A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [84]
She didn’t even bother to pretend to be calm. “I have to get a letter from the freakin’ university to find out my daughter is flunking out of college?”
“Who is this? Cici? How did you get this number?”
“I gave birth to your child. That entitles me to your cell phone number.”
“Listen, babe, this isn’t a very good time—”
“Don’t you ‘babe’ me! What in the hell are you doing out there? Did anyone ever explain to you that the word parent is also a verb?”
“Okay, sweets, I’m about to lose you. Coming up on a tunnel here—”
“There are no tunnels in Los Angeles!” she screamed. Lindsay came in through the front door, and gave her a look of undisguised concern. Cici turned away, lowering her voice. “I swear to God, Richard, if you hang up on me—”
“Okay, okay, let’s just do this. I’ve got lunch at Spago in ten minutes and Mel Gibson waiting in my office.”
“Jesus!” Cici blew out an explosive breath and turned around again. Lindsay, sorting through the mail that remained on the entry table, raised both eyebrows in question. Cici fanned her face with her hand and tried to sound—and, for Lindsay’s sake, to look—calm. “That kind of talk might impress a twenty-year-old but it does nothing for me. Did you even know she had two incompletes and one failing grade last semester? Doesn’t it bother you that you just paid for half a year of exactly zero course credits?”
Lindsay patted her arm sympathetically as she left the room, and Richard replied, “Oh, come off it, Cici. Like Lori is the first kid to ever have a little trouble with school.”
“She was an honor student when she lived with me. Did you know she changed her major?”
“Again?” But before Cici could even question that, he said, “Last I heard, that was not grounds for expulsion from UCLA. In fact, some people actually encourage young people to explore their options in college. Some people even think that’s what college is for.”
“I happen to think college is for getting an education!”
“Remind me again why we’re not still married?”
“Did you know she’s in love with one of her professors?”
He chuckled. “Not exactly the kind of thing a girl tells her dad, sweetheart. Although from what I can tell, Lori’s in love with a new guy every week.”
Cici felt a stab in her heart because she did not know this, and because Richard didn’t even care, and because even though she knew perfectly well that this was all a part of being young, she didn’t want her baby to grow up without her.
She said, “And you’re letting her go to Italy with this guy in the spring?”
That piece of information apparently gave him pause. Obviously, he had not bothered to make the connection between the professor, the change of major, and the trip to Italy. And that was exactly the problem.
Then he said, “Come on, Cici, by spring she won’t even remember this guy’s name. Could you lighten up just one time?”
There were a dozen things she would have liked to have said in response to that; no, a hundred. It was with the greatest possible effort that she let it go. She said instead, “I want Lori to come home for Christmas.”
“So tell her.”
“I did. She said you had made other plans.”
“What can I tell you, babe? Sounds like she’s made her choice.”
“You call that a choice? Aspen, celebrities, skiing, A-list parties? She spends her entire life without a father, and all of a sudden there you are, offering her the world. What’s she supposed to do? For crying