“You’re welcome, kid.” My dad saunters over to put his arm around me. He lowers his voice. “Thanks for trying.” He nods over at the cabinet in the dining room. “Maybe if I take her to the mall for a few hours this weekend, you could just come over and take whatever you think we don’t need. Leave the door unlocked when you leave. We’ll pretend we were robbed.” He shrugs. “Worth a shot.”
“She’d just use the insurance money to replace it with more stuff. She has to consent to getting rid of it. That’s how decluttering works. In the home and in the mind.”
“Right.” He winks at me. He’s not good at winking—it always just looks like he has something in his eye—but I get what he’s going for.
We both look over to check on Noah, who had for some reason emptied out everything in his backpack into a pile on the living room floor and is now very slowly and carefully placing it all back into his bag.
“Oh! I saw a really funny GIF on Facebook today. I’ll send it to you.”
“Great. I can’t wait to see it.”
My dad has been spending a lot of time on Facebook since retiring, and he has somehow only recently discovered that he can send people GIFs in emails. So he has been sending me emails full of GIFs. Not in response to anything as part of a conversation. Just a bunch of GIFs. I got my overactive brain from him.
“You doing okay, Daddy?”
“Oh, you know. Every day is a holiday. Unfortunately, the holiday is Groundhog Day.”
“Oh wait!” Noah jumps up. “What day is today?”
“The day before tomorrow,” my dad quips. “And two days after the day before yesterday.”
Noah heaves an anguished sigh. “Is it Thursday?”
“According to a Facebook post I saw today, it’s Thirsty Thursday.”
“Dad!”
“What?”
“Please tell me the GIF you’re going to send me wasn’t from a Thirsty Thursday post.”
“No, it was from Forrest Gump, I think.”
“Mom! We have to call Dad.”
“Now? You’ll see him tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yeah, but I forgot tomorrow’s the last day for us to tell Mrs. Bean who we’re bringing for the thing. You know, for the thing next week? I have to ask Dad to come to class and talk about being an actor. About working.”
“If you can call that work,” my dad mutters.
“Oh, right. I got that email. She didn’t say you have to ask your dad. You have to ask someone that you respect to come talk about their job.” I’m not saying I blame my son for wanting to ask his TV star dad to talk to his class—but I’m pretty sure every third student at that school is related to an actor. I mean, come on. “I can pretty much guarantee you he’ll be on set that day. It’s a Wednesday, right? It’s too late for him to get them to change his schedule.”
“But you have to call and ask. That’s part of the assignment.”
“Actually, the assignment is for you to ask someone.” I pull out my phone. “You want to call him now? I can text him first to see if he’s on set.”
Noah frowns and considers this. He doesn’t want to call his own father to ask if he can come talk to his class because he knows he’ll say no. Adam’s always nice to him. He’ll always do what he says he’ll do, when he says he’ll do it. But he rarely agrees to do things that aren’t work-related when his show’s in production. That’s how it’s always been.
Here’s what I’d tweet right now if I tweeted:
I don’t know who needs to hear this right now, but FUCK YOU, ADAM!!!
“You know, I’m pretty sure I’m free next Wednesday,” my dad says. “I think your class would really like to hear about how I got into academia. Specifically, comparative literature. Kids love that stuff.”
Noah pretends to fall asleep, snoring for a few seconds, and then snaps his head back. “Fine. But no singing.”
“Well, if I’m going to be up there in front of a bunch of kids, it would be rude not to sing at least one Billy Joel song.”
“Or I could come to your class and dance for you.” I drop my bag and dance like Monica from Friends on that New Year’s Eve episode. The Routine. I do it whenever I want to make him laugh or embarrass him in public or forget that his father seems to care more about pretending to save lives on television than being a part of his real son’s life on a daily basis.
If I ever get married again—if I ever even go out on another date again in my life—it will be with someone who shows my son he’ll go out of his way to make time for him, the way my dad always did for me.
That’s why I can’t date an actor.
There.
All my thoughts about Dylan just went into one big box.
8
TO: SCARLETT SHEPARD
FROM: DYLAN BRODIE
SUBJECT: confirming
Hi.
Just confirming our appointment for this Thursday at 4 p.m.
Hope you’re well.
-- Dylan
TO: DYLAN BRODIE
FROM: SCARLETT SHEPARD
Hello.
You are confirmed.
See you then.
Best,
Dr. Scarlett Shepard, MS, MFT
TO: SCARLETT SHEPARD
FROM: DYLAN BRODIE
Cool.
Also confirming that you still do not want me to flirt with you or ask you out when we see each other next.
Thanks,
Dylan Brodie, Actor/Model/Respecter of Boundaries and Shoelaces
TO: DYLAN BRODIE
FROM: SCARLETT SHEPARD
Affirmative.
Best,
Dr. Scarlett Shepard, MS, MFT
TO: SCARLETT SHEPARD
FROM: DYLAN BRODIE
Got it.
And email flirtation—via a private, personal email address that you might have or perhaps texting via your personal phone number—that would also be out of the question?
Just confirming.
Sincerely,
Dylan Brodie, Thorough Attender to Details—Discretion and Satisfaction Guaranteed
TO: DYLAN BRODIE
FROM: SCARLETT SHEPARD
That would also be out of the question.
Confirmed.
Your thorough attention to detail and inquisitive nature are, I’m sure, two of the many reasons you are such a fine actor.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Mr. Brodie.
See you on Thursday.
Best,
Dr. Scarlett Shepard, MS, MFT
9
Dylan
So, it turns out Mrs. Bean is not hot and she definitely does not want to be flirted with. I’ve been broken up with by one woman this past month and shot down by two women in the past few days. My ego can handle it, but this better not be a trend.