“So am I, kiddo. Though there will still be times when my work will interfere with other things,” he warned her candidly. “I have to make a living for us.”
“I know, Dad,” she said, rolling her eyes a little as she stepped back. “I’m not a little kid, I understand about work commitments. But I’m glad you could come tonight, anyway.”
“Me, too.” He picked up a stack of mail Nina had left on the counter for him and flipped through the envelopes. Bills, mostly. Credit card and insurance offers. A postcard from his favorite men’s clothing store announcing an annual sale on suits. He’d have to check that out, he could use a new suit for summer.
Slitting open a small, square, cream-colored envelope, he drew out a folded card and scanned it quickly. He groaned.
Alice looked around from the sink, where she was cleaning Waldo’s water dish and filling it with fresh water for the night while the dog whined impatiently from the other side of the back door. “What is it, Dad?”
“It’s a reminder for a fancy charity thing I’m supposed to attend. It’s a week from Friday. Clever of DeAnna to send out reminders ten days ahead, this thing’s been scheduled for months and I’d forgotten all about it.”
“You hate fancy charity things,” Alice said sympathetically.
She knew him well. He nodded grimly. “I do. But I’ve got to go to this one. DeAnna is the managing partner’s new wife. He’s going to be checking who supports her at this.”
“Then I guess you have to go.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “I guess I do.”
She glanced at the Norman Rockwell cal
endar attached to the side of the refrigerator with a heavy-duty magnet, the calendar Nina used to keep track of the family’s schedule. “It’s already written down. You just haven’t looked.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s on my personal calendar, too. Just been too busy lately to look that far ahead. I’d have seen it eventually.”
“That’s the night of my sleepover party at Gayla’s house for her thirteenth birthday. Her mom’s hiring a party planner and we’re going to learn how to decorate cupcakes all fancy like they do on the food channel shows. We’re going to do piping and everything.”
“Sounds like fun. Don’t eat too many sweets,” he said automatically, still scanning the party reminder.
A gusty sigh was her response as she carried the bowl of water to the door. He reached out to open the storm door for her, using his body to block Waldo’s eager attempt to dash inside to cause chaos. Seth was still skeptical that obedience classes would work any miracles with this particular dog. But the instructor had assured him when he’d signed up Waldo for the classes that Labradors were usually quick to learn. Waldo appeared to be mostly yellow Lab, though Seth suspected a slightly more rambunctious breed might be mixed into the bloodlines.
“So, Dad, have you asked anyone to go with you to the fancy thing yet?” Alice inquired when she came back inside a short while later. “You know, a date?”
“Well, no. I told you, I forgot all about it.”
“You can’t go without a date,” she scolded, shaking her head. “That would make you look all pathetic, like you don’t have a social life.”
He resisted pointing out the obvious fact that he did not have a social life. He was too overtaxed by his work life and his home life.
“Maybe I’ll ask Susan if she wants to go with me,” he mused, naming a woman he’d dated a few times on a very casual basis.
Alice made a gagging noise, pantomiming a finger down her throat.
He frowned. She had met Susan only once, and that was for maybe fifteen minutes. Susan had ridden with them while he’d driven Alice to a friend’s house before he and Susan attended a holiday party early in December. Susan had been perfectly nice to Alice, and Alice had responded politely—as she was expected to do with adults. It occurred to Seth only now that Alice had never mentioned Susan since.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“She’s so fake. Fake tan, fake hair, fake eye color, fake boobs.”
A little shocked that his young daughter had noticed those things—kids grew up way too fast these days!—he scolded, “That’s not very nice, Alice.”
“Sorry. But it’s true.”
Well, yeah, he thought with a little wince. It sort of was. Susan was unabashedly vain about her appearance, and didn’t mind resorting to artifice to enhance it but it paid off for her. She looked great. And she was quite pleasant company, though he admitted uncomfortably that she rarely crossed his mind when he wasn’t in need of a convenient escort for some professional function. He doubted that she thought of him any more often. They were casual friends, nothing more, and that suited both of them.
“She’s not so bad. She said she thought you were very sweet.”
Of course, she’d said it in a slightly patronizing tone that Alice would have hated. Susan made no pretense to be the maternal type.