Page 84 of My Favorite Bad Decision
I roll my eyes. “Because you asked him some questions and knew he’d go with the best company. It’s a little late in the day to play dumb here, Dad. There’s no way that it was a coincidence.”
My father leans back in his chair, his glass of wine held aloft. “I knew he was going to Kilimanjaro, yes, and I knewwhen, but I didn’t have any idea which route he was taking. I thought you needed the experience. I thought you needed to challenge yourself and get out of the Upper West Side bubble.”
The conversation pauses while the waiter takes our order and picks right back up once he leaves.
“You knew that he would change routes,” I accuse, “because he’s the type of person who’d worry excessively about me, enemy or not.”
“Ididknow that,” my father says with a brow raised. “And what father wouldn’t want that exact sort of man for his daughter?”
My chest squeezes tight. Of course he’d want me to end up with someone like Miller. I want it too. But it’s so much worse to know everything he is when he’s not going to be mine.
“Have you forgotten that he dated Maren?” I ask, squeezing the wine glass so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter.
“Of course not. But Maren now has a spouse and is trying to get pregnant, so it’s safe to say she’s moved on.”
She hasn’t moved on. At all. And my father knows that even if she had, this would never be okay.
“Anyhow,” he continues, “how’s your first day in finance going? You were always proficient at math, so it seems like a good fit.”
“A good fit?” I laugh. “You do realize finance requires some very specific expertise, right? I’ve never taken a single finance or accounting course in my life. I’m totally unqualified. I’ve spent the past four hours going through expense reports.”
He holds his glass up to the light. “Are you asking me to say something? You’ve never once asked me to interfere before.”
“I’m not asking you to interfere.” I take a deep breath and push my wine glass away. “I’m not going back. I don’t think I want to manage the company.”
I wait for him to express disappointment or shock. Instead, he nods and takes a sip of his wine. “I never thought you did, but I’m glad you’ve finally realized it for yourself.”
My jaw falls open. “Are youserious?”
“Of course I am. Why would you want it? You’re interested in people, not management and, for better or worse, you don’t care nearly enough about money…which is probably because you’ve always had it and know you always will.” He sighs. “I should have raised you better. I guess it’s too late.”
I stare at him as the waiter deposits our meals in front of us and hustles away. “Then why have you had me jumping through all these hoops, year after year?”
My father lifts his fork and knife. “Becauseyouthought you wanted it. You were looking for an entirely new life after you left Charlottesville, and you’d pinned your hopes on mine. If this was what I believed you wanted, I’d happily have handed over the reins eventually.”
I huff out a miserable laugh. “So instead, you just kept giving me one boring job after another so I’d realize that I didn’t want it on my own.”
He finishes chewing before he replies. “You see, the fact that you just called all the jobs here boring proves you were never meant for it. All the jobs you did are part of my day at some point.”
“Sorting mail? Climbing Kilimanjaro?”
He chuckles under his breath. “Okay, perhaps not those. But everything else. And if you don’t enjoy the small pieces of the pie, you’re not going to like it more when the entire pie is yours. The way to end up doing what you love isn’t by taking on even more of what you hate.”
I wish he’d shared this logic with me a few years earlier, not that I’d have listened. “Mom won’t be happy.”
“Being unhappy is what fuels your mother. Well, that and diet pills. She’ll dine for weeks or perhaps months on what a disappointment you are, and in a few years, she’ll make a point of letting every person she runs into know thatherdaughter is a doctor.”
I still. “Did Maren tell you I was thinking about med school again?”
He laughs. “No, my love. She didn’t have to. You never stopped thinking about medical school. Of course that’s where you’ll end up.”
It’s annoying, how well he knows me. It’s annoying that he’s let me spendyearsarriving at an answer he apparently had on day one.
And it’s heartbreaking that with all his knowledge and money and power, he won’t be able to give me the thing I still want most.
25
KIT
