Since they’d moved here, all her dad did was work on the place (or should she say, boss other people around while they worked on the place), sit at the big desk in the downstairs office, reading The Financial Times, studying computer screens—basically making sure his empire stayed, well, empirick—and meddle in her life. Correction: ruin her life.

But the fact was, there was something about her dad that made people do what he told them. When he walked into a room, people quieted. When he asked a question, people embarrassed themselves trying to come up with the answer. He wasn’t handsome, not like her uncle Anthony, whom everyone said was totally beautiful. But still, her dad didn’t have to say much to have people jumping through hoops to do his bidding. At least that was the case with everyone but her older sister, Miranda.

Miranda was sixteen and had been forced to leave her boyfriend behind when they moved into the city. Ariel had seen the guy once only even back in New Jersey, since Miranda did a really great job of keeping him out of their dad’s sight. Dad would combust if he found out Miranda had a boyfriend. While Ariel couldn’t say the guy was anything to write home about, clearly Miranda thought he was, since now she spent most of her time slamming doors and throwing herself across her bed, going on and on about how unfair life was.

No question Dad needed more to do with his time.

For a while after Mom died, all three of them had walked around like zombies in a movie. For six months they had barely put one foot in front of the other. Then, out of nowhere, just as the school year ended and summer was starting, Dad came home and told them it was time to move on.

Move on?

Like people could do that?

Though really, moving to New York had made it possible to turn the whole dead-mom thing into a secret. Ariel had learned the hard way that people completely freaked if they heard.

So, in June they had moved into the city. In July, she and her sister had started with the Shrink. In September, she and Miranda had started new schools. Now it was nearly October and there was no sign that her dad was going to stop being in charge of all of their day-to-day stuff. She had pretty much given up on him going back to his old ways of distractedly asking them how their day was while reading the newspaper.

Previous scenario before everything went to hell in a handbasket went something like this.…

Father Reading The Wall Street Journal: “How was your day, Ariel?”

Extremely Intelligent and Witty Daughter: “Great, just finished watching a bunch of porn online and I need ten dollars for lunch.”

FRWSJ: “Ten dollars for what?” Said while turning page.

EIAWD: “Lunch.”

FRWSJ: “Fine.”

Conversations like that were totally things of the past (she didn’t think it appropriate to put in writing her dad’s new, not-improved-as-far-as-she-was-concerned reaction to the most recent time she had used her Internet porn wit), and Ariel figured she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands and find her father a distraction.

Since Gabriel Kane was nothing if not a poster boy for perfect behavior, he couldn’t be tempted with the normal things like partying, poker nights, strippers, or even taking massively smart classes in the quest to be the next Renaissance man. Never mind. Ariel had put together a plan, one that would produce something / someone to take his mind off her and Miranda. She had tried to run the idea by her sister, but Miranda just rolled her eyes, announced that the Stupid Shrink should give refunds, and left Ariel standing alone on the stairs.

Seriously, if it weren’t for her snooping, Ariel wouldn’t know anything at all about what Miranda was up to. Thank goodness the Shrink had made Miranda write in a journal, too. And Miranda wasn’t as good at hiding hers as Ariel was.

It was after reading Miranda’s latest lovesick entry about the left-behind boyfriend and wanting to get back at dad “for ruining my life!!!” that Ariel decided to find a new woman to keep their dad busy. Not a wife. No way would he ever marry again. He totally loved her mom. But a nice lady, someone to date, was the best Ariel had come up with.

Granted, for the last few months, Dad had dated plenty, but he hadn’t met anyone who held his attention for more than a nanosecond. And it was going to take more than a nanosecond to get him out of their hair.

In her original plan, she had considered taking out an online dating ad.

Wanted: Girlfriend

Nice man seeks really nice lady. There’s a kid involved (a little lanky, but cute in her own extremely intelligent way), though she won’t be any trouble, and I swear you’ll like her. Interested parties call: 212-555-0654.

