Page 19 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“Bullshit. You’re talking about me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, old man,” Lizzie said.

“Hey, I’m not a total idiot. I’m sorry. I haven’t meant to ignore you, but I’m...”

“Dad, you haven’t been ignoring us,” I said.

“Of course I have. I promised your mother I’d be there for you, and I’ve been living in my own world.”

“It’s called grieving,” I said. “You’re entitled.”

“I know, but I haven’t paid much attention to the two of you.”

“News flash,” Lizzie said. “Teenage girls don’t thrive on parental attention. Keep up the good work.”

He chomped down on the meat loaf sandwich and took a swig of his beer. Lizzie finished the last of her pie. I decided to go for broke.

“You know they’re hitting on you, don’t you?” I said.

“What?”

“All these women who are cooking for you, stopping by to check on you, calling to see if you need anything—some of them have an ulterior motive.”

“Allof them have an ulterior motive,” Lizzie said, jumping on the runaway train.

“Like what?” He didn’t need us to answer. He was right. He wasn’t atotalidiot. “Oh, Jesus, I don’t know what you girls are reading in those women’s magazines, but you’re way off base. First of all, I’m not looking for a girlfriend. Second of all, these women are your mother’s friends. They’re not trying to poach her husband. And third of all?—”

“Finn.” It was Grandpa Mike at the bar. “Telephone.”

“Tell them I’m busy.”

“I tried that, but it’s Alice Bodine, and she says she just has oneteensy-weensy little question. Something about the corn pudding soufflé she’s baking for you.”

“Baking,” Lizzie said. “That’s completely different from poaching.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said, standing up. “And even if it was, I’m not remotely interested.”

Lizzie waited for him to walk over to the bar, pick up the phone, and deal with Alice’s teensy-weensy little question.

“I’m not remotely interested,” she repeated. “Isn’t that what the gazelle said when the lioness said, ‘I’d love to bring you back to my place for dinner’?”

TWELVE

I decided to take a break from fixating on my father’s love life and obsess about my own. I hadn’t heard from my boyfriend since before my mother died, and I ached to have him hold me and comfort me.

Van was the only boy I’d ever loved, the only boy I’d ever slept with, and now, at a time when I needed him more than ever, he was seven thousand miles away.

I’d met him a year ago. It was the summer before my junior year, and my overprotective father, who couldn’t help noticing that his two daughters were—and I quote—“blossoming,” decided to have us work at the restaurant. His logic was simple: (a) he could keep an eye on us, and (b) he could keep us away from “those damn horny teenage boys.”

It might have worked. Except for the fire.

About two months before Lizzie and I started our summer jobs at the restaurant, there was a kitchen fire. It could have been a total disaster, but the McCormicks have a knack for turning lemons into lemonade. So, Dad and Grandpa Mike decided to roll the dice, take over the empty dress shop next door, build a bigger, better kitchen, and double the size of the place.

Van had a summer job working for our contractor. I worked the day shift as a waitress. And for two months, while half the restaurant was operational and the other half was under construction, I spent as much time as possible bringing coffee, sandwiches, and cold drinks to the half where there were no customers.

I was sixteen. Most of the boys in my class were still going through that gangly teenage growth spurt. Van was seventeen, and he was definitely not a boy. He was six feet tall with a mop of thick blond hair, deep blue eyes, a strong jaw, and the magnificent hard, muscular body of a man. He was totally out of my league.

But that didn’t stop me. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Not with my hawkeyed father always hovering about. But for all his paternal vigilance about “boys, who only have one thing on their minds, Maggie,” he seemed completely unfazed by my regular visits to the construction site. It didn’t hurt that I told him I might want to become an architect, and I was learning a lot from Nick Ridley, the crew boss.

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