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“Angela, your dad is here.” Mom called up the stairs.
I lay on the bed, my gaze fixed on the ceiling. After today, I wanted the bed to swallow me and take me to a land far away. A land where the rainbows on the comforter were real and you never had to do anything you didn’t want to.
No such luck.
Would the journal suspend time? Or maybe I could reverse it? Go back to before Cynthia tripped Mallory and make sure it didn’t happen.
“Angela.”
If I didn’t move, she’d come get me. And neither one of us wanted that. I swung my leaden legs over the side and sat up. I clumped across the room and pulled the door open. Each footstep on the stairs thudded like a bag of wet cement. At least Mom could hear me coming.
When I hit the landing and turned the corner, Dad raised his hand. “Hi, Pumpkin.”
I curled my upper lip. “Don’t call me Pumpkin. It makes me sound fat.” Did he think I’d forget about him skipping out on me because he called me by a nickname?
Dad exchanged a look with Mom. She shrugged.
“But I’ve always called you Pumpkin.” Hurt filled each word.
I sneered. “I’m not a baby anymore.” When he moved out and married Holly-the-homewrecker, he lost the right to use pet names.
Dad stiffened. “You’re right, you’re not a baby.” He cleared his throat. “Where’s your jacket? It’ll be cold after the sun goes down.”
“I’ll be right back.” I ran up the stairs.
Rushing back down, I heard Mom’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
Exasperation colored Dad’s response. “Look, Eva. Don’t tell me how to repair the relationship with my own daughter.”
I stopped dead. Not even five minutes together and they found something to fight about. It never failed. And that something was usually me. Worse, they’d forget about me while they fought.
I rounded the corner and blew past them to the door. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Anything to stop the fighting. Even going to dinner when all I wanted to do was spend time alone.
I went out the door, down the drive and hopped into the little economy beater Dad drove. Seatbelt on, slumped down, arms crossed, I waited, eyes straight ahead.
Dad opened the door and slid behind the wheel. “Where do you want to go, Pum ... Angela?”
I shrugged.
He turned the key. He cranked it for a moment before the engine caught. “You’re going to have to give me more to go on than a shrug.”
I braced a foot against the dash. “Wherever. It’s your dinner.”
The engine idled. “No, it’s our dinner. I want to take you someplace you’ll enjoy.” He put the car in reverse to pull around the car parked in front of us. “Hey, how about the Kid Zone. You used to always love going there.”
“Dad, I’m twelve. Not two.” Parents could be so exasperating.
He hit a button to open a ceiling-mounted compartment. “Sorry. I can’t get used to my little girl growing up.” He pulled out his sunglasses and put them on. “Well, because you’re so grown up, do you want to try sushi?”
“You want to make things up to me with a special dinner and suggest raw fish? Ew, Dad. That’s gross.” I barely ate cooked fish, so the thought of raw fish disgusted me.
“I just want to spend time with my best girl.” Dad sighed. “They have teriyaki and tempura; you don’t have to have sushi. But we can go wherever you want to.”
I didn’t care where we went. “The fish place is fine.”
I turned on the radio and stared out the window as we drove along. Dad had the station set to talk radio. Boring.
When the station went to commercial break, the volume kicked up a notch. “Tired of feeling uncomfortable in a crowd? Struggling to get rid of the itchy, burning sensation and the crusty aftermath it brings? Don’t let jock itch ruin—”
Dad lunged for the button to change stations. I kept my head turned toward the window and attempted to suppress my giggles. His face was probably beet red.
He played with the radio stations trying to find something other than the talk show. I didn’t know what. After all, it was his car; you’d think he’d have other stations programmed.
Dad finally stopped fiddling with the stations when he landed on KWHZ.
Good grief. He thought he found a station I liked.
I had news for him. No one but young kids and adults trying to act like kids listened to it.
He bopped his head sideways to the beat of the music. “Good beat, huh, Angela?”
Someone please kill me now. I slumped further down in the seat. What if someone from school saw us together? While I sat helpless, a prisoner in his barely functional car, my dad acted like the dork of the century.
“Yeah, it’s happenin’, Dad.” I kept my tone deadpan, hoping he’d pick up the hint.
The restaurant better be close. The shorter the ride, the happier I’d be.
Oh no, he drummed the steering wheel in time with the head bopping. Next he’d start singing along.
My dad. The one-note wonder who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket with both hands. Maybe I’d be spared because he didn’t know the words.
