?

He has a daughter?

I have a sister?

I just want you to know that I’ve never forgotten about you, my dad said in the letter. The words keep playing and replaying in my head. You are—and always will be—my little girl.

But am I? He never had the chance to know me. And now he has another little girl, a real little girl, who he has probably seen every day of her life.

It occurs to me for the first time, as I drive, that, like Ben said, he might not be what I expect. The thought startles me. The whole daughter thing has totally thrown me for a loop. What if he’s not happy to see me? What if this Alison has all but replaced me? What if his letters to me were out of habit or guilt or something, not out of loving and missing me?

I feel suddenly frantic, shaken, confused.

What do I do if he doesn’t want me after all? What happens to me then? The thought of going back to my mom as a failure makes my stomach twist in knots. But it’s not like I can stay in the crappy Star Light Motel much longer. I’m running out of money.