Without taking his eyes off the road, Dad gave a slight nod and hummed softly through his nose. I studied his face closely. He was a big man, tall and broad through the shoulders, with a beard of graying whiskers and a mostly bald head that rose to a point at the peak of his crown. Owing to his size, he was capable of imbuing his smallest gestures with the weight of hidden significance, and from the time I was little I was always prepared to try to interpret what he really meant by them, even if there was nothing there to be found.
He said, “The valley’s lush, no doubt, but if you had to live here a month you’d wind up suicidal.”
I turned away and leaned my shoulder on the window. “The families who live here must have found something to like about it.”
“That’s different. They’re country people. Simple folk. It doesn’t take much to keep them happy.”
“You’ve spent so much time out here. You don’t consider yourself a country person?”
“I’m an entrepreneur. An educated man. We come from a long line of educated people. Your great-grandfather was a University of California regent.”
We drove in silence for another several minutes before reaching the hotel. Pulling into the parking lot, the Ramcharger wasn’t the only antique to be found, though it was certainly the best maintained. I didn’t know much about Dad except that he insisted on maintaining a certain image and lifestyle; classic cars, custom suits, prime cuts of meat slathered in French sauces. Everywhere he went, he made inquiries into the best places to eat and sleep, and after nearly twenty years on the road, his knowledge of room and dining accommodations was enough to rival that of any agent or travel website in the Republic. For our trip to the valley, he had booked us a room at the Caravan Hotel, a comparatively high-end establishment that catered to out-of-town visitors and others who shared Dad’s means and tastes but happened to find themselves stuck momentarily in that otherwise desolate part of the state. On the way inside, he caught his reflection in the window and stopped to adjust his tie. He said, “You and I are going to celebrate tonight, Junior. It’s not every day a son of mine graduates high school.”
His words struck me as funny at the time, on a couple different levels. I was, as far as I knew, the only son he had, and he hadn’t even bothered to attend my graduation. He just showed up out of the blue one day a couple weeks after the ceremony and said he wanted to take me on a trip to see the rest of the country. “It’s your choice,” Mom told me before we left, “but don’t come crying to me if he lets you down.” A part of me, the spiteful part, hoped I would have the time of my life with Dad just to prove her wrong. But the reasonable part knew I shouldn’t get my hopes up; I’d been disappointed too many times before.
After checking in at the front desk, I thought we were going to go to the room, but instead Dad paid the valet to take our bags up so we could have a pre-dinner drink in the hotel restaurant. A heavyset girl with brown hair and orange highlights greeted us at the door with a stack of menus in her arms. Her name was Kylee, or at least that’s what it said on the nametag hanging crookedly over her protruding and lopsided breast. She saw us coming and immediately stepped forward to touch Dad’s shoulder and smile up close in his face.
“Been a long time, Elliot,” she said in an upspoken, questioning sort of way. “We never see you around anymore.”
“Good to see you, Kylee,” Dad said. “Sorry it’s been so long. I just got into town today after a long stay up north.”
“No worries. I figured you were keeping busy.”
“You know it. Say, we don’t have a reservation, but any chance you could get us a table? We’ve been on the road all day.”
“Sure thing. I’ll seat you in my station over by the bar. It’ll be quieter there.”
“Thanks. You’re a peach.”
Kylee led us to the back of the restaurant and past a varnish-stained mahogany bar without a single patron or employee on either side. For as much as Dad made it seem like a testament to his charm that we managed to get a table, there was hardly another soul in the place. Dad took off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. With no one else around for reference, I couldn’t tell if I was underdressed or not.
“Can I get you boys started with something to drink?” Kylee asked. Dad looked at me from across the table and replied, “Kylee, this is my son, Elliot Jr. Today’s his twenty-first birthday.”
Kylee’s face beamed with false surprise. “Well, happy birthday!”
“The thing is, I was all set to buy him his first drink tonight, but then the big dummy went and left his ID at his mother’s house.”
“Ah, what a shame.”
“Shame is right. We drove all this way before he realized what he did.”
Now she put her hand on the crease of my arm and addressed me directly. “You know what I do? I keep my apartment key inside my wallet. That way I make sure I have my money and cards with me whenever I leave home.”
Dad pointed his finger at me. “You hear that? The lady’s got good advice.”
“You’re lucky you have him here to vouch for you. Next time you might not be so lucky.”
Dad said, “I hope it’s no trouble. Any other day and I wouldn’t have even asked.”
Kylee winked. “It’s fine, boys. I’ve got ya covered.” She took out a pen and flipped her tablet open to the top page. “What can I get you?”
“Junior?”
To say I was unsure what to order was putting it mildly. I’d never ordered a drink in a restaurant before, nor tasted alcohol beyond a few stale beers at a house party. I remembered having brunch one time with Mom and her ordering a Bloody Mary, so I decided to go with that. “I’ll have a Bloody Mary.”
Kylee started to write down the order, but Dad raised his hand to stop her. “Bring him a Stoli on the rocks,” he said. “I’ll have a double bourbon. Neat.”
As Kylee disappeared behind the bar, Dad leaned across the table and looked at me sternly. He said, “You want fruit, order the fruit salad. Don’t embarrass yourself and me by asking for a liquor smoothie.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Learning to drink responsibly is an important skill to acquire. Your mother’s father used to have a full Martini set that he’d bring out on summer evenings or whenever he was entertaining. That was back when British gin was easy to get a hold of. Vermouth as well.”
“Must have been nice.” I took a sip of water and looked down at the pristine white tablecloth. Half a day on the road with Dad and I was learning more about the older generation than about him. “How old were you when you decided to marry Mom?”
Dad waved his hand in front of his face dismissively. “Who can remember? My mid-twenties, sometime around there. I had already been out of college several years.”
“Mom says you graduated from the Cal State system.”
“Fullerton,” he said. “International Business program. With a minor in Chinese.”
“Get out. You speak Chinese?”
“Everyone was studying Chinese in those days. It was practically a prerequisite for any halfway decent MBA program.”
Another revelation. “You went to business school?”
“Almost. I had just started my applications when things began to get difficult. Disbandment was still a few years away, but the economy was already in the toilet. Couldn’t afford to take on any more debt.”