“And you can bet this guy is getting way too much * to be dragging himself around looking like a mess in the way you’re doing.”
“Dad,” I say again, pushing his phone away, “I know about the ‘Bad Boy.’ He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.”
This time he regards me differently, as if the veneer of nonchalant humor and buddy-buddy superficiality he always gives me is broken a little. He scratches his head, looks around, then nods softly at me as he finally tucks the phone away.
“I see. It’s that serious, huh?”
I shuffle in my seat, the weight of the question’s answer bearing down on me.
“Yeah. It’s the most serious I think it’s ever gonna get for me.”
After a few seconds of us looking at each other, open and frank, oblivious to the noise and commotion around us, he leans forward.
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
He scowls. “When I say ‘love,’ Nate, I’m not talking about just enjoying her company, or wanting to make her yours. I’m talking about the real thing. The feeling that you’re half a man when she’s not around, the knowledge that nobody else you’ll ever meet will change you, connect you, move you as much as she will. I’m talking about someone you’d give everything for. Everything. So let me ask you again. Do you love her?”
It takes a few seconds to respond this time – not because I’m not sure, but because I’ve never heard my father speak this way before, and also because I’m so sure the word wants to explode out of me in a shout of conviction that I have to take a moment to tamp it back down. Despite my effort, the answer comes out in a roar that rumbles from the depths of my being.
“Yes!”
I look at my father, desperate for him to tell me what to do now, where to go, how to be, so that I can fix this. In the long conversations with myself late at night, I always reach this point, the point of zealous belief, of impossible confidence that I love Jessie, that I have to find a way to make this right, but it’s been a dead end every single time. I look at my father, and pray that he’ll know what to do. He nods softly again before speaking.
“I don’t think I ever really told you, Nate, but your mother was the only woman I ever really loved.” He looks down, licking his lips nervously, before meeting my gaze again. “And I fucked it up. Biggest mistake of my life. I spent the next twenty years trying to feel that again. The marriages, the parties. The girls, the drugs. But that’s all it ever was. Chasing that feeling of true, genuine love.”
I go to speak but he holds up his hand to stop me.
“Look, I’m not asking for pity, or saying I didn’t like it. I know what I’m doing. And I have no regrets. No more than the one, in any case. I should have never let your mother go. I should have done everything I could to get her back. But it took me too long to understand that. I don’t know about your situation, Nate, about this girl, or what’s happened between you. But I’ll tell you this. You’re young, and I can see how much she means to you. So don’t stop trying, whatever you do. Don’t give up on her. Not unless you want to live the same life I did.”
At the words of hope, coming to me in my father’s voice, something shifts. I’ve never heard him speak like this, and that alone would be enough to shake me, but the fact that he’s giving me a way out, a way forward, is enough to make me want to run out of this place and straight to wherever Jessie is right now. I let the words echo in my mind, resonate, as if the power of hearing them alone will make them come true, and see my father with new eyes.
“Thanks, Da—”
“Here are your cheese steaks!” the tattooed girl interrupts in her best ‘have a nice day’ voice. “One beer, and one water.”
“Looks good enough to eat!” my dad says, leaning back and clapping his hands, before turning to the waitress. “And the food doesn’t look too bad either.”
“Enjoy your meal,” the girl says, going just a little red. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
My dad’s eyes glint, and he winks at me before turning back to her.
“What if I just ‘want’ it?”
The girl laughs awkwardly before turning away, my dad’s eyes once again studying her ass like he’s planning to sketch it later. I look at him and marvel at how the guy who just brought me back from the brink of suicide can suddenly turn into someone else entirely – and then I realize how similar we actually are. Or used to be.
24
Jessie
It’s only when I hear the sound of Lorelei opening and shutting the front door that I realize I’ve been staring at the same picture of a gingham dress on my laptop for about ten minutes now. As if jolted into the present, I move the mouse and continue flicking through the pictures of stock costumes.
“Jessie?” Lorelei calls from the hallway.
“Hey,” I say, turning to watch her come in. “I picked up some Chinese on the way home. I know I said I was going to cook something healthy but I didn’t have time.”