Lee woke to the sound of her father’s laugh. How long had it been since she’d heard him laugh? She checked the time, groaned, and sat up. Last night’s photo shoot barreled through her mind. It had been some of her best work to date, and Kevin, one of the industry’s top stylists, noticed. She’d worked so hard to build a stellar portfolio and it was finally paying off.
Lee climbed out of bed, stretched, and went to brush her teeth. She hadn’t told Shirley about the photo shoot. It was childish, but she wanted this one thing for herself. As she scrubbed, she thought about how much had changed in the past two years. Her best friend had gone to rehab and stayed clean. Shirley had even made it into cosmetology school and then apprenticed with Lee.
Lee knew it wasn’t a competition, but she was getting tired of all of this copycat behavior. Yes, it was important for her best friend to have goals, but she wanted her to have her own goals—not just snatch hers. Becoming a hair stylist wasn’t just something you did because you’d run out of other options. It took dedication and skill. Like everything else, Lee assumed Shirley would grow bored and move onto something else.
Laughter drifted from the kitchen again, and Lee paused in the hallway. She knew that laugh. She rounded the corner. Had she missed a call or text from Shirley?
Leaning against the countertop, Shirley was wearing her father’s Titans T-shirt and eating a bowl of corn flakes. For the millionth time, Lee registered how similar they now looked.
Shirley joked it was like the couples who had been together for long stretches of time, or dogs and their owners. They started to look and act just like each other, but Lee wasn’t convinced. In the past few months, Shirley had taken an unhealthy obsession in wanting to be as skinny as Lee. In wearing Lee’s clothes. In having the same hair. In wanting the same profession. In fitting into Lee’s family.
Harold stood next to her, already slurping his second beer. He exhaled smoke from a nubby joint and admired Shirley as she lifted onto her tiptoes in search of a mug. Her calves tightened and Lee swallowed the revulsion for her father’s leering stare.
“Hey, Lee Bee.” Shirley turned and smiled. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” She glanced at the clock. “What are you doing here so early?”
“I’m always here.”
“I know, but what are you doing here … like this?” She gestured to the T-shirt and bare legs.
Shirley secured two mugs and offered them in her direction. “Drinking coffee.”
“Dad?”
Shirley shifted back down to flat feet and fastened her hands around her tiny waist, the mugs dangling from her thumbs. “Well, I guess now is as good a time as any.” Shirley looked at Harold then back at Lee. “Don’t freak out.”
“Why would I freak out?” Lee could tell she was about to freak out, but she waited for Shirley to explain what was going on.
“We’re together.”
Lee looked between them. No, not possible. “Who’s together?”
Harold’s glassy eyes focused on his daughter as he exhaled smoke into the air. “We are.”
Shirley took a few steps toward Harold and wormed against his chest. Lee watched, horrified, as Shirley situated her father’s arm around her shoulders. She inhaled sharply as her entire body began to shake.
Sensing her discomfort, Shirley extricated herself and poured Lee a cup of coffee. “Here. Let’s talk about it.” She offered her the drink, and Lee had to refrain from slapping it out of her hands.
When Lee didn’t take it, Shirley retracted the cup. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d be mad. Are you mad?”
Her eyes were dilated, and Lee searched for the pills or powders scattered on the counter like roaches. She grabbed the crooks of her arms and ran her fingers over the unblemished skin on the inside of each elbow. How quickly she believed Shirley would relapse.
Shirley yanked her arms back, obviously insulted. “I’m not on drugs, Lee. Jesus.”
“Well what the hell am I supposed to think?” She tried to untangle the truth. First her looks, then her career, and now her father? She glanced at him, awaiting some sort of logical explanation.
This was her best friend. They couldn’t be dating. She almost choked on the word, on how ludicrous it sounded. She tried to say it out loud, but it rolled around her mouth like sour candy. Lee batted through the chaotic thoughts. Shirley patiently waited for her to respond, to somehow tell her it was okay, but she couldn’t. She looked from him to her.
“I don’t get it.” She shot an incredulous look at her dad. Memories lurched to the surface of her mind … how he used to take her fishing, show her how to tie sailor knots, change tires, shoot cans on sizzling tin roofs. He was a decent father before her mother died. It was like she’d somehow forgotten that it hadn’t always been so awful, that he hadn’t always been such a lousy drunk.
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re dating someone my age who now looks just like me. Doesn’t that seem twisted to you?”
