Sharon Shaughnessy couldn't help but grin when she saw her dad's rusted white car pulling up to the Port Asbestos Airport, coughing puffs of brownish gray smoke behind it.
She stood up from the bench, straightened her pencil skirt, adjusted her big black sunglasses and pulled her floppy black hat lower down her pale forehead.
Passers by wrinkled their noses and stared as the heavily dented tin can sputtered to a stop in front of the young woman and a wild-looking man got out.
He wore a pair of muddy brown boots, black slacks and a camouflage jacket. A mane of gray hair curled out from below a blue trucker hat. His mouth was pulled into a wide grin, causing his dark eyes to squint from his wrinkled cheeks.
"Is that my Sharon?" he asked, throwing one arm around his daughter and grabbing her suitcase with his other hand.
"Good to see you, dad," Sharon said, hugging the old man back with a smile.
"You get prettier and prettier every time I see you," Mr. Shaughnessy said proudly, "You get it from my side of the family, you know. Your great great great grandmother was none other than Cleopatra herself. And your great grandfather was King Louis the eighth, who was called the most beautiful man in England. You've got royal blood, m'dear, that's why you're so lovely."
Sharon rolled her eyes behind her big black sunglasses and smirked. Her father hadn't changed a bit. "I'm more excited for the long life span. Incredible that only five generations somehow spanned over two thousand years."
Her dad frowned for a second before lifting her bag. "Good golly, Miss College Graduate, what did you put in this thing? It's almost as heavy as my old friend from the army, James Daniels. Big lump of a boy, useless with a gun but always good for a laugh."
He put the luggage into the car and closed the trunk with some difficulty. "I saved his life, y'know. Carried him—," he began, heading back to the driver's side.
"Fifty miles across enemy territory with the Viet Cong hot on your tail and you cleverly led them into their own trap and got away unharmed," Sharon finished quickly, smiling at him over the top of the car, "You tell me this all the time. Can we go now? I'm excited to get home."
The two of them got into the car and sputtered out of the parking lot toward the neighboring town, Possum Lake, where Sharon grew up.
"Everybody's so excited to see you," Mr. Shaughnessy said, "Your friend Tabitha Humphrey is coming back for a visit too. Hope she wasn't expecting a fanfare because she's nowhere near as good looking as you."
"I'm sure she's fine looking," Sharon said, "And we're not really friends anymore, we stopped hanging out in junior high."
"And Red Green's got that goofy nephew of his living with him now," Dad said, "Harry or Harvey or something."
"Harold?" Sharon smiled.
"That's it," Mr. Shaughnessy agreed, "Harold."
"I remember Harold," Sharon chuckled, "Tab and I used to stick lunch meat in his back pockets and set old man Sedgewick's dog on him. Poor kid."
"You know," Dad said, "I invented lunch meat. It happened by accident one Christmas when all we had to carve the turkey with was an old samurai sword…"
Sharon shook her head, smiled obligingly and looked out the window.