She had. I'd responded with "Looks great," which, in retrospect, was the conversational equivalent of a form letter. "It suits you. You look good, sweetheart.”
“Thanks.” She studied me as we walked, those gray eyes—my eyes, reflected back with her mother's sharpness. “You look different…less rigid.”
"Rigid?"
"You know what I mean. You usually have this face going on—" She scrunched her brow, set her jaw, did a dead-on impression of me concentrating. "Long division face. That's your default setting. Today you look almost relaxed." She glanced sideways at me. "Must be the girlfriend."
There it was. Tossed out casually, a grenade disguised as small talk.
"Her name is Willow."
"Oh, yeah, sorry. Willow. She didn't come with you?"
"No, I thought it best to pick you up first, then, we'll meet up with Willow later. Is that okay?"
Elena shrugged. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
I needed a decoder ring for my daughter's 'Yeah, sure, whatever' did that mean she was cool with my decision or that I'd already fumbled? I unlocked the car. Loaded her bag. Took my time walking to thedriver's side while I frantically tried to formulate some semblance of innocuous small-talk with my only child.
"So, how are you doing, kiddo? School good? Anything new?"
"Dad, you're so bad at this. Let's not pretend that you care about the details of college life. Tell me about Willow. Mom said that she's…um, young."
I bit back a swear word. How did Jessica seem to know things I hadn't volunteered yet? Then I remembered that Jessica was probably still gossip-level friends with people that still circulated in my circles.
"Right, yeah, so I think you'll really like Willow. She manages a coffee shop. She's sharp, funny, stubborn. She doesn't take my shit and she doesn't pretend to be impressed by my resume." I started the engine. "And yeah, she's younger than the women I usually date…"
"How young?" Elena fished, her gray eyes narrowing.
"Um, twenty-three."
Elena looked away before I could read her face. She said to the window, "Yep, that's pretty young."
"Does the age thing bother you?" I asked in earnest.
"Does it botheryou?"
"It did, at first," I admitted. "But then, I got to know her and it seemed to matter less."
"Look Dad, I'll just be honest, the age doesn'tbother mein theory, because, whatever, men are visual and men are drawn to hot women,” Elena said, adjusting the strap on her seatbelt—a habit she'd picked up from Jessica and never dropped. "What bothers me is whether you're going to do the thing you always do."
I shifted against the discomfort that was choking me to ask, “And what thing is that?"
"The thing where you go all-in on a new obsession, pour everything into it, and then the second it gets hard, you just..." She waved a hand. "Disappear back into work. You did it with Mom. You did it with me. You did it with that Portland condo thing that ate two years of your life and then poof, you never mentioned it again." She turned to face me. "Are you going to do that with this new girl? Because I don’t want to go through the work of processing my feelings about my dad dating a girl that’s nearly my age if I don’t have to. Know what I mean?”
The question hit my sternum with enough force to chase the air from my lungs.
“That’s a lot to unpack, kiddo,” I finally managed.
She shrugged. “Life is too short to beat around the bush. Besides, you always taught me to go straight to the point. So, here I am, doing that.”
I couldn’t argue her statement but man, did it hit hard.
“Fair enough,” I said. “You want the straight truth?I like her. I like her a lot. I didn’t plan for this but it happened anyway. I don’t know how things will unfold but I’m interested in finding out.”
“Hmm. I guess we’ll just have to see.” She wasn't being cruel. She was being twenty, and jaded, and armed with a lifetime of receipts. "I'm not trying to be a bitch about it. I just—I've seen this movie. I know how it ends. And I want better for you."
That part I wasn’t prepared for. The fact that my daughter wasn’t being mean for the sake of being salty but because she actually cared more than she wanted to admit.
