Capri Calling

Her cell phone rang as she was crossing the parking lot. Peyton’s heart gave a tiny leap. Porter, finally. She’d reached an all-time humiliating low in leaving him three unreturned messages last week. She frantically rifled through her bag, grabbed her phone, then took a deep, steadying breath and lowered her voice to one of studied nonchalance.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me. Are you in the middle of your interview?”

Her ten-year-old sister Capri. Peyton felt the last bit of hope rush out of her like the air leaving a balloon.

Capri had had the bad luck to have been born when the hot trend was to name your child after the place he or she was conceived. Hence the multitude of little Dakotas, Romes, Madrids, and even Yankee (as in Yankee Stadium —apparently the handicapped stall was surprisingly commodious— although who really needed to know that?) running around the choicest private schools in Manhattan. Fortunately for their offspring, most of these parents had divorced so many times over it was impossible to imagine them in the same room together, let alone intimate enough to conceive a child.

“Did you get the job?” Capri’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Cool! Do my friends and I get free food?”

“No.”

“Hmm... Maybe just an ice cream or something, right?”

“What do you want?”

“I need a ride to the pool at the rec.”

“Let Dad take you.”

“He’s got a meeting with his lawyer. He said you said—”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Silence. Peyton could picture Capri on the other end, her brows knit together in a frown. She was six years younger, but an uncanny miniature of Peyton herself: petite, golden blond hair, big blue eyes. This, despite the fact they had different mothers. Breeding, her grandmother had called it. Good bone structure. Right. More like an insatiable, serial appetite on her father’s part for marrying petite, blue-eyed blondes with hefty trust funds.

“Are you still p-i-s-t at Dad?”

Peyton sighed. “Pissed at Dad about what?”

“For losing all his money. Putting the apartment in the city up for sale. For having to get a job.”

“Capri—”

“Well? Are you?”

Peyton slid behind the wheel of her car but didn’t start it. She watched Karly fire up an old pickup with more rust on it than paint and pull out of the drive, heading south.

“Pey?”

“I’m not mad. It’s complicated. And besides, he didn’t lose all his money. You know what he said. This is just a temporary ‘cash crunch.’ Everything will be fine once—”

“I could care less if we’re poor. I’m not like you.”

Peyton gave an inelegant snort. “Yeah, right. Wait till you can’t do your back-to- school shopping at Abercrombie or get front row passes for your little tweener concerts. You think that was all free?”

Another silence. Peyton immediately regretted the dig. It was a knee-jerk reaction, but she knew better than to take her frustration out on Capri. None of this was her fault. “Capri, listen—”

“Did Porter call today?”

Peyton’s breath caught. “What? Porter? No, why? Did he leave a message for me at home? Why didn’t you tell me—”

“I didn’t think so.” In the background, the muffled sound of paper and pen. “That’s eight days in a row, you know.”

“What?”

“I’ve been keeping track, in case you weren’t. You left him at least two messages, right? I told you he was a jerk. He’s obviously dumping you. You have to break up with him first.”

“Are you kidding me? That is so completely none of your business—”

“Plus, his name isn’t good for you. Porter. What a stupid name. Put it with yours and say it three times fast. Porter-Peyton. Porter-Peyton. Porter-Peyton. Sounds like Porta-Potty, doesn’t it? Why would you want to date a toilet?”