Daddy Business

Chapter 1: Faye Vesda

Chapter 1: Faye Vesda

May 20, Tuesday

At thirty-six, Faye Vesda turned into an unpredictable whirlwind pretty much overnight, right before my eyes. Untamable came to mind. Other descriptions included: snippy, somewhat cold, and feisty. No matter how presumptuous she came across, I still considered her my best friend and loved her with all my heart.

While visiting my Tudor, she dropped a personal pile of her crap on my kitchen counter. She grabbed a cup of coffee from the machine on the counter, poured extra milk into her coffee mug, and demanded, “These are the errands you can do for me today.”

I fingered the pile, cuddling my own cup of afternoon coffee in my left palm. There were letters without stamps, coupons for toilet paper, and a cardboard tube labeled Stone & Brae Incorporated. I took a sip of my coffee and relished its heavy Costa Rican flavor.

“How many times have I told you that I’m not your personal secretary, Faye? We’ve been over this before, if you recall.”

“Don’t get snippy with me, Paul. I’m in no mood.” She gave me a death stare over her coffee mug with her intense hazel-amber eyes and furrowed eyebrows that had been nicely groomed just that morning. She shook her head, swinging ginger-colored curls, and waved a finger at me that clearly stated: Dare to set me off, Paul Avery, and you will pay the damaging consequences.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked Faye and treated her with utmost respect. Faye, unfortunately, always found a way of crossing lines in our friendship, ever since we had met some twenty-plus years ago at Stewart Middle School in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. Sometimes, I felt more like her assistant than a friend, accomplishing daily and mundane tasks for her that a paid professional like a secretary could do, day in and day out. Frankly, Faye didn’t see our relationship that way and insisted I help her the way any true friend would.

Bottom line: I liked her a little too much to cut the string of friendship. To be Faye Vesda, you had to be frazzled, unorganized, and not always on your game.

After my whining about feeling like her paid help, she yanked a bottle of Foxe Zinfandel from her oversized purse and placed it on the counter. “This is for your trouble.”

Fair enough. The errands would get done because I personally felt that the wine just happened to be a reasonable payment. Foxe wine had a reputation of being one of the best in the Pittsburgh area. The winery was privately owned and operated by two of the six Foxe brothers and sat twenty miles north of the city, near Butler. The white Zinfandel had a crisp and clean taste to it with a hint of strawberry, which soothed my tongue while I checked essays after dark. The stuff went for almost fifty bucks a bottle, worth my time and taste. Good for me.

I told Faye, “This is the last time I’m being your secretary. You’re going to have to hire someone from a temp agency to give you a hand.”

“Tsk.” She waved a hand at me and rolled her eyes.

I looked down at the pile of debris on the counter and asked, “What’s in the cardboard tube?”

“That happens to be blueprints for my new greenhouse. You can have those dropped off at my architect’s. The address is on the tube.”

I looked at the tube. Stone & Brae Incorporated had an address across town, next to the Ohio River, a good twenty-minute drive through traffic. The building they were in just happened to be shaped like a diamond and occupied eight floors. Tourists, when visiting the city, loved to take pictures of the structure. As for locals, we used the building as a landmark, detailing directions in the city, calling it the Diamond.

“Last time for errands,” I reminded her.

“Whatever.”