Dr. Dad

by Judith Arnold

  “I know.” Lindsey toed the floor with her sneaker and snuck a glance at her watch. If she missed the bus she’d have to walk home, two miles—in the rain—and there would be no time for the club meeting.

  “He’s been through a lot,” Ms. Hathaway reminded her. “I think you ought to go out of your way not to upset him, after all he’s been through in the past few years.”

  Lindsey didn’t know what to say to that. Her mother died five years ago, so all her father had been through in the past few years was dealing with Lindsey. Had he told Ms. Hathaway that being Lindsey’s only parent was such a hard job? Had he made a play for sympathy?

  “Isn’t it amazing,” she muttered, pretty steamed herself. “My father has been through so much, and I haven’t been through anything at all.” And then, because she felt tears forming under her eyelids, she turned and stormed out of the classroom, not caring if Ms. Hathaway thought she was rude.

  By the time she reached the bus circle, she decided she hated everyone: Ms. Hathaway, her father, her mother for having died. Then she saw Amanda and Meredith standing near her bus, waiting for her in the drizzle, and she felt a little better. She still had the Susannah Dawson Admiration Society. She had the coolest next-door neighbor in Arlington, a woman who was beautiful and famous and fun, and who had the most wonderful cat in the world. Susannah had to like Lindsey; if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have forgiven her for being such a jerk last Friday night.

  Susannah was like a queen. A goddess. She was one person Lindsey didn’t hate.

  “Let’s go,” she said briskly, leading her friends onto the bus.

  TOBY DECIDED to leave the office early. His last appointment was a well-child physical at four, and by four-thirty he was done. He could have caught up on paperwork at his desk, but he had his first Daddy School class at seven-thirty that night, so he decided to go home an hour ahead of schedule and unwind a bit, maybe talk to Lindsey about his meeting with Ms. Hathaway that morning and figure out if there were any specific issues he wanted to explore at the Daddy School—assuming that the Daddy School was set up to explore specific issues.

  The roads weren’t as crowded at four-thirty as they were at his usual rush-hour departure time. A light rain was falling, washing the lawns and budding trees, rinsing the staleness from the air. He tuned the car radio to a soft-rock station and sang along with The Police, something he would never dare to do if Lindsey was in the car with him. She’d think he was so corny, harmonizing with Sting about how every little thing the woman in the song did was magic.

  Susannah’s image appeared unbidden in his mind. No, she wasn’t magic—but somehow, she’d cast a spell on him last night, getting him to reveal too much of himself. He didn’t talk about his insecurities with people, let alone someone he barely knew. One thing he’d learned as a single father was that he always had to project strength. Lindsey needed to know she could rely on him. If she saw his fears and worries, she would doubt his dependability.

  But Susannah had seen those fears and worries. She’d heard him admit his disappointment in his own field, medicine, the discipline he’d devoted so much of his life to. Medicine was supposed to work miracles and save lives, yet it had failed when he’d been desperate for a miracle. And Susannah had also heard him acknowledge his misgivings about the job he was doing as Lindsey’s father.

  She might as well have stripped him naked and posed him in front of the mirror so she could see him from both sides at once.

  If she’d done that, though, she might have exposed yet another secret of his: she turned him on. Stripped naked before her, he wouldn’t have wanted to stand in front of the mirror. He’d have wanted to strip her just as naked and carry her to her inviting brass bed.

  The Police song ended, replaced by Dave Matthews crooning that he was crazy. Once again, Toby sang along. Susannah might not be capable of magic, but lately, it seemed as if Toby skirted close to the edge of crazy more often than he’d like to admit.

  He pulled into the driveway, hit the remote button and waited for the garage door to slide open. After parking inside, he grabbed his briefcase and blazer from the back seat and entered the house. He immediately heard a chorus of giggles, then a hushed whisper.

  Lindsey wasn’t alone.

  “Hello?” he hollered.

