When the waitress came over to take our orders, my dad ordered the salmon, I got the New York strip, and Jeremiah said, “I’ll have the dry-aged rib eye, medium rare.”
The rib eye was the most expensive thing on the menu. It cost thirty-eight dollars. I looked at him and thought, he probably didn’t even look at the price. He never had to, not when all his bills got sent to his dad. Things were gonna change when we were married, that was for sure. No more spending money on dumb stuff like vintage Air Jordans or steak.
“So, what do you have going on this summer, Jeremiah?” my dad asked.
Jeremiah looked at me and then back at my dad andthen back at me. I shook my head just slightly. I had this vision of him asking my dad for his blessing, and it was all wrong. My dad couldn’t find out before my mother.
“I’m going to be interning at my dad’s company again,” Jeremiah said.
“Good for you,” my dad said. “That’ll keep you busy.”
“For sure.”
My dad looked at me. “What about you, Belly? Are you going to waitress again?”
I sucked soda from the bottom of my glass. “Yeah. I’m gonna go in and talk to my old manager next week. They always need help in the summer, so it should be all right.”
With the wedding just a couple of months away, I would just have to work doubly—triply—hard.
When the bill came, I saw my dad squint and take a closer look. I hoped Jeremiah didn’t notice, but when I realized he hadn’t, I kind of wished he had.
I always felt closest to my dad when I was sitting in the passenger seat of his minivan, studying his profile, the two of us listening to his Bill Evans CD. Drives with my dad were our quiet times together, when we might talk about nothing and everything.
So far the drive had been a quiet one.
He was humming along with the music when I said, “Dad?”
“Hmm?”
I wanted to tell him so badly. I wanted to share it with him, to have it happen during this perfect moment when I was still his little girl in the passenger seat and he was still the one driving the car. It would be a moment just between us. I’d stopped calling him Daddy in middle school, but it was in my heart—Daddy, I’m getting married.
“Nothing,” I said at last.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him before I told my mother. It wouldn’t be right.
He went back to humming.
Just a little bit longer, Dad.
chaptereighteen
I’d thought it would take at least a little time to adjust to being at home again after being away at college, but I fell back into my old routine pretty much right away. Before the end of the first week, I was unpacked and having early-morning breakfasts with my mom and fighting with my brother Steven over the state of the bathroom we shared. I was messy, but Steven took it to a whole new level. I guessed it ran in our family. And I started working at Behrs again, taking as many shifts as they would let me, sometimes two a day.
The night before we all went to Cousins for the dedication of Susannah’s garden, Jere and I were talking on the phone. We were talking about wedding stuff, and I told him some of Taylor’s ideas. He loved them all but balked at the idea of a carrot cake.
“I want a chocolate cake,” he said. “With raspberry filling.”
“Maybe one layer can be carrot and one can be chocolate,” I suggested, cradling the phone to my shoulder. “I’ve heard they can do that.”
I was sitting on my bedroom floor, counting my tips for the night. I hadn’t even changed out of my work shirt yet, even though it had grease stains all down the front, but I was too beat to bother. I just loosened the necktie.
“A chocolate-raspberry-carrot cake?”
“With cream cheese frosting for my layer,” I reminded him.
“Sounds kinda complicated to me flavor profilewise, but fine. Let’s do it.”
I smiled to myself as I stacked my ones and fives and tens. Jeremiah was watching a lot of Food Network since he’d been home.
