Little Blue Lies by Chris Lynch

happen.
    â€œThanks,” she says as she succeeds in wrangling them back inside, and I stand there staring at her absence for several long, long seconds.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    That is the point at which Junie herself becomes a rumor to me. Calls go unanswered and unreturned. Texts likewise. I walk over to her shop two consecutive days, and on two consecutive days I lose the nerve to go inside, sensing that her wrath will not be preferable to her silence. I walk the streets where I know she has dog-walking arrangements, until I am certain the neighbors are keeping a diary of my suspicious movements.
    I have to stop this. I have to stop. I need to move on. She doesn’t need me. She doesn’t need anybody. I am the one with needs. Beyond Junie Blue, I need . . . something. I am eighteen years old, it is hot summer now. The ocean is right there and the sky is right there and I want for nothing.
    So what do I want?
    I’m drifting. I know I’m drifting. Junie and Malcolm and the rest of the world seem to be getting on with things, but I don’t even know what things are.
    â€œMeet me for lunch.”
    It’s my dad, and it’s unusual. It is almost unheard of for him to be calling me in the middle of the workday, and it is utterly unprecedented for him to be asking me to lunch. Not that I couldn’t go to lunch with him whenever or wherever I wanted to. I could. I’ve never tested it, but I’m sure I could. It’s just that Dad doesn’t really eat lunches, from what I can tell. He eats opportunity. That’s what he says. He eats opportunity for lunch and burps dividends all afternoon.
    â€œReally?” I say warily.
    â€œSure. It’ll be fun.”
    â€œFun? Okay, I like fun.”
    â€œSure you do. Everybody likes fun. See you at one.”
    I hang up, stare at my phone, not sure it actually did what it just did.
    Message beep comes ten minutes later as I shave.
    Make it 1:45. Fun!
    Fun!
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    The restaurant is amazing, right around the corner from Dad’s office. We are on, like, the fiftieth floor, looking outover the financial district and the port beyond and the rest of the world beyond that. It’s a twenty-five-minute train ride from our town to down here, or a thirty-five-minute car ride in traffic. Dad likes driving.
    â€œHow do you like it?” Dad says without indicating whether it is the obscenely lush menu, the view, the cold red draft beer he ordered for himself and then slipped to me, or the buttery cubed steak appetizers with three different kinds of dips that just arrived. Not that it matters.
    â€œPhenomenal, Dad,” I say.
    â€œCould eat here every day, couldn’t you?”
    â€œI could if I wanted to have gout and diabetes and heart trouble,” I say.
    â€œTrue. Well observed. You are a quick study, my lad. You know, there’s also a fantastic gym in my building. Pool, sauna, and everything. So, you could eat here every day and still avoid all that.”
    â€œHaving it all, huh, Dad?”
    â€œYep, kid, having it all. Or you could just eat opportunity for lunch every day, thereby having it all . . . and then some. All is nothing. Someday you’ll look at having it all as underachieving.”
    â€œI can’t work down here, Dad.”
    â€œOop, sounds to me like someone needs another delicious illegal beverage.”
    I laugh. He makes me laugh pretty much at will, andalways has. It’s one of his superpowers, possibly his most deadly one, and the one I need to ward against the most.
    â€œListen, Dad, you are awesome at what you do. I could never in a million years get to the point where—”
    â€œOne afternoon,” he says, coolly taking a sip of his ice water with a straw. He loves his ice water with a straw, and it makes him look instantly boyish and innocent.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI could teach you everything I know in