Just You by Rebecca Phillips Page A

somewhat clever at times, wasn’t
exactly as powerful and intimidating as I imagined Michael’s lawyer
father to be. As a professor, my father made a decent living. He
and Lynn had nice things, took nice vacations, and probably had a
hefty retirement fund sacked away. Their house was old, drafty, and
lived-in. You’d never see one like it in Redwood Hills. No backyard
pools or convertibles in driveways around here. No pristine,
housekeeper-clean rooms. Dad and Lynn’s house was always a little
messy—newspapers strewn about, video game boxes and DVD cases piled
up, clothes hanging on the backs of chairs, dust and dog hair and
dirty windows.
    “So Michael,” Dad said later, when he came
back from the kitchen with a beer. “Any plans for after graduation
next year? College?”
    “Yes, but I’m not sure where I’m going
yet.”
    I squirmed. I knew this was a sore spot with
Michael. His future was his father’s favorite topic, but Michael
had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, not yet.
    “Any ideas for a major?” Dad asked.
    Michael hesitated, and I could feel his hand
start to sweat. Or it could’ve been mine. “I like history…”
    “John Quentin teaches comparative global
history at Kinsley. He’s a remarkable teacher and a fine man.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Michael said
politely. Kinsley, the local university and my dad’s place of
employment, was a decent school, though maybe a little limited. Not
many lawyers had gotten their start there, I suspected.
    To my relief and probably Michael’s too,
Lynn came downstairs at the moment, rescuing us from more college
talk. I introduced her to Michael.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” she said, shooting
me a quick wide-eyed look, which I took to mean Damn, girl,
where’d you find this hunk?
    Lynn sat down in the other chair and started
asking a series of benign questions about school and his family,
and we all relaxed again. I could have hugged my stepmom for
steering us into more neutral territory. The rest of the evening
went smoothly because of Lynn’s upbeat presence. My father only
embarrassed me once, at the end of the meeting when he said, “It
was good to finally meet you, Michael. My daughter has been more
absent-minded than her old man since she met you.”
    I shot him a dirty look as we left, and he
stared back at me with his innocent “What did I say?” expression.
He used that often, right after extracting the foot from his
mouth.
    Michael and I didn’t speak until we got to
his car, and when I looked at him he had this amused expression on
his face. I stopped by the passenger side door, arms crossed.
“What’s so funny?” I demanded.
    He grinned as he passed me on his way to the
driver’s side. “The death glare you just gave your dad.”
    “He deserved it.” I climbed into the car.
“He’s not usually that bad. Most of the time he’s reasonably
sane.”
    “I liked him,” Michael said. This wasn’t
unusual. Everyone liked my dad. Each year, students scrambled to
get a spot in one of his classes.
    “He has his moments,” I said grudgingly.
    “He seemed interested in what I wanted to
do. That was nice for a change.”
    “I thought college talk made you
uncomfortable.”
    He started the engine. “It does,
usually.”
    We had planned to see a movie, but when we
got there a few minutes late, almost everything was sold out. It
was my idea to drive downtown to the waterfront boardwalk, which
was virtually deserted this time of year. We parked in a small lot
near a hotel, facing the water.
    “I used to play there when I was little,”
Michael said, pointing to a boat-shaped playground structure in the
distance. “We used to come here almost every weekend. My brother
Josh…he liked watching the ships.”
    He seemed wistful, as if he were remembering
nicer, simpler times. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought his
brother was dead. I held my breath, waiting for more, but he left
it at that. Josh . Now I knew