Page 42 of Hula Girl

There’s a sparkle of amusement in her eyes. She’s always trying to feed me and the offer of a quesadilla comes so often that it’s become a joke.

But this time I’m actually hungry. “Si, por favor, Mama,” I tell her.

My acceptance of food makes her ridiculously happy. She claps her hands together and grins, going to the fridge to grab thequeso Oaxaca.

“I have fresh chile, too,” she adds, gesturing to themolcajeteon the counter where she had just ground up roasted tomatillos and peppers among other goodies for spicy salsa in anticipation of me dropping in. She knows me so well.

“You’re the best, Mama.”

She waves away the compliment. “Just remember thatyoudeserve the best.”

That’s a point she’s made to me throughout my life. It’s such a shame that someone you know and love can tell you this truth for years before you finally come to understand it. It was only on that balcony with Bryce at Christmas I realized that I do deserve the best in this world. But no one will hand it to me. I have to make it happen in love, just as I have with work.

15

Ford

The murmurs slowly fade to complete silence as I walk through the McAvoy & Partners law firm situated high in a tower building of downtown Los Angeles.

I know the reaction isn’t just because I’m conspicuously underdressed in jeans and a weathered gray T-shirt, but rather because none of these people have seen me in almost a year.

I won’t be staying long. The plan is to give my father a heads up that I’m in town and will be wrapping up some loose ends in conjunction with resigning.

“Mr. McAvoy,” Doris, my father’s long-time secretary, says as I approach his office.

She’s a true gatekeeper, having earned a reputation for being able to make access decisions on his behalf. With the way she’s assessing me over her bifocals, I have the feeling she’s ready to say I can wait to be seen. But I’m not here to play games.

“Doris,” I reply and keep moving past her to the office door.

I knock twice and open it.

“You can’t?” she starts.

I move into the office and close the door behind me before she can finish her attempt to stop me.

My father is at his desk, suit coat off and sleeves rolled up. He’s examining papers while on a conference call and shows no surprise when he glances my way. He only holds up his hand to me, a silent gesture to wait.

There goes my momentum. Forcing a deep breath, I turn away and tune out the back and forth coming from his speakerphone and instead look out the window at the creep and crawl of bumper to bumper cars forty-six floors below us on the street.

My thoughts drift, as they have so often in the last few days, to Ava. I’ve picked up my antiquated flip phone a dozen times with the intention of calling her. But each time, I put it down, telling myself that it’s not the right time. Still, that doesn’t stop me from reliving every sexy moment of what we had in Maui. And it doesn’t stop me thinking what our reunion will look like once I’m done with this part of my trip. Thinking of her has tempered the mood I’d started with when I came here.

I’d come in hot, ready to rip the Band-Aid off and tell my father that I was going to officially resign. That I knew this meant I’d have to sell off my shares. And that I’d be severing all ties with the man I had once worked so hard to impress. What I also knew would come from this was his disdain. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’d judge me as weak. He’d declare I wasn’t up to fulfilling the responsibilities he so magnanimously bestowed upon me. That, or he’d say he had waited too long to bring me over. That my mother had softened me up too much to ever recover.

And I’ll tell him he never knew the first thing about me and he still doesn’t. Not even after all this time of me jumping through hoops just so that he might be interested in actually getting to know me. I’ll tell him that I have regained the kind of peace and happiness he’ll never know because he’s too afraid to even examine who he is, let alone who his son is. I’ll tell him he can take his job and his shares and shove it up his ass. That if he wants his legacy to be that he drove away his only sonandscrewed over his own father all for some power trip, he can have at it. Because I am done.

I’m having this imaginary fight in my head while he keeps blathering on. I realize I’m wasting time.

“How about you wrap that up?” I say and then turn to look at him.

His steely stare finds my eyes.

“Jesus, just tell them you have them boxed in based on Lemmond versus Hewstan.” I guess I had been listening well enough to his call after all. The subject matter had brought to mind, in that photographic way I have, a particularly relevant case.

After a beat, Senior tells the gaggle of lawyers on his call that he’s going to investigate the case I mentioned and get back to them.

Finally, it’s just the two of us.

“You don’t have to research it,” I tell him. “I can recite it for you right now.”

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