Old Familiar Song

Chapter 3-2

There were some times when Larry wished Crystal was a little bit younger still…like when he suggested they walk down to the Byrd to take in a two dollar movie and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’m twelve, hello? I can’t go there,” she’d said, as if that were explanation enough.

Larry didn’t get it. Was she too old to see a second-run movie on its way out of the theater? Or too old to be seen going to the movies with her father? Did the fact that the movie playing was an animated feature have anything to do with it? Or was it that it was a Friday night, the busiest night downtown, the streets full of older kids, and she didn’t want anyone she didn’t know to think she wasn’t cool?

Larry didn’t even know what passed for cool nowadays, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t hanging out with your father in public. It hadn’t been cool when he was her age, either. So he didn’t push it and brought her back to his basement apartment in Richmond’s historic Fan district instead. They weren’t too far from Cary Street if she decided to change her mind about a movie, but he suspected she wouldn’t.

Her overnight bag was already in the hatchback of his Prius. On the weekends he had Crystal, his ex-wife usually stopped by the bookstore sometime after his lunch break to drop it off. No matter how many times he told Jen exactly when he took his lunch, she invariably always showed up after he clocked back in, which meant he had to take another break to move Crystal’s bag from her car to his. He’d talked to her about it, but she didn’t listen. Hell, the manager had even mentioned it, once, and Larry had watched, amused, as Jen stared down Andrew until what had started out as a strong suggestion not to interrupt work hours tapered off to a shambling plea to try to be more considerate next time, if she could, maybe? “I don’t know what happened, man,” Andrew said later, shaking his head after Jen had left. “I was doing so well, too. She…I don’t know, sapped it out of me, or something.”

“Yeah, she does that,” Larry told him. “It’s like a mutant superpower.” Which partly explained why they were no longer married. A man could only stomach so much of her ball-busting before he had to get out. Larry thought the reason why her current husband was immune to her effect was because she’d already crushed his nuts to dust. He’d met the man a time or two, and the guy seemed pretty dickless to him. He’d have to be—Jen definitely wore the pants in her house, and she let everyone know it.

As Larry retrieved the bag from his hatch, his daughter stood nearby, the ever-present phone in her hands. The bag was a striped, blue and white duffle with Looney Tunes characters printed on the side—probably too childish for Crystal to be seen with, he thought. But Jen hadn’t bothered to zip it up all the way, and when Larry reached for it, he caught a glimpse of something odd inside. At least, odd to him. She’s only twelve, he told himself as he unzipped the bag completely. Don’t tell me she’s already…

Crystal glanced up from her phone in time to see him pluck out a small, square packet. It was the size of his palm and very thin, covered in some sort of purple, flowered plastic. When Larry held it up, frowning, her face flushed a deep crimson. “DAD!” she cried in a voice so high-pitched, it almost disappeared into nothing. “Oh. My. God. What are you doing?”

It took a moment for Larry to connect the item he held to his own little girl. Then, surprised, he asked, “Are you menstruating?”

“You can’t ask me that! You’re so embarrassing!” Crystal stormed off, probably wishing she could crawl under the car and disappear.

Larry looked around—the street was empty. No one was watching. Jesus, it was only a maxi pad. Millions of women used them every day. How could asking her about her period be embarrassing?

So much for a nice evening together, he thought, tucking the pad back into her bag before he hefted it over his shoulder. He closed the hatch and followed his daughter to the short set of stairs around the side of the house which led down to the basement door. There he found Crystal huddled in the doorframe, arms crossed around her stomach, head down, eyes rimmed red with tears.

Unlocking the door, Larry started, “Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t even!” She pushed past him inside, stomping across the hardwood floor to the bedroom she called her own when she stayed with him.

With a sigh, Larry entered and locked the door behind him. He dropped her bag in front of it, and his small calico cat Roni appeared out of nowhere to weave around his legs once before stopping to sniff the bag. Roni was a rescue who had washed up in the bottom of the basement stairwell during a hurricane a few years back; when Larry first took her in that stormy night, she curled up comfortably on the foot of his bed—and in his heart—where she’d been sleeping ever since. Whenever Crystal was over, the cat usually stayed in his daughter’s room. But the ferocity of the way Crystal had blown into the apartment must have scared the cat off; Roni settled for kneading Crystal’s duffle bag, instead.

Larry poured himself half a glass of iced tea from the fridge, took a sip, then reached for the bottle of whiskey he kept under the sink for emergencies. He wouldn’t let himself drink too much—he didn’t want to become one of those guys, living alone with only a cat and a bottle of Jack to keep him company—but he felt like he needed a shot of the hard stuff tonight. If he were being honest, it wasn’t only Crystal, either. He’d been off-kilter ever since he heard Geoff’s song on the radio. I should look him up online, he thought. Maybe it isn’t even him.

Who was he kidding? It was, he knew it was. No one else had a voice like that.

After topping off his drink, Larry took a healthy swig of whiskey straight from the bottle, then hurriedly recapped it before he could convince himself another wouldn’t do any harm.