15. June
15
JUNE
I did it. I managed to keep my mouth shut for a whole day about anything serious. Me and Anderson had a nice night at home, complete with snuggling and talking about day before bed. We pretended to be a normal couple, and not just for whoever might be listening, but also for ourselves. It was a luxury, and we both know it, but like the hotel room, we needed the artifice of that.
Today, though, I’m back in the line of fire. Or at least, that’s what it feels like when I see Mitch. Dad. Whatever, I’ve decided to call him now.
It’s still strange to think of him as Dad, even though I do. After he totally upended our lives when I was a kid, Mitch was what I had relegated him to. But he’s making an effort to fix his life, and that includes a relationship with me, evidently. How can I crap on that?
Experience, my bitter inner monologue says. But I’m trying to get at least one thing right in my life, and if that ends up being my relationship with my father, then so be it.
He’s taken me to another fancy lunch—Dock 814, this time. It’s a seafood joint on the water, and each time Dad takes me somewhere nice, it is still a strange thing for my brain to wrap around. When I was a kid, we weren’t even middle class. He was too busy spending his ill-gotten gains on his mistresses instead of me and Mom, so it was a childhood of boxed macaroni and cheese and basic cable only on the months we could afford it. Sitting here with Dad is surreal.
Over oysters, he asks, “So, how is engagement treating you?”
“Good, thanks. Honestly, things between me and Anderson have never been better.” Because I’m keeping things from him.
“Glad to hear it. He better keep treating my daughter like the prize she is.”
“Oh, now you’re protective of me?”
He smiles but frowns at the same time. Happy, wide lips but a line in his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember the time you had me steal Mrs. Flanagan’s apples?”
He laughs. “That old bat was just letting them rot. It wasn’t right.”
“Yeah, and you made me go get them because you knew she wouldn’t shoot a kid.”
“You know you were never in any danger. She would have never?—"
“I was seven!” I say with a laugh. “All I knew was what you and Mom always said about her. That she was crazy and armed. I mean, I know now, but at the time … ” I shake my head, still smiling at the memory. “At the time, I was sure I’d get shot for a backpack full of fruit.”
“They were really good apples if I recall. Might have been worth it.”
I laugh and smack his hand. “You jerk.”
He grins. “And you were never shot, so I think we came out ahead on that score.”
“Nuh-uh. When she found me and dragged me into her house, I damn near peed myself.”
“Aw, poor kid. I never meant for you to get caught.”
I shrug. “Well, I did. But I never told you about what happened after that.”
He thinks for a moment. “I don’t think so. What happened?”
When I think about it, I can still smell the inside of that crazy woman’s house. She was a hoarder, so there were stacks of newspapers lining the walls, and some of them had gone to rot. “She showed me her shotgun?—"
“No!”
I nod. “And she showed me that she had no ammo for it. Just that she liked to wave it around to scare people off. She asked if I was hungry, and I said yes because I was, but looking back on it, I think she meant going hungry. She said I couldn’t steal again, but if I was hungry, then I was welcome to come get a couple of apples for myself whenever.”
“That mean woman did that for you?”
“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure she’s the one who started dropping off those anonymous bags of groceries that showed up sometimes.”
He smiles and lets out a sad sigh. “Well, hell. I’ve been thinking about her all wrong this whole time. Guess you can’t judge a book?—"
“She’s still the same woman who pointed a shotgun at children to scare them, so don’t go getting the warm and fuzzies for her just yet.”
“Eh, still. She tried to help my family when I should have been doing exactly that. I can’t hate her anymore.”
It makes me incredibly happy whenever he says things like that. It shouldn’t, and I know that. Acknowledging his failures counts as doing the bare minimum. But not long ago, he didn’t even do that, so I see it as big progress for him. And what can I say? He’s my dad. I want to see him do better.
If he can get redemption, maybe there’s hope for me, too.
“Okay, sure. Old Mrs. Flanagan gets a little redemption for helping us. Do you remember her Christmas decorations?”
He laughs. “That sad string of red lights around her railing that made it look like she was either running a winter brothel or beckoning the devil to her door? Yep. Hard to forget it. Every time she came out to yell at people in her winter coat and bathrobe and curlers, she was underlit in red and looked like the crotchetiest demon this side of hell.”
“But it was festive,” I say, laughing.
“Certainly put Mr. Bryson in the holiday spirit. That codger was her best-paying customer.”
I roll my eyes. “Dad, she wasn’t running a brothel.”
“I guess it’s not a brothel when it’s just one sex worker.” He shrugs and gobbles an oyster.
“You don’t … she wasn’t … no.”
Slowly, he nods. “You didn’t know?”
“She was a thousand years old!”
He laughs. “She was somewhere in her seventies.”
“A seventy-something sex worker? You’re pulling my chain.”
“I wish. But Mr. Bryson was more than happy to brag about what she could do when she took out her dentures and?—"
I plug my ears. “La, la, la, I do not need to hear that. You are ruining my childhood.”
He laughs, and we order post-lunch cocktails. Once the server leaves, he says, “I’m glad you said ruin ing your childhood.”
“What do you mean?”
“That means I didn’t ruin it back then.”
Oof. My heart. “No, Dad. You didn’t. I mean, I definitely had to grow up way too fast, and there are things I’m still … processing. But I had good times as a kid.”
“Mixed in with the bad.”
I nod. “Pretty sure that’s a fitting description of most people’s childhoods, though. I imagine yours was a mixed bag, too.” He never talks about his youth, and one day, I’d like the story.
“I suppose you’re right. Everyone has a childhood with ups and downs.” Our drinks come, and we sip in contemplative silence for a few minutes. It is not the awkward silence we used to have, though. Progress. Dad asks, “How are things at work?”
“I killed my presentation this week on one hour of sleep, so I have that going for me.”
“That’s my kid. Devlins do well under pressure.”
Good thing, too. “Guess so.”
“And your boss is Andre Moeller, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I was hoping you could introduce me to him.”
Fuck. There go all the warm feelings and all the happy thoughts of my father just wanting to be my dad again. He’s been buttering me up this whole time, and it feels like betrayal. I grit my jaw. “Is that what all of this has been about? Getting in good with me to connect with Andre?—"
“What? No!” He looks offended, and I’m not sure if I’m happy about that. “June, we are family. I just thought since you work for the guy, you could do me a favor. But if that’s too much to ask, if it’s so soon in our reconciliation that you think it’s not on the up and up, then forget about it. I have loved getting to reconnect with you, and no multimillion-dollar business deal is worth jeopardizing my relationship with you. So, just forget I asked, okay?”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap. This is the trouble with my father. I can never get a solid read on the guy. “What deal are you talking about?”
“Don’t worry about it. This is my problem. Not yours. Dessert?”
“Dad, if there’s a problem, then let me help you. Are you having trouble at work?”
He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I just need to land a big account, and Andre Moeller’s law firm would be perfect for that. We’d handle the digital marketing and … ” He shakes his head. “Never mind. We are not here for business. You are my daughter, and I never should have asked.”
I should let this go. I know it. But he’s my dad, and if I can help him, I feel like I should. Still, I need more details. “How did you even get a job there, anyway? Given your record and all that.”
He leans in and quietly admits, “I may have changed my name and fudged my job history?—"
“Dad!”
“But only because I knew I could do the work. And I’ve been there for years, so I was right about that. Besides, no one checks that kind of thing. They just want to know what you can do for them.”
I sigh at myself as well as out loud. “Give me a little time, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Junebug.”
What’s one more infraction on my formerly spotless record?