Tears by Francine Pascal Page A

funny: For the first time since they’d reunited, Gaia actually found she was annoyed with her father. But she supposed that was a good sign.
Teenage daughters were supposed to get annoyed with their dads, right?
    â€œGaia, you swore you’d let me take you on a shopping spree and buy you some new clothes,” he mumbled. “Besides, what’s wrong with this place?” He lowered his dark glasses and gave the boutique a piercing, blue-eyed once-over. “It looks... fashionable.” The word seemed to catch in his throat.
    Before Gaia could point out that he was clearly as miserable as she was, an overly excited salesman shot up like a jack-in-the-box from under a counter in the bag check.
    â€œCan I check your coat?” he demanded. Then he turned away and whined something incomprehensibleinto the headset squeezed tightly to his Roman-page-boy hairdo.
    â€œIt’s like a military operation in here,” Tom joked.
    Gaia rolled her eyes and yanked her father back onto Broadway, into cold air and the late afternoon fading light.
    â€œListen, I think I understand why you don’t want to do this,” Tom said in a gently chiding voice. “You don’t feel like conforming. That’s what I love about you; you never feel a need to be anyone but yourself. But there’s a difference between conforming and blending in.”
    â€œThere is?” she muttered. But her tone was only half serious. If her father wanted to play Dad, she figured she might as well indulge him.
After all, they were still making up for five years of lost time
—years that could never be restored, no matter how hard they tried.
    She allowed him to lead her into the store next door, which was, admittedly, better. It was still trendy, but there were no squeaking salesmen, no obvious brand names worthy of FOH attention. Just shelves full of sweaters and a couple of dresses.
Blending in.
Gaia repeated the words to herself and snorted as she pictured herself trying to become a part of the scene that the likes of Heather operated in: a bubble of cuteness and best-friends-forever shit.
    â€œYou know, I don’t have to remind you that blendingin is how I’ve managed to stay alive,” her father remarked mildly, as if sensing Gaia’s thought processes. “I’m not suggesting you take an alias or wear a fake mustache. I’m just suggesting you buy a nice skirt. Give those two ragged sweatshirts of yours a rest. Here, why don’t you try on this dress?”
    Gaia shot her father an amused smirk as his eyes flashed from the pale green dress on the wall to her gray hooded sweatshirt. He shrugged, as if to say:
See?
    â€œTrust me, Dad, I would
not
blend in if I showed up at school in this dress.” She adopted a mock-serious tone. “I’d upset the delicate balance of the fragile adolescent society in which I live.”
    Her father laughed.
    â€œNot to mention the fact that I’d look like a two-ton heifer trying to squeeze into an ice-skater’s outfit,” she added quietly.
    â€œGaia, please,” he argued, smiling. “You’re seventeen. You’re beautiful. Try on the dress. You wouldn’t be upsetting any delicate balance. Lots of kids your age wear that dress, I’m sure. And you know the old cliché:
Quando a Roma
...”
    Gaia groaned as she pushed aside the curtain of a changing-room cubicle.
When in Rome
... Funny.
If only her father had the slightest clue what he was talking about.
Now that she thought about it, this normal stuff had the potential to get on her nerves—what with shopping with Dad andlectures on self-esteem. Scowling, she lost her sweatshirt and pants, then shimmied into the green dress.
    When she looked at herself in the mirror, she thanked God that she was born with no fear gene. Otherwise her reflection would have terrified her. For starters, the dress was way too short for her way-too-long legs. It was also too