Desperate for Approval novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Three Packs of Tissues
Britta's father interrogates her over a video call about three packs of tissues while his other daughter sips a five-dollar coffee; after he approves part of her allowance she files for financial aid, and at midnight he texts that she must withdraw it or lose the money.
Dad grinned at his camera and said hello with a big wave, the way he did every first-of-the-month call.
"Britta Holm! Good to see you. Now, I have your receipt here. Three packs of tissues."
I was sitting on my dorm bed with the laptop on my knees.
My roommate was at her desk across the room, and she took one earbud out.
"They were on sale, Dad. Three packs for four dollars."
"I didn't ask what they cost. I asked why you bought three."
He sat in his leather chair in the den, the one with the Holm Motors plaque on the wall behind it.
"Are you planning to finish three packs of tissues in a month, or are you hiding things from me?"
"I have a cold coming," I said. "And the packs were cheaper together."
Behind him, my brother Brandon leaned in so his face filled the corner of the screen.
He was laughing so hard that his shoulders shook.
"Dad, go easy. She's going to cry on the first call of the semester."
On the couch, my half-sister Kelsey lifted a cup of iced coffee and let the straw crunch between her teeth.
The cafe near their house sells that size for five dollars.
I know because I looked it up once, and then felt stupid for looking.
"Britta, don't take it personally," Kelsey said. "Dad just doesn't want you to grow up spoiled. You didn't learn about money in the city."
Dad did not look at her.
He never looked at her cup.
"Open the cost breakdown," he said to me. "Rewrite it. I want every line more detailed than the last one."
"I sent it on Friday."
"Lunches are rounded. Laundry is rounded. Your phone plan is thirty-five dollars, and I want to know who you are talking to that much."
"Grandma Gerlaine," I said. "Mostly Grandma."
"Then she can talk less."
My roommate put her other earbud down on the desk.
I felt my face go hot, because she was hearing it, and because Dad could see her do it.
"Dad, do I have to do the whole thing again?"
His mouth went flat.
"You're embarrassed now. You weren't embarrassed when you were spending."
Marla leaned into the frame from the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a towel.
She wore the thin gold bangle she'd bought in the spring.
"Britta, sweetheart, Dale is only looking out for you," she said. "Girls your age get carried away, and then the money's gone."
I wanted to say I had never carried away anything.
My canvas bag had a zipper Grandma had mended twice.
My left sneaker had come off its sole in September, and I had glued it back with a tube from the hardware store.
The lady at the dining hall always gave me an extra scoop because I only ever bought the cheapest tray.
I did not say any of it.
When I explained myself, Dad called it making excuses.
When I stayed quiet, he called it guilt.
I opened the spreadsheet and typed it again, row by row, with my roommate pretending not to listen.
Bread. Soup. Bus pass. Laundry. Soap, shampoo, pads, painkillers.
Every one of them was something I needed.
Fifteen minutes later my phone buzzed with a transfer for eight hundred dollars.
It came from the same account as always, the one called KH Fund.
Dad kept money in so many accounts that I had stopped asking what any of them were.
His message came right after.
[Approved in part. The other four hundred will be released on review of your conduct.]
I read it twice.
Then I did what I did every month, which was stop and remember how I got here.
I was three when Mom died, and Grandma took me into her house in Pell Creek.
Dad came every New Year's Eve, patted my head and said, "Be good, Britta. I'll bring you home as soon as things settle down."
Then he built a house in the city, and Brandon got his own room, and Kelsey got a closet that was a room itself.
I was still in Pell Creek.
For years I thought the city lights were too far for him to see me.
At eleven that night I opened his social page, which I told myself I wouldn't do.
He had posted nine photos.
A beach.
A hotel pool.
Brandon in new sneakers.
Kelsey holding up a camera she hadn't had in August.
Marla's bangle.
The caption said: [If my children want something, they'll have it, as long as I can afford it.]
I looked at the word children for a long time.
I wasn't in a single picture, and I wasn't in the word either.
It wasn't that he couldn't see me.
I just wasn't on the list.
The tube of toothpaste on my desk was flat, and I had rolled it up tight.
I opened a new window instead.
The university's financial aid portal had been sitting in my bookmarks since August.
I had never clicked past the first page, because the form asked about my parents, and I'd been waiting to be allowed.
I clicked.
I filled in every field, and when it asked who supported me, I typed the truth, which was my grandmother.
I pressed submit at 11:52.
So I stopped waiting for his list.
At 12:09 my phone buzzed again.
[The school just emailed me about an aid form with your name on it. Withdraw it tomorrow. If you don't, the eight hundred goes back.]
I stared at the text.
Then I turned the phone face down on the desk and left the form where it was.
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