by Julia London
A guy. That’s what all the nervousness was about. Aaron hadn’t raised three daughters and not learned all the signs of guy anxiety. But hey, it wasn’t that idiot professor, so he was happy.
Actually, he was pretty damn happy in general. Rachel was a-okay in his book. A little on the weird side, but nevertheless, he was beginning to appreciate how special she was.
Yep, he thought he’d stay overnight and have a nice chat with his daughter. And listen. He could not forget that part or Bonnie would kill him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aaron might have been happy, but Rachel was one step away from a nervous breakdown, no thanks to Dagne, who had very heatedly insisted in a whisper, on the porch while they froze, that she’d worked through it over the course of the afternoon and figured out that they had cursed themselves the night they had cast their goddess moon spell.
“Think about it, Rachel. No moon to shine, no fire . . . we did everything the opposite of what the spell said, and now we are getting just the opposite of what we wanted. Haven’t you noticed that everything is haywire?” she insisted with a punch to Rachel’s shoulder. “Glenn has dumped me, Flynn’s dumped you, the meal was awful . . .”
Rachel didn’t really hear the rest of the list, because yes, thank you, she’d noticed that everything was upside down and inside out today, most notably in the Flynn category. And now there was the Mike factor. How in the hell could she have possibly forgotten the astounding fact that she had another date with a different guy? But she had forgotten, until the very moment she picked up the phone, and holy shit, there was her Friday night date, sounding very cheerful on his drive back from the shore.
After the usual exchange of Thanksgiving pleasantries, he asked, “Want me to pick you up tomorrow?”
Oh nononono. “How about we meet at Fratangelo’s?” she asked, trying her damnedest to sound enthusiastic.
“Seven-thirty? I was hoping we could catch the Freemason Mothers,” he said. “They’re playing down the street.”
She had no idea what a Freemason Mother was, but agreed nonetheless.
“Great!” Mike said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Me, too,” she lied, and they chatted a little longer before hanging up. She stood in the kitchen, staring at the phone, thinking not of Mike, but of Flynn.
She’d been through all the standard emotions during the day, as she could hardly think of anything else. She’d run down the full gamut of reasoning: He was just a little late, to unavoidably detained. To dead on the side of the road where no one could see him.
Or maybe, she had scared the shit out of him with her declaration of love. Maybe she had never been anything more than a casual fling to him. Maybe he’d gotten laid, and now he hated her for being such a pathetic little sap and not understanding grown-up flings and she would never see him again, because, at this very moment, he was on a plane back to London to get as far away from her as he possibly could.
And then again, maybe she was overdoing this a little. It wasn’t as if he’d behaved as if he hated her, hated her. But then why didn’t he come today like he said he would? Or at least call? Even if he was dumping her, she was pretty sure he’d at least call. So back to dead on the side of the road again. And she couldn’t very well go sit in a bathtub with a gallon of ice cream and sort it all out with Dad here, so reluctantly, she returned to the living room, a very thin and very false smile already hurting her face.
Dad had taken off his suit jacket and his shoes, had his feet propped up on the coffee table, a glass of wine dangling from one hand.
“Who was that?” he asked. “That moron who calls himself a professor?”
“No, Dad,” she said with a sigh as she took the chair next to the couch. “Just a friend.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. And then he winked at her. Winked at her. Like they shared some little secret. Jesus, who was this man in her living room? He’d been remarkably composed all day, had not made even the slightest joke about her students or Dagne or even Myron for that matter, and kept winking and smiling and acting like they were big buds. Being on the edge of a nervous breakdown as she was, it was about all she could endure. “Okay,” she said, in all seriousness, “where’s my dad?”
“Right here, baby girl.”
“No, you’re not him. You’ve been far too calm today. You haven’t said a word about my students, or my friends—”
“Nice people,” he interjected with a grin. She gave him a skeptical look and Dad chuckled. “Ah, Rachel,” he said, pausing momentarily to sip his wine, “why don’t you have a drink with your old man and relax a bit? You did a lot of work today. Take a load off; tell me what’s going on in your life. You know, a little chat among friends.”
Now she gaped at him. “I will definitely have some wine, because I can’t cope with this weird change in you.”
“Great. So tell me about your life,” he said as she came to her feet.
“Dad!” she exclaimed, disconcerted. “There is nothing going on in my life. It’s exactly the same as it has been for years now. And let’s please not forget that you haven’t been a big fan of my life,” she said, and walked into the dining room and an open bottle of wine there.
“I don’t care if there’s nothing new. I still want to hear about you,” he sunnily insisted.
Fat chance of that happening, a thought she broadcast to him with a look of pure suspicion. The last time they’d had a little chat, she’d gone running back to Providence.
“Hey, it’s not what you think,” he gaily continued. “I’ve turned over a new leaf. No, really! See, I’ve been doing some work with your mother, and I have come to a couple of conclusions about you and me.”
Oh great, just great. She already knew what his conclusions were, and this was really not the day she wanted to hear it—she was a tubby with a dead-end degree and a dead-end life and a dead-end boyfriend who wasn’t even her boyfriend.
