down.'
He said this for Britney's benefit. He would never marry her. Later, she would remember this as a promise. When he ditched her, the fight would be more epic than
Sooner or later, one of his hotties, during a bad mood swing, will maim or kill him. I believe that on some deep level, even if subconsciously, he knows this.
'What's that on your forehead?' Britney asked.
'Band-Aid.'
'You fall down drunk or something?'
'Something.'
'You in a fight?'
'No. It's an employment-related fork wound.'
'
'A flipped fork flicked my forehead.'
Alliteration seems to offend people. Her expression soured. 'What kind of shit are you on?'
'I'm fully amped on caffeine,' I admitted.
'Caffeine, my ass.'
'Pepsi and coffee and No-Doz. And chocolate. Chocolate contains caffeine. I had some chocolate-chip cookies. Chocolate doughnuts.'
My father said, 'Saturday's not good. We can't make Saturday. We've got other plans we can't cancel.'
'That's all right,' I said. 'I understand.'
'I wish you'd have told us earlier.'
'No problem. I didn't expect you'd be able to make it.'
'What kind of dork,' Britney wondered, 'announces his wedding just three days before the ceremony?'
'Go easy,' my father advised her.
Her psychological engine didn't have a go-easy gear. 'Well, damn it, he's such a freak.'
'That's really not helpful,' my father admonished her, but in a honeyed tone.
'Well, it's true,' she insisted. 'Like we haven't talked about it maybe three dozen times. He doesn't have a car, he lives in a garage-'
'Above a garage,' I corrected.
'-he wears the same thing every day, he's friends with every loser geek in town, he's a wannabe cop like a water boy hanging around a football team, and he's just a major freak-'
'You won't get an argument from me,' I said.
'-such a major freak, the way he comes in here on some shit or other, talking about weddings and 'employment-related fork wounds.' Give me a break.'
'I'm a freak,' I said sincerely. 'I acknowledge it, accept it. There's no reason to argue. Peace.'
My father couldn't quite fake a convincing note of sincerity when he said, 'Don't say that. You're not a freak.'
He doesn't know about my supernatural gift. At the age of seven, when my previously weak and inconstant sixth sense grew in power and reliability, I didn't go to him for counsel.
I hid my difference from him in part because I expected him to harass me into picking winning lottery numbers, which I can't do. I figured he'd parade me before the media, parlay my gift into a TV show, or even sell shares in me to speculators willing to finance an infomercial and a psychic-by-the-minute 900 number.
Getting off the stool, I said, 'I think now maybe I know why I came here.'
As I started toward the kitchen door, my father followed me. 'I really wish you'd picked another Saturday.'
Turning to face him, I said, 'I think I came here because I was afraid to go to my mother.'
Britney stepped behind my father, pressing her nearly naked body against him. She put her arms around him, hands flat on his chest. He made no attempt to pull away from her.
'There's something I'm blocking on,' I said, more to myself than to either of them. 'Something I desperately need to know… or need to do. And somehow, some way, it's related to Mother. Somehow she has the answer.'
'Answers?' he said incredulously. 'You know perfectly well that your mother's about the last place to find answers.'
Smiling wickedly at me over my father's left shoulder, Britney slid her hands slowly up and down his muscled chest and drum-flat belly.
'Sit down,' my father said. 'I'll pour you another coffee. If you have a problem you need to talk about, then let's talk.'
Britney's right hand moved low on his belly, fingertips teasing under the waistband of his hip-slung shorts.
He wanted me to see the desire that he inspired in this lush young woman. He had a weak man's pride in his status as a stud, and this pride was so fierce that it filled his mind, leaving him quite incapable of recognizing his son's humiliation.
''Yesterday was the anniversary of Gladys Presley's death,' I said. 'Her son wept uncontrollably for days after losing her, and he grieved openly for a year.'
A faint frown made the shallowest of furrows in my father's Botoxed forehead, but Britney was too engrossed in her game to be listening to me with full attention. Her eyes glittered with what might have been mockery or triumph as her right hand slowly slipped deeper in his khaki shorts.
'He loved his dad, too. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Elvis's own death. I think I'll try to look him up and tell him how lucky he was from the very day he was born.'
I walked out of the kitchen, out of the house.
He didn't come after me. I hadn't expected that he would.
FIFTY-TWO
MY MOTHER LIVES IN A LOVELY VICTORIAN HOUSE IN the historical district of Pico Mundo. My father had inherited it from his parents.
In the divorce, she received this gracious residence, its contents, and substantial alimony with a cost-of-living adjustment. Because she has never remarried and most likely never will, her alimony will be a lifetime benefit.
Generosity is not my father's first or second-or last-impulse. He settled a comfortable lifestyle on her solely because he feared her. Although he resented having to share his monthly income from the trust, he didn't have the courage even to negotiate with her through attorneys. She received pretty much everything that she demanded.
He paid for his safety and for a new chance at happiness (as he defines it). And he left me behind when I was one year old.
Before I rang the doorbell, I brushed my hand across the porch swing to confirm that it was clean. She could sit on the swing, and I would sit on the porch railing while we talked.
We meet always in the open air. I had promised myself that I would never enter that house again, even if I should outlive her.
