Paul hands me the joint, and I suck at it the way I’ve seen him do.
It tastes like it smells, which is to say not great, and there’s the burn I’d heard about, a rockiness as it goes down my throat, and a screaming insistence that I blow it right out even though I know the people who know what they’re doing hold it in. So I shut my eyes tight and focus all my energy on keeping my mouth closed. Smoke spins around in my mouth, the roof getting too hot to handle.
Paul can’t stop himself from laughing, but he opens his mouth to have me mirror him, and I do. I sputter and cough and wait for something to feel actually good. “Another,” he says. What was awkward only a moment ago is now something he wants even more than me. I shiver in the cold and look at the mountains. Something to anchor me.
Paul’s eyes have lit up, and I’m not his daughter anymore but a project. He is taking it seriously and wants to do it right. I do what Paul tells me and take another hit, and another.
I finally keep a little down and go light-headed. I giggle.
“There it is,” Paul says. He’s full of pride for about a second, and then his forehead creases and it’s something else: fear of what he’s done, of what it means, of who he is. Maybe even of who I am.
I wonder if even the mountains shift, in this moment. Maybe a little snow melts and slides down. Nothing is quite as stable as it might seem.
Paul puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. And that’s nice, the closeness, but my chest squeezes a bit when I think about sitting on his lap as a little girl and coloring my baby dolls with Magic Markers and having him take me to gymnastics on Saturday mornings.
I’m high, he’s high, and the best things about having a father have vanished.
There are things you should not do with your father, even if you call him by his first name.
Immediately, I miss the time before this exact moment.
I think Paul does too. He is frowning and we’re shaking from the cold and our decisions and the fact that we have probably officially taken ourselves out of the running for Family of the Year.
I want it to be a year ago. I want it to be three years ago, five even. I want it to be thirty minutes ago.
The door does its slow push forward, and Cate’s face appears where it shouldn’t.
“Tabby, your tables are—” Her voice is edgy and impatient; she’s been looking for me for a while. She sounds even a bit relieved, at having located me, I guess, but then she stops short.
The joint is still in my hand, between two fingers like I’m some expert.
I know I’m high because the thought occurs to me in slow motion. The slowest, most detached realization I think I’ve ever had.
“Oh come on,” Cate says. “Some fucking father you’re becoming, asshole.”
The words hit me so hard I trip, even though I am standing still. This is not how Cate and Paul speak to each other. Not ever. Not even with pregnancy hormones and stuff.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Paul says. If he’s as high as I am (which, let’s be honest, I’m sure he’s way higher), he simply can’t come up with anything more compelling to say right now.
“Hey?” Cate says. She is fuming, and no one’s manning the counter, which means she must be really freaking out. She takes Tea Cozy seriously. “HEY? You are giving drugs to our daughter. What the fuck are you thinking, dipshit?”
Now I’m sweating. Pouring sweat. People inside the café are listening in and Cate is railing at Paul and I’m still stuck here with the joint in my hand, which is still strangely funny so I’m trying simultaneously not to laugh and not to cry. Leaves blow around and get displaced again. Every little gust changes everything.
I can see, beyond Cate’s pregnant body crowding the doorway, customers craning their necks to watch. Whispering to one another. Scooting their chairs closer to the door, hoping to get a glimpse of the excitement. I reach forward to close the door, but Cate’s not budging, and I don’t want to make her even angrier.
This is bad. Not just bad for the family, but bad for business, I would think.
“Ummm,” I say. It does not stop Cate from yelling at Paul.
“Don’t even think about coming home. You hearing me? I am having another kid, and we are raising this one right, and I will not have you pulling this crap with—”
“Okay, okay, show’s over,” Paul says, cutting her off. He grabs the joint from my hand and throws it to the ground. Hands me the keys to his car, which Cate rushes to grab back since obviously I’m not driving when I’m high. Paul blushes. He’d been trying to do the right thing. He says a literal “Oops,” which I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult man say in real life.