My Father's Best Friend

by Ali Parker

“Okay. Good night.”

  “Good night, Lanie,” I answered, savoring the feel of her name on my tongue. Hanging up, I imagined her in her little kitchen, probably wearing jeans or those tight leggings I’d seen her in once. She’d float across the floor, maybe put on some music and shimmy around as she chopped and stirred.

  Just thinking about it had all my blood rushing to one very special spot.

  A knock on the car window made me jump. Karen stood next to the door, peering at me in question.

  Grabbing my car keys and phone, I climbed out of the car.

  “Dinner is in the oven on warm,” Karen explained. “And Raven is upstairs doing homework. Do you need anything else?”

  “No, Karen,” I smiled, praying to God she wouldn’t look down and notice my boner. “Thank you.”

  “Have a good night,” she called, going for the side door.

  “You too.”

  With my housekeeper gone, I let myself into the kitchen, where a delicious, savory smell filled the air. I’d initially hired Karen to be a housekeeper, but her skills in the kitchen had since then proved invaluable. Cracking the oven’s door, I peeked in on a casserole. A salad waited on the counter, a little dish of croutons next to it.

  Thinking about food brought my mind back to Thanksgiving and back to the proposition I had for Raven.

  Leaving the kitchen, I climbed the stairs, following the heavy bass thumping down the hall.

  “Hey!” I pushed the half-closed door open all the way.

  Raven looked at me from where she lay on her stomach on her bed. Right away, I noticed the bags under her eyes.

  Taking a few steps into the room, I turned the music off. Raven opened her mouth in protest.

  “Are we supposed to mime to each other?” I countered before she had a chance to even say anything.

  “You’d be bad at that.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Did you get enough sleep?”

  “Yeah,” she grumbled, flipping a page of the textbook in front of her.

  “Okay.” I crossed my arms, suddenly uncomfortable. I’d come upstairs in a good mood, expecting Raven to be in the same.

  But I guess I was wrong.

  “How was school?”

  She shrugged and flipped another page.

  “Are you a speed reader now?” I asked.

  Raven glowered my way. “What’s up, Dad?”

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s been ready for thirty minutes. I had to wait for your butt.”

  I checked my smirk, knowing she’d been about to say ass.

  “I got home as soon as I could, honey. This is actually a pretty regular hour. It’s when most parents get home.”

  Did I need to point out to her that I no longer worked until eight or ten each night? That I made time every weekend for us to do something together?

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. “If you still feel like we’re not spending enough time together, you can tell me.”

  “No,” she sighed, looking away.

  “Is everything okay at school?”

  My heartbeat picked up. Everything had been so good recently. I never heard from the school’s office, and Lanie hadn’t reported any upsets.

  Raven hesitated. “Yeah, school is fine. I’m just kind of in a funk. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head. I almost asked if this funk had anything to do with PMS, but I checked myself just in time. No better way to get punched than to suggest a woman’s period ruled her.

  “Dinner?” I asked.

  She nodded and hauled herself off the bed. Together, we silently went downstairs. Karen had put everything in order, setting the table and leaving out my favorite bottle of bourbon. I carefully pulled the casserole out and served us both while Raven dumped salad on our plates.

  “So,” I started once we were both seated, “I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving.”

  Raven gave me an uninterested look. “Okay. Aren’t we going to order in like always? Or go to the club?”

  The country club did serve a Thanksgiving dinner. Not many people went to it, but Raven and I had been known to grace it on a number of occasions.

  “I thought we might do something different this year. Perhaps have some people over.”

  Raven paused in the middle of cutting her food. “We’ve never done that.”

  “Which is why it might be nice. What do you think of inviting Lanie and her parents here?”

  An unreadable expression crossed her face.

  “Raven?”

  “It’s already Monday. They probably already have plans.”

  “Not set in stone ones. I already talked to Lanie.”

  “Oh. You invited her?”

  “No, I only asked about her Thanksgiving.” I watched Raven carefully, but she still offered no sure reaction. “Are you okay? I thought you liked that Lanie and I are seeing each other again.”

  Raven ran her bottom lip under her teeth. “No, yeah. I do. It’s just why do we have to have all these people over?”

  “We don’t.”

  For a second, I was hurt, but then I remembered everything I’d learned about Raven in the last month. It could be she needed some special one-on-one time with me but didn’t want to explicitly ask for it.

  “You want it to be just us?” I gently asked. “Like it always is?”

  “Lanie can come, too. I don’t want to be around all these new people.” She shrugged.

  “It would just be her parents.” I quickly spoke again, knowing there was no reason for pointing that out. If Raven wanted an intimate Thanksgiving, I would give that to her. “You know, I see what you’re saying. And I like our small Thanksgivings too.”

  “But with Lanie this year,” she pressed.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Again, I haven’t asked her yet. So, if she can make it.”

  “I don’t want to go to the club.”

  “We’ll use that catering company.”

