to her ear with her shoulder, leaving both hands free to braid her ponytail into a tight plait while she talked. When Gina spotted her father entering the house, she waggled her foot at him without breaking off her phone conversation.
“Forget it, Gramps,” she said into the receiver. “You can’t convince me it would be fun. I don’t care if Mom was the captain of the squad in her school. It’s demeaning to women. My piano teacher said so.”
Joe opened the refrigerator and took out a quart of chocolate milk. For some reason, he wanted to enjoy the taste of Rose Atkins’s hot cocoa all over again—and cold chocolate milk would have to do. He poured the last three inches into a jelly glass decorated with cartoon characters and listened to Gina’s conversation with her grandfather in Brooklyn.
He was glad Marie’s parents kept in touch with their granddaughter, despite the miles that separated them. Every summer, Gina traveled east to be with her grandparents, and Joe tried to invite Marie’s family as well as his own mother to visit as often as possible. Gina needed an extended family to keep her grounded, he felt.
Gina sighed dramatically. “Yeah, okay, Gramps. I love you, too. I gotta go, all right? Give my love to Nana. Bye.”
Without moving from the floor, she tossed the receiver to Joe, who hung it up. “Holy smoke,” she groaned, covering her face with her hands as if holding back tremendous suffering. “When are they going to realize I’m not going to be just like Mom was? Now it’s cheerleading!”
Joe grinned, leaning against the counter to drink his milk. “Your mom looked good in that short skirt. It didn’t demean her as far as I could see.”
“What do you know?” Gina asked witheringly. “You’re a guy. A little old, maybe, but still a guy.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Oh, Dad, you know what I mean.”
“Sure. What’s for dinner?”
Gina blinked up at him from the floor. Sometimes she showed signs of her mother’s innate ability to play dumb when the situation warranted. She said, “I thought it was your night to cook. Weren’t you going to bring home a pizza?”
Joe blanched. “I hate pizza.”
“I never knew an Italian guy who hated normal Italian food the way you do,” she groused. “Can’t you like anything that’s easy to make?”
“You were going to fix omelets tonight,” Joe shot back. “Those are easy.”
“We’re out of eggs.”
“Open a can of soup, then.”
Gina sat up, objecting. “Dad, I need a high-carbohydrate meal tonight! We’re playing a big scrimmage game tomorrow against Bonneville!”
The basketball team, Joe remembered. He had trouble keeping up with Gina’s athletic endeavors sometimes. “Okay, okay, I’ll make the ultimate sacrifice tonight. How about macaroni and cheese?”
“Great,” she said with satisfaction, climbing to her feet and clearly believing she had manipulated her father into preparing their dinner. Joe knew his daughter hated cooking, but he was determined to see that she was competent in the kitchen at the very least. She said, “I’ll keep you company while you make it. Where have you been, anyway? I expected you home half an hour ago.”
Joe thought of Susannah Atkins at once. He turned around and put his empty glass in the sink, trying to keep his expression hidden from Gina in case it revealed his thoughts.
Keeping a casual tone, he said, “I met a celebrity today.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“Susannah Atkins. Of ‘Oh, Susannah!”’
Joe felt Gina glance at him. She said, “Is she pretty?”
“Very pretty.”
“Prettier than Mom was?”
“Different pretty,” Joe admitted, walking a fine line, he knew. “She’s very nice.”
“How nice?”
“Just nice. You’d like her, I think.”
“I doubt it,” Gina said bluntly, hitching her behind onto one of the stools at the counter and dismissing the subject of Susannah Atkins. “But I like old Mrs. Atkins just fine.” She splayed her elbows on a place mat and watched Joe wash his hands and dry them on the nearest towel.
“Me, too. I’m going to fix up her house a little.”
“Why? So you can be close to the television lady?”
“No,” Joe said shortly, “because her house needs fixing, that’s all. The television lady is leaving Tyler tomorrow.” Joe took a box of pasta from the pantry shelf and dug a block of cheddar cheese from the refrigerator. He said, “Maybe you’d come along and visit with Mrs. Atkins while I’m working there. She’d enjoy the company.”
Gina shrugged. “Sure.”
“Maybe,” Joe ventured cautiously, “she could help you pick out a dress for the Christmas dance. Unless you already have a dress, that is.”
Gina’s dark brown eyes flew open in surprise, and the teenager sat up as if she’d been jabbed with a hot poker. For an instant, she could not find her voice, then she blurted out, “How do you know about the dance?”
“How could I not know about it? Every ninth grader in town is talking about the big Tinsel Ball. Your friend Marcy cornered me in the drugstore to ask what color your dress was.”
“That nosy fink!”
“What color is it?”
“What?” Gina pretended complete bafflement.
“Your dress for the Tinsel Ball,” Joe said patiently. “Marcy said you told her it was the...let’s see, what word did she use, exactly? Slinky, that’s it. The slinkiest dress in Madison. I didn’t know you’d gone to Madison to buy a dress.”
Hastily, Gina said, “You must have misunderstood, Dad. You know how fast Marcy talks. She must have said her dress was slinky—”
Joe set his ingredients on the counter and glowered at his daughter, ready to confront her with the truth. “Don’t try to snow me, Gina. I know what Marcy said. Have you been lying again?”
Gina thrust out her lower lip and looked sulky, her automatic reaction to any accusation. She refused to meet her father’s gaze, but said bravely, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Joe considered his options. There was no denying that Gina’s biggest problem was stretching the truth. She could tell a whopper without blinking an eye and had been caught so often that Joe sometimes wondered how many times she’d actually gotten away with lying. The possibilities boggled his mind sometimes. Her teachers complained every year, but the problem had finally become such a daily event that lately they’d started pushing Joe to seek help from professionals.
The
