Beatrice made the noise again.
“Have you? She texted me to say that she had sent you a birthday present but hadn’t heard if it suited.” Rosemary sent a very expensive video camera, and had been hurt not to receive a phone call or thank-you note in return. Her complaint had made Winston feel defensive and sullen.
“When will you see Allie again?”
“Beatrice.”
“Dad.”
The waiter arrived just in time to force the stalemate into an agonized thirty-second silence as plates were cleared and his daughter avoided his eyes. She picked up her purse, sifted through it, and put it down again twice. No doubt the only thing keeping her from freezing him out with her phone was years of her mother’s insistence that under no circumstances were phones for the table.
This was the part of every encounter he dreaded. It was perfectly easy to get along with his daughter as long as he gave her what she wanted and avoided giving her anything she didn’t want. She’d insisted he stop asking her if she needed spending money, so he’d stopped. She’d insisted she couldn’t see him every week, so he’d acceded to an irregular schedule of catch-as-catch-can meetings. She’d insisted she could choose her classes without his input, find work without consulting him, arrange her life as she wanted to.
Every concession made him feel he was letting Rosemary down, failing in his duty to care for his daughter.
When push came to shove, he had no authority over his daughter, and she knew it. He’d lived here nine months, during which she’d done what she had a mind to do at all times, regardless of whether he was hovering over her or giving her space or trying something out he’d read about in a parenting article on the Internet. She made him feel useless and irrelevant and besotted with love, and he couldn’t decide whether he ought to crack down, somehow, or if it was time to give her more of the space she wanted and move back to London.
Was it possible that his daughter, at eighteen years old, was past the need for any parental guidance whatsoever?
It seemed unlikely. Especially because he knew that she loved her mother, that she missed her mother, and that her refusal to pick up the phone and talk to her mother was actively breaking Rosemary’s heart.
“I want you to help Allie.”
“Well. I’ll see her again. I hope. At least while she’s in town.” He hadn’t told Beatrice, of course, about the list. The list that was currently smoldering in his wallet. He didn’t, truly, exactly know if Allie meant to pursue this list, to madly check things off of it, and he couldn’t, of course, insist. Last evening she had been obsessed, then frantic, then sad, then drunk, then very, very tired. They had talked until they were mawkish and punch-drunk, and any healthy pair in such circumstances flirt. A gentleman would never insist she hold to such an agreement.
He was absolutely a gentleman. Of course. Always. Had always been. Would always, absolutely be a gentleman.
He wondered if she was using his car.
“No, I mean really help her. I don’t see why you can’t just call Justice up and tell him, ‘Hey, there’s somebody you’ve got to meet.’?”
“Among the myriad reasons I can’t do that, there’s the fact that I’m his financial advisor, and acknowledging the existence of Allie Fredericks could cost him millions of dollars. There’s a distinct conflict of interest.”
“There is a distinct stick up your bum.”
“Beatrice.”
“Dad.”
He tried giving her a look like her mother used on her, but it breezed right off of her.
“Where has playing by the rules in every single circumstance gotten you?”
“I can tell you where it’s avoided getting me. In jail. On white-collar charges.”
“Playing by the rules has also meant that your most significant relationship in the last few years has been with streaming videos.”
Second most significant. He wished, sometimes, that she would acknowledge the effort he’d made to be there for her. He’d moved across an ocean to ensure she felt safe and loved. He didn’t want her gratitude, but it wouldn’t be terrible if a few of the movies he watched had been with her. Something.
“I think that’s where my sparkling personality has gotten me, actually.” His joke fell flat, and he could feel Beatrice’s frustration.
“You are so…annoying.”
“Of course I am. I’m your father.”
“No. This is more than that. This is more than your boring white shirts and exotic animal- murdering leathers and stupidly fat bank account and corrupt corporate values. And boringness.”
“Tell me more, please. And by the way, the most exotic leather I have ever owned goes moo. And you just murdered one of those at breakfast when you enjoyed that terrible hash you ordered alongside your eggs.”