Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [50]
I didn’t hear Dad coming down the stairs behind me, so I practically screamed when he placed a hand on my shoulder. Finn leaped up and pulled off the headphones like he’d just been caught watching a porno.
“Well,” said Dad gruffly, “I’ll say again that I’m very disappointed in you for damaging the car. Still, the mechanic managed to find a bumper from scrap that was the right color, so the work was only a hundred and fifty dollars. It’s a lot, but I think we can agree we dodged a bullet here. In the future be more careful, okay?”
I nodded, but it didn’t make sense. I’d seen the mechanic place the order for a new bumper. I looked at Finn, but he immediately turned his attention to his guitar. And he wasn’t alone—Dad seemed transfixed by it, gliding forward like a moth drawn to a flame.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Finn cast his eyes around uneasily. “It’s a, um . . . blah Jimi Hendrix blah blah,” he mumbled.
“A what?” I asked, slowly and loudly.
Finn glared at me, then finger-spelled Fender Jimi Hendrix Tribute Stratocaster.
Dad wasn’t paying us any attention at all. He just gazed longingly at the guitar until Finn felt obligated to hand it over.
“Is this the one we bought you?” he asked.
Finn shook his head, kindly omitting to mention that he’d bought the old electric guitar with his own money.
“So whose is this?”
“It, uh . . . belongs to a friend. I’ve got it on extended loan.”
Dad seemed satisfied by that, completely missing the freaked-out expression emblazoned on Finn’s face. “How are you handling the switch from right to left hand?”
“Um, okay. Takes some getting used to, but I want to be able to play both.”
Dad nodded approvingly. “Man, it’s beautiful,” he said, running his fingers over the polished surface. “Wasn’t it a limited release?”
Finn looked up, narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. How do you know that?”
Dad’s head snapped up and the trance was broken. “What? Oh, I must’ve heard it somewhere. I guess. Probably. I mean, I wouldn’t really know, of course.” He shuffled his feet as the silence lingered. “Yeah, well, time for dinner. Nice playing, Finn,” Dad added, even though he hadn’t heard anything. “I’ll see you both upstairs.”
He took the stairs two at a time.
“How did he know this guitar was a limited release?” said Finn, wide-eyed.
I shrugged. “Who knows? But maybe there’s a lot about Dad we don’t know. He can’t always have been as hopelessly uncool as he is now.”
Finn snorted, and I laughed, and a moment later he started to pull the headphones back on.
“Not so fast, Finn. I don’t suppose you know anything about the spare bumper?”
Finn stared at his guitar. “What do you mean?”
“Come on. Don’t lie to me.”
He rolled his eyes and gently laid the guitar beside his chair. Whatever we were about to discuss was clearly going to take a few minutes.
I paid most of the bill myself, then told the mechanic what to say to Dad, he signed, presumably because he thought it would make me less critical.
I felt my stomach flip. “You did what?”
“What’s the big deal?” he moaned, already done with signing now it was clear the magnanimous gesture hadn’t worked. “The mechanic didn’t care as long as he got all the money.”
“How much did you pay?”
Reluctantly, Finn’s right hand formed the signs for 278.
My legs felt unsteady. I was hyperventilating. “Where did you get the money?”
“Shh!” Finn pressed a finger to his lips, stared at the staircase until he was sure no one had heard. “That’s my business.”
I wanted to throttle him. “What about the guitar? You may be able to fool Dad, but I know it’s yours.”
“Yeah, but only someone who actually cared about me would