Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [35]
Sensing an opportunity, I move quickly to seize the advantage. “You obviously know something, Richard.”
“The thing is, I really don’t—not for sure anyway. He hasn’t told me anything, either. Your father, in case it has escaped your notice, Mira, is an extremely private person. He tells nobody anything if he can help it. I’ve long since stopped taking it personally, and I suggest you do the same. Do you know,” he says, looking over his half-moon glasses at me, “I’ve known him for almost twenty years, and I couldn’t tell you his political party, his favorite restaurant, or his views on capital punishment, although I could probably guess. It also appears that I may have been wrong.”
Bingo. “What do you mean, you may have been wrong?”
“Nothing, really. Just a conversation I had with your dad a while back.”
“What kind of conversation?”
“Really, Mira, your father is a big boy. But, if you must know, it was a conversation about women.”
“Women? Why would my father, who talks to no one, talk to you, of all people, about women? Do you think he’s dating someone? Why wouldn’t he want to tell me that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he feels disloyal. Guilty. I don’t know.”
“Guilty? Why should he feel guilty? My mother has been dead eighteen years, for goodness’ sake!”
Richard ignores me. “I think I’ve met her,” he says, sitting up in bed. “About a month ago a woman came into the shop, said she was a friend of your father’s. Browsed around, inquired about a little religious figurine, a nothing item. A little della Robbia knockoff that’s been hanging around the shop forever. When I told her the price, she smiled very politely and said she’d think about it. About a week later your father came into the shop and bought it. When I told him about the woman who had been in, saying that she was a friend of his, he got funny, embarrassed, I don’t know. I offered just to give it to him, but he insisted on paying. Got all stiff and formal about it.”
“Well, what was she like?”
“That’s the thing. She looked young, much younger than your father, that’s for sure. My age, or even younger, maybe. Very tan, lots of makeup, blond, tightly permed hair. Enormous breasts, probably fake. And she was wearing leopard pants. Can you believe it, leopard pants? Not exactly the kind of woman I’d picture your father with, which is why I didn’t make anything of it. I figured maybe it was his secretary, and he wanted to buy her a gift or something.”
My father has had the same secretary for the last twenty-five years, and she is neither young nor blond. Her name is Mrs. Hudson, and although she does have enormous breasts, she also has enormous everything else—hips, thighs, stomach, not to mention chins.
“I’m sure it’s not his secretary. You’ve met Mrs. Hudson.”
“Don’t remember.”
I’m instantly bombarded by obscene thoughts of my father and this woman Richard has described, and I give my head a violent shake. This amuses Richard, who knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“What do you say,” he says, clapping his hands and putting himself in Chloe’s line of vision, “that we get dressed and hustle over to Herald Square and catch part of the parade? I’ve never actually been to the Macy’s Parade, and what better time to go than Chloe’s first Thanksgiving?”
Later, on the subway home, Richard says, “I hope we’re right about your dad. It is about time he had some fun. No one should be alone.” I put my head on his shoulder and sigh. Richard and I are both alone. No partners. No prospects. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “You won’t be alone for long. You are much too beautiful and much too good a cook not to get married again, if that is what you decide you want. If I have to, I’ll marry you myself—we could be the ultimate marriage of convenience. All you need to do is get ahold of that recipe for crescent rolls from your friend Hope, and I’ll be a happy man.”
As soon as we open the apartment door, we can smell the