Page 83 of Eye Candy

“What?”

“Chase, you’ve spent the better part of your life trying to convince people you’re not like dad, but I don’t know ifyoubelieve it. It’s painfully obvious. You’re a one-woman kind of guy. This Kiwi dancer? Don’t let her go.”

“I can’t fix things for her. She specifically told me not to.”

Joe sighed. “This isn’t about fixing stuffforher, Fixy. You just need to make a grand gesture. A declaration.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Repeat the end of her favorite movie. Get a boom box and stand under her window. Or pull a Jack and give her the door while you drown, even though there’s clearly room for two. You’ll figure it out.”

At the end ofZiegfeld Girl, Hedy’s character gives up her career because her husband is an insecure Neanderthal, and Lana’s character dies of alcoholism men drove her to. It’s a devastating film; the glitter and the feathers are very misleading. But Judy? At the end of the film, Judy is the star of the follies, performing to an adoring audience. Her father, whose feelings she once spared at the expense of her career, is there too as her supporting act.

I’d made a career out of dispensing advice. I always knew what to do when faced with a moral conundrum or quandary. And now, even though I couldn’t generate it, I knew good advice when I heard it.

My brother was right.

I needed to make a grand gesture.

CHAPTER 30

CHASE’S BLOG

The Moral Fix “Letter 357: My Daughter Isn’t Speaking to Me, What Do I Do?”

My daughterjust turned thirteen and last week we had our first argument. I told her how to solve an easy problem with her friends at school, which she’s been upset about. But now she’s not talking to me. How do I make her more grateful and get back the close relationship we had when she was younger? She’s my princess, and I want things to go back to the way they were.

—A Concerned Dad.

Dear Concerned Dad,

Have you ever gone to a mechanic for tires and been told how to make a Reuben? Unlikely. Mechanics aren’t sought for their culinary advice (which is not to say they don’t have any to offer). But unless your daughter specifically said, ‘Dad, what do you think I should do?’ you’re giving her Reubens when she wants tires. It’shard to be grateful for something you didn’t request and can’t use. You say you and your daughter are close and you love her—she probably came to you to be heard and feel loved. It can be as simple as that.

—Author,The Moral Fix.

Postscript, added three weeks after publication:

I’ve been thinking about this letter, and my response.

This blog is about doing the right thing and being a good man. But what’s right? Moreover, what’s good? Three years, four hundred letters, and seventy thousand subscribers later, these are the questions we’ve attempted to answer together.

Ethics is a marriage of philosophy, perspective, and objective. The advice I give to you is rarely radical—my role is to consider your issues with fresh eyes and emotional objectivity. Often readers already know the right course of action; they just want to hear it from someone else.

I’m ashamed to report, somewhere along the way, I started believing my own legend.

[GIF of a man in a suit from a show about men in suits]

Readers, I met someone.

I won’t tell you anything about her—I don’t have her permission to talk about her on the blog, and Consent Is King. But she’s wonderful. Everything about her—her smile, her stubbornness, her laugh—has me in knots. We’re from completely different backgrounds, and met under unusual circumstances. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen when she told me my advice on how to straighten her circumstances was… Reubens.

Finding the love of my life has been exhilarating.

It’s also made me acutely conscious of my shortcomings.

Which is disquieting.

I’d like to offer my sincerest apologies to you reading this, to my brother Joe, who definitely isn’t reading this, and to everyone who has received Reubens from this particular mechanic. Goingforward, I will be better at acknowledging and disclosing my limitations, and taking my own advice.

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