Stacy's Dad Has Got It Going On

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The TV was on in the living room, and Stacy and her dad were eating in front of it. The crass cackle of canned laughter was a welcome guest—unlike some people.

Savannah picked up her plate of salad, rice, kebabs and mixed vegetables. It would have been rude to eat in the kitchen or, worse yet, take her plate into her bedroom, but when she stepped into the living room she wanted to turn tail and run. Stacy had parked her a*s on the armchair, leaving Savannah to share the couch with her father.

He looked up at her—at her eyes, not her boobs, so the hoodie obviously worked its magic—and offered a nervous smile. For some reason, she said, “Hi,” and then felt like an i***t.

“Hello, roomie,” Stacy’s dad replied. He reached across the couch and tossed the throw cushions to the floor so Savannah wouldn’t have to sit on his lap. That was nice of him. She expected every older man she encountered to have no respect for women, but maybe that view was a little too harsh. She ought to give Stacy’s dad the benefit of the doubt.

Curling into the corner of the couch, Savannah placed her plate on the armrest and tried to watch TV without looking too much in his direction. The sitcom Stacy had turned on was way too risqué to be watching with somebody’s father. Everybody stifled their laughter at the crudest jokes.

Awkward!

After five of the longest minutes of her life, Savannah grabbed the remote. “Let’s see what else is on.”

“Good idea,” Stacy’s dad said.

What was his name?

Savannah flipped through the channels until she came across a familiar red-head. “Oh my god, I Love Lucy!”

Stacy groaned. “Seriously? Dad used to put this on after school when I was a kid. I always hated it. I wanted to watch reruns of Night Court.”

“You weren’t old enough to watch Night Court.”

“Yeah, you probably don’t think I’m old enough to watch it now,” she muttered.

Savannah didn’t want to delve into their familiar discord. She swayed the conversation back to Lucy. “I used to watch this show after school, too. I had a babysitter named... oh, what was her name? Anyway, she was from India originally but she had a British accent, which I thought was too cool for school. She let me watch one half-hour of TV before starting my homework. I always picked Lucy.”

“It’s a classic,” Stacy’s dad agreed. “Lucy and Desi were the first TV couple to sleep in the same bed, if you can believe that. Watch d**k van Dyke or... let’s see... The Honeymooners, I think, or any of those shows. Married couples all slept in twin beds like Bert and Ernie.”

“Now that show I did like,” Stacy said, but the conversation no longer involved her. It had coasted to Savannah and... what was his name?

“But your parents let you watch Lucy?” Savannah asked. She turned to face Stacy’s dad, bringing her knees onto the couch and setting her plate in her lap.

“They were fairly progressive, in that regard. But, god, I was one of those kids who sat three inches from the television, you know? They were constantly telling me to move back, move away from the TV. ‘Eric, twelve inches,’ they’d say.”

Eric! Finally, Stacy’s dad had a name!

He laughed and repeated the phrase, “Eric, twelve inches. That’s also the caption under my picture in Gigolos Weekly.”

For a split second, Savannah wasn’t sure if that was a joke, but then Stacy moaned, “Eww, dad, what the f**k?”

He blasted a grave look across his dinner plate. “Language, Stace.”

“p***s jokes, dad!” She made a gagging sound. “I’m trying to eat, here. Show some respect!”

But it was Savannah Eric faced to say, “Sorry if I’ve offended.”

“No,” she chuckled. “I think it’s just Stacy who’s offended.”

Stacy nodded. “Sh-yeah I am! You’re grossing me out. Talk about something else, will you?”

“Okay, okay,” Eric said. He took a mouthful of rice while he searched for a new topic of conversation. “Savannah, where are you from?”

Her fork fell from her fingers. It landed with a clang on her plate before tumbling to the carpet. For a moment, she just looked at it.

Savannah didn’t like to think of herself as easily offended, but it really bothered her when people figured she came from another country just because her skin wasn’t as snow-white as Eric’s or Stacy’s, or Stacy’s mother’s for that matter. Not that she’d had much interaction with either Stacy’s father or her mother, but she remembered thinking Eric and his wife had that “brother and sister couple” look about them. They were both light-skinned with hair so blond you’d swear it was bleached.

“Sav,” Stacy said. “My dad asks everyone he meets where they’re from. He works as the Director of Development for the IHAO.”

“That’s the International Humanitarian Aid Organization, right?” Savannah bent to pick up her fork. It was covered in lint and other grossness, so she put it on the coffee table and ate her kebab with her fingers.

Eric nodded. “That’s right.”

“Wow.” She didn’t even try to hide how impressed she was. “Development... that’s essentially fundraising, right?”

“Yeah,” Stacy laughed. “Dad’s a glorified panhandler.”

“It’s true, and I’m never off the clock, so if you’ve got any spare change I’d be glad to take it off your hands.”

“Students aren’t the best demographic to hit up for cash,” Savannah replied. But she felt a little guilty giving nothing when she reflected on the four-dollar latte she’d downed between her microbiology lecture and her bio-chem lab. “I’ll see what I can dig up after dinner.”

Stacy and her dad finished their meals at exactly the same time. She cleared their plates while he explained, “That’s why I always ask people where they’re from.”

