The Good Wife(113)
“But once again, that’s none of your business, Dad,” Lisa said gently but firmly, looking him in the eye. “I went into business with Lauren, not you. Any money you loaned us to start the business was paid back ten years ago, and I have always been totally supportive of Lauren going to Alameda and working at Mama’s. If, and when, we’re ready to sell, we’ll sell. Until then, we won’t. So there’s no point in continuing this conversation because it’s not a group decision, it’s a Lauren and Lisa decision.”
Dad mumbled grumpily and shuffled his feet. Mom looked at her watch. Then Lisa looked at her iPhone. “We probably should go,” she said, sounding regretful. “Audrey’s going to need to eat and I’d just as soon nurse her at home.”
They were all on their feet then, gathering purses and shawls. Lauren handed her dad a wrapped box. “For you to open at home,” she said. “Happy Father’s Day,” she added, giving him a kiss.
They walked out together, and on the curb her dad shook Chris’s hand and then gave Lauren a hug. “Be smart,” he said gruffly, holding her close, his beard-roughened cheek grazing hers. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I understand,” she answered, kissing him back.
He still held her. “And just so you don’t think you’ve pulled anything over on me, I know exactly who Chris Steir is.” He let her go, brows lifting. “And I still don’t like the Athletics.”
Lauren laughed, hard. “Good night, Dad.”
His stern expression eased. “Good night, sweetheart.” He gave Chris a half nod.
* * *
Chris held Lauren’s hand as they walked the half block to his car. “Your dad reminds me of my dad,” he said. “Tough guy.”
“Yeah. He’s . . . opinionated.”
“He’s entitled to be.”
Chris opened the door for her, and she stepped up into the passenger seat of his black SUV. It was a new one, a luxury model, Cadillac or something like that, with lots of chrome and all the windows tinted black. “I have to be honest,” she said as he climbed in on his side. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of car you’d drive.”
“No? What kind of car did you think I’d drive?”
“A sports car. Something red, fast.”
“Actually, this isn’t my car. I borrowed it from Boone for the night.”
She turned in her seat, faced him. “This is Boone’s car?”
He nodded, smiling shamefacedly. “I have a car—it’s a ’60 Cadillac, big fins, bullet grille, hardtop, sweetest paint job ever—and I baby the heck out of it.”
“You were afraid to drive it to Napa?”
“No. It just wouldn’t start when the game was over. And so I told Boone I needed his car and he gave me his keys.”
“You left him with a car that wouldn’t start?”
“Oh, I didn’t give him my keys. My car is still in the team parking lot. Walker went home with his family.” He saw her face. “It’s okay. His wife was there, and she has a car, and her whole family was there, too. Thirteen or fourteen of them. So he’s fine. Trust me.”
“What about tomorrow’s game?”
“We’re off tomorrow. He’s good.” Chris reached out, caressed a strand of her hair. “We’re good.”
Lauren watched him start to type an address into the GPS. “Do we have to go back right away?” she asked.
“No. Absolutely not. I just know you get up early every morning—”
“I’m taking tomorrow off.”
He sat back. “So where do we go?”
“I’ll show you my sister’s and my restaurant, it’s a block from here, and then I’ll take you by our old place.”
Chris didn’t say much as Lauren walked him around Summer Bakery & Café, just nodded and nodded again as she pointed out the bakery, the café, walked him back to the huge kitchen. An impressive kitchen. “It’s beautiful,” he said as she relocked the door and they returned to his car.
“Now I’ll show you where we used to be,” she said, giving him directions to First Street. “Go slow,” she added as they approached the house. “There.” She tapped his arm, pointed.
He braked in front of the white Victorian house with the red-brick path and the big front porch. The house was dark except for the pair of porch lights that flanked the front door.
“That’s it,” she said. “That was where our first restaurant was, in that little Victorian house. It was our grandma’s house. She gave it to Lisa and me, and we turned it into a bakery and café, and Lisa and I lived in the back. With Blake.”