  Several pairs of footsteps clattered down the stairs, and then Lindsey and two other girls spilled into the kitchen. “Daddy, Amanda and Meredith were just leaving. Amanda’s mother should be here any second to pick them up. They came over to do some homework. We were all doing homework together. A homework project.”

  “Hi, Dr. Cole,” the blond one said. Toby was pretty sure she was Meredith.

  “We’re just leaving, Dr. Cole,” the skinny one—Amanda—said. “Sorry.” She giggled, sounding about as sorry as a lottery winner.

  “It was for a homework assignment,” Lindsey repeated. She was talking too fast. She knew she wasn’t supposed to have friends over at the house without planning it and getting his permission. Even if the girls had come over for a homework assignment…

  Which Toby doubted, because neither Amanda nor Meredith was in Lindsey’s class this term. He’d been listening to Lindsey complain all year because none of her good friends were in her class, and he knew Amanda and Meredith qualified as good friends.

  So she’d invited friends over without getting his permission, and now she was lying about it. He could have excused her inviting the girls over if she hadn’t lied about it. The dishonesty bothered him so much he had to steel himself against erupting.

  “There’s my mother now,” Amanda said, glancing out the window as a green minivan coasted slowly up the driveway. She and Meredith hoisted their backpacks higher on their shoulders and raced for the door.

  “’Bye, Lindsey!”

  “’Bye, Lindsey. ’Bye, Dr. Cole,” Meredith said, hurrying after Amanda. Lindsey followed them through the mud room to the garage so they wouldn’t have to run across the front yard in the rain.

  Waiting for Lindsey to return, Toby took a few deep, bracing breaths. He didn’t want to jump down her throat the way he had when he’d seen her midterm report. He had to discuss his concerns calmly. He’d tell her why he didn’t want kids in and out of the house when he wasn’t home, and then he would explain how much her lying hurt him. He would remind her that he didn’t expect her to be perfect—hell, he was far from perfect himself—but he did expect honesty.

  She tiptoed back into the kitchen, looking sheepish and a bit scared. “Sorry, Daddy,” she said, then turned to head down the hall to the stairs.

  “Lindsey, come back!” Did he sound angry or frightened? Both, probably. Both emotions were sizzling inside him.

  She returned slowly, her shoulders slumped and her mouth twitching. Before he could say anything, she started babbling again. “I know I’m not supposed to have friends over, but there was this homework assignment—”

  “Don’t,” he cut her off. He couldn’t bear to hear her repeating her lie. “I know there’s no homework assignment, Lindsey. Those girls aren’t in your class.”

  She drew in a shaky breath, let it out and stared past him at his jacket, which was draped over a chair at the table.

  “Why don’t you try the truth this time,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as furious as he felt.

  “Well—well, you got home early. I thought they’d be gone before you got home.”

  Not a good defense strategy. “If I’d come home the usual time, you would never have told me they’d been here?”

  “Well…well…” A sob bubbled into her throat and she struggled mightily against it. As angry as he was, he wanted to hug her. He wanted her to trust him so much she not only told him the truth but leaned on him when she needed to be comforted. “I just had a terrible day,” she confessed. “It was awful, and then when Amanda and Meredith and I were talking, and they thought about coming over for a little while, just to make me feel better…” Tears streaked down her cheeks.


  The hell with it. He opened his arms. If she was willing to take a hug, he was more than willing to give one.

  She nearly fell into his arms. Loud, hiccuping sobs emerged from her. He stroked her hair and patted her back, the way he used to when she was six years old. She’d cried such wrenching tears then, missing her mother. These tears were different—tears of frustration and fury. But at least she was letting him console her.

  After a minute she eased away from him and crossed to the counter to grab a square of paper towel. She wiped her face and sniffled. “Anyway, it was just a bad day,” she said, which seemed like a gross understatement after the way she’d been weeping.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did something happen in school?”

  “It’s just…everything.”

  A horrifying thought seized him: what if this was PMS? What if she was about to start menstruating? At her age, it was quite possible. He’d discussed menstruation with her a year ago, and she’d found the discussion terribly embarrassing, but it had all been theoretical then. What if he had to take her to the store to buy her sanitary pads?