“I’m from here,” Savannah quickly interjected. She didn’t want the assumption that she was born somewhere else to remain hovering on the air.

Eric picked up the TV remote and turned down the volume. “Well, ‘here’ is a place. We fund projects all over the world, including ‘here.’”

“Really? That seems weird. This is an affluent country. Shouldn’t our money be going to people who need it more than we do?”

“Good question. I feel like I’m being interviewed.”

“Oh,” Savannah said. “Sorry. Inquiring minds are always humming.”

“No, it’s good to ask questions,” he said. “And yes, you’re right. Most fundraising dollars go to developing countries with world majority populations, but we don’t feel the government is doing a great job with First Nations populations here at home. In fact, they’ve really dropped the ball.”

Savannah nodded. “Amen to that.”

“There are reserves in this country where clean water is not always available and disease is rampant. Most people with money live in urban centres, so they never see this level of poverty first-hand. It’s out of sight, out of mind.”

“That’s one thing about studying biology,” Savannah reflected. “You get so caught up in the internal lives of individual organisms that you sometimes forget to look out into the world. What other work do you guys do?”

“Lots,” Eric began. “Let’s try this: where are your parents from?”

Now that she realized why he was asking, she didn’t mind telling him. “My mother was born in Laos, but her parents came here when she was little.”

“Laos?” He looked at her in a way she couldn’t quite decipher. It wasn’t sleazy or dirty or anything like that, and yet his gaze warmed her in a way she couldn’t describe. “Our big project in Laos is bomb disposal. The Americans dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs on Laos during the Vietnams war.”

“Yeah, I know.” Savannah unzipped her hoodie,and slipped it from her shoulders. “That’s why my grandparents left the country. A lot of my relatives were killed in that war.”

“And bombs are still killing Laotians to this day. The countryside is ridden with undetonated explosives. In rural areas there’s a thriving black market for scrap metal. That’s a lethal combination. In poor villages, people—adults and children alike—come across old bombs and try to dig them up to sell. Quite often, the jostle reactivates the detonation device and...”

“God. Those people could be my cousins.” Savannah fished all the change from the pocket of her jeans. “What do you do about the bombs?”

“We have teams,” he told her. “Bomb disposal teams. They go into these areas and safely dispose of the explosives. Can you imagine? All these years after the war, and innocent people are still being killed.”

Savannah took a deep breath as she considered Stacy’s father. He looked much younger than her parents, though they must be roughly the same age. She’d already forgotten the reason for his visit, but when it stormed to the forefront of her mind, she felt a surge of discomfort. Hopefully he wouldn’t mention his wife’s affair to her. She’d feel really awkward hearing about it.

“What about Africa?” Savannah asked. “That’s where my father’s ancestors were from.”

“We have a number of projects going on in Africa, as you can imagine. Right now we have a big push on promoting the rights of women and girls. This campaign’s gotten a lot of great press.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. It’s about helping women work for themselves in sustainable industries, and encouraging families to let their girls go to school.”

“Right!” Eric seemed very pleased his message had reached all the way to his daughter’s house. “As ruefully as we may look at corporate sponsorship, it’s a necessary evil at times. Did you know we’ve teamed up with purveyors of sanitary pads, who help us by donating money and product to help keep girls attending classes?”

Stacy crept back into the room and took a seat in her favourite chair, but neither Eric nor Savannah acknowledged her. The conversation had gotten too interesting.

“Yeah, I actually did hear about that,” Savannah said. “Because a lot of girls in the villages aren’t allowed to go to school when they have their periods. They fall behind after a while, and then a lot of them drop out.”

“What the hell are you people talking about?” Stacy asked, grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

“One of the IHAO’s projects in Africa involves...”

Stacy wasn’t listening. She upped the volume on the TV to drown out her father’s voice. He looked to Savannah and shrugged. “We’ll finish this conversation some other time, I guess.”

The guy had a really nice smile—she’d give him that much.

“For sure. Anyway, I have a lot of reading for Physiology of Neural Systems.”

“Sounds like fun.” Eric looked to his daughter. “Stacy, don’t you have reading to do?”

Rolling her eyes, Stacy tossed the TV remote back on the coffee table. “Yes, Father.”

When Stacy marched to her room and closed the door, Savannah went to the kitchen to clear her plate. Through the serving gap, she watched Stacy’s dad pick up the remote, flip past documentaries and round-table news programs, and finally settle on one of those irritating fat-husband-pretty-wife sitcoms. A man as smart as Eric would really have to be suffering to fill his mind with that crap.

“Can I get you anything?” Savannah asked him.

“No thanks,” he said without turning. “Stace showed me where you keep everything and... oh, I won’t eat any food with your name on it.”

Her heart bled for the guy. “It’s okay. Eat what you like.”

When Savannah got to her room, she spent a good half hour scouring her bookshelf for something Eric might find interesting. Anything would be better than sitcoms, but she doubted he’d be interested in her old Genetics text, or even the vastly more jejune Pharmacokinetic Principles. She didn’t own many novels, but she did have the autobiography of a young Somali woman. With his international aid work, he’d surely find it as interesting as Savannah had. She set the paperback by her door to give him when she left her room for her nightly nine o’clock tea break.