Driving Doctor Mayhem

[10] Yada Yada

"He's not, you know," I said the following week, far perkier than the beginning of the summer. It had taken a considerable amount of time, but I had slowly adjusted to the less-than-ideal sleep schedule that having a job so mercilessly enforced.

My mother looked up groggily from her bowl of Whole Wheat Flax Bran Flakes or whatever new healthy-but-not-really cereal they were pushing on the E! network at that moment. "Huh?"

"Evil. I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that Doc isn't evil. He even has a kitten. Her name's Cleo, after the cunning and morally ambiguous Egyptian ruler. And I don't care what he says about Ernst Stavro Blofeld, evil people don't have time for kittens, they just don't--"

"I trust you, Banksy," she shrugged mildly, stirring her spoon in circles.

I blinked. "That's it?"

"Do you want me to argue with you? Because I could play devil's advocate for giggles, but I've known you all your life and there's next to nothing I could say that would make you change your mind. Frankly, I don't care enough to try, but if you really want to--"

"No!"

"No?"

"No."

"Good," she chuckled, glancing around. "We done here, hon?"

"Yeah." Hastily finishing my breakfast bar, I threw my bag over my shoulder and ducked out the front door. I waited a beat. I leaned back in. "You're serious?"

"Do you want me to tell you to quit?"

"No!"

My mother leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and not even bothering to fight off a smile. "You really are your father's daughter."

"Give me a break."

"I'm serious! He loved to argue before--well, you know."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. That's not even--" I shifted my weight from foot to foot. The whereabouts of my father was one of my least favorite topics of discussion, rivaled only by my getting wait-listed and that one time that I tried to chicken fight in a bikini.

It wasn't like I walked around with this yawning void in my life that could only be fixed by some random Joe Schmo. I could easily have bigger problems if I was in the habit of getting out of the house more.

I almost wish I had some awful sob story to tell about my dad. He didn't die a heroic death, saving puppies from a burning building. He didn't have a dramatic exeunt from our lives where he hopped a taxi in the pouring rain, never to return again. He never even met me.

"Look," I continued ever-so breezily, "I'm not his anything; you're just a romantic."

"And you're arguing again."

I lingered in the doorway. "Well, you've backed me into a corner now, haven't you? If I say I'm not arguing, then I am, but the alternative is admitting it, which defeats the purpose of not arguing--"

"Banksy, sweetheart. You know that I love you and yada, yada, yada, but you're actually giving me a migraine. Leave. Now. Please. Thanks. Love you. Tell Cleo 'hi' for me. Save half of your paycheck for groceries. The normal stuff."