Thirty minutes later they were still thinking about it!
And not a soul in that dealership was foolish enough to blunder into that closing booth and let them off the hook. Finally, seeing that Tubs would wait all day, the old man said, ‘Maybe. If the price was right.’ Five minutes later he owned a car. They were, Tubs explained in the post-mortem, the kind of people who liked to keep a car for seventeen years. Trouble was they had met a real salesman!
What are you telling me? I asked my stepdaughter, and then I waited.
Now Lucy was cornered by her own words as I had intended, and I was not about to let her off. She tried to eat, but when she saw that I was waiting for an answer, she set her fork down. Three minutes. The waitress came toward us. I held my hand out imperiously, ‘We’re fine,’ I snapped, and she faded. I kept my eyes on Lucy. What are you telling me? I would not repeat the words, nor would I change my expression. I waited to see if she would lie again, something she couldn’t wriggle out of with a faulty understanding of the present continuous.
‘I’ve been around it. Kids do it. Everyone does it.’
This amounted to as much of a confession as she was willing to make: a syllogism for her step-papa.
Everyone does it. I am part of the class of everyone.
Therefore: I do it, too. That was the logic. The emotion was something else: I see it, but I don’t partake. I’d never do something like that! Now put your head back in the sand!
But I am a stupid man. I do not understand syllogisms or emotional appeals. I waited for her to answer the question. No one should have such a stepfather.
‘Sometimes,’ she said finally. ‘Not much. If you don’t… you feel like-’
She stopped, expecting the lecture. I didn’t give it.
After providing me with more than enough time to preach on the folly of peer pressure, Lucy had to finish her thought. ‘You’re mad.’
I shook my head. ‘Not at all.’
‘I thought you would be really pissed off. You more than Mom.’
‘I’m concerned. On the other hand, I’m pretty much concerned all the time about you, even when you’re doing everything right.’
‘Did you ever smoke grass?’
‘Sure. The other kids made me. I mean I hated it, but to be popular… you know how it is.’
Lucy had found an ally and laughed at my confession. She could even forgive me for mocking her.
‘You’re not going to tell Mom?’
Point of the entire conversation: ‘I don’t keep anything from your mother, Lucy.’
Lucy’s eyes frosted over, ‘Right.’
‘Is there something you want to ask me?’
‘What’s the point? You’ll just lie to me.’
‘That’s worse than adultery, isn’t it? The worst thing I could do?’
Lucy was not confident about the answer to this.
‘Tell me something,’ I said. ‘If I told you I had an affair last summer would you think any less of me?’
Lucy considered this solemnly. She wanted to be honest and she was eager for me to be honest, because, whether she realized it or not, my telling a lie to her was worse than anything else. We didn’t play that game, not about the important things. When I lied to Lucy she knew it was a lie. Even Ahab and Jezebel knew it!
‘No,’ she said, ‘not if you were honest with me.’
I smiled at her. ‘That’s because you already believe it. You think I had an affair, so you’ve already adjusted your opinion.’
Lucy worked through this as if calculating the possibility for the first time. ‘It isn’t true?’
I smiled. ‘It’s a frightening thing to ask that, isn’t it?’
She got angry because I had finally gotten her to ask the question and now I wouldn’t answer it.
‘Is it true or not, Dave?’
‘I’m going to give you some time to tell your mother what’s going on with the grass. If you don’t, she and I are going to have a little talk.’
‘She’ll ground me.’
I kicked one shoulder up, dismissing the consequences. ‘Would you rather lie to her?’
‘I’m not lying!’
‘Silence is the biggest lie of all, kid.’
I called for the waitress. I made a fuss over the fact that I had been rude. I said we had been having a heart-to-heart. I gave her a wink. You know how those can be? She understood. She had a couple of daughters herself! Lucy corrected her. Stepdaughter. The waitress didn’t miss a beat. She had a couple of them too.
I said we would like to have the check. Anything wrong? I smiled. Nothing at all.
In the car I told Lucy I’d like a Baskin-Robbins.
‘How about you?’
She thought that sounded good. We were about halfway across town when she said, ‘You never answered my question, Dave.’
‘You’re right. That’s because it’s not your place to ask it. It has nothing to do with the two of us.’
Long silence and then, ‘You did.’
‘What if I didn’t?’
‘I don’t understand. Did you sleep with that woman or not?’
‘I don’t want you to take sides, Lucy. What’s going on isn’t about your trusting me or believing your mother. It’s not about you. Believe me, you can be happy about one thing no matter how it ends between your mother and me. You’re not a part of the fight and you’re not a part of the solution. I came into your life twelve years ago. I’ll be there as long as you’ll have me. I hope that means forever.’
Over ice cream, Lucy asked, ‘What do you think Mom will do about the grass?’
‘Depends on which of us tells her about it.’
‘You’re going to tell her if I don’t?’
‘I sure am.’
She looked at me craftily. ‘Because you never keep anything from her?’
‘Never,’ I said.
This time she didn’t answer wise.
Chapter 13
Like a good trial lawyer, Gail fought three battles simultaneously. One involved complaints about procedural errors. The second argued definition of terms.
The last objected to findings of fact.
While I resisted an essentially technical defence, I took special satisfaction in one of Gail’s letters of protest. Having scoured the university handbook, she wrote the university lawyer to inform him that while smoking was prohibited in faculty offices there was nothing in the handbook, either explicit or implicit, prohibiting sexual intercourse.
Gail explained that by highlighting issues concerning the university’s failure to follow its own procedures and by insisting they observe definitions as written in their own handbook, we were essentially demonstrating the wisdom of finding a solution other than firing me.
The only trouble with this approach was the vice president’s committee would not really care how the thing played out in court. The committee’s concern would be focused on my actions. If we could make those understandable, even if we admitted wrongdoing, my chances of the whole thing going away would be excellent. Moreover, the appellate process would still be in place. In other words, I gave nothing up, but I had an excellent chance of finding closure for the case in committee.
‘What they want is a victory against sexism. In and of itself, that is more important to the committee than whether you are guilty of either sexual harassment or misconduct. They don’t care if a court brings judgement against the university for failing to follow its own rules. It’s not their money. The president might because he’ll have
