Rose stopped pacing. “Really?”
“Yeah. This sounds like a ridiculous dinner, but important nonetheless.”
She laughed. “Nonetheless, huh? And you have the nerve to callmea dork?”
I started the truck. “All right, all right. Buckle up. We’re about to weave through the 110, baby.”
She opened the window and cleared her throat. “And thanks. I really appreciate it.”
I raised the volume on the radio. “What?!” I shouted.
She shook her head.
“TELL ME WHAT YOU SAID RIGHT NOW! LIKE SHOUT IT!”
“YOU ARE SUCH A LOSER!” she shouted back as we hit the road.
CHAPTER 14
On Saturday, my dad handed me a plate of eggs Benedict drizzled with a sriracha hollandaise sauce. “So, I have some last-minute plans. I’m going out of town. Do you think you can handle the truck all weekend?”
I shoved a forkful of runny yolk and English muffin into my mouth. “Sure. Wait, you’re leaving today?”
“Yup.” He glanced at the clock. “In like, an hour in fact.”
“Where are you going?” I asked as I added more sriracha to my eggs.
My dad plopped down on the stool next to me with his own plate of eggs. “Santa Barbara. Wine tasting.”
I almost choked. “What? Whoareyou? Diane Keaton?”
“Yeah, I’m Diane Keaton. Surprise.”
“Wait a second.” I looked at him suspiciously. “Whoare you going with?”
He cut his egg in half, the yolk oozing out onto the wilted kale and muffin. A giant forkful of egg went into his mouth, and he didn’t answer.
“Pai!”
Many seconds later, he took a gulp of coffee and looked at me. “I’m going with Kody.”
My brain quickly flipped through the Rolodex o’ women from my dad’s life until it stilled on one. “Kody the…?”
“The drummer.”
Kody was a Filipino American babe with a Patti Smith haircut and a raspy smoker’s voice. My dad had dated her a couple of years ago, though, so I was confused. “Kody the drummer? Didn’t you guys break up?”
He expertly cut the rest of his eggs, crisscrossing his slices so that each piece was perfectly bite-size. “Yeah. But we grabbed coffee last week and…” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
“No, I don’t. I’m a child.”
A snort of laughter sent a piece of egg flying across the counter at me. I swiped it off my forearm. “Gross! If all these women only knew how disgusting you are at home.”
I said “all these women” because, well, my dad had all these women. Which I understood—he was thirty-four and not hideous. I never made a big stink about it. Even so, he tried not to introduce me to too many girlfriends. “Don’t want you to get attached,” he always said. I think he might have learned that fromwatching sitcoms about single dads or something. The only thing that annoyed me was when he made jokes about being a hot commodity at PTA meetings. You’d think he was Don Draper waltzing into classrooms full of harried mothers desperately feeding him baked goods. And in what universe did he go to PTA meetings? Please.
My dad shifted uncomfortably on his stool. “Well, to be honest. I’ve been seeing Kody for a couple of months now.”
“Really?” I racked my brain for when they could have had dates in the past two months. It seemed like my dad was home a lot in the evenings, so when did this happen?
