Desperate for Approval novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Inspection

Dale and Marla search Britta's dorm room in front of the whole hall, photographing her tissues and glued sneaker; Marla begs her to just say sorry, and Britta tells them to get out. Dale answers that her three-thousand-dollar housing fee is due Monday.

They knocked at ten on Saturday morning, and Dad did not wait for me to answer.

He pushed the door wide and stood in the frame with his keys in his hand.

The hallway behind him was full of girls in pajamas on their way to the showers.

They slowed down when they saw him.

"Britta Holm," Dad said. "Is this the room?"

"Yes."

"Where do you sleep?"

I pointed at the bed with the gray blanket.

Marla stepped in after him with a foil-covered pan in her arms.

"Hi, sweetheart. I made lasagna. You look thin."

She kissed my cheek, and she smelled like the vanilla lotion she always wore.

I took the pan and said thank you, because she had driven four hours to bring it.

Dad was already at my desk.

He picked up the stack of notebooks, put them down and opened the top drawer.

My roommate stood up from her chair.

"Excuse me, you can't just go through her things."

"I'm her father," Dad said without turning around. "I pay for the things in this room."

"Not this month," I said.

It came out before I could stop it.

He turned slowly and looked at me.

The girls in the hall had stopped pretending to walk.

"Where is the money going?" he said. "Show me the receipts."

"I don't have receipts anymore. I stopped keeping them for you."

"Then show me what you've bought."

He went to the shelf over my bed and found the three packs of tissues.

He took out his phone, and he photographed them from above, one pack at a time.

He opened my closet and photographed the glued sneaker, holding it up by the heel.

"Superglue," he said. "Does this look like what a young woman needs to wear on campus?"

"It's what I can afford."

"You can afford what I give you."

"You gave me nothing on Monday."

Marla set her bangled hand on his arm.

"Dale. Let's sit. Let's just eat."

He shook her off.

He pulled my wallet out of my bag and counted what was in it.

Forty-one dollars and the sixty I owed my roommate.

"Where did you get this?"

"I work at the library."

"Doing what?"

"Shelving books."

"That's what you're proud of? Shelving books for fourteen dollars an hour?" He laughed once, short and flat. "You think you've won something. Everyone is watching you play at being independent."

A girl at the door whispered something, and another one nodded.

Dad heard.

I watched his face change as he realized he was the one being watched.

He put my wallet down very carefully on the desk.

Marla came to my side and lowered her voice.

"Britta, honey. Just say you're sorry. It's the easiest thing in the world, and then it all goes back to how it was."

"How it was?"

"The allowance. The calls. Everything."

I looked at the pan of lasagna in my arms and at the gold bangle on her wrist.

I thought of every call where she had stood in the doorway and said nothing until the end.

"I don't want it back like it was," I said.

Her face went still.

Dad had heard that, too.

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to get out of my room."

Nobody moved.

My roommate crossed her arms.

Two girls in the hall had their phones up.

"Get out," I said again. "Please. You can take the lasagna back, I'll still say thank you."

Dad's jaw worked.

"You will regret this tone."

"I might."

He picked up his keys from my desk and walked to the door.

The girls moved aside for him, and not one of them looked at him.

Marla followed, and she took the pan from my hands, and for a second I thought she might say something kind.

She only touched my sleeve and went after him.

At the end of the corridor, Dad stopped and spoke without turning around, loud enough for the whole floor.

"Your housing fee is due Monday. Three thousand one hundred dollars."

"I know when it's due."

"Then you know where it comes from. Write me a proper apology, in full, by Sunday night, or you can sleep in your library."

The elevator doors opened and closed behind them.

My roommate shut the door and leaned on it.

"Your dad is a lot."

I sat on the bed beside the glued shoe he had left on the pillow.

"Yes," I said. "He is."

And I knew he would not stop at a lecture.

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