“How am I? Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Just being polite. You don’t have to be such a stick-in-the-mud.”
He’s baiting me. He thinks he’s safe because he isn’t within physical reach.
“If politeness matters so much to you, you shouldn’t have sent that hooker,” I spit out between clenched teeth.
“She’s not a hooker,” he says with asperity. “She’s an aspiring actress. You would’ve known that if you’d tried to be open-minded and talked to her like a civilized person.”
“Are you saying it’s my fault that I mistook her for a hooker, despite the fact that she got buck naked in front me and my class?” What’s the probability of getting caught if I hire a hit man to throw Joey over his own balcony? I wonder if there’s an average market price.
A pause. “Is it?”
“No!” I immediately clamp my mouth shut—no need for people to hear me screaming in my office. I’m already on everyone’s radar because of what happened today. So instead, I fantasize about pulverizing Joey’s already not-so-pretty face into putty with Muay Thai knee-strikes. Permanently downgrade him from a four to a one.
“I told you your father wanted a baby for his birthday. You’re the one who was being difficult. I was simply trying to help you provide him with the gift he wants.” The slimeball is talking to me in the same tone I use on particularly lazy and dim-witted students who nonetheless believe they deserve an A in my class.
“I—am—not—giving—him—a—baby!”
Joey sighs. “You see? Unnecessarily difficult.”
God save me from the drama king and his idiot assistant. “It’s called being normal and respectable.”
“Look. Your behavior with your father has been extraordinarily contrary. You won’t do anything he’d like you to do. You won’t give him a baby, you won’t sing for him, what am I supposed to do?”
“I am not singing like a child in a school play for his birthday party.” I had enough of being paraded around like that when I was younger to gratify Mom’s narcissism. Finally, one day I refused to hit a single note, and I haven’t sung since. “I’m not some thing he can use to score points against his rivals, especially Josh.” Dad has this weird fetish with Josh Singer. When Noah made the mistake of asking about it, Dad went into a long and nonsensical story about how Josh is vile, but then he contradicted the narrative at least twenty times. Basically, Dad hates Josh just because, not for any good reason. I refuse to be a pawn in his weird competition that only he—and Joey—understand.
“It isn’t about Josh Singer,” Joey says stiffly.
“‘Josh has a son who sounds like Sinatra.’ Your words, not mine.”
Joey huffs. It’s a sign he’s upset that I pointed out his lie.
My satisfaction is short-lived. A muscle under my left eye starts twitching. I put my hand over it and press.
“You’re being impossible,” Joey says, “but I guess there’s nothing to be done. You’re just too uptight to make your father happy one day out of the year.”
Oh, Joey, personal attacks are too predictable. Dad has no right to feel this way since he couldn’t make himself available one day out of our lifetimes, when we graduated from college.
Joey starts to say something else, but I hang up. I’m not listening to any more of his garbage. And I have some statistics to look up about getting away with commissioning a murder.