Perfect wording, like a commercial for a made-for-TV movie, and that was bound to interest somebody. She figured there was zero reason to mention Miranda. At this point, a full-fledged high school–variety teenager would probably be a deal breaker for any sane woman.

But in the end, she couldn’t go through with it. If she spent her lunch money on an ad, one, it would take more than a few lunches’ worth to afford it; and two, what was she going to eat in the meantime? Contrary to popular belief, not all newly pubescent girls had dreams of anorexia. Beyond that, how did you screen out all the skanks, gold diggers, and weirdos when you ran an ad to the masses?

Of course, now there was Portia, from downstairs. She was interesting, if you could overlook the awful apartment. Was it possible to like living in a place with cracked windows and uneven floors? And what was up with the sink? Big and deep, with the pipes showing underneath. Ariel could have sworn she had seen pictures in her social studies book of places like that from New York City in the Dark Ages.

Not a big plus, but the lady seemed to be available, and she didn’t have that gold digger look in her eye. No self-respecting gold digger would get anywhere near that run-down apartment.

But she was kind of cool, even though she was a horrible dancer. Her hair was a nice sort of curly, which Ariel liked. And boy, could she cook. Didn’t they say that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach?

Whatever, Ariel had to get this taken care of.

Miranda’s journal entries were getting weirder. She had gone from just drawing big teardrops all over a blank page to writing Life Sucks! And now she had moved on to I Hate Dad. No exclamation mark. Strangely, an exclamation mark would have made Ariel feel better about it. An exclamation mark meant emotion. Miranda’s journal didn’t seem to have an ounce of emotion in it anymore.

Ariel knew from experience that the clock was ticking before her sister did something stupid.

She wasn’t sure how she would hold on if another bad thing happened.

She was done with bad things. Seriously done.

Now she just needed the universe to listen to her.

Six

IF ANYONE HAD TOLD Portia a year ago that the only job she could get in New York City would be as a “hamburger,” she would have laughed and rolled her eyes. Not that she was much of an eye roller. But really? A hamburger? Could anyone with half a brain believe that a woman as smart as her could go from highly regarded Texas political wife to, well, hamburger?

But after two weeks of unsuccessful job hunting, that was exactly what she had done. Or rather, what she had become.

“Shoo!” Portia hissed, waddling down West Seventy-third Street as fast as the hamburger suit allowed, attempting to outpace the pack of little dogs that had escaped their dog walker.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thrown her heart into looking for a job. She had. She’d made calls and sent out résumés, but not a single person had been willing to so much as interview her. Sure, two weeks wasn’t that long in the scheme of things, but her bank account told a different tale. She needed money, sooner rather than later. Robert still hadn’t deposited the settlement in her account, and her savings were evaporating like a reservoir in the middle of a Texas dry spell.

As a result, she had jumped for joy when she received the e-mail from Angus Industries offering her a job in public relations. In hindsight, she should have wondered why they offered her employment without so much as an interview or a phone call. It turned out that Food Industries PR for Angus Industries hadn’t entailed any actual public relations work. Instead, when Portia arrived at the address provided, only a block away from her apartment, she found herself at Burger Boy, where she was handed a rubber hamburger suit and told to direct the public to the fast-food hellhole.

When Portia realized what the job entailed, she wanted to say no. A thousand different ways she should say no flashed through her mind. But her pride had to balance the staggering expense of living in New York. Was it possible that a two-dollar box of cereal in Texas cost five dollars in NYC?

End result?

She had pulled on the burger suit, though no sooner had the manager zipped her up than Portia thought it smelled strange. Mr. Burger Boy had assured her she was imagining things. But as she stood on Columbus Avenue trying to entice passersby with discount coupons, the unseasonably hot fall day beating down on her, the suit began to waft the aroma of charcoal-grilled burgers. Not long after that, the dogs that had been sitting clustered around their dog walker as he talked on his cell phone made a break for it and came after her, leashes flying in the wind, like buzzards sensing fresh kill.