She poured wine to the very rim of the wineglass, pounded the cork back in with her fist, then returned to the living room and glared down at her father on the couch. “I thought you and Mom were in marriage counseling, not father counseling.”
“We are in marriage counseling,” he said, completely undaunted by her glare. “But part of marriage counseling covers our joint parenting, and before you tune me out,” he said in response to her groan, “at least hear me out.”
“I don’t want to hear—”
“Sure you do. Like I said—a new leaf.”
Rachel sighed and sat down, resigned.
“I promise, no fighting,” he added.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Sure! If you don’t want to hear me out now, I’ll just stay on indefinitely until you’re ready.”
Rachel took a big gulp of wine and said, “Okay, shoot.”
“Let me start with your professor. He’s a dead-end—”
“Da-ad!” she cried. “I knew you were going to do this!”
“Rachel, please let me finish,” he said calmly.
She bit her tongue. Literally—almost clean in two.
“Believe me, there is no one on the face of this earth who is happier to see there isn’t much between you and that jerk. But today I saw that there isn’t, and I’m happy. Do you understand why that’s important to me?”
“Yes. He’s not good enough for you.”
“Wrong. He’s not good enough for you. And I think maybe I never made it very clear that you are too damn good for a man like him.”
Rachel snorted into her wineglass. “No, you never made that clear. Maybe because you were too busy getting across that I was too heavy and too long in school, and too whatever.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I know I did that and I’m really sorry.”
He could not have shocked her more if he had socked her in the mouth. She peered closely at him, and the unsettling idea that perhaps his prognosis had worsened and now he was going to try and make amends for all the things h
e’d ever said to her over the years formed in her brain.
But Dad sighed with enough exasperation for her to know that wasn’t it, then suddenly sat up, bracing his arms on his legs so that he could focus on her, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Let me get something off my chest, will you? The thing is, Rachel, of my three girls, you are the one who has always had the biggest heart and the biggest dreams. You were always taking in stray animals and lonely little kids, and you’re so damned creative. I’d give my right arm to have a tenth of your natural talent. I’ve always thought that of all my daughters, you had the greatest potential to really be someone.”
Drugs. He was obviously taking some sort of drug cocktail for cancer that was making him crazy. “You’re kidding,” she said flatly.
“Nope. Not kidding,” he said, looking pretty serious. “I have never—never—wanted anything but the very best for you, Rachel. That is the God’s honest truth. Now I know sometimes it didn’t seem that way. I know I harped on you about your weight, but not because I thought you were any less beautiful than your sisters. Because I thought—and I think now—that you are far more beautiful than they are. You have that glow that comes from somewhere inside you. But over the years, I’ve seen you on a path of self-destruction that I couldn’t abide.”
“Oh Dad,” she said, disbelieving, shaking her head at this bizarre conversation.
“And I harped on you about school,” he said, undeterred, “not because I think you don’t deserve to achieve the highest levels of education, but because you were letting that idiot guide your thinking.”
That, unfortunately, was something she could hardly argue, given that she had come to the same conclusion herself several months ago.
“I want you out of school because I know your future is bright and I don’t want you to squander it. You have to seize it, Rachel, and you can’t be afraid to do it. I don’t know why you are—maybe I made you afraid—but if you will just step out into the world, it is yours for the taking,” he said, sweeping his arms wide. “You have everything going for you—looks, brains, sense of humor, a huge heart, an ability to connect with the people most of us can’t tolerate, as you proved to me today—”
“Dad, what has happened to you?” she said. “You’re like someone else entirely!”
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging lightly. “Maybe I should have gone to therapy a long time ago. Maybe I should have gotten cancer a long time ago, because that sure has made me smarter about some things. But enough of that,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “What about you? What’s going on in your life? I really, truly want to know,” he said, and looked so sincere that Rachel almost had to pinch herself to see if she wasn’t having one of her very vivid dreams.
“Well,” she said cautiously, “you’re right that I’m not seeing Myron and I haven’t in a long time.”
“Good news.” Dad grinned.
“But he’s remained my friend. Sort of. He was,” she said, feeling terribly confused, and pressed her palm to her forehead. “Actually, I don’t know what he is anymore,” she said truthfully, and considered there had been some sort of cosmic rift in the universe, because she was talking to her dad about Myron. “I really don’t want him around, but I don’t know how to say it. And then there’s Dagne. I know she’s out there, but she’s also genuine,” she said, and went on to talk about Dagne, and school, and the things she had considered for her dissertation, and the topic she thought she might have settled on.
As the night progressed and they drank more wine, Rachel told her father about her financial situation, how she had loaned money to her friends, then waived fees and class costs for people who really wanted to learn weaving, and how Mr. Valicielo wanted to sue her, how she hadn’t been able to find a teaching job like she wanted, so she had to take a job with a temp agency that was sending her on some really bizarre assignments.
