…
Scheduled for Friday
by Anton M.
15: Drawing
…
Tuesday, January 24
"...happy birthday to youuu!"
"Did you know that, up until a few years ago, you had to pay a hefty amount of money to sing that song in the media?"
"No," I replied, putting down the pancake tower in front of dad. "I only know that the things that fascinate you mystify me."
Dad blew off the two candles shaped like 32 before he furiously crossed his fingers, pretending to be upset. Mom laughed.
It was illegally early, six thirty, but as was tradition, mom and I made pancakes for dad's birthday before our usual birthday breakfast.
Move along, Bill Gates, we're so rich we whisked three eggs into our pancakes. Our next move is buying Microsoft.
Dad was one of those unrecognized species who didn't like cake (problems, I swear), but he ate pancakes with ham and cheese, which solved the issue of where to stick his candles. Another tradition early in the morning was that mom hummed and laughed and chattered away with her plans for the day while dad and I plotted her slow and painful death. She was so chirpy in the morning you'd think she was high. Fortunately, a bit of coffee prevented dad and I from ending up in prison.
Dad's eyes lit up when I gave him my card. In the four years I'd done this, the card was the fullest it had ever been, and dad gaped as he opened it.
"Is there anyone left in Willie W. Smith who didn't sign my card?"
"No," I said, grinning. I would've snapped Lauren's fingers off if she'd attempted to put her hands on the card, but most people I approached had been up for writing in it.
"It will take me a week to read through this," dad said, softly, setting down the card before he hugged me. "Thank you, honey. I don't know how you have time to be so kind to us."
"I didn't do a thing," I defended. "All I did was outsource the hard work and watch other people struggle with what to write like a total psycho."
Dad laughed when he pulled back. "You'll be a CEO yet." He set the card down, back page up. A smile twitched in the corner of his lips as he observed the downright story Edward had written there. "Back of it, too. Did someone write their notes on my card?"
I shifted. "No, that was… Edward."
"Edward?" he repeated. "Your Edward?"
My heart did a twisted dance in my chest when dad called him mine.
If only.
My parents had been in a haunted daze for a few days after they learned what happened to Esme and her daughter Elizabeth, and they certainly had not expected Edward to have been Esme's grandson.
Mom sat in dad's lap as the two read whatever the hell Edward had written in the back of the card, and dad's eyes shimmered with tears when he was done.
Not mom's, though. She was dead inside. Not even onions made her cry.
"What did he write?"
"You didn't read it?" dad asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
I was too scared that I'd read too much into it if he mentioned me.
"Esme wrote journals," mom explained. "Many of them. Edward wrote a few stories from them, here. One is about how much Esme enjoyed discussing Vietnam with me and what an impact it had on her memories from war. The second is from when your father fixed her roof after a storm, and the third one is the time you locked yourself out of our house and knocked on her door to ask if you could sit on her staircase until you waited for us to arrive from work. She let you in, gave you sweet tea and a piece of paper to draw on because her TV had broken. Edward says that the next time he visited his granny, he'd asked why she'd framed an ugly upside-down bunny on a fat camel—"
"Oh my God." I laughed. "An ugly bunny on a fat camel! How dare he. That was a lazy kid on a horse!"
"Obviously," dad said, eyes glinting with amusement. "But we do pray that they would find a hand double for you if you ever play an artist."
I crossed my fingers furiously in front of dad but couldn't help my grin.
"And then?" I asked, covering my pancake with peanut butter and jelly.
"Esme told him that a neighbor girl drew it and, I quote, 'That girl is going places so I'm waiting for her to get famous before I travel the world on the money I get for that drawing.'"
"Really?" I asked, feeling incredulous and touched. "Did Esme really say that?"
"That's what he says."
"But why?"
"Beats me given how your horse can be confused with a camel," dad quipped, stifling his smile.
"The joke's on you, dad, because that ugly bunny on a fat camel might soon actually sell for two million and cover their health insurance for life." I grinned. "What else?"
Dad handed me the card. "Read for yourself."
"But how will I be a CEO in the future if I can't outsource the reading to you?"
"Smartass," dad mumbled, adjusting his grip on mom, but he tapped my shoulder with the card before he said, quietly, clearly touched, "Your boy said that I must've been a good dad to have raised a fearless, funny girl like you, and that I was lucky to have you."
"He did not say that." I snapped the card out of his hands, but sure enough, he was quoting Edward almost word-for-word, and I felt hot all over before I deflated.
"What?" mom asked. "That's sweet of him to say."
"I don't want to be fearless and funny," I replied. "Fearless and funny is what friends are made of. I want to be hot. Hot and beautiful. Like Lauren."
Mom gave me a sad smile. "Sweetie, you grow out of hot and beautiful. You will never grow out of fearless and funny. Trust me, what he said is a bigger compliment."
"But nobody's ever thought I was hot." I crossed my arms, making a face. "Would be nice if they did."
"Honey, it will be all you hear when you get older, and when that happens, you will wish for a guy who thinks you're fearless and funny."
…
A/N: I live for your thoughts. Thank you for sharing them :)