“I’m still going to thrash your mother for keeping you a secret.”
“We saved one ritual for you to take me through,” Amanda said with a newer and even more naughty sparkle in her eyes.
“Really? Which one?” Hugo leaned his chin on his hand, fascinated by the well-mannered, beautifully spoken girl.
“I’ve waited to smoke weed all this time!” Amanda announced triumphantly.
“You did?”
“It’s true. When I was around fourteen Mother suggested I save that one particular rite of passage to enjoy with you for the first time. She said you’d be the perfect guide and that you always had good bud. I think she was very clever, devising such an interesting way to keep me straight all during high school, don’t you? I’ve always been into postponing pleasure. It’s why I’ve been a good student.”
“What a beautiful and appropriate sentiment,” Hugo reflected, recalling that Cassandra’s first gift to him was that of mushrooms. “I guarantee that the bud will be good,” Hugo promised, briefly touching her velvety cheek. “And you being my daughter, I’m sure you’ve smoked enough by now to know the difference.”
Amanda pinkened but only slightly.
“But about the photo shoot...” he began.
“You could call the photo spread Daddy’s Girl,” she persisted enthusiastically.
“It’s very sweet of you to offer, but I can’t exploit my own daughter.”
“It isn’t exploitation. What you do is art.”
“Thank you,” Hugo said, “I’m bowled over by your sophistication.” “Well, I grew up in San Francisco.”
“Look, Amanda, even if it’s not exploitation, me spanking you... isn’t that ...I mean, doesn’t that feel incestuous to you?”
“Why should it? To me, you’re a glamorous stranger who came into my life through glossy photos and thrilling fiction, my mother’s favorite lover from long ago.”
“She said I was her favorite?”
“Can you doubt it?” Amanda teased, with a gleam in her eyes.
Hugo couldn’t help but laugh, “I see you already know how to get a man in the palm of your hand.”
“Mother thinks it would be fitting for me to appear in The New Rod Quarterly, as an example of things coming full circle. Besides, it would make me happy to be able to contribute, since you’re taking on my college expenses.”
“You seem very uninhibited.”
“I am,” Amanda agreed.
“That’s a rare quality in one so young.”
“My goal for freshman year is to become a Playboy centerfold.”
“A...What???”
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s part of my strategy to take the world by storm.” Amanda shrugged out of her jacket and draped it on the back of her chair, her fitted white blouse amply revealing how well suited she would be to pose for any centerfold on the planet.
“So, you’re extremely uninhibited!” Hugo grinned. “I have to say, Cassandra certainly raised a more interesting child without me than she could have done with me.” Then he happened to notice the clock on the wall. “Damn it, we have to get back. The girl will be there and I’ll have to figure out what to do with you. Damn it!”
“Just let’s finish the photo set,” Amanda suggested brightly.
“No, I’m not laying another hand on you until I think this through and arrive at the same casual attitude you seem to have. Anyway, we already got enough photos for a cover and a profile spread.”
“Oh, all right,” she agreed, with resignation. “I’ll work on you while you’re getting me stoned tomorrow. I’ll change your way of thinking.”
“You are going to be a dangerous woman,” Hugo predicted, leaving money on the table.
“I knew you’d get me,” she said, jumping up to follow him out.
“Did you drive into Random Point?” Hugo asked as they walked out of the bookstore and back across cobbled Shadow Lane to his own shop.
“Yes, I left my rental car at the Inn.”
“You’ve got yourself a room?”
“Of course. I didn’t know if I’d be welcome to stay with you.”
“Well, keep the room for tonight while I break the news to Laura. Did I mention I was in the middle of proposing to her when you walked in? And she was in the middle of putting me off, for some reason I can’t understand. Tomorrow you can come and stay with me. Tonight I need to hash this out with her or it’s going to preoccupy me. And I want to give you my full attention.”
“She’s beautiful. I hope she likes me.”
“Oh, you’ll be like a sister to her before you know it. In fact, I have a lot of friends who are going to make a very large fuss over you.”
Amanda beamed. She had worked hard and been modest to please her stepfather, with the new one, she would merely have fun and in so doing, please him as well. She had one week before her freshman year commenced. After which there would be little time to spare. She saw that she was making a good impression. Her mother’s predictions about Hugo had all come true. He was easily beguiled, pleasant, natural and more than willing to treat her as a mature adult. Mother had been wise to withhold her from Hugo. He would have turned her head.
She’d been perfectly serious in expressing her desire to pose for Playboy, for it was part of her master plan, to develop a glamorous persona as an arresting counterpoint to her serious academic one. She planned to double major in economics and Latin American studies, and was already fluent in Spanish. She envisioned herself at some future point, in a tight, white linen suit and four inch high, ankle-strap heels, devastating dark, hot-blooded men across board room tables in sultry climes, then being ravished by them under mosquito netting. She had a framed photograph of Benecio del Toro by her bedside and a scrapbook of the greatest Latin actors of the 20th century that she used to look at before going to sleep, choosing a different dark eyed face each night to fantasize about in her dreams.
The next afternoon, a shimmering one in late September, Laura was still thinking over Hugo’s proposal as she peddled her bike down leaf-dappled Shadow Lane. The sky was exceptionally blue and the air sweet and balmy on this last golden day of summer. She’d unconsciously turned her wheels toward Michael Flagg’s tavern. She might get a sandwich. Perhaps Marguerite would be there and they could discuss everything. When Laura discovered that it was only Michael there, in the empty pub, her pulse raced.
“Fate has decided the events to follow,” Laura told herself, sliding onto a bar stool and smiling at her host. Michael stopped polishing glasses and clasped her hands in greeting.
“You’re just in time for lunch,” said Michael, opening the box of sandwiches that had just been delivered from the Ball and Feather Inn. “They sent chicken tarragon, roast lamb and pepper steak.”
“I’ll have a pinot grigio and the chicken,” said Laura, then watched her fair haired, attractive and muscular 6’3” host open a bottle for her. “Where is everyone?” she asked, when he set the plate and glass before her.
“Carmen’s not coming in until later.”
“Where’s Marguerite? I didn’t see her at the gym this morning.”
“She took the baby and the nanny to Boston for a few days to visit her family.”
“This