Chapter 8
1189 Words
Eight
Holly
“So, you’re stalking your dad?” my best friend, Dana, asks over the Bluetooth speakers in my SUV.
“I’m not stalking him, just doing some recon.” I sip my iced coffee and settle in to watch the front doors of the building that houses his company’s offices.
“You say that like it’s normal. Be the woman I know you are. Go in there and tell him you’re there and see what he says.” Dana chomps down on her dinner before she has to head back to the ER.
“I can’t. I’m still adjusting to being here. One step at a time.”
“And you still haven’t told Karen?”
“No, my mom still thinks I’m in Oregon.” Guilt weighs heavily on me. My mom has been everything to me my entire life and I don’t enjoy lying to her, but it feels like what’s best at this point.
“I’m oddly proud of you for taking this step,” Dana mumbles over whatever she’s eating.
I sip my coffee. “Thanks?”
“You always play it so safe. Remember in college when that guy dared you to streak at that party and you broke up with him?”
“Why would he want his friends to see me naked? That’s just stupid.”
“He was a twenty-one-year-old guy who wanted to see your t**s. Plain and simple.”
I chuckle. “And that’s why I’m not with him.”
“Ever see your one-night stand guy again?”
I still, even though she can’t see me. “Why do you ask?”
“Don’t you live in Mayberry now? I’m guessing you ran into him at the one stoplight.” She laughs.
“Lake Starlight isn’t that small.”
“If you say so. I worry that if a polar bear attacks you, you won’t have proper medical care. The hospitals there probably don’t have trauma units. Have you checked that out?”
I roll my eyes. “First of all, I’m not going to run into a bear, and I’m sure the medical care is fine.”
“Whatever you say. Let’s get back to hot Jeep guy.”
“Funny you should ask.”
“Oooh, that sounds promising.”
“He works at the school. He’s a teacher and the baseball coach.”
Dana laughs, and I hear her hand slap on the lunch table. “No way!” More laughing and smacking. “I love it.”
“Yeah, my life is a real comedy skit these days. Oh, and get this, they have this blog that reports the local gossip, so everyone knows about our tryst. I’m the laughingstock of this place.”
“A blog? That doesn’t sound very Mayberry-like,” she murmurs.
“Nope.” I sip my coffee again. Pretty soon I’ll have to use it as a pee cup, because I’m not leaving without catching a glimpse of my dad.
“What’s the blog called?”
“No way.”
“Come on, can I comment on it?”
“Absolutely not!”
She laughs. “I’m due for some vacation time. Before you head back home, I’m coming to visit.”
“Just so you know, you will stick out.”
“Maybe I’ll find some hot guy with a Jeep to screw me in.”
“Dana,” I sigh.
As always, her response is to laugh.
I spot someone in the lobby, walking toward the front door.
“I think he’s coming.” My heart beats in my throat as I wait for the man, who is a stranger to me, to walk out the door.
“Okay, I’m here for you. What does he look like? Does he have your auburn hair? Because your mom doesn’t. Come to think of it, you look nothing like your mom. Oh, what if you were adopted or Karen stole you? s**t, could you imagine if Karen wasn’t even your mom?”
“You’re watching way too much of the Investigation Discovery channel.” I lean forward, anticipation clawing at my stomach.
“True. But think about it, you and Karen are so opposite.”
A man with auburn hair sprinkled with gray wearing a striped suit with a tie, and black wingtips emerges from the building.
“I think it’s him,” I whisper, as if he could hear me.
“Really?” Dana lets go of the whole Dateline story she formed in her head. “Does he look nice?”
“I guess so. He’s not smiling or anything.”
“How can he look nice if he’s not smiling?”
“He looks content—oh, oh my.” I blink a few times in rapid succession.
“What?” Dana asks. “I’ve got, like, two minutes left of my break. Hurry.”
“It’s just… his car…” I squint to make sure I’m seeing it correctly.
“What does he drive? Some expensive sports car because he’s a bachelor who doesn’t give a s**t about his daughter? He probably spends all his money on toys.”
“He paid child support,” I mumble, still concentrating. He climbs in while looking in my direction, so I slide down in my small SUV. “s**t, I think he saw me.”
“Relax, you’re probably imagining it.”
“Am I total i***t for doing this?” I ask, doubting myself not for the first time since putting this plan into action. “I mean, I left with almost tenure to fulfill some little girl’s dream of meeting her father. I lied to the woman who raised me and helped put me through college. I’m an idiot.”
“No, you’re not. Who doesn’t want to know their parents? I told you, I’m proud of you.”
A small smile pulls at my lips. I sit back up in my seat, staring at the back of his window. “He has kids. One girl and two boys. And a wife.”
“How do you know that?”
“He has those stickers on the back of his window. You know the stick figures?”
“Lame. Great, your father is lame.” But her words don’t hold much conviction.
“I guess I never thought about him having a family.” Especially when he was never a part of mine.
“I’m sorry, Hol,” Dana says, and I hear a page coming through the intercom in the background. “I gotta go. There’s a code, but I’ll call you tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Just don’t freak out, okay?”
“Sure. Go, Dana.”
“Love you, chica.”
“Love you.”
The line dies and I stare at the building for a while longer. It’s a huge part of the life he’s built here. As is his loving wife and three adorable kids. Too bad he didn’t bother to include the little girl he left behind thirty years ago in his nice, shiny new life.
- Writer