  He was pretty sure he could handle it. He wasn’t at all sure she could.

  “Listen, Hot Stuff,” he said, nudging her into a chair and handing her a fresh paper towel. “I don’t mind if you invite a friend or two over after school. But there have to be some rules.”

  “What rules?” she asked in a watery voice.

  “You have to get my permission first. I have to know the friend.”

  “And?” She knew there was more.

  “You can’t lie to me about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it, Lindsey. I’m angry that you lied to me. Very angry.” He kept his tone subdued, though, so she would listen to the words rather than the emotion.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed, exhausted from the conversation, from the constant strain of being a pillar-strong parent. She swabbed the moisture from her cheeks while he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and loosened his tie. “I was planning to go out this evening, but if you want I’ll stay home,” he offered.

  “Go out? Where?”

  “To a class.”

  “A class? Yuck.” She shrugged, her hair riding up and down on her shoulders. “If you want to go, I don’t care.”

  “You’re upset.”

  “I’m okay. I’ll just do my homework and watch TV.”

  Her homework. So much for the mythical homework assignment she and her friends had been doing. “Why were Amanda and Meredith here?”

  “No reason,” Lindsey said with another shrug.

  “Just hanging out.”

  He studied her across the table. He suspected she was lying again, and it caused a searing ache in his soul. But he couldn’t bring himself to accuse her. He needed not to be angry.

  Pressing his lips together, he crossed to the sink to wash his hands. He had to get dinner on the table and be out the door by seven for the Daddy School class. Would they teach trust in the Daddy School? Would they teach lie detection? Would they teach fathers how to select the correct-size tampons for their daughters?

  If the teacher was wise, she would probably teach the fathers to find women to take their daughters shopping for tampons. He wondered how one went about asking a woman for such a favor. He could have asked Diane Anderson when she’d lived next door; she could have taken Lindsey and Cathy shopping for supplies together. Or his mother could have helped him out—if she didn’t live in Minneapolis.

  Could he ask Susannah?

  He had to suppress a wry laugh. Wouldn’t that be something—telephoning the famous actress and saying, “Hey, I hung your mirror, so would you mind picking up some Kotex for Lindsey? One good turn deserves another.” Sure.

  His hands clean, he pulled the tray of chopped beef from the refrigerator and began molding the meat into patties. Lindsey remained at the kitchen table, watching him, swinging her legs under her seat. Since she hadn’t fled, he figured she might want to talk some more. “I saw your teacher this morning,” he said.

  “I know.” Lindsey slouched in the chair. “She’s such an idiot. I hate her.”

  He suppressed another laugh. “She didn’t astonish me with her brilliance, either,” he confessed. “But you’re going to have to tough it out. Only two more months and you’ll be done with fifth grade.”

  “I hate her,” Lindsey said so vehemently he wondered whether Ms. Hathaway had contributed to her teary mood.

  “Any particular reason?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Hearing the single syllable was like having a door slammed in his face. Lindsey hated Ms. Hathaway for a definite reason, and she wasn’t going to tell him what it was.

  “How about slicing the pickles while I cook the burgers,” he suggested. Maybe if they worked side by side, he could keep a casual conversation going until he pried loose what Ms. Hathaway had done to annoy her.

  She crossed to the refrigerator and pulled the pickle jar from the shelf on the door. He watched her movements, ungainly and graceful at the same time, and his heart ached for her, for her undefined misery, for the changes she was going through. “Ms. Hathaway thinks you’re very smart,” he commented lightly, “so I guess she can’t be that much of an idiot.”

  “Believe me, Dr. Dad—she is.”

  He sent Lindsey a sidelong look. She was grinning. The girl who’d been sobbing hysterically just minutes ago was smiling now. “Anyway,” he said, flattening the patties in the pan, “she thinks you’re capable of amazing things, if you’ll only work harder.”

  “Yeah, well.” Lindsey shrugged.

