When I got home that night, Daddy was wrapped up in a blanket on his recliner instead of outside on the patio.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, eyeing the stack of wadded-up tissues on the table next to him.
“This cold came on suddenly,” he answered and coughed.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I rushed to his chair and handed him the box of tissues he was reaching for.
He took a tissue and shook his head while he blew his nose. “It’s nothing serious.” He coughed again. He’d sounded congested the day before, but I didn’t think I’d come home to find him totally sick.
“I’m here now, so let me take care of you.” I tucked the blanket around his feet, tipped his chair back, and adjusted the pillow under his head.
He let me baby him—he always did—but shook his head again. “You’ve got to go to the game with Parker. I can’t.”
“Me?”
One of the few things Daddy would leave the house for was an Angels baseball game. Not every game—only the good ones. Tonight they were playing the Dodgers. He hated the Dodgers—who didn’t? He had to be legit sick to miss a game he’d bought primo seats for.
“I invited him to go with me weeks ago.” He sneezed then moaned, reinforcing just how much he needed me to take his place in Angel Stadium. “He won’t want to go alone.”
And so, an hour later, I climbed the stairs above the garage to Parker’s apartment and knocked on the door wearing my Albert Pujols jersey and my Angels baseball cap, with my curls tucked into it as best as I could get them. He opened the door, and his head jerked back with surprise.
“Guess who’s going to the game with you tonight?” I popped a bubble and pulled the brim of my hat down.
“Hal’s not going?” He stepped back and let me in.
“Nope. He’s really sick this time.”
“He must be if he’s missing the Dodgers.” Parker grabbed his hat and car keys. “I bought a car. I’ll drive,” he said and then changed topic. “Does he still curse like a truck driver when he watches?”
“Yep.”
“Hmm.” With obvious disappointment, he led me down to the garage. “His insults are the best part of the game.”
“I’m pretty good company too, you know,” I said, offended. “I can scream and swear with the best of them.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.” He opened the car door for me, and I climbed in.
Once he got in on his side, I continued. “I know I have disappointed you on many occasions, but I promise not to disappoint tonight,” I said with my nose in the air.
“You think you disappoint me?” he asked in a much more serious tone than I’d used.
“Um, yeah.” I plugged my phone into his USB and pulled up my playlist, purposely choosing a song I knew he’d hate. “You make fun of everything I do. That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement of my projects.”
“I don’t make fun of everything.” He quickly tapped the volume button to turn down Taylor Swift as she burst out of the speakers. “Your taste in music definitely disappoints me, but not ‘everything’ you do does.”
I let him navigate to the freeway before I turned up the volume again. Not a lot, but enough. He hit the gas to get past a car changing lanes, and I grabbed the emergency handle.
“Why are you going so fast?” I yelled. He knew I hated it when he sped. I hated it when anyone drove too fast. That’s how Mom had been killed.
“Sorry. I forgot.” He slowed down, and I checked his speedometer. Sixty-five. Just right.
“I haven’t made fun of you for whatever you’re doing with Hailey,” he said.
“It’s called being her friend. I hope even you can't criticize me for that.”
“Don’t get snarky. Seems like she appreciates your help.” He skipped to the next song on my playlist and turned the music up a fraction of a decibel. “See? That’s me complimenting you on one of your ‘projects.’”
“Hailey’s not a project, but thank you.” I checked the mirror in the visor and straightened my hat. “How do you know she’s grateful?” I would have freshened up my lip gloss, but even without the guidance of a mother, I knew not to reapply make-up in front of a date. Not that Parker was a date.
“I took this car into Tony’s place to get it checked out before I bought it. Turns out I know the kid who works there.”
“Ashton?”
“Yeah, Ashton Martin,” he answered. “I coached his water polo team that year before I moved to Hong Kong. Good kid. Great name.”
“What’s so great about his name?” I asked and shifted in my seat, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
“Like the car. Aston Martin.” He looked at me, making sure I understood. “His dad is really into cars. I think it’s clever.”
“You think you’re clever, so that’s not saying much.”
“Ha ha.” He shook his head. “Sounds like he’s really into Hailey. I told him I found his place because of you, and all he could talk about was her. They hung out last weekend. She told him you helped her enroll in the community college she’s going to.” He looked at me, so pleased with himself I almost felt guilty.
“Eyes on the road.” I pointed to the windshield. When it came to being a passenger, I may have inherited some of Daddy’s anxiety about dying a horrible death. “I’m glad he had a good time with her, but he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up.”
“Why not?”
“She’s keeping her options open,” I blurted and grabbed the emergency handle to warn him about his increasing speed. “Sounds like she’s been in some bad relationships, so I don’t think she needs to get serious with anyone right now.”
He slowed way down. Like below-fifty-five slow. “You don’t think she needs to? Shouldn’t that be a decision she makes?”
