A waitress sets a piece of banana cream pie down on the counter, refills a coffee cup. The manager sticks a pencil behind his ear and rings up a pistachio-colored check.
“Excuse me?” I say when I see the man at the pay phone reaching for more coins. “Are you going to be much longer?”
“I’m on the phone, lady.”
“I just need to make a quick call. Two seconds.”
He covers the receiver with his hand. “I’ll be done when I’m done.” He leans into the phone and keeps talking. “Sorry,” he says. “Just some crazy lady.”
There’s a cheap antiqued Coca-Cola mirror on the wall next to me. I catch a glimpse of myself. My hair is flailing out in all directions, staticky, my cheeks red with windburn and dry heat. I look like a bag lady. Behind me I hear coffee hissing into the brewer. The door jingles and a gust of air hits the back of my neck.
I’ve just about decided my father isn’t worth this when pay-phone guy shouts, “Screw you, you twat,” into the phone and slams down the receiver. It’s that kind of day. He hits the coin-return lever a few times and checks the box until he’s satisfied that he hasn’t left a nickel behind by mistake. I fish out a dime and move toward the phone.
“You really are in a hurry, aren’t you, lady?” He takes his time buttoning his coat, blocking my way.
“Asshole,” I call after him as he heads for the door. A few people look up, but most of them just keep eating.
The phone rings six times before someone picks up. It’s Mary.
“Hello, Elle. Happy New Year.” Her voice is like treacle. Even through the telephone, I can hear her smiling a lie.
“Happy New Year, Mary. Can you put my father on the phone, please?”
“Your father’s resting.”
“I need to talk to him.” I picture her in her kelly-green twin set, her small, calculating eyes.
“I’d rather not disturb him.”
“I’m just down the street. I rang the buzzer, but no one answered.”
“Yes.”
“Can you please get him?” I try to stay calm.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You made him very upset. He tried to run out of the house with no shoes on. I was worried sick.”
“Just put him on, please.” I can’t keep the anger out of my voice.
“I think you both need some time to cool down.”
“Excuse me?”
“You were extremely rude to him earlier.”
“This is between me and Dad.”
“No,” she says. And this time she doesn’t bother to disguise her venom. “This is between you and me.”
I take a deep breath, try to control my hatred of her, the heartbreak of all my father’s broken promises—of the promise he made the summer after he and Joanne had finally split up.
* * *
—
It was August. Anna had a summer job as a mother’s helper in Amagansett and Conrad was in Memphis, so I was going to stay with my father while Mum and Leo were on tour in France. Dad had sublet Dixon’s apartment for the summer.
Mum and Leo put me on a Greyhound bus on their way to Logan, with enough money for a sandwich and a drink if the bus stopped at a rest area and a taxi from Port Authority to Dad’s apartment.
“Why can’t he pick me up at the bus?” I asked.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” Mum said. “You’re thirteen years old. He said he’d have supper ready.”
“Fine. Don’t blame me if I get kidnapped by some pimp looking for runaways and end up as a fourteen-year-old hooker.”
“You watch far too much television,” Mum said.
* * *
—
When I woke the next day, it took me a moment to recognize where I was. A dark room. Dim, air-shaft light. The smell of someone else’s laundry detergent. The bunk bed, crayon marks on the walls, brown floral sheets. Becky’s room. The last thing I could remember was my father giving me one of his sleeping pills. I rubbed a dreamless sleep from my eyes and wandered down the long hallway looking for him. He was sitting at a big oak table in the cavernous, sun-washed living room of Dixon’s apartment reading a manuscript, wearing his usual weekend uniform—Levi’s, bare feet, a faded navy-blue Lacoste, the faint smell of peppermint castile soap.
He looked up and smiled. “Hey, kiddo.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost three. You slept for seventeen hours. Hungry? There’s half a turkey sandwich in the icebox.”