Deviant by Helen Fitzgerald

legs took her places—usually not very nice places before now—but she’d always thought of them as pure transport. She was slow compared to her father, who walked at breakneck speed. She practically had to run to keep up with him.
    His car was a grey Audi convertible, roof down. Backpack in the backseat, they drove out of the airport and made their way onto the freeway.
    Okay. She could breathe. This wasn’t a dream. She’d done it. She’d escaped.
    The sun was shining on her face! The loud wind was rushing through her hair!
    She closed her eyes and breathed in LA.
Hmm
, it smelled … like car fumes.
    Her lashes fluttered open. Yes, she was still nervous about the man at the wheel, this Grahame Johnstone father of hers who pulled strings and drove soft-tops. His beige golf trousersand short-sleeved white shirt certainly fit the corrupt politician idea. How old was he? Around forty? Had all his hair, a kind of flat brown that looked artificial. Was it a wig? Did he dye it? Maybe it was acceptable for a man to dye his hair in LA. In Glasgow, you’d be shot. His glasses had a label on the side. She couldn’t make out what it said, but she could tell they were expensive. And they made him look clever. That word again:
clever
. Most of all, he seemed too straight for Sophie Thom. Even in death, she had some kind of edge.
    Also: what should she call him?
    She repeated the possibilities in her head:
Dad, Grahame, Father, Daddy, Oh-Daddy-my-Daddy, Mr. Johnstone
. Looking sideways as subtly as she could, she noticed that his brown eyes were always flitting from left to right.
    Finally he spoke. “We’re going to meet Becky for breakfast. That okay?”
    It was. She was starving, but more importantly, she was dying to meet her sister. She hoped it would feel less complicated than meeting
him
. She hadn’t expected anything—perhaps because she hadn’t had enough time to think about it—but she didn’t like how she felt. Uncomfortable questions multiplied like a virus in her head. A powerful stranger was now her custodian. He was driving her to his home, where she would stay. He was so very different from the crazy rebel he’d married all those years ago. His shirt had no creases. He smelled clean: not perfumed, but of soap and fresh air. He was alien, like no man she had ever encountered. Abigail wondered for a moment if he was real. Next time she turned to look at him, perhaps he would pull hisface off to reveal a lizard head underneath. For a brief, panicky second, Abigail pictured herself jumping out of the car at the next red light—
    “Bit of a drive first.” His voice stopped the racing thoughts.
    She felt she should say something like: “Is it?” But she didn’t want to waste time. No use engaging in idle conversation. She wanted to get to know him. She wanted to stop feeling worried and suspicious. Also, she wanted him to like her, and people who are
interested
are likable. It might not work out, this father-daughter/family thing, but she needed to make it as smooth as possible. For at least a year … by which time she would be seventeen and familiar with this new world. She could go it alone after that. So there was no point in delaying the important questions: Why had he suddenly appeared in her life? How had he rescued her at the airport?
    “So, tell me about your company,” she began. “Prebiotics, yeah?”
    He smiled faintly, his eyes on the road. “Oh, you know about that?”
    “I Googled you.”
    “Ah.” Grahame’s
Ah
had a slightly worried tone to it. Snapping out of it, he said, “GJ Prebiotics is the name. Five years in business. It’s big, what we’re doing.”
    “I don’t know what prebiotics are … is.”
    “Oh, well, that’s not unusual. It’s very new.”
    Can’t be that new
, she almost said.
Five years in business, right?
    Now they were heading off the freeway onto actual streets,where she could make out actual buildings. So far, LA was not particularly appealing.