  “So work harder,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It won’t kill you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He glanced at her as she sliced a pickle into six even spears. God, he loved her. Loved her so much he’d gladly storm into every drugstore in Connecticut to buy tampons for her. Loved her so much he’d let her wail and rage and be inscrutable.

  Even knowing that she lied to him couldn’t change that. It broke his heart, but it didn’t make him love her any less.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE LAST LIGHT had faded from the sky by the time Susannah reached her block. She didn’t mind. The neighborhood had sidewalks, and the falling darkness camouflaged her more effectively than her eyeglasses and her braided hair.

  Her caution was silly, really. More neighbors than just the Coles must have figured out who she was by now. Perhaps some, like Toby, didn’t watch a lot of TV, so they wouldn’t recognize her. Others might just be discreet, allowing her her privacy. She shouldn’t keep making midnight runs to the all-night grocery store as if she were a vampire, lethally allergic to sunlight. And she shouldn’t put off taking her power walks.

  That evening, when the lack of exercise had finally gotten to her, she’d waited until the drizzle had dried up and then ventured out. One car on Guilford Lane had slowed to a crawl as it passed her, but that could have been for a dozen reasons having nothing to do with her famous face. The teenage boys shooting hoops in a driveway hadn’t interrupted their scrimmage to look at her, and if people glimpsed her through their windows, they refrained from chasing her down the street waving pads and pens under her nose and demanding autographs.

  Maybe in Arlington she’d found the perfect place to settle—a city where few people knew who she was and even fewer cared.

  She’d left her porch light on, and that, along with the illuminated windows, gave her house a warm, welcoming glow. She loved the peaked roof, the neat white clapboard, the dark-green shutters framing the windows. She loved the sweet fragrance of buds and blossoms in the air. She loved the daffodils lining people’s driveways, the moist air fragrant with the scent of blossoming magnolias and forsythia, the peaceful murmur of a car in the distance, a dog barking, the rustle of leaves as a squirrel scampered along a tree branch, the honks o
f migrating geese slicing through the sky. Even when she was walking at a swift pace, with weight bands strapped around her wrists and her lungs pumping with aerobic efficiency, she could appreciate the bucolic beauty of her new neighborhood.

  As she neared her house, she heard a car approaching her from behind. Pivoting, she saw it slow down, signaling to turn into the Coles’ driveway. Even though the driver was merely a shadow in the darkened interior, she knew who he was.

  Toby steered his car up the driveway and into the garage. She knew she, too, ought to go inside, but she lingered on the front lawn, wishing he would emerge to say hi to her. God, she was like an infatuated schoolgirl, longing for a glimpse of him, a greeting, an acknowledgment that she hadn’t imagined the strange intimacy she’d felt with him last night.

  She waited. She heard the click of his car door closing, and then…he came outside.

  She tried not to smile too broadly as she approached the hedge bordering his driveway. He approached from the other side. “What are you doing out so late?” he asked.

  “Late?” She laughed. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Back in California, she’d be just leaving the studio at around nine o’clock, after a long day of rehearsals or taping.

  “Exercising,” he said, answering his own question, then running his gaze the length of her body, taking in the pale-blue sweatshirt, the black Spandex leggings, the white socks and leather walking shoes and the weights strapped around her wrists.

  “How about you?” she asked, providing her own answer, as well. “Did you have that father class?”

  “Daddy School,” he corrected, then nodded.

  “How did it go?”

  He almost replied, then paused and gave her one of his crooked smiles. “Why don’t you come over and I’ll tell you about it? I’ve got cold drinks in the fridge, if you’d like one.”

  A cold drink sounded great. Going to Toby’s house to talk sounded even better. She strolled to the end of the hedge and around it to his driveway.

  They entered his dark garage together. It was cool, the cement floor echoing, the air smelling of gasoline and fertilizer. Toby touched his hand lightly to her shoulder as he threaded a path around his car, two bicycles, a gas grill and a hose coiled onto a spool. She felt the warmth of his palm, his certainty and protectiveness as he escorted her past the obstacles to the inner door. When he let his hand drop, a chill took its place.