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“Carrie.” My father looks momentarily distraught. “We don’t need to air our dirty laundry.”
“No, but we do need to wash it.”
No one gets my little joke. I pick up my wine glass and sigh. I’d planned to go back to New York on Monday, but there’s no way I can possibly last that long. Come tomorrow, I’m taking the first train out of here.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I do love you, Carrie. Just because I’m with Wendy—”
“I know, Dad. I like Wendy. I’m only leaving because I have this play to write. And if I can get it done, it’s going to be performed.”
“Where?” my father asks. He’s clutching the wheel of the car, absorbed in changing lanes on our little highway. I’m convinced he doesn’t really care, but I try to explain anyway.
“At this space. That’s what they call it—‘a space.’ It’s really a kind of loft thing at this guy’s apartment. It used to be a bank—”
I can tell by his glance into the rearview mirror that I’ve lost him.
“I admire your tenacity,” he says. “You don’t give up. That’s good.”
Now he’s lost me. “Tenacity” isn’t the word I was hoping for. It makes me sound like someone clinging to a rock face.
I slump down in the seat. Why can’t he ever say something along the lines of “You’re really talented, Carrie, of course you’re going to succeed.” Am I going to spend the rest of my life trying to get some kind of approval from him that he’s never going to give?
“I wanted to tell you about Wendy before,” he says, swerving into the exit lane that leads to the train station. Now’s my opportunity to tell him about my struggles in New York, but he keeps changing the subject back to Wendy.
“Why didn’t you?” I ask hopelessly.
“I wasn’t sure about her feelings.”
“And you are now?”
He pulls into a parking spot and kills the engine. With great seriousness, he says, “She loves me, Carrie.”
A cynical puff of air escapes my lips.
“I mean it. She really loves me.”
“Everyone loves you, Dad.”
“You know what I mean.” He nervously rubs the corner of his eye.
“Oh, Dad.” I pat his arm, trying to understand. The last few years must have been terrible for him. On the other hand, they’ve been terrible for me, too. And Missy. And Dorrit.
“I’m happy for you, Dad, I really am,” I say, although the thought of my father in a serious relationship with another woman makes me shaky. What if he marries her?
“She’s a lovely person. She—” He hesitates. “She reminds me of Mom.”
This is the cherry on the crap sundae. “She’s not anything like Mom,” I say softly, my anger building.
“She is. When Mom was younger. You wouldn’t remember because you were just a baby.”
“Dad.” I pause deliberately, hoping the obvious falseness of his statement will sink in. “Wendy likes motorcycles.”
“Your mother was very adventurous when she was young too. Before she had you girls—”
“Just another reason why I’ll never get married,” I say, getting out of the car.
“Oh, Carrie.” He sighs. “I feel sorry for you, then. I worry that you’ll never find true love.”
