Page 9 of Fathers of the Bride
“Okay, I made them.”
“Fine,” she relented, and I scooted back into the house and grabbed a protein bar out of the fridge. Back in the garage, I was handing it through the window of her horrible Volvo.
“Daddy, can we have coffee later, about eleven? Just the two of us. I’ll be done with my yoga class by then.”
“Um, sure… I’ll move some things around.” As it happened, a lot of things, but there hadn’t been much ‘just the two of us’ time in the last few years and I wasn’t sure there’d be much of it in the next few years, so I wasn’t about to miss the opportunity.
“We can talk wedding! There are a hundred things I need to ask to you about.”
She rolled her eyes at me. Which I thought was terribly unfair. All week, I’d been trying to talk to her about the wedding and she’d kept putting me off.
“Quickly, tell me what you’re thinking so I can be prepared.”
“Small,” she said, turning the engine over.
“In the backyard? Like when Papa and I got married?”
In point of fact, we got married in the backyard twice. The first was a commitment ceremony around 1995 and the second took place during the short window in 2008 when same-sex marriage was legal in California, well before it became legal everywhere in 2015. My God, history is complicated.
“That sounds nice, Daddy. But smaller.” The garage door was opening.
“I understand.”
“Nothing flashy,” she said, Putting the car into reverse.
“Mmm-hmm.” I didn’t like the direction this was going, so I asked, “Where should we meet?”
“Bean There Donut That.” Her favorite coffee place in Santa Monica.
“Deal. See you at eleven with tons of ideas,” I called out, but she’d already pulled out of the garage.
A few short hours later—after scurrying around, sending out several rescheduling texts followed by an equal number of emails apologizing for the brevity of the rescheduling texts, then taking a shower, dressing carefully (several times), worrying about how I would get anything accomplished that day but reminding myself to relish the time with Kelly—I was walking into the coffee shop.
It was a narrow storefront with vivid, blood red walls, mismatched furniture and donuts of every variety. I ordered a full-fat latte and two glazed chocolate cake donuts hoping to have one of them finished before Kelly arrived so I could pretend to have only ordered one.
Yes, I know. Pretending to diet is not as effective as actually dieting. It is, however, a lot more pleasant.
I found a table for two at the back of the shop and sat down. I was halfway through the first donut when he walked in. Andy. Myestrangedhusband, as they say. My first thought was that he looked terrible. He’d gotten a spray tan and wore a suit that was too trendy for him. All right, I’ll say it, too young. The suit was far too young for him. Boys today wore their suits a tiny bit too small, and it looked oh so fashionable. But on a man Andy’s age, the suit looked, well, too small.
I noted that he’d left his ultra-dark sunglasses on—an old trick of his to make people wonder if he was famous—and went straight to the counter. After I stared at him for a long moment, I thought he might not look too bad if he’d scrub off the fake tan and dressed like a man who didn’t get all his fashion advice on Tik Tok.
Underneath the spray tan and the bad suit, he was still the same thin, narrow-faced man with thick eyebrows and dark eyes. People often said I was the good-looking one, but I never thought that was true. Yes, I might look better on television, but that wasn’t real. In real life, and in my opinion, Andy was the good-looking one.
I was struggling to chew a mouthful of sticky donut when he walked over and said, “I suppose she’s not coming.”
“Mrrriffinm,” I said, trying hard to swallow the stiff, lump of dough that had stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“You’re right. She did this deliberately, the manipulative little imp.”
“Rggrmrrggg,” I tried again, to no avail.
“I didn’t call our daughter a name. I’m just pointing out a fact. She’s manipulated us. And before you say it, yes, in that respect she does take after me.”
“Andrew!” The barista called out.
Turning around, he called back, “Can I get that to go? Sorry!” He turned back to me and said, “Well, she wanted us to meet before the big in-law party next weekend. Consider yourself met.”
I’d finally gotten the donut all the way down my throat, so I asked, “What did you think of him?” Meaning Avery of course.
