Prologue – Summer, 1972
Andy
The Caddy cruises west through Nebraska, with Andy behind the wheel singing along with Mama Tried, his favorite tune by Haggard, and on the seat next to him are his .38 snub nose and a fat wad of cash from the last Texaco he'd knocked off.
On the seat?
"Oh, shit!"
He swerves onto the shoulder and stops so suddenly his head almost kisses the windshield.
"Fuckin' moron," he mutters as he shoves the gun and the money into the glove box and locks it.
Then, just before pulling back onto the highway, he sees her, fifty yards up with her thumb out.
Holy shit.
Skimpy black cut-offs, skimpier red halter, long messy blonde hair...Nice legs...Tits maybe a bit small, but shaped nice under that top...Cute feet in pricey-looking sandals.
So Andy, who has survived a lifetime of bad decisions, makes another one.
He picks her up.
Sally
I know that car, but not the shifty-looking guy driving it, and my heart does a little lurch as he pulls up to me.
"Hey, sweetie, need a lift?"
"Sure." I toss my duffel bag in back and climb in, the red upholstery warm against my thighs.
I'm used to guys – and sometimes girls, too – looking at me, especially when I'm showing skin, but this creep's eyes are crawling all over me.
Andy
As she gets in, for just a second he has a good angle on her right nipple, then it's hidden again.
And she's glaring at him.
He pulls into traffic, still ogling her, and she says, "I don't like the way you're looking at me."
His tone goes sullen. "Why you dressed that way, if you don't want people to see what you got?"
"Not people in general, just you. You make my skin crawl."
He slams on the brakes, and it's damn lucky for both of them there's no traffic behind him.
"If that's how you feel, bitch, get out of my fuckin' ride."
Sally
It's not your fuckin' ride, it's Daddy's. And if I gotta flash some tit to find out what happened to him, so be it.
I lean forward so he gets a nice look, then in my most apologetic voice I say, "Okay, okay, look if you want. Just don't touch."
He grins and starts driving again. "That's more like it," he says, and we're both quiet for a bit.
"What's your name, anyway?" I ask, poking a green fingernail into a familiar gash on the seat next to me.
"Andy."
"Mine's Beth. Where'd you get such a nice car, Andy?"
"You ain't gonna believe this," he says, all excited like a kid, "but some guy gave it to me."
Bullshit.
I try to picture Daddy giving this bozo his car, but there's just no way in hell.
"You're right, Andy. I don't believe you."
"Well, he did," Andy mutters, like he really doesn't care what I believe. Then he sees a road sign offering 'Gas – Food – Lodging – Next Exit' and grins at me.
"You hungry, Beth?"
I shrug. "I suppose."
"Cool."
I notice his eyes straying my way again, not at my legs or chest, but toward the glove compartment.
The closer we get to the exit, the more he keeps eyeing that glove box, and I can almost feel him getting frustrated.
What's in there, Andy, that you don't want me to see?
Then we're there, outside a 7-11 in Grand Island, and he looks at me all irritated. "Listen, Beth, you got a twenty on you? I'll pay you back later."
"Whatever," I say, handing him a bill from my purse. And suddenly I can guess what's in his glove box.
"Thanks," he says, sincerely enough. "I might be awhile."
"Take your time."
Please.
The compartment is locked, but Daddy's spare key is taped under the floor mat, so that part is easy.
I open the glove box, and yeah, there's money in there – lots of it – but when I see the gun I almost scream.
Everything inside me goes still.
Daddy, if you're dead, I'll avenge you.
I glance through the windshield into the store.
Andy's still shopping, so I turn my attention to the gun.
Now, I'm no expert, but Henry has one just like this with a longer barrel, and not long after Mom died he showed me the basics.
I check the cylinder to make sure it's loaded, then flip the safety off.
I shut the glove box and slide over behind the wheel.
When Andy finally comes out, I've got his money down my top and his gun in my lap.
"You wanna drive my car?" he asks. "That's cool."
"It's not your car anymore, Andy. It's mine."
I show him the gun, pointed at him but too low for anyone else to see it.
"What the fuck, Beth!" His eyes narrow. "How'd you get that? Glove box was locked."
"I knew where my dad kept the extra key."
"Your dad?" Then he gets it, and his face pales. "Oh, shit, you're Don's kid!"
"That's right, I am. What did you do to him?"
"Nothing, I swear! I like Don!"
He seems sincere, so I don't shoot him. Instead I ask for the keys, and he tosses them in my lap like they're hot.
Something occurs to me.
"When did my dad supposedly give you the car?"
"Almost two years ago. Why?"
"'Cause I've talked to him since then. Lucky for you." Then I ask about Daddy's original tags.
"Tags?"
"License plates, idiot. The current ones are not his."
"In the trunk. I could change them for you."
"Oh, sure," I say sarcastically. "So the first cop to drive by could arrest us both." I grin at him. "I'd rather just shoot you and go to jail alone."
Then I remember and dig his money out from between my breasts.
"You don't want it?" he asks, eyeing my cleavage.
"You stole it, you spend it," I tell him, and that's when my inner slut – more on her later - makes me untie the halter and flash him.
