“From student affairs?”
“Well, yeah, but she and I were actually pretty good friends in college.”
“I think she mentioned that in, like, freshman orientation when she said she’d be keeping an eye on me for you.”
The exasperation in her voice sketches a grin onto my face.
“If I couldn’t be there in person, I had my allies. Janelle mentioned you’ve been voted homecoming queen.”
“Yeah. I was gonna tell you. It just happened. “
“Your mother knows?”
“Of course.”
Of course.
“She’s been busy,” Celine says quickly, a defense in her words. “I told her I wanted to tell you myself. I didn’t think . . .well, I didn’t think you would . . .”
Mind? Care?
Frustration wars with my own guilt.
“It’s not a big deal, Dad.”
“What’s not a big deal? That you won or that you didn’t tell me?”
The pause between us gathers dust while I wait for her response.
“I mean . . .there are a lot of things about my life you don’t know. That’s not new.”
When she was growing up, there seemed to be a bottomless pit of grace when I missed birthday parties because I was in Russia or recitals because there was a war. Big things. Important things, but the resignation, the ancient disappointment in her voice makes me wish I could roll back the years and make different choices.
“I’d like to be there,” I tell her. “I assume your mother will be.”
“It’s her and Pop’s anniversary. They booked a cruise months ago so they actually can’t come.”
The first time I heard my daughter call her stepfather “Pop” I nearly lost my shit, but Annette told me to get out of my feelings and be grateful there was a good man consistently present in Celine’s life. Annette married her husband Cedric when Celine was only ten years old, and he has been there in a way my job hasn’t always allowed me to be.
“If your mom and Cedric won’t be there, all the more reason I should be.”
“Whatever, Dad. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me. I want to be there for you.”
“Okay. Look, I . . .um, I have class in a few minutes. I gotta go.”
“Before you go. Janelle . . .Ms. Hopkins wants me to do an interview as part of homecoming weekend.”
“An interview? You never do those.”
“Right, but it’s the centennial, and she thinks an interview with Niomi might?—”
“Niomi Spencer?” Celine’s voice pitches an octave higher.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Oh, my god! You have to. She’s amazing. I love her. So she would come for homecoming?”
