I started to leave, then stopped. “Is it obvious, Moira? No one else knows, do they?”
Moira had every right to laugh. I did sound like a sixth grader. Instead her eyes softened at the corners with sympathy or pity. “You’re safe. It’s me, Mary. I doubt anyone else would pick up on it.”
“Including him?”
“Definitely him. All shields are up and in perfect working order.” The humor didn’t reach her eyes or her voice.
As I walked away I felt her disappointment follow me.
“Safe isn’t always best, Mary,” she called out—vague enough not to raise listening ears, pointed enough to hit its mark.
I shot back. “But safe doesn’t get her heart ripped out twice in one day.”
Chapter 3
I inched down Texas State Highway Loop 1—known to locals as MoPac, after the Missouri Pacific Railroad that was there before the road. At ten miles per hour, I had plenty of time to replay every word, spoken and unspoken, from my walk with Nathan.
The sun had dipped to the horizon, but the heat hadn’t abated. It was late October and Austin hovered in the high eighties and low nineties.
I pulled into a spot a few blocks south of Guero’s, directly in front of Crow Bar, and crossed the street to the restaurant. As soon as I stepped inside, I spotted Dad’s cloud of white hair through the mass of people. He always reminded me a little of Albert Einstein, and I was secretly glad he never cut his hair short or even brushed it much.
He wore his usual white oxford with Davies Electric embroidered in red over the pocket, worn jeans, and Ropers. He stood to greet me, and I reached up and kissed him. He smelled of home—WD-40, Clubman, and Tide.
“Hey, Dad. Sorry I’m late.”
He twisted around me so I could take his stool. “You’re right on time. I put our name in about an hour ago. We should be up soon.” He nodded to the bar behind me. “I’ve been chatting with the bartender. Very nice fellow.”
The light glinted off Dad’s whiskers. They were scruffy, gray, and thinner than I remembered. He’d forgotten to shave again. He’d probably forgotten to eat today too.
“Have you gone through all those meals I made?”
Dad fought a grimace, and I almost laughed. I wasn’t a good cook. I wasn’t even a marginal cook. A friend had taught me five easy-to-freeze recipes a couple years ago, and whenever I was home I made double batches for my dad.
“Stop fretting,” he said. “And don’t let me forget—I made a new gizmo for you.”
“You did?”
“Wait until you see what it does. You’re going to love—” Dad stiffened, then his eyes lit. “That’s us.” He gently directed me in front of him to cut through the crowded bar.
Dad made me “gizmos” to solve small everyday problems or simply to make me smile. My favorite remained the toothbrush that self-dispensed exactly the right amount of toothpaste and timed my two-minute brush.
We sat at our table, and he opened his menu.
“Dad? What are you doing?” I pushed mine aside. “You never look at the menu at Guero’s. You always order the Chiles rellenos.”
“What, a man can’t branch out?”
I wagged my finger at him. “There’s something else going on here. Spill.”
His eyes darted up and down the long page, then he gave up and laid the menu and his glasses on the table. “Fine. You should accept Isabel’s invitation.”
I felt my lips part and my body slump against the chair.
“We already talked about this. You agreed with me.”
He wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“She called you, didn’t she?” I closed my eyes. I should have expected it.
Isabel, unquestionably my oldest friend, questionably my best, had called a couple months ago with an invitation for a “trip of a lifetime”—a costumed Austen-style adventure to Bath, England. And while aspects of it appealed to me, brought back pleasant memories rather than painful ones, I concocted a few excuses and politely declined.
When I’d told Dad about it, he’d agreed. Work comes first, two weeks is a long time for a vacation, having a new boss is a tough spot to be in . . .
What I hadn’t told either of them was the truth: I was tired, and on some level was easing my way out of my friendship with Isabel. Our relationship seemed to be stuck at age eight. The same dynamic charged between us—and that might have been fine, but somewhere in the last year it had darkened a shade and taken on an even more competitive edge than it had acquired in high school—which started over an incident regarding Austen too. So despite the temptation to hop on my first plane, take my first true vacation, and finally see something beyond the ninety-mile radius of my world, I’d said no.
That Isabel had rejected my decision and gone around my back to Dad should not have surprised me. That was standard operating procedure. She loved my father almost as much as I did. While her dad traveled to oil rigs and refineries around the world, mine was the one who had attended her parent-teacher conferences, picked her up from field hockey practice when she broke her ankle, and was the name she wrote down as her emergency contact every year. And if you want something, that’s what you do: you ask your dad.
“She needs you.” Dad leaned across the table and rested his hand on top of mine.
I could feel the calluses on his fingertips. I slid my hand to my lap.
“I’m not saying she can’t be a challenge. She lays claims to things and no one else can touch them, but remember, Mary . . . We had our problems, and God knows it was tough, but that little girl had it even harder. Her mama left when she was only six. Think of her life in England, her father traveling all the time, then uprooting her to bring her to the States but still constantly gone. She went home to a live-in nanny most nights of her growing-up years. Can you imagine that? You had your mama, you had me, and you had your brothers. Who held her when she cried herself to sleep? Who paid attention? No wonder real and make-believe got blurred.”
As much as I wanted to protest, I couldn’t.
Isabel had joined our second-grade class three weeks into school. With her bright-blue eyes, gorgeous black curls, and lilting British tones, she had every girl salivating to be her best friend. At lunch on that first day, Missy Reneker, the most popular girl in the class, with her Guess jean shorts and gladiator sandals, pushed me off the bench to sit with the new girl.