She thought back. Above them, in the large room, I heard more thumping. “Oh, running a muddle,” she said finally. “Sorry. It’s just this basketball term. It means when you—”
“I know what it means,” my dad said. “I’m just . . . surprised to hear it coming from you.”
“Why?”
Now it was my dad who had to pause. “Well,” he said after a moment, “I just didn’t realize you were, um, into the game.”
“Oh, God. My dad was ahard-coreDB fan,” she told him. “He’s an alum, and so are all my brothers. Basically, I had to go there or I’d shame the entire family.”
“Really.”
Opal nodded. “Although he’s not been happy with the new coach. I don’t keep up with it that much, but apparently there was some kind of scandal. Something to do with his personal life, or—”
“Anyway,” my dad said, cutting her off. I felt my face flush. “Let’s get back to the crisis at hand. What are our options here? ”
“Well,” Opal said slowly, “I think for the time being the best we can hope for is that the councilwoman takes pity on us and finds another room. Which might happen. But . . . not today.”
“Right,” my dad said. “Today, we have a roomful of criminals to deal with.”
“They’re not criminals,” Opal told him. “They just owe community service.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Well, not—”
There was a loudthudfrom above them, followed by some guffaws. Opal glanced up the stairs. “I think I’d better get up there. I’m supposed to be supervising.”
My dad looked, too, then sighed, shaking his head. “What did you say that councilwoman’s name was?”
“Baker. Lindsay Baker.”
“Okay,” my dad said, turning to go down the stairs, “I’ll give her a call, see if I can move things along.”
“Oh,” Opal said quickly, “I . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
Opal swallowed. “Well,” she began, as another thump sounded from the room, “it’s just that she’s kind of . . .”
My dad waited.Mth="1em" align="left">“. . . a force,” she finished. “As in, to be reckoned with. She has a tendency to kind of, um, overwhelm people.”
“I think I can handle her,” my dad said as I moved off the bottom step, out of sight, to wait for him in the dining room. “You just deal with the criminals.”
“They’re not criminals,” Opal called out. “They’re—”
My dad shut the door on this, apparently not interested in alternative definitions. When he spotted me, he gave a weary smile. “Hey there,” he said. “How was your day?”
“Uneventful,” I said as we walked around to the bar side. “You? ”
“Just the usual chaos. You hungry?”
I thought back to the soggy turkey sandwich I’d had for lunch, ages ago. “Yeah.”
“Good. Come back to the kitchen with me and I’ll fix you something.”
I was about to reply when, turning the corner, we suddenly came face-to-face with a tall guy in an army jacket, wearing a backward-facing baseball hat. There was a huge black-ink tattoo of an eagle covering his neck. He looked at my dad, then at me, and said, “Hey, where’s the probation thing? I need my sheet signed.”
My dad sighed, then nodded behind us. “Up the stairs. Shut the door behind you.”
