The Daughter Merger. Janice Kay Johnson

her hard to read, somehow remote despite her unfailing friendliness and warmth. An unworthy part of him would have liked to see her veneer crack. Surely she got mad sometimes, had moments of being spiteful, passionate, tired. He wouldn’t mind seeing one.

      If for an instant he chose to imagine her not angry but passionate, her cheeks flushed, mouth soft, hair tangled, well, it wasn’t a picture he let linger in his mind.

      “Thank you,” he made himself say again. “Not just for dinner, but for—”

      “No.” A sharper note entered her voice. She closed her eyes, opened them again, said more quietly, “Please. We’ll both get sick of it if you feel you have to thank me every time you come. Let’s just consider it said, okay? I’m doing this for Claire’s sake, and for Linnet’s. I like kids, I’m comfortable with them. Having her is really no problem.”

      “Then good night.”

      He felt no less guilt, no less relief when he walked away this time.

      SLUMPED LOW IN HER SEAT in the darkened auditorium, Claire chewed on her fingernail and pretended to listen to the guy auditioning for Benedick.

      “‘Hath not the world,’ um—” he frowned at his script “‘—one man but he will wear his cap with sus…suspicion.”‘ He sounded it out carefully, then continued in the same monotone, one word at a time.

      Totally tuning him out, Claire focused on her terror. This was worse than hitchhiking. Way worse. Not that she couldn’t do better than all these morons who’d already gone. But still. There must be forty kids trying out for parts, and half of them had friends hanging out, too. They were all listening. She’d have to stand up there on the stage and face not only the two teachers sitting in the front row who were going to be director and assistant director, but half the school, too.

      So far nobody had been mean when someone screwed up, but probably they were all, like, buds. Everybody hated her. Claire knew they did. What if they laughed? Or booed?

      Her stomach cramped and she had to scramble out of her seat, whispering, “Excuse me, excuse me,” six times to get to the aisle and race to the bathroom.

      When she got back, a totally cute ninth-grade guy who was also—wouldn’t you know—president of the student body was reading Benedick. Josh Mc-Kendrick was really good. You could tell he actually understood what he was saying.

      “‘I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter,”‘ he declared. And then, with a scowl, he demanded of Claudio, “‘But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?”‘

      Please, please, please, she whispered to herself. It would be so cool to play Beatrice to his Benedick. People would look at her differently. Like she was cool.

      This was taking forever. Finally they finished with the guys and started on girls reading for Hero. Linnet went sixth. Her voice was too soft, but she stood straight, without fidgeting, and read, “‘But nature never fram’d a woman’s heart, Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.”‘

      Claire thought she was the best. Hero was sweet. Well, wimpy. Claire hated to agree with her father, but he was right; that’s why she didn’t want to be Hero. This guy treats her really badly, and then she falls into his arms when he realizes he was wrong about her? Yeah, right.

      “We’ll start with those reading for Beatrice now,” the director said. “Jessica Wisniewski? You go first, please.”

      Jessica was one of the popular girls. She grabbed the script and sauntered out on stage in her flare jeans and peasant blouse, tiny crystal butterflies sparkling in her hair. The scene Mrs. Hinchen was having them read was from near the end, when Claudio had spurned Hero and Beatrice was mad.

      “‘I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”‘ Jessica sounded like she was gossiping with her friends. She kept giggling.

      “Thank you,” Mrs. Hinchen said hastily, interrupting before Jessica could go on to Beatrice’s next speech. “Lacy Parker, you’re up next.”

      Claire’s hands were sweating. She couldn’t do this, she thought desperately. She didn’t have to! This wasn’t her thing, it was Linnet’s. The only reason she’d opened her big mouth and agreed to audition was…

      Her father.

      “I didn’t bother to try out,” she’d have to tell him. Which was exactly what he expected.

      No. She’d go up there if it killed her.

      Which it might.

      “Claire Whitcomb?”

      Her knees were jelly when she stood up and started down the aisle. She stumbled over somebody’s book bag and heard a whispered sorry. It seemed to take forever to get to the front row. She took the script in stiff fingers, then tripped again on the stairs going up to the stage. If anybody laughed…Claire turned and faced the audience with a glare.

      Silence.

      She could see faces better than she’d expected. Linnet had moved up closer to the front and was smiling encouragement. Josh McKendrick was whispering something to Jessica Wisniewski. The door at the back opened and a man came in, letting it ease shut behind him.

      Claire gaped. Her father. What was he doing here?

      She stole a glance at the clock. Five o’clock. This was taking forever. He must have sat in the car for ages and then decided to hunt for them.

      But, oh wow. Wasn’t he lucky, arriving just in time to watch his darling daughter? He stood unmoving at the back, waiting for her to make a fool of herself.

      “Claire?” Mrs. Hinchen prompted.

      Claire moistened her lips and looked at the script. For a moment the words on it were all a blur. She absolutely could not do this.

      You can! she told herself. Deep breath. Show everybody. Especially him.

      Mrs. Hinchen had highlighted Beatrice’s speeches with a hot pink marker. Another deep breath, and Claire focused on the opening lines. She’d already heard them over and over.

      You can.

      “‘Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman! O! that I were a man.”‘

      Mom had always complained that even her whisper could be heard two blocks away. Now Claire let her scathing voice soar to the back, to her father. She let her bitterness be Beatrice’s.

      “‘O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.”‘

      It came more easily. A sense of power flooded her veins and made her giddy. She was better than Jessica Wisniewski. Better than anyone. She was dazzling her father, who had been so sure she couldn’t do it.

      Still facing the audience proudly, Claire finished at last, a heartfelt, anguished cry, “‘I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”‘

      Her voice seemed to linger in her ears, if not the air. In the long moment of silence that followed, her confidence drained from her with a whoosh, and heat rose in her cheeks.

      She’d made a fool of herself. Nobody else had acted. If you were cool, you didn’t.

      But then, suddenly, kids were clapping. As she stared, incredulous, somebody—Josh McKendrick—stood. Others joined him. They were giving her—her—a standing ovation. Dazed, she kept standing there.

      Mrs. Hinchen’s smile was broad, approving. And her father—Claire’s gaze sought the back of the auditorium.

      Her father was gone.

      He probably hadn’t even stayed to watch. Unexpected anger gave her the courage to grin, wave and walk nonchalantly off the stage.

      Without tripping.