Shirley self-consciously fingered her new bangs. Did she not see the situation for what it was? Lee knew about her roster of men, how she met them after work or between shifts, sometimes early in the morning or late at night. She kept them away from Lee, that romantic part of her life highly secretive, just like her real family, even though Lee was desperate to know whom she liked and where she’d come from. Though they’d met years ago, Shirley never talked about her past. She only focused on today and tomorrow. It was one of the things Lee loved most about her—but also one of the things that frustrated her.
Every time Lee thought she’d figured out the man of the day or could decipher who she spent hours each night talking to on the phone, Shirley had already moved on. But this didn’t seem like a fleeting male in a lineup of endless, faceless conquests. This was different.
Lee fixed her eyes on her father. “So, what? You two are in love or something?”
He shrugged and popped another top. “Would that be so impossible?”
Lee nodded. “Yes, Dad. It would. It would be extremely impossible.”
He swiped the rest of the six-pack from the counter, along with the crumpled pack of cigarettes he clenched between dirty fingernails. He’d worked on the car yesterday and the oil spots and grime remained. Had he touched Shirley with those hands? Lee worked her way up to his face, one she rarely studied anymore. He was still handsome in a rugged, worn sort of way. He’d been compared to Clint Eastwood his whole life. So many of his sins had constantly been forgiven because of his face, and she was just sick of it. This behavior would not be tolerated in her house.
He pinched a white stick and wedged it between chapped lips, unlit. “Shirl, let’s go to the lake. Want to?” The cigarette trembled with every syllable. He sniffed, looked at Lee, and moved past her into the hall. “I’m sorry, Lee. But this is my life too.”
His life too? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m entitled to be happy.” He shrugged and retreated toward the bedroom.
The lake was her mother’s place. Harold had taken her mother there every Saturday for as long as she’d been alive. He’d never taken Shirley there before. Had he? She wanted to shake some sense into both of them. Shirley was twenty-seven years old. Her father was fifty-two. He couldn’t have sex with someone the exact same age as his daughter.
Shirley gripped Lee’s elbow, and it startled her. She’d almost forgotten Shirley was even in the room. Ragged nails chewed into the flesh of her biceps until she wrenched free of the desperate fist.
“I’m sorry.” Shirley retreated a few steps. “I know you’re angry.”
“Angry? I don’t even understand how this happened. When this happened.” When had they ever had a stolen moment, a furtive glance, a second to morph from her best friend’s father to the possibility of romance? A thousand warnings she’d probably missed between them fired through her brain: suggestive looks, lingering conversations, time spent together in her absence. Had their budding relationship become obvious to everyone but her?
“I know. But I’ve always liked your dad. He just gets me.” She shrugged her slight shoulders as her father just had, her clavicles pointy and somehow still highly seductive through the thin cotton of her dad’s T-shirt. Were these the details her father had noticed, even fantasized about? The thought turned her stomach.
Why couldn’t Shirley see Harold for who he was? That he would hurt her. That he wasn’t good enough for her. That Shirley, in some sick way, was replacing her mother. It was the ultimate betrayal.
“No, I get you,” Lee finally said. “You’re my best friend. We’re the same age. We like the same things. That’s my dad in there. He’s…” Old. Sad. Tired. Off-limits.
“I know. And I’ve tried to put myself in your shoes. I really have. I’ve thought about how I’d feel if the situation were reversed. What I’d say.”
“And what would you say?”
“Well, I guess I’d just want you both to be happy.”
Lee rolled her eyes. “What a crock of shit.”
“Look, I know you think he’s a bad guy, but he’s not, Lee. He’s just heartbroken.” Shirley reached for her again and then lowered her hand.
“What, and your vagina is going to make him all better?” Lee crossed her arms. “This is not happening. I won’t let it happen.”
Shirley straightened, her jaw set. “It’s already happened.”
“So stop then.”
“I don’t want to.” Shirley crossed her arms to match Lee’s.
“What are you, five? I’m telling you right now.” Lee leaned closer and refrained from shaking Shirley like a rattle. “Either choose whatever this is with Harold or your friendship with me. I mean it.” She’d never given Shirley an ultimatum, but she resisted the urge to apologize. She wasn’t the one who should be sorry.
Shirley gazed at her bare feet. “Please don’t make me do that.” When she lifted her head, she had tears in her eyes, and Lee recoiled. Did Shirley truly care that much about her pathetic father?
“You need to talk to me about all of this. Right now.”
Shirley wiped her eyes. “I’m not talking to you about it. Not when you’re being so aggressive.”
Lee laughed. “Aggressive? Are you kidding?”
“Besides”—Shirley stood up straighter but her eyes were wildly insecure—“it’s really none of your business anyway.”
Lee felt as though she’d been slapped. “You’re unbelievable.” She swiped her car keys, slammed the front door, and slid into the driver’s seat of her car.