“I’m sorry, honey. I got in real late, I think the bags are still in the car.”
“I don’t believe it. You didn’t even bring in your stuff?” She took a yogurt out of the fridge, peeled off the lid. “Gee, good thing I helped you pick out a new wardrobe. You can’t even bring it inside.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. I told her about Lawrence.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “Is he gonna make it?”
“I’m going to call the hospital in a little while. I’m guessing the first few hours will be pretty critical.”
She was still shaking her head in disbelief. “Man, that’s so freaky.”
“Yeah. Well, so,” I said, thinking that a lot of freaky things were going on around here lately. “Where did you go after we split up last night?” Trying to make it sound like regular conversation, not an interrogation.
Angie shrugged. “Just around. Did some studying with some friends.”
“Oh yeah.” I took a sip of my coffee. “These friends taking the same courses you’re taking?”
“Yep.”
“Uh-huh.” I watched Angie get out a slice of bread, drop it into the toaster, then root around in the fridge for some jam.
My daughter. Doing the small-talk thing with Daddy. Making her breakfast. Talking about homework. Getting ready for class.
And a few hours earlier, she’d spent the evening with a dominatrix. Who was, I reminded myself, my friend.
I decided to try a different tack, come at things from another direction.
“So, have you thought any more about what you might want to do when you finish college?” I asked.
“I dunno. There’s lots of time. I’ve got three more years.”
“Yeah, but, you know, you must have some ideas rattling around in your head. Lines of work you might want to get into.”
“There’s lots of things,” Angie said. “There’s photography; sometimes I think advertising might be interesting. Or something where I’m working with people. I think I’d like working with people.”
I nodded. “You’d like to work with people.”
“Yep.”
“What kind of work would you like to do for people?”
Another shrug. “All kinds of things, I guess. Who knows? Why all the questions about my future?”
“Just interested, is all. I’d just like to see you get into a line of work you’d enjoy, that makes you happy, that offers lots of opportunities, that’s financially rewarding, that’s something that would make your mother and father proud.”
Angie looked up at that last one. “Huh? What, you want me to become a doctor or something? Because I can tell you right now, I am not planning to become a doctor.”
“I’m not saying you have to become a doctor. All I’m saying is, you’ll want to get some kind of job you can be proud of, and I’m sure if you’re proud of it, your mother and I will be proud of it, too.”
Angie stirred her yogurt, getting the fruit down on the bottom mixed into the rest of it, and studied me for a moment. “Dad,” she said.
“Yes, honey?”
“Are you, like, drifting into another one of your spells again?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, when you start getting hyper-concerned about everything? Because, like, you’re totally impossible when you’re like that. I mean, I can understand you getting freaked out about Lawrence and all, but everything’s fine here at home.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Never mind, we won’t talk about it, subject closed, conversation over.” I looked back down at my paper. “We just want you to find a career that will make you happy.”
“Dad!”
“Okay, never mind. Forget it.” I decided to move to another subject. “How’s this thing with Trevor? He still bothering you?”
Angie sighed. “He called me, late last night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He says, we’re meant to be together. That forces that might try to keep us apart are, what did he say, acting in vain.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Weird, huh? He’s so fucking intense. Says I remind him of that chick, the one in the Matrix movie, jumps around in slow motion kicking the crap out of guys. She is kind of pretty.”
“You know, there are things we can do. We could get, I don’t know, a restraining order or something, or—”
“Dad.”
“We’ve got legal experts at the paper, I could ask one of them—”
“Dad.”
“They could probably give us a name. In fact, I met this police detective last night, he might even—”
“Dad!”
“Huh?”
“Dad, stop it. Okay? Trevor’s a pain, but I’ll deal with it. It’s not like he’s psycho or something.”
I wanted to tell her. That Trevor had been following her the night before, first to the coffee shop where she met the young man, then to the mall, then part of the way out to Oakwood. And I was working up to it, thinking, okay, she could get as mad as she wanted, but it was important that she—
“Jeez, Dad, maybe you should start snooping on him, like you did with—”
The Pool Boy.