Page 19 of Love's a Script
In a nice downtown restaurant with table-side service and dressed-up patrons, Mary and Hattie dined with their father. Anticipation and nerves had turned what should’ve been a delicious dinner into one Mary wanted to end. As her dad perused the dessert menu with the flashlight on his phone, Mary looked at her sister pointedly.
“Not yet,” Hattie mouthed, but once their server had topped off the water glasses and taken their orders, Hattie took a deep breath and told their father that they needed to talk. “Mary and I are concerned,” she said.
“Concerned? What about?” he asked.
“Aurora. She’s a stranger, and we want to make sure you’re being careful,” Mary said. The sisters laid out their suspicions and doubts, trying not to insinuate he was especially vulnerable.
Their father listened, then sat back in his seat, smiling. “I appreciate you, my girls, but it’s all right.”
“No, it’s not all right, Dad,” Hattie said. “That’s why we’re here. Have you seen a picture of her taken in the last five years? Have you video called?”
“No, we want the first time we see each other to be in person.”
“So you’re meeting soon?” Mary asked, hopeful.
“In the spring. We’re attending the Copenhagen Jazz Festival.”
Hattie stilled. “Copenhagen. As in Denmark.”
“I understand it’s a bit of a mad adventure, but I’m old. What’s there to lose?” He shrugged. “I’ve already sent her the money for the tickets, and?—”
“You didn’t buy the tickets yourself?” Mary asked carefully.
“No,” he said and explained the reward points Aurora supposedly had and an early bird discount only she could access. Mary didn’t need to look at her sister to know they felt the same sudden dread. This wild and impulsive man was not the father Mary had known all her life. That man was sensible and normal. He lived according to the schedule set in his Day-Timer. “Never let the gas tank go below the halfway mark,” he used to tell them as teenagers.
“Why don’t we set up a call where we can all talk to her and get to know her?” Mary said, panic rising and thickening her throat.
Their dad shook his head. “That’s an ambush. She’ll assume I don’t trust her.”
“You don’t know her to trust her!” Hattie said too loudly at the moment their server reappeared.
“Two molten lava cakes and the poached pear,” the waiter said, his expression neutral as he placed each person’s chosen dessert in front of them.
No words were spoken, and Mary didn’t taste a thing. When only shallow pools of melted ice cream remained, their father said, “I’ve been alone a long time, so my choices don’t come from desperation. I’m clearheaded. You mustn’t worry.”
It was obvious their father was in love with this Aurora woman and would not be moved to doubt, so after they assured him they’d cover his tab, he rose to leave and bid them goodnight with kisses to the back of their hands.
“He won’t have two pennies to rub together,” Hattie said flatly, waving over a server for a glass of wine.
Mary also feared that. How many stories had she read of reasonable people getting caught up in emotions and financially ruining themselves in the process? Her father was too close to retirement to ever recover.
“You still want to go the private investigator route?” Mary asked.
“It’s our only option,” her sister said. “He’s a man of evidence, so if something’s off, we’ll present him with proof. And if all is well, then we’ll shout bon voyage as he leaves for Europe.”
Mary nodded, her frayed nerves soothed by the plan despite her qualms about prying into her dad’s private life.
“Mitch is taking the boys next weekend to visit his parents. Come over and we’ll iron out the details.”
“I can’t. I have an out-of-town wedding next weekend.”
“The week after, then.”
Mary agreed.
Later, close to midnight, the sisters left the restaurant.
“I’m so happy to not be breastfeeding anymore,” Hattie announced as they stepped out onto the sidewalk crowded with the usual Saturday nightlife crowd and hordes of concertgoers wearing identical branded merchandise. The road was filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
