“Hi, John.” As soon as he spoke, he glanced at his desk and ran a hand over his thinning hair. When I added nothing, he realized that he should ask me a question. “How was your day?” he finally inquired.
I shifted in my seat. “It was great, actually. I spent most of the day with Savannah, the girl I told you about last night.”
“Oh.” His eyes drifted to the side, refusing to meet mine. “You didn’t tell me about her.”
“I didn’t?”
“No, but that’s okay. It was late.” For the first time, he seemed to realize I was dressed up, or at least as dressed up as he’d ever seen me, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask about it.
I tugged at my shirt, letting him off the hook. “Yeah, I know, trying to impress her, right? I’m taking her out to dinner tonight,” I said. “Is it okay if I borrow the car?”
“Oh . . . okay,” he said.
“I mean, did you need it tonight? I might be able to call a friend or something.”
“No,” he said. He reached into his pocket for the keys. Nine dads out of ten would have tossed them; mine held them out.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Just tired,” he said.
I stood and took the keys. “Dad?”
He glanced up again.
“I’m sorry about not having dinner with you these last couple of nights.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand.”
The sun was beginning its slow descent, and as I pulled out, the sky was a swirl of fruity colors that contrasted dramatically with the evening skies I’d come to know in Germany. Traffic was horrendous, as it usually was on Sunday nights, and it took almost thirty exhaust-fumed minutes to get back to the beach and pull in the drive.
I pushed open the door to the house without knocking. Two guys seated on the couch watching baseball heard me come in.
“Hey,” they said, sounding uninterested and unsurprised.
“Have you seen Savannah?”
“Who?” one of them asked, obviously paying me little attention.
“Never mind. I’ll find her.” I crossed the living room to the back deck, saw the same guy as the night before grilling again and a few others, but no sign of Savannah. Nor could I see her on the beach. I was just about to go back in when I felt someone tapping my shoulder.
“Who are you looking for?” she asked.
I turned around. “Some girl,” I said. “She tends to lose things at piers, but she’s a quick learner when it comes to surfing.”
She put her hands on her hips, and I smiled. She was dressed in shorts and a summer halter, with a hint of color in her cheeks, and I noticed she’d applied a bit of mascara and lipstick. While I loved her natural beauty—I am a kid from the beach—she was even more striking than I remembered. I caught the whiff of some lemony fragrance as she leaned toward me.
“That’s all I am? Some girl?” she asked. She sounded both playful and serious, and for an instant, I fantasized about wrapping my arms around her right then and there.
“Oh,” I said, feigning surprise. “It’s you.”
The two guys on the couch glanced toward us, then returend to the screen.
“You ready to go?” I asked.
“I’ve just got to get my purse,” she said. She retrieved it from the kitchen counter, and we started for the door. “And where are we going, by the way?”
When I told her, she lifted an eyebrow.
“You’re taking me to eat at a place with the word shack in the name?”
“I’m just an underpaid grunt in the army. It’s all I can afford.”
She bumped against me as we walked. “See, this is why I usually don’t date strangers.”
The Shrimp Shack is in downtown Wilmington, in the historic area that borders the Cape Fear River. At one end of the historic area are your typical tourist destinations: souvenir stores, a couple of places specializing in antiques, a few upscale restaurants, coffee shops, and various real estate offices. At the other end, however, Wilmington displayed its character as a working port city: large warehouses, more than one of which stood abandoned, and a few other dated office buildings only half-occupied. I doubted that the tourists who flocked here in the summer ever ventured toward this other end. This was the direction I turned. Little by little, the crowds faded away until no one was left on the sidewalk as the area grew more dilapidated.
“Where is this place?” Savannah asked.
“Just a little farther,” I said. “Up there, at the end.”
“It’s kind of out of the way, isn’t it?”
“It’s kind of a local institution,” I said. “The owner doesn’t care if tourists come or not. He never has.”