Daddy called at noon on Wednesday. “You’re coming tonight, aren’t you?”
I tried to beg off. “Oh Daddy, I’d completely forgotten what day this is. I’ve got a late appointment, and some paperwork to catch up on.”
He wasn’t fooled for a minute.
“Appointment with who?”
“A new client.”
“What’s their name?”
“Nobody you’d know.”
“You’d be surprised how many people I know. Look, shug, I know you’re feelin’ kinda down. And I know what’s been happening over there. GiGi and Drew and that Jernigan crowd think they can run you out of business. But I’m not gonna stand around and let that happen.”
“Now, Daddy…I’m a big girl. I can handle this.”
“Of course you can. I didn’t raise you to just roll over and take it when a bully picks a fight. Anyway. I’m expecting you at six, same as always. Don’t be late now, ’cause I don’t want my salmon loaf to get dried out.”
“Daddy,” I tried. “It’s been an awful week. I really don’t feel like dealing with Aunt Fran and Uncle Beau and the kids.”
“You won’t have to,” Daddy said. “I packed ’em all off to Six Flags this afternoon. Gave ’em money for a motel too. So no more excuses, right?”
“Right,” I said.
I should have known my father wouldn’t let anything like widespread public humiliation change our day-to-day lives. It was Wednesday, after all, and every Wednesday night, ever since I can remember, Daddy has fixed me supper.
Daddy doesn’t really know how to cook. But after Mama left us, when I was in fourth grade, we had a housekeeper named Juanita who didn’t care a lick about cleaning, but loved to cook. Daddy’s favorite dish of hers was salmon loaf. He loved it so much that before she quit to go take care of her grandchildren, Daddy took the radical step of learning how to make it.
Aside from Sundays, Wednesdays are Daddy’s only day off from his car dealership. So Wednesday nights, Daddy cooks. The menu rarely changes. He fixes Juanita’s salmon loaf, which he tops with a lemon-dill sauce, canned LeSueur peas, rice cups, iced tea, and banana pudding.
It wasn’t like it was a hardship for me to make it over there that Wednesday night. Our business was a bust. The phone was suddenly quiet. Although she’d managed to coax Annabelle Waites into going ahead with her kitchen project, I knew Gloria was starting to get worried.
I locked up the shop shortly after five, and changed into shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. I put my hair in a loose braid down my back, then got my bike out of the storage shed downstairs and set off on the two-mile ride to our house.
Although it had been scorching hot all week, it had rained earlier in the afternoon, and the smell of the rain-washed pavement, along with the rhythm of tires and pedals, were soothing to my harried nerves.
It was good to be outside, good to be away from the deadly quiet of the office, good to feel sweat, good to work the knots out of my legs.
When I walked in the back door, sweating and panting, Daddy was just taking the salmon loaf out of the oven. He had a terry-cloth dish towel wrapped around his waist for an apron, and a rolled-up red bandana wrapped around his forehead.
I kissed him just below the bandana. “What’s this? Are you supposed to be Willie Nelson or the Iron Chef?”
“Neither,” Daddy said. “I just didn’t wanna get sweat on our supper, and I wanted to keep my hair lookin’ nice.”
He patted the back of his mostly bald head and chuckled at his own joke.
I looked over at the kitchen table, which was set with three places. “I thought Gloria was in Atlanta tonight.”
“She is,” Daddy said, setting the hot pan on the kitchen counter.
“Then who’s having supper with us?” I asked. He took the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator and poured me a glass.
I took a long sip and looked around that tired old kitchen, with its harvest gold appliances and worn vinyl tile. Our house had been considered the newest, most modern house in Madison when my parents built it back in the early 1970s. It was just after Daddy started making real money with the car dealership, and he wanted everybody in town to know what a success he was.
Our house had a cathedral ceiling in the entryway, with real marble floors, white wall-to-wall shag carpeting, big picture windows, and a patio out back with a fishpond and birdbath.
I could still remember the house when everything had been shiny and new. He’d let Mama order new dishes from the JC Penney catalog, and even new wineglasses.
