Bloody Lover | Piper McLean

CHAPTER 11 : Dreams

PIPER

Piper dreamt of the last day she had spent with her father.

They were at the beach in California, near Big Sur, relaxing between surfing sessions. The morning had been so delightful that Piper knew a bad plan was imminent -- a horde of excited paparazzi or even a white shark attack. Her luck couldn't last.

So far, they'd had excellent waves, leaden skies, and a mile of beach all to themselves. Her father had found this secluded spot and rented a waterfront villa, plus the properties on the left and right, and he had managed to keep it a secret. Piper knew that if they stayed too long, the photographers would find him. They always found him.

"You did well on those rolls, Pip's !" He flashed her the smile that had made him famous: perfect teeth, a dimple in the hollow of his chin, and that sparkle that made women beg him to sign his autograph in indelible ink on their bodies. Pathetic, Piper thought. Buy yourself a brain, girls. The seawater made his brush-cut hair sparkle. "You're holding on a lot longer now."

Piper blushed with pride, even though she suspected her father was just saying that to please him. It took a special kind of talent to ride a surfboard over yourself. Her father, on the other hand, was a born surfer, unmatched on the rollers -- unbelievable, for a guy who had lived a poor childhood in Oklahoma, hundreds of miles from the ocean. Piper would have given up surfing a long time ago, if it didn't allow her to spend time with her dad. She had so few opportunities to see him.

"A sandwich ?" His father dipped his hand into the picnic basket prepared by his cook, Arno. "Let's see...white turkey with pesto, crab with wasabi...ah, and a Piper's special. Peanut butter and grape jelly."

Her stomach was churned, but she took the sandwich. She always asked for a peanut butter-grape jelly. For one thing, Piper was a vegetarian. And that was from the day they drove past a slaughterhouse: the smell made her sick. But there was something else. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a simple thing, an ordinary sandwich like any young American might eat for lunch. Sometimes she liked to tell herself that it was her father who made it for her, not some private chef from France who wrapped the sandwiches in gold foil and stuck them with a magic mini-spoon instead of a toothpick.

Why did everything always have to be so fancy ? Piper, who dreamed of simplicity, always refused the designer clothes and shoes that her father always gave her, as well as the beauty treatments at the salon. She cut her own hair with a pair of plastic scissors, deliberately making irregular strands. She preferred to wear worn-out tennis shoes, jeans, a T-shirt and her old fleece, which she had had since the time they went snowboarding.

And she hated the private schools her father sent her to. Such snobs, all those institutes ! Piper always got kicked out, and her father always found another school like that.

The day before, she had pulled off the biggest " theft " of her young career: she had left a car dealership in a " borrowed " BMW. She had to hit harder each time, because it always took more to get her father's attention.

She regretted it now. Her father didn't know yet.

She had planned to tell him this morning. He had surprised her with a trip to the sea and she hadn't had the heart to spoil it. It was the first time they'd spent an entire day together in... what, three months ?

"What's wrong ?" her father asked, handing her a can of soda.

"Dad, there's something..."

"Just a second, Pip's. Now that's a serious face. Are you ready for the Three Questions Game ?"

They had been playing it for years. It was her father's way of keeping the connection alive in a minimum of time. They were allowed to ask each other three questions, any three questions. Within reason, of course. And they had to answer honestly. The rest of the time, her father agreed to stay out of her business, which wasn't hard since he was never around.