LITMIR.BIZ

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You ought to think about this guy more.”

      “All I’m thinking about is whether or not he’s going to save my mom’s roses. You should see them. They’re pathetic. Mom would cry.”

      Gloria leaned across the seat and patted her hand. “It’ll work out. Things always do.”

      Easy for someone to say who already had a job and a man she loved.

      They snagged a parking place a couple blocks from the festival and followed the crowds toward the plaza that had been taken over by artists’ booths. Lucy could have found her way with her eyes closed by following the smell of corn dogs, funnel cakes and sunscreen that was the particular perfume of any outdoor festival.

      In addition to food and artwork of every description, the booths featured an array of handmade items, from intricate beaded jewelry to crocheted doilies no extra roll of toilet paper should be without.

      Halfway down the first aisle, she spotted a booth advertising homemade doggie treats. She grabbed Gloria’s arm. “Wait, I want to get some of these.”

      “You don’t have a dog.” She followed her into the booth.

      Lucy grabbed up a plastic bag and began filling it with bone-shaped cookies. “I do now. She showed up in the garden last night. An apricot poodle. I named her Millie.”

      “How sweet. That’s a very good sign, you know, that she chose you for her new home. Animals have good instincts about people.”

      “Glor, it’s a stray dog. She was in our yard. Where else was she supposed to go?”

      Gloria spread her arms wide. “Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you you’re about to begin a series of new relationships.”

      I’d settle for one good relationship with a member of the opposite sex, she thought, but she didn’t dare tell Gloria that. She might start in on Greg Polhemus again.

      They found Jean’s booth in the second aisle. Jean worked at the crisis center with Gloria when she wasn’t assembling art from trash. Lucy studied a piece displayed at the front of the booth. It featured a penny, a dime, a gum wrapper, a cough drop covered with fuzz and a ball of lint formed into something resembling a tornado, in which the aforementioned items whirled. Wash Day Blues was neatly inscribed in ink across the bottom.

      “It’s a collection of all the items I found in my pockets while doing laundry,” Jean explained, coming up behind her. “Clever, huh?”

      “Uh, yes.” But would anyone actually pay for it?

      While Gloria and Jean discussed the significance of garbage as a cultural indicator, Lucy wandered across the aisle to a booth displaying beaded jewelry. Now this was art she could relate to. She picked out a black-and-purple choker and carried it over to the mirror to try it on. She’d about decided she had to have it when a movement in the mirror caught her eye. A woman in a tight leather miniskirt, fringed tank top and hot-pink cowboy boots was waving a peacock feather fan around like she was Gypsy Rose Lee while a gray-haired man in starched jeans and ostrich boots looked on.

      Her stomach took a dive toward her ankles as her numb brain finally registered that the guy was her dad and the woman was someone she’d never seen before in her life.

      She dropped the choker and whirled around, gasping for air. Gloria ran over to her. “Lucy, what’s wrong? Your face is so pale. And your aura…” She stepped back and furrowed her brow. “Honey, your aura looks really bad.”

      Who gives a flying fig what my aura looks like? She felt like shouting, but some invisible hand had a hold of her throat and all she could do was point in the direction her dad and his “date” had headed.

      When she could talk again, she told Gloria she’d seen her dad with a strange woman. “Come on, we have to follow them.” She took off after them, past a booth full of pottery, a caricature artist and a display of batik clothing. She finally spotted them at the funnel cake booth. Little Miss Leather was breaking off bits of fried dough and feeding them to her dad, who obediently opened his mouth like a toddler playing the airplane game.

      She grabbed on to the corner post of the sausage-on-a-stick hut, feeling sick to her stomach.

      “C’mon, Loo. What’s the big deal? He’s just having a little fun.”

      “Gloria, that woman is my age.”

      She tilted her head to one side, considering this. “Oh, I think she’s a little older than that. Thirty, at least.”

      “That’s still twenty-five years younger than my dad. And look at the way she’s dressed.”

      “That leather looks awfully warm for this time of year. But the boots, very retro. I wouldn’t mind a pair for myself.”

      Lucy glared at her. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

      “I have to choose a side? I didn’t know we were having a fight.”

      She clenched her hands into fists. “We aren’t, but we will be if you keep insisting on defending that bimbo.”

      Gloria shook her head and made a tsking sound. “Now, be rational.”

      “I don’t want to be rational!” Honestly, what was rational about this situation? This was her father they were talking about, not some stranger. A man who had spent almost every Saturday for the past ten years at the hardware store or watching sports on television. Why was he suddenly chasing around after a woman half his age?

      “You don’t even know her,” Gloria said. “She might be very nice.”

      She took a deep breath. This was one of the things she didn’t understand about life: just when she thought she was all grown-up, a sensible, mature woman, something like this would happen to make her feel like a six-year-old. The thought of throwing a temper tantrum was eerily satisfying at the moment.

      About that time the woman in question started sucking the sugary remnants of the funnel cake off her fingers with an enthusiasm that caused her dad’s eyes to glaze over, and Lucy’s brief stab at maturity to flee. “I don’t care if she teaches kindergarten to underprivileged children and spends Sundays volunteering at the nursing home,” she growled. “I don’t want her dating my father.”

      The couple started off walking again and Gloria and Lucy followed at a distance. They were holding hands now, her father standing so erect, shoulders squared and chest out, that Lucy wondered how he could breathe.

      It wouldn’t be so bad if he dated someone his own age, she thought. Someone sweet and motherly. But what did a bombshell like this gal see in a fifty-five-year-old man? Okay, so he was in pretty good shape for his age, but honestly…What if she was trying to scam him? Dad would be easy to take advantage of. After all, he’d been out of the dating scene a long time. He didn’t know what it was like out there. Things were bound to have changed a lot and he’d be an easy mark for some unscrupulous bimbo.

      Dad and the woman stopped at a booth selling ceramic masks. While she admired one of the fanciful creations, Dad turned to face Lucy and Gloria, gazing idly around. Lucy ducked into the large tent to keep from being seen.

      The tent featured all kinds of bushes and trees growing in pots and cut into fanciful shapes. “Topiaries,” Gloria said, admiring a baby elephant sculpted of ivy. “These are very nice.”

      Lucy peeked out from behind a penguin made of privet. “Are they still over by the masks? I can’t see.”

      Gloria glanced behind her. “They’re still there.”

      Lucy moved up, still keeping behind the displays in case Dad looked this way again. “What are they doing?”

      “I think she’s trying to convince your father to buy one for her.”

      “I knew it! She thinks he’s her next sugar daddy.”

      “Good afternoon, ladies. May I help you?” A smiling, older Latina

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