The Cinderella Moment by Jennifer Kloester Page A

said Angel. “And why would your grandmother write to Margot?”
    “She didn’t. She wrote to my dad—her first letter in over ten years.” Lily scowled. “Naturally Margot opened it.”
    “Naturally,” agreed Angel. “What did it say?”
    “Margot says it’s an invitation, but I know it’s an order.” Lily put on a posh accent: “The Comtesse de Tourney requests the pleasure of my company in Paris for this year’s summer season.”
    “But that’s fantastic!” cried Angel. “Lucky you.”
    “I’m glad you think so, because I’m not going.”
    Angel gasped. “But—I don’t understand. It’s Paris—why wouldn’t you want to go to Paris?”
    “Well, for starters because it’s the exact same two weeks as the London Academy.”
    “Oh,” said Angel, suddenly unsure of what to say. She knew how much the London Academy meant to Lily, but this was an invitation to Paris. Paris! And Lily hadn’t seen her grandmother since she was five. “That can’t be your only reason,” she said.
    Lily hesitated and then said slowly, “It isn’t that I don’t want to see my grandmother. It’s just that…I don’t want to see her now .”
    “Why not?”
    Angel was surprised to see Lily’s face tinge with color.
    “What’s wrong with now?” persisted Angel.
    This time the pause was even longer. At last Lily said, “It’s Dad, he… ”
    “What?” asked Angel.
    Lily shook her head.
    “Is this about what happened last Christmas?”
    Lily nodded.
    “You had a fight?”
    Lily nodded again.
    “About?”
    Emotion flitted across Lily’s face, then she sighed and the secret she’d been holding in since Christmas burst out.
    “He said he was thinking of getting married again. He said I needed a mother because—because he couldn’t give me everything I needed. And then when I argued with him it all just got worse and worse—like everything I said came out the wrong way and then when I’d run out of words he told me he really liked Margot and that he was so pleased I’d overcome my resentment and how great it was that I liked her because she liked me and how she had all this empathy and understanding ’cause she had a teenage daughter of her own—as if that made her the perfect candidate and…and then he said it would be such a relief to him if there was someone in the house I could talk to about things !” Lily looked miserably at her friend. “Oh, Angel, if you’d heard him you’d know exactly—” She broke off.
    Angel nodded. She could only imagine how hurt Lily must’ve been. She and her dad were so close and Philip had always tried to make up for her not having a mother. And it helped that Simone was downstairs because when Philip was away Lily could talk to her.
    For Philip to suggest that he needed to get married again just to provide her with a mother was nuts. Angel sighed. Sometimes adults were weird.
    She looked at Lily. “But I still don’t get what this has to do with you going to visit your grandmother in Paris?”
    “That’s because I haven’t told you the rest,” replied Lily.
    “Go on.”
    Lily dropped onto the bed. “I told Margot that Dad and the Comtesse don’t speak and he wouldn’t want me going to Paris to see her.”
    “What did she say?”
    “She laughed that annoying laugh and said that was all in the past and the best way to help my dad was to accept my grandmother’s invitation.”
    Angel frowned. “I don’t think Philip would agree.”
    “That’s the trouble, he has agreed.”
    “How can he? Margot only just got the letter and he’s not in phone contact.”
    Lily’s face puckered. “Apparently he had a few minutes at an airport and called Margot.”
    Angel stared at Lily in dismay. “Did you have a missed call on your phone?”
    “No.”
    “Oh.”
    Angel digested this in silence. Philip had had an opportunity to call home and he’d chosen to ring Margot instead of Lily. That meant things were serious. Maybe Lily was right and her dad really