Nope. He hummed with the music. Or tried. He sounded like a dying bumblebee in the last throes of an agonizing death. Would he get offended if I plugged my ears?
Too late. He broke out into full voice. With the wrong words.
The sound would worm its way around my fingers anyway. At this rate, it might melt my eardrums. “How far to the restaurant, Dad?” I had to stop the torture.
“What? Oh, we’re about five minutes from there.”
Great. Now to keep the conversation rolling for five minutes so he didn’t break into song again. I reached out and turned the volume knob down. It might help.
“Uh, how’d the Bears do this weekend?”
A light gleamed in his eye. “I’m glad you asked. The Bears trounced the Packers and sent the cheese-heads running back to Wisconsin crying for their mamas.”
The words football fanatic and Dad went hand in hand. During football season, getting between him and the television when a game was on bordered on dangerous. And the words it’s only a game were answered with a black look.
“All those clowns who picked the Packers to go to the Super Bowl are looking pret-ty foolish now.”
Only desperation could make me ask about football, but between his singing and listening to him ramble about football, I’d take football every time.
“We went down at the start, and you should have seen the cheese-heads, Ange. They were smug and taunting, wearing their stupid triangle cheese hats.”
I stared out the window again. He didn’t need anyone to listen to what he said, he just needed to think you were listening. But most importantly, he’d rant on about the game for the remainder of the trip to the restaurant, and I’d be safe from hearing him sing again. Until the drive home. But I had time to come up with another ploy between now and then.
We ordered our dinner, and the awkward lull came. That time between giving your order and it arriving at the table. Nothing for you to do, but talk.
And I didn’t want to.
I’d already blown my best diversionary tactic on the way. Once the food arrived, I could at least pretend to be engrossed in eating. And it wasn’t polite to talk with your mouth full.
Dad unfolded his napkin. “Angela, about this weekend ...”
“I get it, Dad. Your new life with Holly is more important. I’m just a reminder of your painful past.” I dragged the chopsticks on the table, drawing circles in the cloth.
“Angela, that’s not true. You’re important to me.”
My eyes met his. “Yeah, that’s why you’ve spent sooo much time with me since you moved out.” I tried to keep the sneer off my face, but my lip curled. I went back to making designs on the tablecloth with the chopsticks.
“You need to cut me some slack.”
My head shot up. “Why should I? You’re the one who left. You’re the one who hasn’t been around, who hasn’t made the effort. How else am I supposed to feel about it?”
All the words I’d thought but never said welled up and choked me. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” The gold glint of the restaurant’s scattered figurines blurred as tears stung my eyes.
Dad tugged on the end of his mustache.
I’d always been so worried about losing his love, I’d never told him how I felt about his leaving before. But since he didn’t care enough to see me when he was supposed to why should I keep silent any longer? I was done trying to make him feel better about leaving.
The server hurried to the table with a pot of hot tea. She turned our cups upright and poured some steaming hot liquid in. “Your gyoza will be right out.” She left at a trot.
Ugh. The gyoza could wait. What if I didn’t like it? I didn’t even know what it was.
I wrapped my hands around the steaming cup. I didn’t understand why the cups were so small. Two swallows and it would need to be refilled. But the warmth felt good as it spread through my fingers.
Dad cleared his throat. “So how has school been?”
I raised one shoulder. “Okay.”
“Classes going well?”
“Fine.”
The server ran up to the table and deposited the gyoza without a word and rushed off.
They looked like dumplings. Maybe they wouldn’t be too bad. I contemplated my chopsticks. They were joined at the top.
Dad grabbed his by the bottom and broke them apart. I followed his example. I put a couple dumplings on my plate and poured some soy sauce over them.
Using his chopsticks, Dad plucked up a dumpling and put it in his mouth. He knew how to use chopsticks? I’d never seen him use them before. Maybe he learned from Holly.
I wasn’t sure how I’d get the dumpling to my mouth. I took one chopstick and skewered the dumpling. I took a bite.
The savory meat filled my mouth. Delicious. It was still piping hot and I tried to let it cool as I gingerly chewed.
Dad glanced at the remainder of the gyoza on my stick. “Angela, we can get you a set of silverware if you want.” He raised his hand in the air. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
Understatement. I’d never used chopsticks before—at least not successfully—and he should’ve known. Not thinking seemed to be part of everything he did lately.
