“A mountain of blubber”???
Did I really just hear that?
I was baldly, openly staring at the back of this guy’s weaselly, nondescript baseball cap now.
What the hell? Who even thought those things about a person they’d just spent the night with, much less said them out loud?
As we approached the first floor, just as I was thinking this conversation couldn’t possibly get any more appalling, the Weasel added, “I got some pictures while she was sleeping. I’ll text them to you. Oh, and there’s a video. Sound up for that one. You’ve never heard snoring like that in your life. Go ahead and post them all.”
With that, the doors slid open and he slid out, still talking, without ever noticing I was behind him.
Holy shit.
I stepped out, too, but I slowed to an astonished stop just outside the doors.
This right here was why I hadn’t dated anyone since Ezra. This was why I spent Saturday nights at home with Peanut. Just the fact that men like this existed.
What had I just overheard? Was that unbelievable douchebag texting pictures of some poor unconscious lady to his friends? “Post them”?! What did “go ahead and post them” mean? Did he have some kind of website where he lured women back to his apartment and filmed them? Wasn’t that illegal? Should I call the police and report a—A…? A morally repugnant person in the vicinity?
Or should I go find this guy’s apartment, bang on his door, rescue this woman—who had clearly just made the worst one-night-stand decision of her life—and lend her a fuzzy sweater, make her some tea, and give her a little TED Talk on Bad Men and How to Spot Them?
I was still undecided when—speaking of men who made you lose your faith in men—I felt something clamp my elbow and turned to see my dad. But not so much his face as the back of his head, because he was already dragging me off toward—where? The street, maybe?
“Hey!” I said in protest, like he’d forgotten his manners.
“We need to talk,” my dad called back—not slowing or turning.
How long had it been since I’d seen him? A year? Two, maybe? Our last communication was Lucinda’s three-page computer-printed holiday letter—which I hadn’t read—and now not even a “Hi! How ya doing?” from this guy? He was just going to grab my elbow and steer me through my own lobby?
I tugged back to resist, like, This is not how you do this.
At that, my dad slowed and turned.
He took in the robe. And the slippers. Then he said, “I got the whole story from Lucinda.”
“I’m sure you did,” I said.
“You’re going to need to get the surgery, Sadie,” he said next.
I looked around to see if someone heard. That felt like an awfully private thing to just say at full volume in a public place.
I guess this was what the whole elbow-grabbing thing had been about.
“I will,” I said, stepping closer and leading by example by lowering my voice. “I’m just … processing for a minute.”
“You don’t need to process,” my dad said. “Just get it done.”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“No,” my dad said. “It’s simple.”
My quiet voice hadn’t worked. Instead, my dad went the other way and used his doctor voice—which is even louder than his usual one—on me: “Do the surgery right away. As soon as possible.”
The ground floor of my building had a really great coffee shop called Bean Street that fronted to the street but also connected to our lobby. “Can I…” It felt so weird to say this: “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
My dad shoved his hand in his hair and looked evaluatively over toward the Bean Street logo—hand-painted on the glass doors by a hipster sign painter.
Then he said, “Okay,” and walked over without waiting for me.
The place was almost empty. We sat facing each other in a booth, and I shifted gears, now trying to counter his doctor voice with an improvised unflappable-professional voice of my own. “I already told the surgeon that I preferred to wait,” I said. “I have a project that can’t be postponed.”
“Lucinda told me. Your big break.”
Of course she’d told him. What else did she have to talk about? “One of them,” I said. “One of many. I get big breaks all the time.” Then maybe one sentence too far: “My whole life is big breaks.”
He flared his nostrils. “The point is, you can’t wait.”
I tilted my head. “This is uncharacteristically bossy of you, Richard.”
“Don’t call me Richard. Dad will do.”
“What’s the rush, exactly? The doctor said it wasn’t urgent.”
“You need to get it taken care of.”
As I looked closer at my dad, he seemed atypically rumpled. Tie askew. Wrinkles in his Oxford cloth. He always traveled in a business suit. Formal guy. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Singapore?”
“I came home early from my conference.”
“For this?” I asked. It had to be for something else.
“This couldn’t wait,” he said. That sounded like a yes.
Was this all it took to get his attention? “Wow. I should have gotten a cavernoma years ago.”
“You’ve always had it. It’s congenital.”
“I was joking.”
But he was in no mood to joke. He actually looked … worried.
Huh. Worried about his daughter. Was this a first?
“It’s fine,” I said next. “I’ll handle it.”
But he shook his head. “It’s done. I’ve already scheduled you for Wednesday.”
At that, I just frowned. “This Wednesday?”
He nodded, like, Affirmative.
I tried to think if my dad had ever scheduled anything for me—even an orthodontist appointment. “Why would you schedule my surgery?”
He looked at me, like, Duh. “I’ve got some connections.”
“No kidding.”
“Otherwise, it was a three-week wait.”
“Fine with me.”
“But you need to get it done—”
“Right now,” I finished for him. “Yeah. You said.”
His latte sat untouched.
I stirred my own, then watched the bubbles circle around in the cup. Then I said, “Look, I’ll be honest. This seems like a whole lot of interest all of a sudden for a guy who has literally not asked me one question about myself in the last decade.”
“I understand.”
“So what’s going on?”
He nodded, like he’d been waiting for this question. “Your mom,” he said then, looking down at the distressed wood tabletop.
My mom. He absolutely never brought up the topic of my mom.
He had my attention now. But then he paused so long I finally had to ask: “My mom. Okay. What about her?”
“Your mom,” he said again. “She…”
Another pause. I tapped the table in his line of vision. “She what?”
He looked up and met my eyes. “She died of a cavernoma.”
I sat back.
Heck of an adrenaline jolt there.
“I thought she died of a stroke,” I said.