"Sweet dreams," I say as I put the Caddy in reverse and hit the gas, peeling out of there backwards like a madwoman.
Take care, Andy. I hope I don't hear about you on the news someday.
Don
Two weeks later.
The old whorehouse is almost unrecognizable now, he's been rehabbing it off-and-on since the Coke thing hit, and he wishes Sally were here to see it.
He's doing this for her, after all.
Right now he's adding a fresh coat of paint to the front porch.
At one point he pauses, hearing an almost-familiar engine idling at the curb behind him, but there's no damn way so he ignores it.
"Lose something?" she drawls, no mistaking that voice, his little girl's voice, and he whirls around.
"Sally?"
It's her all right, in the flesh and grinning at him.
Too much flesh to suit him, but after noticing the gun tucked in the waistband of her shorts he decides to let it go for now.
"Hi, Daddy," she says, suddenly shy, and then she flies up the steps and into his arms.
An hour later, with Andy's gun safely locked away and Sally's version of how she got it still sorting itself out in his mind, Don sets down his brush and considers the options.
Either she'd embellished her tale to get a rise out of him, as he hopes, or she'd held back parts of it to spare him, as he suspects.
"Would you have really shot Andy if he admitted harming me?" he'd asked her when her story was done, and her eyes had glittered at him.
"I'd have blown his goddamn brains all over that goddamn parking lot," she'd replied fiercely, then turned on her heel and gone inside to change.
"That damned fool," he says now, thinking of Andy and how he had tried to help the boy, apparently to no avail.
And Sally, his headstrong, half-dressed daughter, had faced him down.
"Who's a damn fool?"
He looks up to see her watching him from the doorway, her feet bare and her hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She's still in the black shorts, but the halter is gone, replaced by a tight white tee knotted just below her chest.
"Not you." He scowls at her. "I thought I told you to put on a less-revealing shirt."
"I did."
"Coulda fooled me," he grumbles, and her hands go to her hips.
"Daddy, if the sight of my bare belly bothers you that much, we should probably just call the nursing home now."
"It's not your belly I'm worried about."
She raises an eyebrow, waiting, and he's almost sorry he'd said anything.
"Sally, I can still see your nipples through that tee."
Her eyes widen, she blushes, and now she's no longer playing at being mad, she's all the way there.
"Please tell me my father did not just mention my own damn nipples to me!"
She's inherited the Whitman temper, but so has he, and now his flashes at her.
"And please tell me," he says cruelly, "that my daughter hasn't just crossed half the country flashing her chest at every strange boy who gave her a ride!"
She stares at him, the anger in her eyes turning to hurt, and her next words slice him to the quick.
"Oh, don't worry, Daddy, there was just one strange boy. But I can't really answer your question, 'cause maybe I have a sister out there somewhere who's even sluttier than me, one you never told me about." She smiles bitterly, the tears streaming down her face. "Knowing you, it's certainly possible."
She flees sobbing into the house and slams the front door hard.
And turns the deadbolt.
"Sally, I have a key."
"Stick it up your ass!" she yells, and that, more than the locked door, says it all.
Sally
I stalk around the old whorehouse, telling myself I hate Daddy, and Betty, and Andy the pervert, and even Glen for leaving me twice.
But after a while the tears dry up, the anger fades, and this house where my dad grew up draws me in.
What's Daddy planning for this place?
A hotel, I think, because it's laid out like one and he has redone the inside rooms very nicely.
The cynical part of me says maybe it's gonna be a whorehouse again, and then the inner slut part of me says maybe I could work here.
Sally Draper, lawyer by day, hooker by night. And I'd represent my own johns for free.
Okay, maybe not.
I wander around some more, finally coming to a door marked Storage – Employees Only.
I try the knob. It is not locked, so I go in.
Hey, didn't I almost help Daddy paint? Makes me an almost-employee.
I see mostly old furniture covered with tarps, boxes of junk, and lots of cobwebs.
And, leaning in a corner off by itself, what looks like the back of a large painting or maybe a really big mirror.
"I see you found my graveyard," Daddy says behind me, and I practically jump out of my skin.
"Graveyard?" I say, once my heart remembers to beat again.
He's been watching me from the doorway, and now he comes in to stand next to me.
"Yup. All the whorehouse stuff is in here, buried for good."
I look around again, hands on my hips. "Did all the stuff in here used to be in all the rooms out there?"
"Most of it."
"What about that?" I ask, nodding toward the piece in the corner.
"No, that's a newer piece I had made. Go check it out."
I do, wondering if it really is a painting or a mirror, my brain not picking up that he'd had it made.
It is neither, and when I turn it around to see what's there I fall to my knees and start to cry.
It's a wooden sign, the one that'll hang out front, and it is Daddy's gift to me.
"I can tell you like it," Daddy says now, his voice so full of love that what I'd said to him earlier makes me ashamed.
Oh, Daddy, please forgive me.
In the upper right is a carved likeness of a young girl, maybe twelve, and she kinda-sorta looks like I did six years ago.
