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I shook my head.
Father studied me for a moment, then leaned back. “Have I ever told you the story of how I met your mother?”
Of course he had. I knew the story well; it was one of my favorites. But I always loved hearing it each time he told it. “Tell me.”
“Way back in the day, before I was old and fat, I made a bet with my friend who was, at the time, equally as young and stupid as I was. I bet that I would be able to sneak into a nearby finishing school and steal a cake before anyone caught me. You see, his sister attended the school and had told him that there was a cake decorating contest that day. Now, boys are interested in three things: food, competing in sports, and girls. And when a young man is dared by his best friend to any absurd challenge, the man code states that he must agree. So I found an open window and saw tables all laid with cakes inside. I ducked back down and waited until the room was empty.
“Once I knew there wasn’t anyone inside that room, I got a running start and tried to jump through the open window. But I misjudged the window’s height, and my foot caught on the frame, and instead of jumping through the window, I fell through the window, did a full front flip, and landed flat on my back on one of the tables holding cakes. It broke clean in half, and several cakes fell onto me. The noise I made would have woken the dead. The wind was completely knocked out of me, and I couldn’t move a muscle.
“So I just lay there, gasping for air and covered from head to toe in cake and frosting, and one of the instructors came in. Now, I don’t know why this woman was teaching at a finishing school. Everyone expects finishing school graduates to be dainty and ladylike, but this woman must have been there as a bodyguard, because she was immense! She came in and saw me lying there, yanked me up by my ear, and marched me down to the headmistress.
“All the girls heard the commotion, and watched as I was being dragged down the hallway, trailing cake crumbs all the way. We came to the headmistress’ office, and the bodyguard woman slammed me down into a chair to wait for her. But, all of that was worth it, because after the headmistress was done interrogating me, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life came in. The headmistress said that this was the girl who had baked and frosted all those cakes I had smashed, and it was up to me to make things right with her.”
Usually, it was at this point in the story that Mother would chime in with ‘And you girls would not believe how silly your Father looked, sitting there with frosting plastered in his hair and cake ground into his shirt, looking as though he had been clubbed over the head. His eyes were as big as saucers!’
“And then I started stuttering and spluttering and making a complete fool of myself, trying to explain to this beautiful girl what had become of her cakes. The best I could come up with was telling her I would take her to the market and replace all of her ingredients and help her recreate her masterpieces.
“So the next day, after I had washed all the frosting from my hair, I picked a bouquet of flowers and took them to your Mother. I apologized profusely about my behavior and took her on a long stroll through the marketplace and let her pick out all the ingredients she wanted. Then the rest is history! She fell madly in love with her cake thief, and we lived happily ever after.”
I always loved hearing that story. It was so easy to imagine a young Father, tumbling through an open window, being dragged off to the headmistress’ office by his ear, and Mother coming in to see a young man covered in her cake and stammering an apology.
The story had made me forget my anger. “You should have been a bard,” I told Father. “I’m sure you could put that story to song.”
Father pretended to strum an imaginary lyre and sang in a dreadfully out-of-tune voice,
“There once was a lovely cake,
So difficult to frost and make,
A lovely lass left her class,
Then heard a great big crash!”
“I take it back! I take it back!” I cried, covering my ears. “Never sing in public or you will be run out of town!”
Father laughed. “Feeling better?”
I smiled and hugged him. Father always knew what I needed. I never had to explain myself to him. I heard another knock on the door. “Come in!” I called for a second time.
This time, it was Curtis. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were busy,” he began, and was about to leave, but Father forestalled him.
“I was just on my way out,” Father said and winked at me as he passed. “In any case, I believe my daughter was planning to run me out soon to protect her hearing. Good night, dear, I love you! And happy early birthday, Your Highness.”
Curtis thanked him and bowed as Father passed, then flicked his eyes over at where I sat.
“So, how did it go?” I asked, much more formally than I ordinarily would have been.
“Well, let’s see. She thinks Hubert is a stuffy old bore, and I couldn’t disagree there. And we compared notes on army drills. Then she asked if I was in a committed relationship.”
He paused. Stupid storytellers with their dramatic effects. “What did you say?” I asked, trying to sound as though I didn’t care.
“I said I was.”
My head shot up. “Really?”
“Well I did consider just picking my nose and passing gas more often than Pooter but decided that wouldn’t do well to uphold the dignity of our country. I figured honesty was the best policy for foreign diplomacy.”
I couldn’t suppress my grin. “Are you serious?”
