GBVE: Diana Peterfreund

ATTENTION: Before Reading, get information about the Great Blog Voice Experiment here.

The topic: “A young woman confronts her parents after discovering she has inherited telekinetic powers.”
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The best thing about Botox is that it makes people incapable of looking as angry at you as they are. My dad rallied, but the most he could muster was a little twitch around the eyebrow region.

“So.” He tilted forward on his leather executive chair and steepled his hands on the carved teak desk. “Care to explain what that was all about?”

I picked at a cuticle and shrugged. “Was kind of hoping you and mom would fill in the blanks for me.”

My mother, beside me on the couch, touched my arm gently. Her fingers felt coarse and callused against my skin. There were tired lines around her eyes and her lipstick had long since worn away. How different she looked from my father, whose face was as smooth (and almost as orange) as a Jack O’Lantern.

“Sweetheart, I know it’s difficult for you these past few months, but your father and I—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Gabrielle interrupted. She pointed at me with a wickedly long, wickedly red fingernail. “Steve, your adult daughter is a menace, not some kid playing a prank because her parents split up. My maid of honor is in the hospital and you two want to treat this girl like she’s a six-year-old who broke her sister’s Barbie!”

“She’s practically a Barbie,” I grumbled. And Gabrielle could have been my sister.

What kind of person dressed for their engagement party like they were strolling Hollywood Boulevard in search of johns? My ersatz stepmom wore a miniskirt cut so high on the bottom and so low on top that I’d wear it as a belt, and her brand new double D’s (25th birthday present from my dad) strained credibility and the flimsy knit material of her tube top.

Above her, my dad’s largest golfing trophy wobbled precariously on its shelf. Ah, looks like I was getting my strength back.

“What I want to know,” my mom said, “is why you people think my 110 pound daughter could topple a thousand-pound ice sculpture.”

“She confessed.”

My mother turned to me, incredulous, which meant it was time for another shrug.

“I confessed.” Wobble wobble wobble. I wondered idly if the trophy would land golfer-up or golfer-down, and, if the latter, if it would puncture Gabrielle’s thick skull. (Hey, don’t look at me. My power apparently has a mind of its own, and a vengeful one at that. ) “You guys would have figured out what happened eventually, seeing as how I’ve been 20 for three weeks.”

My dad shook his head, but his expression never wavered. “What are you talking about?”

“The gypsy at my birthday party. She said I’d inherit my family’s telekinetic powers at 20, and ever since hitting the big 2-0, it’s been Poltergeist in my apartment. I can’t control it. And obviously you guys can. So I want to know how. How do you keep getting all those holes in one, Dad? I turned to my mom. “How are you really weaving all those tapestries?”

For the first time in months, my parent’s eyes met, and, Botox be damned, the expression on my dad’s face was every bit as shocked as my mom’s.

“Um, Gabriellle?” my dad said. “Can you excuse us for a moment, please?”

She threw her hands in the air. “Fabulous! You want me to live with fucking Carrie for a stepdaughter, but I don’t get a say in it. Three words, Steve: Breach. Of. Contract.”

A moment after she left, the marble golfer toppled. Damn. I’d have to work on my timing.

We all three stared at my father’s wreck of a trophy. Then my dad cleared his throat. “You really inherited uncontrollable telekinetic powers?”

“Duh.”

He slammed his fist down. “I knew we got a bargain for a reason. Fine, we weren’t good candidates, but look what you get on the black market!”

“Steve—” my mom said, in that difficult voice.

“No, I knew it. I just knew it. Didn’t I say that we should shop around?”

“What?!?” I looked at my mom.

“Here’s the thing, honey,” my mom said gently. “If you inherited anything, it wasn’t from us.” She bit her lip. “You’re adopted.”
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Watch for Diana Peterfreund’s debut, Secret Society Girl, out this July from Delacorte Press.