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“You received a traffic fine in the mail.”
A
“It says something about reckless driving and destruction of property. I taught you how to drive better than that.”
“I learned to drive from Mom,” A
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means. It means you don’t get to reinvent my history.”
“You don’t have to worry about it, anyway,” he said, waving at the ticket. “I give to the sheriff’s charity every year. They know me. They’ll look the other way.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works, Dad.”
Fine: $150!
“Of course that’s how it works. What were you doing behind the wheel? Drinking and driving?”
“No, but I’m thinking about taking that up.”
He didn’t react because he never listened to her. The other person’s role in a conversation with Dick Navarre was to kill time while he was deciding what to say next.
In all their years of marriage he had probably heard about 3 percent of what her mother ever had to say. Her opinion had meant nothing to him, nor had A
“Really, honey,” her mother had said. “Daddy wants to hear about your day at school.”
A
She regretted saying it instantly only because her honesty had hurt her mother. Her father probably couldn’t say what grade she taught now because what she did was of no interest to him, even though he had been a teacher himself. The ultimate narcissist, it only mattered to him that she took care of the things he needed taken care of.
“You’re late,” he said. “Again. What’s your excuse tonight?”
“I’ve been recruited by the FBI to work undercover in this murder investigation.”
He looked a
“Yes, they do. It’s 1985, Dad. We have the right to vote and everything.”
“Ha. Very fu
A
“Of course I did. I’m not senile. I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”
“Good. In that case, I’ll be moving out next week.”
She looked into the plastic case that held his pills for the day. He hadn’t taken half of them. If she asked him why not, he would undoubtedly tell her it was because he once read an article in The New England Journal of Medicine while waiting for his dermatologist to remove a mole, and therefore knew more about the subject of pharmaceuticals than any one of the three medical specialists he saw.
“Maybe you can get a girlfriend,” A
“I don’t know why you go on like that,” he groused. “I was a very good husband.”
“Really?” she said, coming back into the dining room. “To whom?”
“You always took your mother’s side.”
“Yes. Damn but that I didn’t inherit that amoral gene of yours. My life would be so much easier.”
“Are you finished?” he asked coolly. “I’m going next door to watch Jeopardy! The Ivers are such a lovely family.”
A
“Not to her face.”
“Well, that makes all the difference. Here,” she said, handing him a fistful of pills and a glass of water. “I’m not letting you out the door until you take those.”
“I don’t know why you bother,” he complained. “You’d be happier if I was dead.”
“Yes, but I’m such an obvious suspect.”
“I’m sure your new friends at the FBI would take care of you.”
“It would make a better story if I called in all your markers for donating twenty dollars a year to the sheriff’s a
Her father sniffed and struck a pose like a Shakespearean actor on stage. Sir Richard of Bullshit. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
“Oh, please,” A
“I’m leaving,” he a
A
It was only because she had felt weak and vulnerable, and he had felt so strong and safe by comparison. And she wanted to trust him. The deepest, most private part of who she was had existed in emotional isolation for most of her life. But in that one moment of weakness she had wanted to drop those shields just to feel the comfort of another soul next to hers for a little while.
The sound of his low, rough voice was warm in her head as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror.
It’s all right… This shoulder has been cried on before.
She ached all the way through at the memory of how much she had needed to hear someone say that.
Now she pushed the feeling away as something impractical and a waste of time. She had things to do and needing was not high on the list of priorities.
The Thomas Center was a collection of white stucco buildings that had been a private Catholic girls’ school from the early twenties into the sixties. Modeled on the style of the old Spanish missions, the buildings formed a courtyard between them with a fountain at its center and stu
It was a beautiful place by daylight. By candlelight it was magical. Hundreds of tiny flames seemed to dance on the dark night air. The courtyard was nearly full. Fra
“This is my entertainment for the evening,” he said as she joined him. “I’m giving up Miami Vice to be here.”
“Well, I hope for your sake a car chase ensues at some point,” A
“I’d settle for a Don Johnson sighting. Or a sighting of your Mr. Leone,” he suggested, raising up on the tiptoes of his Top-Siders to survey the crowd. “What were you doing out there in the woods all that time, A
“Oh, yeah. In a shallow grave,” A
“We should hold a vigil for your vagina if you take a pass on the Italian Stallion.”
A couple of heads swiveled in their direction. A
“I liked the way he put his hand on your back,” he said. “Very proprietary. BIG hand, I might add.”
A