  Raven pursed her lips, looking uncomfortable. I stopped myself from sighing in frustration just in time. Jeez, I was trying here. Getting Raven to admit to what she wanted could be like pulling teeth sometimes, though.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t like that one? There’s another company we could use. Or I can probably book a chef to come in and cook here. It’s a little late, but I’m sure I can find someone.” I pulled my phone out, ready to open the search engine.

  “You said no phones at the table.”

  I peered at her serious face over my phone. “If we want to find a chef, I need to do it tonight.”

  “Why don’t we cook ourselves?”

  I guffawed. “You mean a turkey?” I could hardly say it without laughing again. “You know I can’t cook, right?”

  “I saw you made Lanie something the other night.”

  “Yeah, that was simple. But a full Thanksgiving meal—” I stopped at the disappointment on her face, realizing how thickheaded I was being. “You know what? That sounds like a great idea.”

  Raven’s face lit up. “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Except I can’t make any promises that I won’t burn everything.”

  She shook her head. “We’ll be doing it together. And we’ll have recipes.”

  “I’ve never cooked a turkey,” I warned.

  “How hard can it be? Loads of people do it all the time.”

  “Okay.” I chuckled. “I’ll give you that.”

  Raven picked up her fork and knife, cutting her casserole up into little pieces as she talked a mile a minute. “We’ll have to make a list. Can we go shopping tomorrow? We have to go soon or else all the best turkeys will be gone. What should we make? I guess all the usual stuff, right? Except cranberry sauce is gross. But I guess Lanie might want it—”

  “Hold it right there,” I interrupted. “You don’t like cranberry sauce?”

  “No. It’s disgusting.”

&nbs
p; “All right, this confirms it. There must have been a mix-up in the hospital because you are definitely not my daughter.”

  Raven rolled her eyes. “Keep trying, Dad. Maybe one day you’ll come up with a joke that’s funny.”

  “People at work like my jokes.” I grinned.

  “You pay the people at work.”

  “Lanie likes my jokes.”

  “Yeah, I’m not going there.” She put a big forkful of food in her mouth and chewed away.

  As we ate, we planned the upcoming meal in greater detail. With each dish added, my excitement grew. I couldn’t wait to ask Lanie over. As long as her joining us didn’t cause any discord with her parents, it was all I wanted.

  A Thanksgiving at home, a real one, full of time spent together. It would be the opposite of the wham bam, catered holiday meals Raven and I were used to.

  With Lanie there, everything would be perfect. A man couldn’t ask for more.

  Chapter 35

  Lanie

  “I don’t know what he expects me to do at that lodge,” Mom continued on, her voice blaring from the speakers of my desk phone. “He’s only going there because that man, what’s his name, is going there too. The one whose company your father wants to buy. He’s hoping to do some business over Christmas vacation.”

  “Have you told him this?” I sifted through some papers on my desk, looking for the parent survey forms the school collected the day before.

  Mom was silent. I could picture her well, probably pursing her lips as she pressed the phone to her face and looked out at the bird feeder in the backyard. It was her greatest hobby, that bird feeder. Somehow, she recognized a lot of the birds that came to it. If a regular visitor stopped coming by, she’d worry they’d been eaten by a cat or flown into a window.

  “No,” Mom finally said. “You know how your father is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told me he met with Andrew.”

  Segue much, Mom?

  “Uh-huh,” I carefully answered, “and things are good between them now. Dad’s happy for me and Andrew.”

  Happy might have been a stretch.

  “Well,” Mom tartly responded. “Andrew and your father have been friends for years.”

  I didn’t know where she was going with that, but the sour tone was enough to turn me off. Maybe I imagined it, but it seemed like she was suggesting Andrew and Dad’s relationship would withstand everything else, including me.

  “I have to go, Mom. I have a lot of work to do.”

  Also, I needed to end the conversation before paranoia completely took over.

  “Okay, sweetie. You know, that cardinal with the hurt leg hasn’t been at the feeder the last couple days. I hope he’s all right.”

  Yep. Bird feeder. Knew it.

  “Maybe he flew south for the winter.”

  “Oh, cardinals don’t migrate, Lanie.”

  Right. Silly me.

  “Maybe he’s at a neighbor’s feeder instead. I’ll talk to you later, Mom. Bye.”

  I hung up before she could protest and got busy organizing the survey papers. I’d hoped that Mom might mention Andrew somewhere in our conversation, but things hadn’t gone as desired. For all her talk about Dad being the one most likely to flip his lid over my dating life, when it came down to it, Mom was the least-accepting one.

  Whatever. I couldn’t spend all day long worrying about my parents. It was a three-day week of school, and that meant I had extra work to get done before the last day.

  Surveys in hand, I carted them down the hallway and dropped them in the office with Joyce. As I left, the bell for first lunch rang. Kids catapulted from their classrooms, their shouts echoing off the walls.

  Keeping close to the lockers, I wound my way through the crowd, mentally counting the number of students I could name as I went. I suspected I knew about fifty of them so far, which didn’t feel like a lot. I wanted to know each and every one of them, including the ones I’d probably never see in my office. An important part of my job was making my presence known so the kids felt they could always come to me if they needed.

