Page 36 of Justice for Radar

I nodded. “So, in this case, not knowing this guy, not knowing what is in the drink is it better to be polite or to be rude?”

“Rude, definitely rude, but there’s nothing rude about saying ‘thanks, but no, thanks.’”

I shook my head. “Not until he makes it so by being all like,‘come on, I’m a nice guy!’or like I said before,‘come on, don’t make me waste my money!’when in fact, I didn’t make him do anything.”

“Right, and then I guess he’d be all like,‘not all men are douchebags out to hurt you,’” Radar said, and I could see the wheels turning in his head.

“Right, and I’ll give him that,” I said nodding. “But I have a counter question to that argument.”

“What’s that?” Radar asked.

“How am I supposed to tellwhichmen?”

I could see him stop and think about that for a good long second and then he looked up at me with a sort of admiration in his eyes. “And yet back at the diner you decided I was alright.”

I smiled and said, “Your daughter loves you and thinks the world of you. If it hadn’t been for Lucia, I wouldn’t have even considered it.”

He smiled then, and it was one of huge pride. I could tell it was pride in his daughter and he even looked a bit emotional for a moment when he reflected on what I said she’d said about him.

“I don’t know how I got so lucky, you know?” he asked.

“How’s that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I honestly don’t deserve my girls to be such the awesome human beings they turned out to be, or for them to love their papa like they do.”

“They got all of it from somewhere,” I said gently, and he nodded.

“I always thought it was Marisol.”

I shook my head. “Maybe some of it, but I feel like a lot of it is blood.”

He looked at me then and asked, “If that’s so, how do you explain you?”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“What about me?”

“Well, from everything you’ve told me about your parents, they’re a couple of miserable fucks – sorry not sorry.”

I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s true. I’m still dealing with a lot of the damage they inflicted upon me, and I swore I would be different.”

He nodded. “Exactly. You are different. Nothing like them… makes me kind of upset you’re leaving in two days.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Because if circumstances were different, I would love to have the chance to shoot my shot.” He eyed me and I sat frozen, numb with the shock of his words.

“Me?” I squeaked out skeptically.

“You,” he said with a nod.

I sat quietly and stared back out over the fields and confessed without looking, “I wish circumstances had been different, too.”

11

Radar…

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