My mother loved those dishes. They were heavy stoneware, with hand-painted borders of bright red poppies and yellow stripes around the outside. The wineglasses had little poppy designs too.
When she left, she left all that behind. In fact, as far as I knew (and at seven, I had taken an extensive inventory) my mother had taken along nothing from her old life when she ran off to start a new one with Darvis Kane, the sales manager at Murdock Motors.
And Daddy had pretty much left everything the way it was the day she left. The carpet had long since been replaced, of course, along with some of the appliances, but despite my begging and pleading with him to let me redecorate, twenty-five years later we were still eating off the same dishes, sitting at the same simulated Early American maple dinette set.
I refolded one of the worn gold napkins Daddy had put at each place setting. “So who’s the mystery guest?”
“You wanna heat up the peas for me?” he asked, pointing at the can of LeSueurs on the kitchen counter.
“I can do that.” I found one of the gold Club aluminum pots and dumped the can of peas in and placed it on the front burner of the stove.
“The rice is done, if you wanna put it in the little cup thingies,” Daddy said, pointing to the glass custard cups he’d set out on the counter. “Put some butter on the rice before you put it in there, though,” he instructed.
“I know, I know. Now, about that dinner guest?”
“You want a beer?” Daddy asked, opening the refrigerator door. “I bought that import stuff you like.”
“The tea is fine for now,” I said. “Come on. Quit making me play guess who’s coming to dinner.”
“New fella in town,” Daddy said. He opened the oven door and peered in at the pan of brown-and-serve rolls he was heating up. “Good-looking young man too.”
“Oh Daddy, you didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?” He tried to look innocent.
“A fix-up? You’re trying to fix me up with a blind date on the week I was supposed to be honeymooning?”
“A date? Hell no. Is that what you think? Now, Keeley, you know me better than that. Have I ever tried to fix you up with a date in your whole life?”
“Oh please,” I said. “Remember the advertising guy?”
“I thought he could help you market the business,” Daddy said. “And there wasn’t a thing wrong with him either.”
“He was a spitter. I had to wear a raincoat when I went out on a date with him. And that wasn’t the only dog you fixed me up with. What about that creepy Bible salesman you met at Rotary?”
“A little spirituality never hurt anybody,” Daddy said. “And he made a good living too.”
“He lived with his mother. He didn’t even own a car. And when I wore a sleeveless dress to dinner he tried to give me a lecture on the wages of the flesh.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Daddy said.
“He’s still sending me religious tracts,” I said.
“Well, this fella is entirely different,” Daddy said. “Owns his own business. Bought a house here in town. And he said he’s already met you. In fact, I think if you play your cards right, he might throw some work your way. From what I’m hearing, you and Gloria could use some new clients.”
“What kind of work?” I asked.
The doorbell rang then. Daddy started toward the front door, then paused and took off the apron and the headband. I hustled down the hallway behind him. “Do not try to fix me up with this guy,” I whispered. “I know you mean well, but do not do this. Okay?”
“Okay,” Daddy said. He gave me a look of appraisal. “Don’t you want to wash your face or something? Comb your hair? Maybe put on some lipstick or something?”
“No!” I said emphatically. I took a look in the hall mirror. My hair had come undone from the braid, and what little makeup I was wearing was in a smudge under my eyes.
“I am not fixing myself up just so you can shop me out to the latest weirdo in town,” I said fiercely. “I am not that desperate.”
The doorbell rang again. “Fine,” Daddy said. “Suit yourself.”
He opened the front door. Will Mahoney stood there, holding a bottle of wine and a handful of wilted zinnias.
“Will,” Daddy exclaimed, giving him a hearty handshake. “Come on in here.”
Will stepped inside. He gave me a quizzical look.
“I believe you’ve already met my daughter, Keeley Rae,” Daddy said.
“Oh yes,” I said, taking the flowers that he extended in my direction. “Bra boy. How nice to see you again.”
I stomped off in the direction of the kitchen. “Daddy?” I called, without turning around. “Can I see you in the kitchen? Right away?”