Dad took it all in stride, she had to admit. There had been an initial burst of fatherly outrage about her finances, but then he’d laughed at some of her jobs, nodded his agreement that she was doing the right thing.
“I don’t mind the struggle,” she said, voicing aloud a feeling she’d had for a while. “All my life I’ve had whatever I wanted and I never had to really think about it. But most people I know go through life like I am right now, working to make ends meet. I’m really learning a lot,” she said, realizing just how much for the first time.
“Yeah,” Dad responded with a world-weary sigh. “It’s a different world than you girls were raised in. There was a time your mother was pregnant and I worried about putting food on the table. Jesus, it’s been so long I hardly remember what it’s like anymore.” He paused, looked into space, seeing something in the distant past, she thought. “So, good for you, Rachel,” he at last said with a smile. “Good for you for willing to learn that important lesson. Most kids who come from your kind of money couldn’t be bothered.”
She hadn’t set out to learn a lesson. But she’d set out to crawl out from beneath her father’s long shadow, she realized.
Dad asked about the phone call and she told him about Mike, how they’d met, about their date tomorrow. “Good, good. But he’s not the one on your mind.”
His rare perception on that front completely unnerved her. “There’s no one on my mind,” she started, but Dad’s chuckling silenced her.
“So all those trips to the window and staring off into space and not hearing people talk to you was just . . . what?”
Rachel tried to think of a good excuse. Flynn seemed too huge, too important to share just yet. But Dad was smiling kindly, and she couldn’t help herself. She started with a bit of a stammering, “Well . . . now that you mention it,” she said, and proceeded to tell him, in spite of an inner voice screaming at her to stop, about Flynn. How they’d first met, how she kept running into him, how he had enrolled in her class, and how she hadn’t believed a guy like him would be interested in a woman like her (that made Dad mad, and she had to endure his lecture on how she was really too good for any guy). She even told him, in a moment of sheer madness, how she’d said some things to Flynn she shouldn’t have and sent him running.
“What things?” Dad asked.
“Things,” she said, staring into her wineglass.
“Well, if they are the things I think they are, then maybe this is the point you should take the bull by the horns.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, call him up and tell him to get over it.”
She laughed. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. He needs to know you haven’t already built the house with the picket fence and picked out the names of your children, but that you are a mature woman who wants to explore what’s between the two of you. And if that’s too uncomfortable for him, then better to know it now, right?”
Wow. A mature woman.
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Rachel—the business with the witchcraft notwithstanding, of course. If this guy has half a brain, he’ll understand. And he’ll know what a gem he has in you.”
A gem? What a funky dream this was turning out to be.
They talked until it was obvious Dad was tiring. Before he said good night, Dad grabbed her in a big bear hug, embraced her with a strength he did not look to have, and kissed her on top of her head. “I love you, baby girl. More than you’ll probably ever know,” he said.
Her vision was misty, but Rachel smiled. “I love you, too, Dad. I always have.” She waved her fingers at him as he started upstairs and wished he’d hurry before she started bawling. When he’d made it upstairs, she decided maybe he was right. Maybe she should grab the bull by the horns.
She hesitantly picked up the phone. Then instantly put it down. And picked it up again and dialed his number as quickly as she could so that she wouldn’t chicken out. And then she stood there, listening to each ring, her heart pounding harder and harder and harder until at last his answering machine picked up.
&nb
sp; Answering machine! Crap!
She closed her eyes, tried to think, but the beep rattled her. “Ah . . . hi. It’s me,” she said, and punched herself in the leg for her timidity. “Me, Rachel. Ah . . . well, I am calling to say I missed you today,” she said, remembering what Dad had said. Mature woman, too good for him. “And I’m sorry you didn’t come,” she added, opening her eyes and lifting her head. “I was wondering if perhaps you didn’t come because you were scared off by what I said. If that is the case, I would like to set your mind at ease. You have nothing to worry about, Flynn. I am all grown up and can handle it. I just hope that we can continue to see each other until you have to go or I have to go or whatever, because I enjoy your company, and . . . well, and that, too . . . so if you could please call me, I would appreciate it. If not . . . I would like to say I really enjoyed meeting you.”
She clicked off, and shook the phone to the ceiling. “I enjoyed meeting you?” she complained. But she was feeling a little lighter when she put down the phone.
Subject: Un. Bee. Leevable.
From:
To:
Hey, Happy Thanksgiving. So you will not believe what happened. Dad came for Thanksgiving even though I sort of begged him not to, and guess what. He was NICE. I mean nice, as in very pleasant, very nice to my guests, and he did not criticize me even once in front of them or at all! And he didn’t insult anyone! What is happening to the world as I know it? I’ve been through some pretty strange full moons, but this one takes the cake. Not only was he NICE, but he said he thought I was pretty and smart and had the world at my fingertips. And then he told me—GET THIS—that he loved me. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. Apparently he and Mom are getting more than just marriage counseling. So be on the lookout for a person who looks like Dad but isn’t really him. All kidding aside, the new Dad is way better than the old. It’s un-freakin’-believable.