“There she is,” he said when he saw me step off the elevator at Brandon Hall, the all-girls residence I lived in. He scanned my outfit from head to toe. I was wearing a blue dress underneath my navy peacoat, blue like the quarry on cold fall days.
Dad looked dapper standing there in his camel coat, elbows hooked on the front desk counter, ivory scarf looped around his neck. I thought of what he often said: Change the look and you change the man. The silk sheen brought out his post-summer tan. QT and sun. Dad’s winning combination. Dark suit. Paisley tie. Strangers thought he was an actor – Don’t I know you from somewhere? Seeing him standing there in the purple lobby, I understood why. He put out his arm. I slipped my arm through it. The desk ladies chittered as he led me out.
A valet a
