Page 137 of The Endowment Effect

With her phone in tow, she jumped from the couch with the energy of a teenage girl excited by a boy and bounced into the kitchen.

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same boy? Oliver seems really nice. Certainly not a menace or any sort of trouble. He told me he’s into church and stuff.”

“Shouldn’t you want him to like you for you, not because you pretend to be into the things he’s into?”

The question didn’t sit right after he’d asked it.

“You don’t think I should be into church? Um, I think you’re the first dad in the history of forever who would think that. Would you feel better if I, say, joined a coven and asked him to help me with my pentagram? Because that was what I was really into?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Now I’m being ridiculous for wanting to go to church?”

“That’s not what I…”

“I can’t believe you’re giving me a hard time about wanting to go to church to develop a relationship with my Lord and Savior and spend time with a boy that I like.” Her voice rose an octave. “Who is Godly.”

Lucas rubbed his face with his hands. “Okay, stop. Let’s just back up a minute,” he said, staring into the face of his daughter who reminded him, not of Birdie, but was familiar, nonetheless. “If you want to go to church, I’ll take you to church.”

She smiled, and instantly she turned back into the little girl he’d just recently met instead of some burgeoning fifteen-year-old siren.

Oh God, just like her mother.

“Dad, Oliver is super nice. We’ve been texting…”

“Wait,” he interrupted. “How do you know his number to text to him?”

“Mom had to stop at the hardware store, and she ran into a woman she used to go to school with and her daughter who was my age. While they talked, which by the way, the woman seemed kinda mad at Mom, which seems to be the norm around here, her daughter gave me Oliver’s number.”

“And you just called him out of nowhere?”

“Oh, God no. I had seen him at the diner with Angus.”

“And, what? He just walked up to you and introduced himself?”

“No, Dad…” she said, as if conversing with a toddler. “He gave me a chin nod. You know, when a boy does this.” She demonstrated the little prick’s move and Lucas saw red. But he had to keep it together or his daughter would turn into an almost fifteen-year-old again.

“So after he gave you a chin nod and you got his number from a third party, you just called him on the phone and said…what?”

She deflated a few degrees. “I dunno. It was like, ‘Hey, I saw you at the diner.’ And he was like, ‘Hey, yeah, remember.’ And then I was like, ‘I’m Mia, my dad is the mayor.’ And then he said, ‘Yeah, my mom told me all about you.’”

She turned her face to the side as if in contemplation, and said, “Which I thought was a little weird, but whatever, and then he said, ‘Wanna go to church? Mom thinks you would like it, said you probably never go.’ And I said, ‘Cool, sure.’ And then he said, ‘Fine, I’ll see you there and after service we’ll go to a teen group.’ And I said, ‘Cool, bye.’”

“Wow,” Lucas said monotone. “Quite the riveting conversationalist, isn’t he?”

Her hackles went back up. “Why are you being so mean?”

“I’m not being mean; I just think if you go to church it should be for church not to meet up with boys.”

Her thin arms crossed her chest. “How did you and Mom meet?”

He was cornered, as he couldn’t very well say,It was magical, she called me an orphaned bastard, clocked me across the chin, and stole my lunch, for the greater part of third through fifth grade.

Instead, he went with the abbreviated. “We met at school.

“Fine,” she said, grabbing her phone on the counter with a red face. “Be a… a heretic and refuse to take your daughter to church because a boy might be there. That makes perfect sense.”

“Heretic? That’s a bit of an over-exaggeration…”

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