The Unexpected Everything (43 page)

“Well, naturally,” Palmer said, bumping me with her hip. “That's just a given.”

“See?” my dad asked, gesturing to the screen with his bagel. “Not so bad, right?”

I squinted at the TV, where John Wayne was walking across a dusty town square with the loping gait that I was unfortunately getting all too familiar with. “It's okay,” I said, leaning back against the soft leather of the armchair and picking up my everything bagel with cream cheese. Despite the fact that it was almost two on a Sunday, my dad and I were just now getting around to eating breakfast, while he called in the terms of our scavenger-hunt bet and was making me watch
Rio Bravo
. “It's better than
Blood Alley
, at any rate.”

“Yeah,” my dad acknowledged with a grimace. “That one was probably a mistake.”

I tucked my feet up underneath me. It was an overcast, cloudy day, with occasional showers, which made watching the movie feel somehow much cozier. It was exactly how you should spend a rainy day—though I might have been able to do without the John Wayne aspect of it. But as I watched, I found myself getting more engrossed in the story, almost against my will—Wayne and his newly deputized deputies holed up in a jail cell as a standoff
with a militia took shape and the men forced to be in the same room together started telling stories and airing old grievances. At one point, one character sang a song, and then immediately after, another character sang a song, which made me wonder if they were just trying to extend the running time, or if everyone in the fifties knew that this was when you were supposed to take a popcorn break. It helped that the actors were good singers, though it did stretch logic a little—if you could sing that well, would you really be in a dusty jail in Texas? Wouldn't you have been in vaudeville or something?

“Those guys could really sing,” I said, when the singing portion of the movie appeared to be over and everyone on-screen seemed to suddenly remember that they were actually in mortal danger.

My dad looked over at me from where he was lying on the couch. “Those guys?” he repeated, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” I said, pointing to the screen. “Those two. They were good.”

My dad sat up and paused the movie, then turned to face me fully. “They
should
be able to sing,” he said, a concerned expression starting to take over his face. “That's Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin.”

My dad said these names like they were supposed to be somehow significant to me, and I just nodded. “And they're, um, good,” I said, starting to regret I'd ever said anything.

“Oh my god,” my dad said, shaking his head. He pointed to my phone. “Get Sabrina on the phone,” he said, in the kind of voice I'd heard him use in his D.C. offices, the tone that sent interns scurrying to do whatever he needed done.

“Um,” I said, even as I reached for my phone. “Why?”

“Because she needs to hear about this,” he said in a tone that absolutely didn't invite discussion.

I called Bri, put the phone on speaker, and hoped she wouldn't answer. When she did, on the third ring, I took a breath to start talking immediately, but Bri beat me to it.

“Andie,” she said, sounding happy to hear from me. “Hey! I'm . . . I'm actually really glad you called.”

“So here's the thing,” I said, jumping in so that she would know my dad was on the line and wouldn't start talking about how hungover she was, or my plans to sleep with Clark at some point in the undefined future, or anything. “Um, I'm here with my dad. He wanted me to call you. . . .”

“Wait, what?”

“Hi, Sabrina,” my dad said, moving over to speak into my phone. “Alexander Walker here.”

“Hi, Mr. Walker,” Bri replied politely, but I could hear the confusion in her voice.

“We have a situation here. We're watching
Rio Bravo
—”

“
Excellent
choice,” Bri said, all the confusion gone now that we were talking movies.

“And my daughter apparently has never heard of Ricky Nelson
or
Dean Martin.”

“Andie,” Bri said, sounding scandalized. “What's the matter with you?”

“What?” I asked, looking from my dad to the phone, feeling the need to defend myself. “What's the big deal?”

“I'm sorry about this, sir,” Bri said, chagrined. “I'll take care
of it.”

“I just thought you should know,” my dad said, looking at me and shaking his head. “It's a failure on my end too, of course.”

“Okay, that's enough,” I said, picking up my phone and taking it off speaker. “It's just me now,” I said to Bri as I headed out of the room.

“Not too long,” my dad called after me as he picked up some papers that were stacked on the coffee table. “We're watching
The Searchers
after this!”

“Oh, that's such a great movie.” Bri sighed as I closed the study door behind me and walked a few steps down the hall.

“Come over,” I said immediately. “I think we have some bagels left.”

“No, thanks,” Bri said, and I could hear the disappointment in her voice. “I'm on concessions for the five thirty show.”

“You're working so much lately,” I said. Bri didn't respond, and a moment later I felt bad for bringing it up—but more and more these days, it was getting harder to see her. She was either working at the Palace, or texting at the last minute that she wouldn't make the Orchard or pool hangouts because she had to close up the theater.

“Yeah,” Bri finally responded. “I'm really sorry about that. Things are just . . . kind of crazy. At work.”

There was something in her voice that made me stand up straighter. Since Bri almost never told you what was bothering her until she was ready to, you had to learn to pick up on signals. And I had a feeling Toby would have sensed something from the very beginning of this conversation. “Is everything okay?”

There was nothing but silence on the other end of the
phone. With every second that passed, I was getting more sure that there was something going on with her, even though I had no idea what it could be.

“Actually—” Bri started, just as my dad yelled, “Andie! Are you coming?”

“Ignore him,” I said into the phone, hoping somehow that she wouldn't have heard him.

“It's fine,” Bri said, and her voice was brisk and composed again. “I'm fine. I promise. I was just . . .” The sentence trailed off, and when she came back on the line, her voice was much more upbeat. “I'm fine,” she said again, “just have to get ready for work. I'll talk to you later, okay?” Before I could say anything else, she'd hung up, and I was left looking down at the contact picture that filled the screen, of Bri and Toby either arguing while on the verge of cracking up or having their laughter interrupted by a fight, I'd long since forgotten which. I held the phone in my hand for just a minute more, wondering if she was going to call back, before giving up and returning to the study.

