“Not much to tell,” I said as I flipped through page after page of wines by the bottle, trying to get to the food options. I could hear my dad in my head, critiquing this as well. Spend enough time with a restaurant troubleshooter and you start thinking like one yourself. “Just school, mostly.”
“And your father is well?” she asked, her voice cheerful, polite.
I nodded, equally civil. “He’s fine.”
My mom smiled at Dave, for some reason, then took a sip of her wine. “So what else? You must be doing something besides going to school.”
A silence fell across us, during which all we could hear was Peter, talking about a strong offense. I could feel my mom watching me, waiting for something else she could seize and keep. But I had nothing else to share, no more to say. I felt like I’d already given her my time, and my friend. It was enough.
As I thought this, though, Dave cleared his throat, then said, “Well, there’s the model we’re working on.”
My mom blinked, then looked at me. “A model?” she said. “Of what?”
I thought about kicking Dave, but wasn’t sure I could see him well enough to make contact. Instead, I just glared in his general direction, not that he noticed. “It’s of the downtown and surrounding areas,” he told my mom, as the waiter glided past, filling our water glasses. “For the centennial. They’re doing it above Luna Blu.”
I felt my mom glance at me. I said, “Dad’s restaurant.”
“Really,” my mom said. She was still looking at me, as if expecting me to pick this up and run with it. When I didn’t, she said, “That sounds interesting. How did you get involved in it?”
I was pretty sure this comment was directed at me, but I didn’t respond. So Dave, after helping himself to a roll and a pat of butter, said, “Well, to be honest, in my case it was kind of required.”
“Required,” my mom repeated.
“Community service,” he told her. “I got into some trouble a couple of months back. So I owe hours to the, you know . . . community.”
I felt my mom kind of start at this. “Oh,” she said, glancing at Peter, who was still on the phone. “Well.”
“He got busted drinking at a party,” I told her.
“It was stupid,” Dave admitted. “When the cops showed up, everyone else ran. But they said to stay where I was, and I tend to follow directions. Ironic, right?”
“Um, yes,” my mom said, looking at me again. “I guess it is.”
“Truthfully,” he said, clearing his throat, “the volunteering hasn’t been bad at all. As it turns out, my parents are a lot stricter than the courts. They’ve basically had me on lockdown ever since the whole thing happened.”
“Well, I’m sure it was very alarming for them,” my mom said. “Parenting is so difficult sometimes.”
“So is being someone’s kid,” I said.
Everyone looked at me, and then my mom reached for her water glass, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she took a sip. So typical. Dave was openly confessing to an arrest and yet I was the bad one here.
“Anyway,” he said now, glancing at me, “I did the first half of my hours at the animal shelter, cleaning cages. But then with budget cuts, they started closing earlier in the afternoons. So that’s how I ended up working on the model with Mclean.”
“The model,” Peter said, joining the conversation as the waiter brought his wine, taking entirely too long to remove the empty glass and adjust the napkin beneath it. “Model of what? ”
On my right, Dave was about to answer, and on my mother’s side, Peter was waiting. But between them, she had that look on her face, like I was the worst daughter in the world, and I could just feel all this history swirling, swirling as I tried to remember what it had been like before. When we were just us, and things were simpler. I couldn’t, though. All I knew was that she was hurt again, and it was my fault. So I did what I always did. I faked it.
“It’s a model of the town,” I said suddenly, the words coming without me even thinking first. “I actually wasn’t supposed to be part of the whole thing. But Opal, this woman who works at the restaurant? She really needed the help, so I pitched in the other day.”
“Oh,” my mom said. “Well, it sounds like it might be a worthwhile way to spend your time.”
“It’s a huge project, though,” I continued. “Tons of pieces. I don’t know how she’s ever going to get it done by the deadline, which is May.”
“It’s important to have a goal,” Peter said. “Even an unreasonable one can be good for motivation.”
This, in a nutshell, was my stepfather. If the coaching thing ever ended for him, I was sure there was a group in need of confidence building somewhere that would be eager for his services.
“Well, in that case,” Dave said, “my goal is to graduate without any further misdemeanors.”
“Aim high,” I said.
“You know it.”
He smiled, and I smiled back, feeling my mother watching me. I must have seemed like such a stranger to her, I realized, when she saw me like this. In a town she didn’t know, with people she’d never met, and both of us wading through this limbo world between what we’d been and what we might be. Like seeing her from a distance earlier, this thought made me unexpectedly sad. But when I turned to her, she’d already looked away and was saying something to one of the sitters.