Leashed by Luxury

II. Pour Decisions

Hours later and I can’t breathe any better. I can’t stop swiping my lashes until they feel infected like that time I used my homegirl’s grotty mascara. Heart-shaped sunglasses aren’t shielding anything. It’s obvious to anyone at Daddy's lounge that I’m as blue as my dress.

“Why do we have to do this in public?” I whine from an ivory cushioned chair. We're in the corner. Lunch rush dying down. Obviously, neither of us have the stomach to order much, to partake in the festivities of claps and songs happening tables apart, headed by sports TVs and church-dressed families and cheersers.

He sets down a glass that looks too much like a Moscow mule tumbler for my liking.

I don’t care if it’s water, the thought of vodka makes me sick right now. My thumbs indent my thigh high hem, trying to ground myself. But it works as well as a bandage over a bullet hole.

“Because it’s not that big of a deal,” he downplays, his voice too diminutive for the crescendos I know it can reach when he’s telling me I’m doing the wash wrong or that I’ve snubbed him in front of company.

“Not a big deal?” I gawp, balling a black linen napkin. “You told me you’re dyi—“

“Not today. Eventually.” His eyes meet mine, more serious, suggesting that I shape up, save face like a fallen porcelain doll.

“Well, yeah, everyone will eventually!”

A brow kneels at my hysterical tone. He reaches over and, as soon as my eyes spot the thinning veins on his hand, I scurry mine back into my lap.

A squeak small enough to only resound in my head bellows when his jaw resets.

I’ve hurt him. He’s sold me a thousand times, broken my skin at least half a dozen, and yet I’ve hurt him by receding from a handhold.

I wish I was the dead one.

But Daddy just sighs and stirs an espresso that I squint at, not sure if he’s allowed to even have such strong drinks with a shot liver, alcoholic or not. “There could be months left, even years,” he says, stirring like he’s simply reciting a recipe to me. Or maybe like something he has practiced telling me in the mirror or his mug longer than I suspect. Just because something is news to me, doesn't mean it's novel to him. “I want you to take it seriously, yes, but...not…gravely,” he mutters as if deciding he doesn’t care about the pun. Is beyond it. So strong, he can shrug death off his back. For the time being.

“…And you had to tell me…today?” Father’s Day. Festa del Papà. A feast for the devil’s sense of irony.

“I felt I had to…keep you on the line.” On the line or in line? Away from online daddies a minute?

“…You panicked,” I deduce.

“I do not panic,” he says, and I suck my teeth at the macho moronity.

I shake my head and so does he.

“I’m telling the truth, Naria. I’m not making this up, exaggerating like you like to suppose, but—”

“Even if your liver’s all eaten up by flies, I’m not allowed to cry?” I peek side to side, wary of passersby at his silly “club.” I don’t know what VA Halls or Lion’s Clubs really do or host, but I suppose that’s what this li’l space he’s carved out for himself is like.

Something leisurely, mostly for older men. A lazier Russian tearoom, loafing made Italian, metallic spray paint supposed to convey faux luxury. A place all the local Guineas go when they’re bocce balled out, gotta socialize to blot out bloody coke deals or craps losses. Gotta try something new. Pool and darts in a place at a slower pace than smoky dives. Somewhere that serves stuffed mushrooms that aren’t rubbery, apricot crostatas that aren’t stale. Il Vespro, the gilded nameplate reads above our heads, LiteBrite-ish bulbs twinkling around it to match what means "The Twilight" in Italian. How quaint. How shitty. And now he's telling me (or not telling me?) it's the twilight of his life—when he's not even old enough for an AARP card (not that a pimp would qualify...)

Daddy sighs. He says, "I'm just sick of scenes. You causing them. Me perpetuating them..." It's the closest thing I've gotten to an apology in four seasons. His eyes rove around the quatrefoil wallpaper so as not to acknowledge it either. "I just wanted you here. In town." He taps on the chrome table as if conversely meaning Hell.

"So you played dead? That's the only way you thought to reel me from my tower for Dads' Day?"

"Naria." His voice flattens. We both know I sound too much like him. Too much for us to stay mad at each other. I can't remember what our last tiff was about, but its tentacles connect to a bigger, black unresolved problem. No elephants in the room. Only squidly shadows. The obviousness of our wardrobes denoting w***e and wrangler. Skin differences suggesting father and daughter. At least in age, in a heaping generation and cultural gap.

"That's why you mentioned a nest egg, huh?" I figure out.

"You'll have the house, but I doubt you'll want to retain it."

Too many memories. Mama's death. The medical debts. My shoulder-push into the skin trade. Joles'. Yet "It's more like I won't want to think about or touch it for a while...if you...if I'm not..." My eyes well again. "Why do we have to have this f*****g conversation? Here? It's a holiday. You're only--"

"No one's making you, bambina. It's just better to be pre--"

"And no one made you drink until you turned sour! The doctors warned you. I warned you. Common sense screamed at you not to--"

His stare fizzles my bottle-rocket flare, the glare.

He's been rebranding himself as a wine connoisseur for a decade. Ever since his wife's demise, since before I reached double digits. Cigarettes and Chardonnay. Lung and liver disease. His & her avertable ailments. How star-crossed, how Romeo romantic. Capital P pathetic. Like Rome crumbling around me. A coliseum of broken columns and promises. It's not explicitly stated, but when your adopted parents sign and bind you into their lives, you expect them to outlast the paper. That the jump from foster to forever (latched not lasting, like holding onto wishbones) means a foundation. Granite can crack, but it's still supposed to stay on site, its size too heavy to shove away. Even if it turns into something explicit in a different way...

We sit in silence, other peoples' polished loafers and Jimmy Choos padding past us. There's Sinatra-style swooning floating up from some unseen speakers, muffled in the background of folk chatter and fork clatter. My cheeks heat like I've taken a swig of his favorite bottle of Barolo. Because I slowly realize what he probably wanted to add: No one forced you to drive all this way, like no one forced you to stay a w***e either, Naria. Poison your heart for a handbag. Play lover-girl to lawyers and lobbyists twice and thrice your age to fill a mutual void while they get to keep hold of a wedding band you may never possess. If time is ticking on me, imagine the mileage from a million men on you. So yes, nest egg. You need one. Like you need me. Like I know you love me to always come hobbling back.

And like I'm the one who imbibed, too, I reach over the pub table and wrench. And retch. And retch.