I flush the toilet, wash my hands, leave the bathroom, and step outside to make the call.
The early-evening sky has a summery glow, the heat dense except when the breeze billows off the water. I sweep my hair off my neck into a bun and hit the call button.
“Heeeey, kid,” Dad says.
I bypass my own hello. “Is everything okay?”
“What do you mean?” he says.
“Is there some kind of emergency?” Then, to his nonresponse, I say, “You called me three times. Were they pocket dials?”
“No, no, no,” he says. “I just wanted to wish you luck. Or break a leg, or whatever is apropos for this situation.”
“What situation?” I ask.
“Your big . . . thing tonight,” he says. “The library thing!”
I can’t think of a single thing to say.
“Sorry we had to hightail it out of there, by the way,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I didn’t expect anything else.”
Dad laughs. “That’s what I tried to tell him. I said, I know my kid, and she doesn’t get hung up on that kind of thing. He seems to think you’re some kind of high-strung neurotic type. I mean, he must, or he wouldn’t have—”
“Wait, wait,” I say. “What are you talking about?”
“Your boyfriend,” he says.
“Peter?”
“The new guy,” he says. “Miles.”
I massage my brow. “Dad, I already told you, Miles is just a friend.”
“Well, that’s what I thought,” he says brightly, like I’ve just proved a point for him, or maybe won him a bet. “But the way he was talking—”
“Dad. I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A moment of silence. “He didn’t tell you?”
I have neither time nor energy to play Twenty Questions. “Tell me what.”
“That he was driving up to see us,” he says.
“Driving up to see you?” I repeat.
“Two weeks ago,” he says. “After we left. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you since then.”
I’m so lost. I guess I am going to play Twenty Questions. “Came up where?”
“The island,” he says. “Mackinac. Guess he left me a voice mail first, but who checks those?”
Me, I think.
Mom.
Probably a huge percentage of the world.
“Anyway, he came up and chewed me out about us having to leave early,” Dad says with a distinct air of Can you believe that?
It’s a creative use of the phrase “having to leave.”
As if he were driven out of town at gunpoint, or took an emergency flight home to be with a dying pet.
“Kid tried to guilt us into driving all the way back down to you before we headed out to meet Starfire’s family. Really upset her with the things he was saying about me, Daph. She didn’t talk to me for like half the next day. Caused all sorts of problems.”
“Wh-when did you say this happened?” I say, still reeling.
“Well, he showed up the Monday before last,” he says. “And missed the final ferry back, so we had to ask Christopher if he could stay the night. Pretty uncomfortable situation he put us in.”
“Christopher?” At this point, I really just need a buzzer to hit every time he says something that elicits a series of ???? from me.
“Our buddy!” Dad says. “The one we met at the dunes, who’s got this great house up there. And a hotel. House is putting it lightly, though. I don’t know if this guy is really an investor like he said or if that was code for mob don, but . . .” He whistles his amazement.
Well, if your dad’s going to ditch you for someone he just met, and there’s no hostage situation involved, he could at least have the decency to stay in a mansion paid for with cocaine and shakedowns.
“Dad, I have to go,” I say. “My event’s starting any minute.”