Three hours later I'd finished my second John Wayne movie of the day and was feeling emotionally depleted. “Man,” I said, as my dad turned off the TV and reached again for the stack of papers, pulling his reading glasses out of his pocket. “Didn't John Wayne ever make a comedy? A musical or two?”

My dad looked at me evenly over his reading glasses. “Don't make me call Sabrina again.”

“I withdraw the question,” I said, stacking up my breakfast plates and preparing to take them into the kitchen. I watched my dad reading for a few moments, making marks on the paper with his mechanical pencil, before I asked, “So what is that?” This
was how I had been used to seeing my father—always working, always reading, head half-buried in a stack of papers or fixated on the news. Seeing him like this again was making me realize just how long it had been since I'd seen him in work mode.

“This?” he asked, looking down at the sheaf of papers in his hand, and I nodded. “It's for a case,” he said, looking back down again. “An old friend in the public defender's office asked me to take a look at something.”

“Oh,” I said, leaning back against my chair, trying to figure out what this meant. My dad had not been talking at all about what he was thinking about doing with regard to his job, and for the most part, it was something I'd almost forgotten about. It was like we were both on summer vacation, and none of the real rules for either of our schedules seemed to apply anymore. This was probably made much easier by the fact my dad wasn't allowed to have any contact with his office, as it really did seem like that whole part of his life had just faded out. “Are you . . . ?” I started, then bit my lip, not sure exactly what I was trying to ask him, or what I wanted him to reply.

“I'm just looking at something for a friend,” my dad said easily, seeming to understand what I was trying to get at. After a moment, though, he set the papers aside and took off his reading glasses, turning to face me more fully. “It is something I've been thinking about, though,” he said. He cleared his throat and rolled his pencil between his palms before he asked, “What would you think about that? If I didn't run again in the fall?”

“What about the investigation?” I asked, thrown. As far as I'd understood things, we were still waiting for the results to
come back. I hadn't known my dad not running for reelection in November was even in the cards.

“Even if it comes back in my favor,” he said. “I don't know. It's just been on my mind lately.”

I looked at him for a moment, then looked back down at the stack of plates once again, trying to get my thoughts together. It hadn't been that long ago that I couldn't picture my dad without his job. But now it was getting harder to remember when things hadn't been like this, our lives overlapping. It was in the way my dad knew to make sure that the fridge was stocked with Diet Coke, the way I knew his paper-reading hierarchy—national news, sports, business, comics (he was especially invested in the family hijinks of the Grants in
Grant Central Station
). It was how when he'd been running late to dinner at the Crane last week, he'd called and asked me to order for him, and I'd done it without needing to ask him what he wanted. It was last Sunday, when Clark had come for dinner and then Tom and Palmer had stopped by afterward to hang out and we'd all ended up playing Pictionary, my dad teaming up with Tom and Clark, the three of them strategizing and taking it way too seriously (and winning, not that I was bitter). It was this, now, watching movies on a rainy Sunday and not wanting to be anywhere else.

“So if you didn't run,” I said slowly, trying this idea out, “you'd be here?”

“I would.” My dad looked across at me. “What do you think?”

I looked down at my hands for a moment, twisting them together, trying to gather my thoughts. The idea that this summer wouldn't just be over as soon as news came from Washington was something I really hadn't let myself think about before. I
cleared my throat before I spoke. “It would be okay with me. If you were around, I mean.”

“Good,” my dad said, tapping his pencil once on the coffee table.

“After all,” I said, making my tone faux serious, “Palmer might do another scavenger hunt. And we'd need you for backup.”

“Well,” my dad said, matching my tone, “I wouldn't want to miss that.” He smiled at me, then settled back against the couch and picked up his papers again.

I'd planned to bring the plates to the kitchen, take a shower, and get ready before Clark came over for dinner. But I found myself curling back up in the chair. I just wanted to sit there, in the quiet, with my dad working, letting myself imagine, for the first time, what October or February could look like. No train rides down to D.C., no Peter. Being able to tell someone who was actually interested, and not being paid to listen, how my day had been. And so, even though I knew I should probably get moving, that Clark was on his way over, I stayed there, perfectly still, letting myself picture it, playing it out in my head like a movie—seeing what, just maybe, could be.

•  •  •

The rain didn't let up the next day. It just got heavier, which meant all my walks were much shorter than usual, and my car was now covered in muddy paw prints, despite my best efforts to keep the seats covered in towels. Since the shorter walks left me with unexpected time on my hands, Clark and I ended up getting lunch at the diner and then going to the Pearce to hang out with Toby, who was, to put it mildly, not looking forward to her date that night. She'd been sending incredibly long text
messages about it, and I was spending most of my time trying to figure out what she was actually trying to say with the emojis. We found ourselves walking through the Renaissance room listening to Toby complain about what a weird name Craig was and wondering why Bri wouldn't just let her mourn the loss of her Wyatt crush in peace.

When a group came in for the tour that Toby had forgotten she was scheduled to give, she hustled out to the front entrance, leaving me and Clark alone to wander around the museum. Which, I realized, wasn't actually the worst way to spend a rainy day. We walked around, making up backstories and names for the people in the paintings as we walked.

When we reached the gallery where my mother's picture was, I knew I could have steered him away, or told him I was museumed out, or something. But I didn't; I took his hand and led him to where my mom's painting was. I'd told him about it, here and there, but he'd never seen it before. And even though anyone who paid the Pearce's entrance fee could see this picture, standing next to Clark as he looked at it, I was feeling somehow exposed—like he was seeing something I usually kept to myself.

“So?” I asked, keeping my voice light, like I really didn't care about the answer, even though my heart was pounding hard in my chest.