Page 8 of Fake-Off with Fate
He shakes his head. “Just a light peck on the lips. There’s no, you know …” He pauses dramatically before saying, “…tongue.”
“Mouth on mouth is enough to pass along any number of unsavory illnesses,” I tell him with authority. “Trust me, a kissing booth is a bad idea.”
Instead of agreeing with me, he asks, “Why are you home? Did I know you were coming?”
“You didn’t,” I tell him. “Because I wasn’t planning on being here.”
His gaze narrows noticeably. “Then whyareyou here?”
After making a couple final tweaks to his desktop, I sit back and tell him, “I’m here to save your marriage.”
His face contorts into an expression of shock. “What in the world are you talking about?” He clearly has no idea what he’s facing when he gets home. This either means my mom has not made her feelings clear, or my dad truly isn’t paying proper attention to her. I predict the answer isn’t much of a conundrum.
“You and Mom had plans with the Elliots tomorrow night, and you canceled in order to take a hockey player out to dinner.”
“I need the new captain’s support if I’m going to get him onboard with my kissing booth idea for Maple Fest.”
“No kissing booth, Dad,” I remind him sternly.
He huffs loudly. “I was also going to ask him to co-chair this year’s festival.”
Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “You don’t have to do it tomorrow night.”
“Fine,” he relents. “I’ll go to the stupid dinner party if it will make your mother happy, but I won’t like it.” He continues, “Chuck Elliot will spend the whole night yammering about how he thinks the town should plant creeping thyme around all the lampposts. Who even cares about nonsense like that?”
You might think my dad would, considering he’s so preoccupied with all things Maple Falls, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I inform him, “Mom doesn’t want to go anymore.” His look of confusion prompts me to clarify, “She’s busy throwing all of your clothes out onto the front lawn.”
My father stands up so abruptly his chair shoots out from beneath him and slams into the wall behind him. “What do you mean, she’s throwing my stuff out? How will that look to the neighbors?”
“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care. As far as Mom’s concerned, the two of you are over.”
Beads of sweat start to appear on his forehead. “She’s leaving me because I was going to miss one stupid dinner party?”
“She’s leaving you because she doesn’t feel valued by you anymore,” I explain. “You take calls when you’re out to eat; you make your own plans when you already have ones with her; and from what she told me last month, you don’t even tell her that you love her anymore.”
“I love her!” he says with heat as his face reddens. A sure sign he hasn’t bothered to tell her.
“Apparently, you don’t show it.”
He takes several steps and retrieves his chair before rolling it back to his desk. Then he sits back down. “Thisis why you came home?”
I nod my head. “I thought the price of a plane ticket was worth trying to help you save your marriage.”
“I’ll reimburse you.” He’s clearly missing the point and I’m suddenly not so inclined to listen to his side of things.
“Dad,” I tell him plainly. “If you don’t take extreme measures, Mom is going to leave you. That’s it.”
“I said I’d go to the stupid dinner party!”
“And I told you that won’t be enough.”
He reaches for a tissue from the box across his desk. Wiping his brow, he asks, “What do I have to do, climb a mountain and shout my love from the highest peak?”
If his current state of fitness is any indication, he’d probably have a heart attack after the first few feet. “You have to go away with Mom and make her your sole priority. I mean it. No telephone. No television. No computer. Just Mom.”
He looks so appalled I almost laugh out of sheer nervousness.
“No phone?” he demands.
