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It’s a real date. Maybe the hat’s too much.
I leave it on anyway. It’s the first thing all morning that’s felt like me instead of some nervous guy playing dress-up, and if Olivia’s going to sit across a table from anybody, it ought to be the actual me.
“You’re fussing.”
Dottie’s in the doorway with a dish towel over her shoulder and a look on her face like Christmas came early. She leans a shoulder against the frame and settles in, because she has been waiting a long time for a day she gets to stand in a doorway and watch me fuss, and she intends to enjoy every second of it.
“I’m not fussing.” I don’t turn around. I meet her eyes in the mirror instead. “I’m getting ready.”
“You combed your mustache.” One eyebrow goes up, slow, like it’s got all day.
“It’s a normal thing to comb.”
“You only comb it on special occasions.” She says it to her own fingernails, inspecting them, entirely too pleased with herself.
I don’t have a good comeback for that. So I hold her eyes in the mirror and comb it again, out of pure spite.
Bo pushes past her knees and plants himself between me and the mirror, backpack still on from school, one shoe off.
“Where are you going?”
“To get coffee with Olivia.”
His whole face changes. “Olivia’s coming?”
“No, buddy. I’m going to her. It’s just us tonight.”
He weighs whether a version of the evening without him in it can possibly be worth anything. He’s up on the balls of his feet now, rocking, energy with nowhere to go. “Are you gonna tell her I said hi?”
“I’ll tell her.”
“Tell her I got a hundred on my spelling test.” He’s bouncing a little, one hand tapping the doorframe.
“I’ll tell her that too.”
“Tell her the word I missed was ‘necessary’ but I got it on the retake.” The tapping speeds up.
“That’s not a hundred, then.”
He stops. Everything stops, the bouncing and the tapping and the rocking, all of it, because I have introduced a flaw into the record and it requires his full attention. He looks at me like I’ve missed the entire point of the story, which I have.
“The retake is a hundred.”
Dottie’s still watching me in the mirror. She hasn’t said the thing she’s about to say, and I can feel it coming the way you feel weather.
“It’s good,” she says finally. “You, doing this.”
“It’s coffee.”
“Mm.” She pats the doorframe like she’s blessing it and turns back toward the kitchen. “Comb it again. You missed a spot.”
I know I didn’t miss a spot, but I check anyway.
I grab my keys off the hook by the door. Bo follows me out to the porch in his one shoe, a very small, very serious send-off committee.
“Dad.”
“Yeah.”
