That was one of my farmers’ market days and my biggest sales day. My best customers knew they could find me every Thursday afternoon in downtown San Diego, selling my cat food with Trouble watching over the booth in her little chef hat. I’d already paid for my prime spot.
I forced a smile. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll just go to the market late.”
“I can take him,” my dad called out from the living room.
Elliott’s eyes widened and he shook his head in a silent plea.
Oh man. I had to handle this carefully. “It’s okay, Dad. I love going to Elliott’s auditions,” I said in a light tone. “And he can help me at the market afterward.”
He subsided with a “harrumph.” Normally having my dad drive Elliott might work, but he hadn’t driven much since he got out of the hospital. And this was Elliott’s first time auditioning for the Sunnyside Junior Theater, and he didn’t know anyone. Even when Elliott tried out for his old theater group where he felt comfortable, he had to be managed carefully so he went into his audition feeling confident. And my dad hadn’t been very supportive of anything Elliott did that wasn’t sports-related.
Elliott let out his breath. He and my dad had gotten along on our short visits over the years, but hadn’t found much common ground since we’d moved in. My dad wouldn’t admit to needing help after his second devastating bout with pneumonia. My macho, football-playing father hated being weak and being forced to accept support from the same daughter he’d driven out of the house thirteen years ago.
And he wouldn’t say it out loud, but it was clear he wasn’t happy with Elliott’s fashion choices. Especially the way Elliott shaved one side of his head and allowed the other to grow long. From the photos of my own grunge days in high school, I knew Elliott would regret that look in the future, but he had to make his own fashion mistakes.
“The director sent me the sheet music for ‘Alone in the Universe,’ and I only have two days to learn it. I’m gonna go practice.” Elliott ran back up to his room, taking the stairs a couple at a time.
“Break a leg!” I called after him. I smiled, caught up in his enthusiasm.
Until my dad “harrumphed” again from the living room.
I took a deep breath, determined to let my dad’s bad attitude go. He’s sick, I told myself and headed back to the kitchen.
But he didn’t stop. “I don’t know why you let him do that nonsense,” he said, lighting my simmering anger.
I did a U-turn at the kitchen doorway and stomped into the living room. “What nonsense? Having fun with other kids? Developing his talents? Pursuing a dream?”
My dad scowled. “Singing and dancing’s not preparing him for the future.”
“He’s twelve, Dad,” I said sarcastically. “He has time. And you think playing with a ball on a field prepares him for the future?”
“It sure does,” he said, defensive. “It teaches teamwork. And following the rules. Something both of ya could learn.” He sat back in his chair, and suddenly he seemed smaller in it. Had he lost more weight?
My anger washed out of me. “He loves it, Dad,” I said, my voice calmer. “And there’s a heck of a lot of teamwork going on behind the scenes and on stage.” I’d seen it first-hand during the obligatory volunteering that went along with any kind of youth theater.
He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to figure out if I was just feeling sorry for him. Then he turned the TV sound back on with his remote. Storage Wars characters were trying to goad each other into bidding higher on someone’s junk.
“It’s a good thing my investments are paying off so I can help with his college,” he grumbled as I took a step to the door. “My new fund is up a full twenty percent this month.”
“What?” I asked. “You have investments?”
“Of course I have investments,” he said, bristling again. “You think I’m an idiot?”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t imagine having enough money for “investments.” “You’re helping with Elliott’s college?”
“Of course I am,” he said. “He’s not getting a singing scholarship, is he?”
I gaped at him. That comment had so many levels of insult that I couldn’t think of a retort to cover them all.
Luckily my phone rang before any sound could come out of my mouth. I counted to ten on the way back to the kitchen and answered it.
“Oh. My. God,” Lani said, her voice breaking up a little over her car Bluetooth connection. “I’m gonna kill Piper.”
“Good morning to you too,” I said. Piper was her wife and Lani threatened to kill her about once a week, usually for no good reason.
I pulled out the now cool pieces of chicken curry and put them in Trouble’s dish. She sniffed it, and then took a bite. Her lips curled back as she chewed. Then she spit it out.
Shoot. There goes that recipe. Unless I tried it again with less curry?
“She threw out my latest prototype! On purpose!” I heard Lani’s car engine zoom in the background, as if it was angry at Piper too.
Lani was the owner and creator of Find Your Re-Purpose, an online boutique of unique baby fashions recycled from used clothing. She cut up old clothing, sewed different materials together, added some fabric paint or other touches, and voila! A beautiful, one-of-a-kind, hundred dollar outfit that anyone with too much money could buy for a baby who would most likely spit up on it in less than five minutes.
We’d met years before when she was the costume designer for one of Elliott’s plays, and quickly figured out that she lived in my dad’s neighborhood. After a few sleepless nights of last minute costume adjustments before the show’s opening, we’d become best friends.
“Was it that cape idea you were kicking around?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said. “It was the cutest thing EV-ER!”
I’d had my own doubts about the safety of capes for infants, but had kept them to myself. Since Piper was a pediatrician, I knew she’d step in. “Where are you headed?” I asked, trying to distract her.
“Ventura,” she said. “A thrift shop just got a big donation of clothes from a rich European family who spent the last six months in Malibu. The material has a bunch of cool designs the shop owner has never seen before so he put them aside for me. I can’t wait to see them.”
Ventura was almost four hours from Sunnyside, which meant Lani would be gone most of the day. Since she liked company on her trip, I put her on speaker phone right by the stove, resumed my stirring, and settled in for a long conversation.
“Have you heard from Twomey’s yet?” she asked, with a change in her tone that meant now-it’s-time-for-friendly-nagging. She’d encouraged me to contact the local chain of seven organic food stores offering my cat food products.
“Not yet,” I admitted. In my e-mail, I’d pushed the fact that buying local was all the rage, especially for the kind of people who bought organic products to help save the planet.
Seeing Meowio Batali products on the shelves of that many stores would be a dream come true. But I wasn’t sure how I’d meet any significant increase in demand without hiring more people. And that took money.
I was pretty stretched already—both physically and money-wise. Too bad cloning me wasn’t an option yet. If I had two, maybe three more of me, I could do everything I should be doing.
I changed the subject. “Hey, I finally met my neighbor.”
“That cute chicken farmer?” she asked.
I