weren’t able to do, but forty-five minutes of standing around with her in the laundry room during the best part of the roll had been a tremendous bringdown.
“Is it going to be a lot stronger than E?”
“No—well, yes, but is wonderful, trust me. I kept wanting Kotku and me to be outside in the air except was too much that close to the highway, lights, cars—maybe this weekend?”
So that was something to look forward to. But just as I was starting to feel good and even hopeful about things again—ESPN hadn’t been on for a week, which was definitely some kind of record—I found my father waiting for me when I got home from school.
“I need to talk to you, Theo,” he said, the moment I walked in. “Do you have a minute?”
I paused. “Well, okay, sure.” The living room looked almost as if it had been burgled—papers scattered everywhere, even the cushions on the sofa slightly out of place.
He stopped pacing—he was moving a bit stiffly, as if his knee hurt him. “Come over here,” he said, in a friendly voice. “Sit down.”
I sat. My dad exhaled; he sat down across from me and ran a hand through his hair.
“The lawyer,” he said, leaning forward with his clasped hands between his knees and meeting my eye frankly.
I waited.
“Your mom’s lawyer. I mean—I know this is short notice, but I really need you to get on the phone with him for me.”
It was windy; outside, blown sand rattled against the glass doors and the patio awning flapped with a sound like a flag snapping. “What?” I said, after a cautious pause. She’d spoken of seeing a lawyer after he left—about a divorce, I figured—but what had come of it, I didn’t know.
“Well—” My dad took a deep breath; he looked at the ceiling. “Here’s the thing. I guess you’ve noticed I haven’t been betting my sports anymore, right? Well,” he said, “I want to quit. While I’m ahead, so to speak. It’s not—” he paused, and seemed to think—“I mean, quite honestly, I’ve gotten pretty good at this stuff by doing my homework and being disciplined about it. I crunch my numbers. I don’t bet impulsively. And, I mean, like I say, I’ve been doing pretty good. I’ve socked away a lot of money these past months. It’s just—”
“Right,” I said uncertainly, in the silence that followed, wondering what he was getting at.
“I mean, why tempt fate? Because—” hand on heart—“I am an alcoholic. I’m the first to admit that. I can’t drink at all. One drink is too many and a thousand’s not enough. Giving up booze was the best thing I ever did. And I mean, with gambling, even with my addictive tendencies and all, it’s always been kind of different, sure I’ve had some scrapes but I’ve never been like some of these guys that, I don’t know, that get so far in that they embezzle money and wreck the family business or whatever. But—” he laughed—“if you don’t want a haircut sooner or later, better stop hanging out at the barber shop right?”
“So?” I said cautiously, after waiting for him to continue.
“So—whew.” My dad ran both hands through his hair; he looked boyish, dazed, incredulous. “Here’s the thing. I’m really wanting to make some big changes right now. Because I have the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this great business. Buddy of mine has a restaurant. And, I mean, I think it’s going to be a really great thing for all of us—once in a lifetime thing, actually. You know? Xandra’s having such a hard time at work right now with her boss being such a shit and, I don’t know, I just think this is going to be a lot more sane.”
My dad? A restaurant? “Wow—that’s great,” I said. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” My dad nodded. “It’s really great. The thing is, though, to open a place like this—”
“What kind of restaurant?”
My dad yawned, wiped red eyes. “Oh, you know—just simple American food. Steaks and hamburgers and stuff. Just really simple and well prepared. The thing is, though, for my buddy to get the place open and pay his restaurant taxes—”
“Restaurant taxes?”
“Oh God, yes, you wouldn’t believe the kind of fees they’ve got out here. You’ve got to pay your restaurant taxes, your liquor-license taxes, liability insurance—it’s a huge cash outlay to get a place like this up and running.”
“Well.” I could see where he was going with this. “If you need the money