Monkey Wrench

“Very pretty.”

“Prettier than Mom was?”

“Different pretty,” Joe admitted, walking a fine line, he knew. “She’s very nice.”

“How nice?”

“Just nice. You’d like her, I think.”

“I doubt it,” Gina said bluntly, hitching her behind onto one of the stools at the counter and dismissing the subject of Susannah Atkins. “But I like old Mrs. Atkins just fine.” She splayed her elbows on a place mat and watched Joe wash his hands and dry them on the nearest towel.

“Me, too. I’m going to fix up her house a little.”

“Why? So you can be close to the television lady?”

“No,” Joe said shortly, “because her house needs fixing, that’s all. The television lady is leaving Tyler tomorrow.” Joe took a box of pasta from the pantry shelf and dug a block of cheddar cheese from the refrigerator. He said, “Maybe you’d come along and visit with Mrs. Atkins while I’m working there. She’d enjoy the company.”

Gina shrugged. “Sure.”

“Maybe,” Joe ventured cautiously, “she could help you pick out a dress for the Christmas dance. Unless you already have a dress, that is.”

Gina’s dark brown eyes flew open in surprise, and the teenager sat up as if she’d been jabbed with a hot poker. For an instant, she could not find her voice, then she blurted out, “How do you know about the dance?”

“How could I not know about it? Every ninth grader in town is talking about the big Tinsel Ball. Your friend Marcy cornered me in the drugstore to ask what color your dress was.”

“That nosy fink!”

“What color is it?”

“What?” Gina pretended complete bafflement.

“Your dress for the Tinsel Ball,” Joe said patiently. “Marcy said you told her it was the...let’s see, what word did she use, exactly? Slinky, that’s it. The slinkiest dress in Madison. I didn’t know you’d gone to Madison to buy a dress.”

Hastily, Gina said, “You must have misunderstood, Dad. You know how fast Marcy talks. She must have said her dress was slinky—”

Joe set his ingredients on the counter and glowered at his daughter, ready to confront her with the truth. “Don’t try to snow me, Gina. I know what Marcy said. Have you been lying again?”

Gina thrust out her lower lip and looked sulky, her automatic reaction to any accusation. She refused to meet her father’s gaze, but said bravely, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Joe considered his options. There was no denying that Gina’s biggest problem was stretching the truth. She could tell a whopper without blinking an eye and had been caught so often that Joe sometimes wondered how many times she’d actually gotten away with lying. The possibilities boggled his mind sometimes. Her teachers complained every year, but the problem had finally become such a daily event that lately they’d started pushing Joe to seek help from professionals.

The school psychologist had suggested that Gina was lying because she missed her mother. Joe had a hard time making the connection, because Marie had never told a fib in her life, but Gina seemed to do it just because it was more fun than telling the truth. If her lying was a bid to get more attention, it seemed to him that there were easier ways of doing that. He felt unable to understand or stop the situation. The psychologist hadn’t been a hell of a lot of help and had encouraged Joe to find a therapist for family counseling.

Family counseling sounded like a lot of hogwash to him. He could handle the problem himself.

But he hated confrontations with his daughter and was experimenting with ways of handling the various troubles of adolescence without resorting to yelling at Gina. She only yelled back, and she was a heck of a lot louder than he was!

So he set about calmly cooking the macaroni and said, “Let’s start this conversation all over again, shall we? Your friend Marcy thinks you’re going to the Christmas dance next week and that you’ll be wearing a great dress. The way I look at it, you need to get a dress so she won’t think you’re—”

“Yeah, okay,” said Gina, jumping at the chance to get out of trouble. “I was going to ask you for some money, Dad, but you’ve been so busy lately—”

“I’m never too busy to help you buy some clothes, Gina. Trouble is,” Joe said wryly, “I’m not going to be much help picking out a party dress. That’s when I thought of Mrs. Atkins. I bet she’d love the chance to help you find something nice.”

“Well...”

Joe heard a new note in Gina’s voice and looked at her sharply. “You are going to the dance, aren’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” Gina said quickly. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it.”

Joe suspected she wasn’t quite telling the truth again, so he shot a suspicious look at his daughter. Why in the world did she act this way? Wasn’t he giving her enough attention? Or maybe it was just the wrong kind of attention? Perhaps it was a case, as the school expert suggested, of Gina worrying that she was going to lose both parents. Not through death, necessarily; she might also fear losing him to another woman, to his work, to any number of possibilities. So she lied just to keep him hopping. And maybe she was lying again.

Gina wiped the guilty expression from her face at once. “Naturally, I’m going to the Tinsel Ball. I just...I haven’t had the time—”

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s not a problem,” she said immediately. “Not exactly. I just haven’t found a date yet.”

“You haven’t—? How can you go to the dance if a boy hasn’t asked you yet?”

Gina looked scornful. “Oh, Dad! This isn’t the Dark Ages anymore! I’m going to ask a boy myself. I’m not going to wait around for some nerd to ask me when I could ask whoever I want in the first place. My piano teacher says it’s demeaning to women to—”

“Yeah, I heard that line before.” Joe growled, “Pretty soon Nora is going to start charging me for more than piano lessons. So if you’re going to ask somebody, why haven’t you done it yet?”

“I haven’t gotten around to it, that’s all!” Gina’s voice rose petulantly. “You’re not the only one who’s busy around here, y’know!”

“Okay, okay,” said Joe, placating his hot-tempered child before she really blew up. “I’ll leave that part up to you. But if you need money for a dress or anything else in that department, I’ll be happy to give you whatever you need—within reason.”

“What’s within reason?”

Joe hadn’t the faintest idea how much a dress was going to cost—fifty dollars, maybe? But somehow he knew it would be a tactical error to admit such a failing. He said, “I’ll think about it and get back to you. In the meantime, you can concentrate on finding a date.”

“I can manage that, I think.”

“Can you manage to fix us a salad, too?”

“Okay,” said Gina, hopping off her stool to help. She hugged Joe from behind first and said, “I love you, Daddy. You’re so understanding. You’re the best father in the whole world!”

Joe grinned. He was wrapped around his daughter’s little finger, and he knew it. He’d give Gina a hundred dollars for a dress. She deserved the best, after all.

She loosened her hug and said softly, “You know, if you wanted to see the television lady again, I guess I wouldn’t blame you.”

Joe laughed and turned around, cradling Gina in his arms. “What brought that on?”

She didn’t meet his gaze. “I dunno. You’re not a monk, I guess.”

“A monk? Who have you been talking to?” Joe demanded, amused. “Your piano teacher again?”

Gina shrugged. “Maybe. She says you’re an attractive man. She did, honest,” Gina repeated when Joe laughed in disbelief. “She says I can’t keep you all to myself much longer.”