The Unexpected Everything

“Why not? I think it’s important.”

“Why does she need to tell everyone how she feels about him? Isn’t it enough that Karl knows?”

“Does he, though?” Clark asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “Do you think it really counts unless other people hear it?”

“Of course,” I said immediately. “Probably more so.”

Clark shook his head, then stumbled a few feet as Rufus and Bertie lunged simultaneously for a squirrel that was running up a nearby tree. “Why do you think people get married with lots of guests there?”

“Probably for the toaster ovens.”

“You might be right. But I think it’s more than that. I think there’s something to saying it in front of people. It’s like it means more when you say it out loud, where everyone can hear you.”

“Fine,” I said, relenting. I was starting to learn when Clark wasn’t going to let go of something, and I wanted to get to what happened next. “Marjorie confesses all to random tavern folk.” I looked over at him, wondering if I might be able to get something I’d been pushing for now that I’d given in to this. “Can we finally do my thing where Marjorie discovers penicillin?”

“I told you, there’s no penicillin in this world.”

“But there’s mold, right? Maybe Marjorie’s just smarter than everyone else.”

Clark smiled at me. “You make a good point,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss as all around us dogs barked and leashes got hopelessly tangled.

? ? ?

“You okay?” I asked, looking across the table at my dad, who was staring down at his plate, his expression concerned.

“Maybe,” he said after a slight pause, picking up a chopstick and nudging a piece of sushi. “I’m not entirely sure what this is, though.”

I shook my head as I dunked my vegetable tempura in soy sauce. “I can’t help you there.”

I’d finished walking the dogs and said good-bye to Clark—who seemed to be taking his party-throwing responsibilities way too seriously and had headed to the store to buy provisions and two kinds of dip—when I got a text from my father, asking if I felt like getting dinner. We weren’t all meeting up at Clark’s until later, and I’d been surprised to realize that, in fact, I did feel like it. Our two-dinner-a-week plan was officially in full swing now that I was no longer grounded. It wasn’t like we hadn’t been eating dinner when I’d been stuck at home every night, but it had been much more casual—my dad would eat in front of an eighties basketball game, and sometimes I’d join him in his study with my own plate, looking up facts about the game on my phone and irritating him by being able to call what happened next and pretend I was just really good at guessing. Or we’d both be in the kitchen together, me with my organic chemistry textbook (I was trying to get ahead for next year), him with the paper or one of the nonfiction books he was always reading, about things like the history of salt or tires. We would eat in silence that didn’t feel strained and talk only if we had something to say.

But when he’d suggested sushi tonight, it had felt okay—it had actually seemed like a good idea. Well, at least until my dad had gotten his food.

“Why did you order that?” I asked, as a waiter came out with two more plates, set them on either side of my dad, frowning down at the rolls still untouched on the plate in front of my father, like he wasn’t eating fast enough. I’d gotten what I always got at sushi places, where not liking fish was a definite handicap, but my dad had ordered “Chef Knows Best,” which meant he didn’t get a choice in anything, but things were brought out to him and he was expected to eat them. In other words, pretty much my worst nightmare.

My dad picked up a roll with his chopstick, then set it down and took a drink of his sake, like he was trying to get up the courage to take a bite. “Well,” he said, looking across the table at me, “it was what your mom always liked to do when she had the option.”

“Oh.” We had started talking about her slowly, in little pieces here and there. But I still wasn’t used to it yet. “She did?”

“Yeah,” my dad said, picking up the roll again and eating it this time, but taking a long drink when it was over, so I didn’t think I really needed to ask him how it was. “She used to say that normally everyone is telling the chef what they want. She thought it was nice to switch it up for a change.”

I smiled and picked up a carrot just as two more plates arrived, the waiter starting to look seriously peeved. My dad must have picked up on this, as he started to eat more quickly. “So any big plans tonight?” he asked, wincing slightly as he chewed.

“Oh,” I said, just to stall. I had a feeling that telling him I was going over to Clark’s house, where there would be no supervision, and if Wyatt was involved, there would probably be beer, would not go over so well. “I think I might just have a quiet night at Bri’s,” I said with what I hoped was a casual shrug. “Watching movies, you know.”

“Uh-huh,” my dad said as he looked around, then dropped a napkin over the sushi remaining on his plate. He gave me an even look. “So I take it you won’t be seeing a certain novelist?”

“Well,” I said, stalling. “I mean, who can say, really, what will or will not happen?”