But it's the words making me cry now, the words that only my dad would use, and only for me:
The Adman's Daughter.
He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Are we good, Sally? Not mad anymore?"
"You know I never could stay mad at you, so yeah, we're good."
He helps me to my feet. "Glad to hear it. Now why don't you go shower and make your calls while I have a drink?"
Sounds like a plan to me.
Back in my room I call Carol first thing.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Carol, it's me."
She shrieks in my ear, then screams "It's her!" to whoever's there with her.
"Who'd you just yell to?"
"My mother. We've been worried sick about you."
"Why? I told you I'd call when I got here."
"Sally, you were hitch-hiking! What if some creep picked you up?"
Ha!
"One did. I stole back his car for Daddy, almost shot him with his own gun, and flashed my tits at him."
Absolute silence, then she says, "You'll have to tell me that story sometime."
"I will, tomorrow after Daddy and I meet you at the airport and bring you back here."
I can almost see her rolling her green eyes at me.
"Okay, Draper, what mad scheme are you hatching now?"
"We're gonna help my dad start up his business."
"What business? And what about school? I thought you were joining me at NYU in the fall."
"Not sure what the business is, 'cause Daddy and I fought and I forgot to ask him. A hotel or something. And we can do school the following semester."
"I think you're demented, but I love you just the same. And God help me, I'll fly out tomorrow."
I give her travel details, then she says, "Oh, by the way, call Henry and the boys. They've been worried, too."
My turn to roll my eyes. "I will, but you'd think they'd fret less now that I'm 18."
"Do you want me to fret less just 'cause you're a year older?"
"Of course not!"
"Well, okay then. They're your family, for God's sake. Call them."
I hate when she gets all logical on me.
I promise her I will, she promises to be on the first plane out of JFK tomorrow, and we say our goodbyes. Then I call Henry and the boys, assure them I'm fine, and take a nice, long shower.
Don
He sits brooding at the kitchen table with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and his favorite mug, the one Sally had designed for him with a permanent marker when she was ten and he was still a god to her.
Some dads roll, but my dad rocks.
He stares into the mug, at the amber liquid there, feeling like the world's biggest shit for what he'd said earlier.
"Hey, Dad."
He looks up, surprised and hopeful.
"Hi, Salamander," he says, the old nickname easy on his lips.
She leans in the kitchen doorway watching him, her long hair damp and loose and almost to her waist. In place of her earlier outfit, she's buried in an old Lucky Strike t-shirt of his that hits right above her knees.
Still no bra, but that ship sailed when they let the shit fly out on the porch.
"You're an adult now," he says softly.
"Sometimes," she says with a shrug. "But always your little girl."
This touches him, and he watches her get a clean mug from the drainer and sit across from him. She takes the bottle of Jack and fills her cup almost full.
"Sally, what are you doing?"
"Joining you."
"But why?"
"'Cause it sucks to drink alone," she says simply, and his heart aches for her.
"Oh, God. Sally, I'm so sorry-"
"For what?" Her eyes are wide and clear, no tears, no anger, just a solemn gaze he's never seen from her before.
"For ever making you hate me."
"Don't be stupid," she snaps, and there's the anger as she glares at him.
She takes a big swig from her mug and shudders, takes another swig and doesn't, then gives him that solemn look again.
"I don't hate you. I haven't always liked you, but I don't hate you." She takes a smaller sip now and smiles at him, a warm, happy smile he hasn't seen from her since back before Betty's father died.
"So," she asks finally, "what's this place gonna be when it opens?" Her smile turns wicked. "Another whorehouse?"
He almost drops his mug. "Of course not!"
"Too bad," she says impishly. "We could get Grandma Pauline to run it, me to handle the legal crap, and you to do the advertising. We'd make a mint."
"A bed and breakfast," he mutters, asking himself where he'd gone wrong with her.
"Ha!"
He hates when she says "Ha!"
"What'd I do now?"
"Oh, nothing. I was just wondering, Mr. Draper, whose bed you'll be having breakfast in."
He grins. "And you, Miss Draper, are an evil child. Evil, I say!"
"Speaking of evil children," she says, eyeing him warily, "I hope you don't mind I just invited Carol to come spend some time with us."
"That's fine, but you girls will end up bored to tears. And we can hardly spare another room, with all the early reservations I've already gotten."
"We're gonna help you run the place," she says firmly, "and Carol will sleep with me."
He raises an eyebrow, which she ignores.
Grabbing the bottle of Jack, she refills their mugs. "Now come on, I have lots to tell you, and I think it'll work better if we're both sloshed."
Sally
One month later, July 22, 1972.
Today is our Grand Opening, and I don't know who's more excited, Daddy, Carol, or me. The three of us stand across the street and watch as the workers prepare to unveil our sign.
Mom's been buried one year today, and I wish she could be here for this.
Sniffle.
Carol squeezes my hand. "I can't wait," she says, her anticipation mirrored by the thirty or so people who've come out to gawk.
They have no idea what to expect, but I do. And I have never loved my father more.
The cover comes off the sign, as Daddy beams proudly at me and Carol claps.
And The Adman's Daughter – that's me! – is up and running.