When I came downstairs, my dad was in the kitchen standing on a ladder, changing a lightbulb.
“I can’t wait for you to grow a few more inches, Seany.”
“You would trust me on a ladder holding a lightbulb?”
“Yes. I’ll train you, then I’ll trust you.”
I opened the refrigerator. I’m not even hungry. But sometimes you don’t know that until you’re looking at food.
“Dad . . . how do you know who to trust?”
“In business or in life?”
“Is it different?”
“Is it different . . .” He stopped working for a minute to think about this. “Well . . . with anyone, you listen to what they say . . . and then you see what they do. But you may not know for a while if you can trust them or not. They either screw up or they don’t.”
“When you say screw up, you mean like Grandpa?”
“No. That was worse than screwing up. That was out-and-out stealing. No. I’m talking about when someone does something selfish, something he knows is gonna hurt you . . . then he pretends he didn’t know it was gonna hurt you.”
“Give me an example.”
“Okay, someone I know, a guy I did a few small jobs for, made me think I had this really big job. A new building. He picked my brain for hours and hours—like three separate times. He got me to tell him how I’d do it, what products I’d use, how I’d work with the electrician, everything. Then he used all of my ideas, but got another plumber do the work.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He thought he’d save a few bucks. I don’t think he did. Anyway, I trusted this guy who was just using me to get information.”
“What did you do?”
“There was nothing I could do. Except never work with him again. But it still hurts. I trusted him. He acted like we were friends. He still acts like we’re friends. It reminded me that business is business. Believe me, it would have been much worse if a real friend did something like that to me.”
I thought for a minute. Did I ever do that to a friend? Did I do that by pretending to Buzz about Dave Motts? I hope not. Maybe I stopped just in time.
Then I thought about Stefanie and Ashley.
“Do a lot of people in business pretend to be your friend?”
“Yeah. They do. I’d say about . . . half of them.”
“What do the other ones do?”
“They’re just themselves. Some are nice. Some are weird. Some don’t want to be your friend. That’s fine with me. Let’s just get the work done and go home to our real friends.”
“Interesting.”
“Seany . . . I’m just gonna assume that when you want to talk to me about something . . . you know . . . something that’s going on with you . . . you’ll just do it, right? I mean, you don’t want me to . . . drag stuff out of you. Do you?”
I had to think about that. Sometimes I think I actually do.
“No. That’s Mom’s job.”
“And she’s so damn good at it.”
“Too good.”
“She’s working tonight. How about an early dinner at the diner?”
“Like now?” Suddenly I’m hungry.
“Yeah.” He got down off the ladder. “Let’s go. You can tell me about the movie you’re writing. Or not.”
“Did Mom tell you?”
“No. Grandma did. She said she can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“I didn’t know that. That’s good.”
We both like this diner. They know us there. Dad had a grilled Swiss cheese with bacon and tomato and a cup of soup, and I had a fried fish sandwich. We shared an order of fries. I had a chocolate shake.
My mom called while we were there. She asked me about the interview. She was the one the school called to get permission.
I told my dad I’d rather have him read the screenplay when I finish it than just tell him the story. He said okay.
After we ate, Dad was going to meet his friend Ray to go bowling. He asked if I wanted to come, but he knew I didn’t. He already has his bowling ball in the van, so he’s just going to drop me at home. We drove past the Dahlins’ house, and oh my God! Oh my God! OH MY GOD!!!
I totally forgot about Baxter.