“It is her decision.” I clutched the handle tighter. Not because I was nervous anymore but because I wanted to give him a good smack. I hadn’t told her not to see Ashton again. She came to that conclusion on her own.
“Liza, I know you think of yourself as some kind of matchmaker, but be careful with that. You’re playing with people’s lives here, not flowers.”
“Gee, thanks for the mansplaining, Parker. Anything else you want to tell me about the advice I do or don’t give to friends?” I let go of the handle and looked out the window. “Hailey is perfectly capable of choosing who she sees and doesn’t see. If she doesn’t want to see Ashton again, maybe it has more to do with him than her.”
“She could do a lot worse than Ashton,” he said.
“Wow.” I stared at him. “You think pretty highly of a guy you barely know who’s covered in tattoos and piercings and works in a garage. I’m sure he’s really going places. Hailey should totally tie herself down to him.”
“He’s a nice kid.” His voice echoed in the tight space of his small car. “He’s going to own that garage. What does Hailey have going for her that’s better than that?”
“Since when does owning a repair shop mean someone has something ‘going’ for him?”
“You have no idea how much that place makes.”
“And you do?”
“It’s not hard to guess, with the cars they had lined up out front and the reviews they’ve got.”
“You know what? I don’t want to ruin the whole night, so why don’t we stop talking about this.”
“Fine with me.” He changed lanes and slowed down even more.
I stared out the window, trying not to flinch every time a car whizzed by. Part of me wondered if maybe I’d been wrong about encouraging Hailey away from Ashton. It’s not that I didn’t like him. He did seem nice. But I doubted he would help her expand her horizons, and that’s what she really needed. She had plenty of life experience—more than anyone her age deserved—but not a lot of cultural or educational experience. Ashton wouldn’t help her gain that.
Ten minutes passed before either Parker or I spoke. Traffic slowed almost to a stop, and we happened to be within sight of a science museum close to the freeway.
“Do you remember taking me there?” I pointed to the gray building with a giant cube jutting out of its top.
The crease between Parker’s eyebrows smoothed, and a smile made its way across his face. “Oh yeah. What were you, ten? Eleven?”
“Probably. The summer before you left for Stanford, when I broke my arm and couldn’t go to surf camp with my friends.” I stared at the building, remembering how Parker had come to my rescue that day. What other eighteen-year-old boy would take a heartbroken little girl to a science museum to cheer her up?”
“You wanted me to take you to Disneyland, didn’t you?” Traffic sped up, and we drove past the museum.
“Roller coasters are more fun than science.” I pointed to the top of Space Mountain just before we veered off toward Angel Stadium. “Do you still hate it as much as you did then?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? If you don’t know for sure, then we need to go. I could get you to like it. In fact . . .” I bounced in my seat. “That will be my next matchmaking project—helping you fall in love with the Happiest Place on Earth.” I smiled wide and fluttered my eyelashes at him.
He laughed, and I knew everything was okay between us again. “Good luck. Are you woman enough for that kind of challenge?”
“Um, yeah! I can hardly wait.”
“I didn’t agree.”
“You didn’t disagree either.” When he didn’t say anything, I decided to press my argument even further. “I can either hook you up with Disneyland, or I can start looking for an actual woman to set you up with.”
I said the words without thinking, and then they felt wrong coming out of my mouth. I don’t know why, but the thought of Parker dating someone bothered me. Not that he hadn’t ever dated anyone—he had. But I couldn’t picture him with anyone now. Maybe because he was the closest single friend I had. If he tied the knot, I’d be alone.
He flinched and turned his head for half a second before he focused back on the road. “Let’s see how you do with Disneyland before I hand over my entire love life to you,” he said with more resignation than I expected.
“If I can convert you to Disneyland, that will be enough for me.” The air between us had gone stale, and I fought to make it fresh again. “Once Taylor’s married she won’t be able to go with me whenever I want, so you’re my new ride buddy. I doubt I could find a woman willing to put up with you anyway.” I nudged his arm, and he almost smiled.
“I doubt it too. We’ll be those old single people who still get together for dinner in fifty years.” He smiled at me, and I smiled back, but something weird was going on in my stomach. I kind of liked the idea of us being old together, still teasing each other over prunes and toast—or whatever it was old people ate.
“Speak for yourself. I’ll only be seventy-four. You’ll be the old one.” I sat back in my seat, my anxiety about the traffic and his driving gone. “But don’t get any ideas about us making a pact to get married in fifty years if we haven’t found anyone else by then.”
“Ha! Can you even imagine the two of us married?”
Strangely, I could. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I checked my hat and lip gloss again, sneaking a glance at him in the mirror.
Yeah, I could totally imagine me married to Parker. That is, if I had any interest in getting married.