Deke isn’t like that. He’s strong, but he doesn’t bulldoze me. Besides, he’s not even interested or available for a relationship. He can be my wild fling.
I’ve never had a wild fling.
I’ve never been wild. And Deke definitely makes me feel wild. In the most wonderful way.
I get home, kick off my ballet flats and rub my hands together. I’m about to call Deke when I see I’ve missed a call, and I’ve got a voicemail.
My heart sinks. It’s from my father. “Sadie, we need to talk.”
Thirty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of the uptight restaurant my father likes. I didn’t have time to dress up as I know my father would like, but I changed into a fancier cardigan and ballet flats. My battle dress. Too bad I can’t roll up in a tank and wear a suit of armor. Not that my father can’t pierce those sorts of shields. I square my shoulders and march inside.
My father’s already seated at a table right in the center of the restaurant, where everyone can see him. He’s town councilman and prides himself on knowing everyone “worth knowing,” as he’d put it.
He introduced me to Scott.
“Darling,” he says as I dutifully cross to him and bend down to give his cheek a kiss. “I took the liberty of ordering already.” He gestures for me to sit.
“Great.” I’ll have to pick at whatever he ordered for me. Last time it was freshwater trout and a salad of mostly arugula. I hate fish and a little arugula goes a long way.
I look longingly at my wine glass but shake my head when the waiter offers a drink menu. I’m a total lightweight. Besides, I only drink in public with people I absolutely trust not to mock me, like my girl posse. When I was out with Scott, I ordered a lot of cranberry juice with club soda. With my father, I don’t bother with a mocktail. He’ll drink enough for the both of us.
My father is commonly a handsome man, with silver tinsel in his hair. He’s tan and fit from golf at the country club and skiing in the winter. He’s already getting a few appreciative looks from two forty or fifty-something ladies with yoga tight bodies and Botox tight faces. They keep glancing over at him, and he pretends not to notice, but I know he does. He perfected the art of hiding his wandering eye back when he was married to my mother. Now it’s a habit of his to pretend to be oblivious to other women’s attention, at least in public.
Another similarity he shares with Scott.
I clear my throat. “You said you wanted to speak to me?”
“I did.” We’re both absorbed in separate tasks, me placing my napkin on my lap and him inspecting his whiskey glass. We’ve yet to really make eye contact. All part of our regular farce of a father-daughter dinner. “How was work?”
“Wonderful.” He doesn’t care about my teaching career, so I skip telling the latest stories about the moments this week when my students were particularly cute. He doesn’t deserve them. “How’s yours?”
He launches into some city council story, and I nod and murmur at the correct places like a dutiful daughter. Another thing Scott had in common with my father. All their stories revolved around work or golf but mainly them being Very Important. That and their stories seem to get longer and more boring each time.
About twenty minutes into the story, my father clears his throat. “That’s the project Scott proposed, by the way,” he says, seemingly casually, but he makes eye contact with me for the first time. “Have you seen him?”
“Who?” I am busy making a big show of cutting into my trout. Poor dead fish, sacrificed to this dreadful dinner. I wish I could go back in time and toss it back into its mountain stream. Then one of us would be free.
My father clears his throat again. “Scott Sears. Your boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I say with a big smile. Probably should tone it down, but I am very happy Scott is my ex.
“Really? That’s a shame.” My father signals for another single malt scotch. “I thought things were going well.”
“Mmm.” I pretend my mouth is full of arugula.
“Actually, that’s why I called you here. I wanted to talk to you about Scott.” He gives me a look under his thick brows, a look that means I am very serious. We are having a Very Important Talk. “He’s a good man, Sadie. There aren’t that many in a town this small. He’s going places. He’s an important part of the growth and development of the town. I think you’d be very happy with him.”
Seriously?
“When you decided to become a teacher, as you know, your mother and I were concerned.”
I grip my fork tighter to keep me from going for my knife. I hate it when my father talks about mom like he knows her and can speak for her opinion. As far as I know, he and mom haven’t spoken in years.
“But we thought if you could find yourself a good man with a stable vocation, you’d be fine. Besides, once you start having children, you’ll want a man to support you.”
I can’t even.
“And, Sadie, Scott is that man.” My father starts rambling again, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Which is so unlike me, but what am I doing here? It would be so easy to just stand up, throw my napkin down on my mangled entree and stride away from the table. I could even grab a bottle of wine on the way out. I don’t need to drive home—I could call Deke. Tell him I need a ride, and that I’ll owe him another favor. He’ll ride up on his big bike just as I’m finishing the wine, hand me a helmet, and I’ll straddle that giant, vibrating beast, all that power between my legs and...Mmmmm.
I’m halfway through a motorcycle-ride-with-Deke fantasy when my father says. “And of course, there’s the wedding. You’ll need to iron things out before you two travel together.”
I’ve half tuned my father out, but this snags my attention. “Wedding?” Oh God! How could I forget Jenn’s wedding? I blocked it out.
My father steeples his fingers and purses his lips to signal his displeasure. He can tell I haven't been paying attention. “Aren’t you two both in a wedding together? For your two friends in Santa Fe?”
Gaaaaaaah. “Jenn and Geoff. Yes.” I resist the urge to rub my head. Suddenly I’ve got a headache. Jenn is a high school friend from Taos. Her boyfriend Geoff is Scott’s friend from college. They’re the ones who set us up with each other when Scott first moved to Taos from Santa Fe.
“You’ll be in Santa Fe for a long weekend, right?”
I suddenly realize why my father looks so smug, why he knows all about this wedding and organized this dinner with me.
“You talked to Scott,” I accuse. “He called you and told you all about this. That’s why you wanted to talk to me.”
My father frowns again. “Scott and I talked, yes. He’s involved in business around Taos, as am I. And our paths cross often.”
“Of course. You’re birds of a feather.”
I don’t mean it as a compliment, but my father takes it as one. “Yes. And he mentioned this wedding, that you’ll be spending time together in an idyllic setting. It’ll be the perfect time to talk about your relationship and smooth out your differences.”
Only my father would refer to Scott cheating on me and being a total butthole as “differences” and expect us to simply “smooth them out,” meaning he expects me to overlook them. Like my mother overlooked my father’s indiscretions until she finally got the courage to leave him.