Stay by Deb Caletti Page B

I
    realized he had a confidence that meant he could take jokes and
    small blows to the ego without it destroying him. I guess it was
    the sturdiness of confidence. And that was the first thing I really
    liked about Finn Bishop.
    “I got a surprise for you tonight, Clara Bella,” my father said that
    late afternoon. He was sitting out on the deck, an open book on
    his knee. The tide was inching in. You could see where his foot-
    steps had been a way off, now half covered.
    “Why does that worry me?” I said. “Except there’s not much
    to do out here but the fried clam special at Butch’s Harbor Bar.
    That guy Butch gets around. There’s a flyer in every window.
    Actually, it sounds kind of good.”
    “I’m not telling,” my father said. He looked pleased with
    himself. You could tell he hadn’t showered all day—his hair was
    unwashed and his beard was growing, and he had the same shorts
    on he’d been wearing for the past four days. Hopefully, wherever
    we were going, he wasn’t going out like that. “Better dress warm.”
    I factored that through the Potential Disaster department of
    my brain, and all the alarms went off. I was thinking sunset sail
    with Finn Bishop, me and my dad. I was thinking Dad was going
    for some bold move (he liked bold moves), face your fear and do
    it anyway, fear is the biggest bullshitter romantic night for three
    merged with book research and intrusive questions. “We’re not
    sailing with the Bishop brothers,” I said.
    His eyebrows shot up. He smiled. “Glad to hear you’re mak-
    ing friends, C. P.”
    * 94 *
    Stay
    “No comment.”
    “Rightly so. No, you know you couldn’t get me to go on that
    thing. Something else. Come on. Let’s get out of here in, say,
    twenty minutes?”
    When we met back up, Dad was showered, wearing jeans
    and a white shirt with the tails out, a bottle of wine tucked under
    one arm. We got in the car and drove toward the lighthouse and
    parked.
    “Oh, no,” I said.
    “Come on. You’ll love this old broad.”
    “She’s weird, Dad. I got the creeps.”
    “That was your own deal. Had nothing to do with her.”
    We inched our way down the steep trail. “How’d you even get
    a hold of her? Does she even have electricity ?”
    “I sent her an e-mail. I was guessing she’d be as addicted to
    it as she ever was. She goes to the Captain Whidbey Inn every
    morning and uses their computer. I wasn’t expecting to hear back
    from her so soon.”
    “Lucky us,” I said. Dad was ahead of me. He did the sideways
    dance down. “Don’t break your ankle or anything. I’d never get
    you out of here.”
    “You forget I played football.”
    “One lousy season.”
    He landed there nicely on his feet. I decided I’d better shut
    my mouth, because it was me who was slipping and skittering.
    The lighthouse stood above us, and the keeper’s house (with
    Sylvie Genovese inside, I was guessing, due to the Jeep out
    front) was lit and cozy on that cliff. She was probably watch-
    * 95 *
    Deb Caletti
    ing, ready to fire me for my lack of climbing skills. My mood,
    high and happy after the docks that day, was also slipping.
    Part of me wanted my own bed in my own room back home,
    my friends, my life, or rather, my old-old life. But I was here,
    sliding down some cliff, my just washed hair already turning
    stringy from salt air, my “surprise” a dinner with a crazy lady
    who lived in a shack with an outhouse. We’d better not stay
    late, because I couldn’t hold it that long, and there was no way
    I was peeing in that place.
    “I’m in a baked potato mood,” Dad said. “Butter. You know,
    Pea, I love butter. I really do love it. My heart even swells a little
    when I think of it. Wonder what we’ll have. Where is her place
    anyway?”
    I landed. Dad was taking off his sandals, and I did too. So
    much for showering. So much for Butch’s Harbor Bar. I wouldn’t
    have minded it. Red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloths with
    cigarette burns in them