  Halfway to my office, I caught sight of Raven. She stood with her back to me, but I recognized her bright pink backpack right away. She talked to a dark-haired boy who leaned against a locker, arms crossed. Judging by the scowl on his face, the conversation wasn’t a happy one.

  The crowd was already thinning, kids either going to the cafeteria or their next class. I edged closer to Raven and the boy, who still hadn’t noticed me.

  “No one likes a liar,” Raven was saying, her voice rising with each syllable.

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t lying. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

  With the speed of a professional boxer, Raven’s hand flew out. The slap resounded in the hall, and the boy put his hand to his cheek.

  “What the hell?” he yelled.

  Oh, brother.

  Moving fast, I checked to see if anyone else had caught sight of what happened. The hallway was empty now, though, just the three of us in it. Rushing forward, I stepped up next to the two teens.

  “Raven.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Come with me,” I quietly told her.

  Raven’s blond brows pushed together. They were more defined than usual. In fact, she wore more makeup than I remembered her ever having on. Mascara. Lipstick. Eyeliner. The whole shebang.

  “He—”

  “Just come with me,” I interrupted before turning to the boy. “What do you have now?”

  He dropped his arms to his sides, looking guilty. “American Government.”

  “Get to it.”

  He hesitated. “Can I have a note so I don’t get a tardy?”

  My jaw dropped, and I searched for the words but couldn’t find any. Was this kid insane?

  “Never mind,” he mumbled, rushing off down the hall.

  “Let’s go to my office,” I told Raven.

  Arms folded protectively across her chest, she followed me there.

  “Have a seat,” I said, closing the door.

  “I’m missing English.”

  “That’s all right.” I sat on the edge of my desk. “I’ll write you a note. Sorry I couldn’t do the same for your friend.”

  Raven snorted, and I almost smiled back, but the seriousness of the situation kept me grounded.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “You’ve been doing so well.”

  Raven took off her backpack and dropped into one of the chairs with a huff. “It’s not my fault. It’s Jason. He’s a total tool.”

  “That guy was Jason, I assume.”

  Raven glumly nodded.

  “Why did you slap him?”

  “I told you. He’s an asshole.”

  “Raven. I want to help you.”

  She slowly lifted her eyes to mine. “As my guidance counselor or as my dad’s girlfriend?”

  The question took me by surprise. Andrew had never called me his girlfriend, so I wasn’t about to go there. Luckily, the best answer was indirect.

  “I’m speaking to you as someone who cares about you.” Leaving the desk, I settled in the chair next to her.

  Raven studied me, the resistance in her face melting away. “Have you heard about Jason?”

  I shook my head. “Should I have?”

  She shrugged. “He’s just, like, really popular here.”

  “Okay,” I encouraged with a nod. “What do you think of him?”

  “I like him.” She twisted the end of her sweatshirt. “I mean, I did, until he had to go and be a total idiot.”

  “Tell me the whole story.”

  She eyed me. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

  “I have to report the slap but nothing else.”

  “Fine. So, here’s the thing… I liked Jason. You know, kind of a lot. And I thought he liked me too.”

  “Has anything happened between you guys?”

  “Yeah, last week we hung out after school, like, three days. J
ust me and him. No one else. As more than friends.” She gave me a meaningful look. “And everything was great. He told me he liked me, and he wanted to take me out on a date.”

  “And then?”

  She twirled some hair around, her eyes growing wet. “And then he made out with some girl at a party. Over the weekend. Mandy Watkins. What kind of a name is Mandy? Is this, like, the nineties?”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that comment.

  “How did you find out about the girl? Did Jason tell you himself?”

  “Hell, no. I heard it from, like, everyone who was at the party. He didn’t even try to hide it.” Her chin trembled with emotion. “And then I asked him just now, and he admitted to it.”

  My chest tightened to see her so upset. “Raven, I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged like it didn’t matter, though the tears pooling in her eyes said another story.

  “It sucks when someone doesn’t like us back.”

  She sat up straighter. “But that’s the thing! He said he liked me!”

  “I know,” I softly answered. “Did you guys talk about being exclusive?”

  “No. Course not. But he could have told me he planned on tonguing some other chick. Wouldn’t you be pissed if my dad was messing around behind your back?”

  Heck yes, I would.

  “Let’s keep this about Jason. We can talk about your dad when we’re not at school. Look, Raven, high school is a good place to casually date, to get to know people and learn how to socialize.”

  “I don’t want to do that. I want … I just want him.”

  My heart nearly broke in two. Boy, could I relate to that feeling.

  “Okay.” I spread my hands. “I know you’re upset, but let’s look at this objectively. Could Jason be, you know, a player? Because if he says he likes you and then goes and kisses another girl, that sounds like a bad sign. Even if you guys haven’t talked about being in a relationship yet.”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “But just because he’s been one way with other girls doesn’t mean he’ll be that way with me.”

  One day, I would have to talk to Raven about the dangers of thinking a man would change for her. In that moment, though, it was best to keep the conversation minimal.

  “Here’s the thing that’s important, Raven. People are going to do what they’re going to do. We can’t control them. If we want to keep sane, we can’t let guys influence our emotions.”