I smiled and swirled the asparagus water in my glass. “I think that, without me, there’s no way they would ever agree to sell, to you or anyone else. That’s the advantage I’m pressing here, Mr. Russert. They won’t sell if they don’t have to, but I have it in my power to persuade them.”
“That sounds pretty sketchy.”
“You need not concern yourself with the details. Let’s just say my father didn’t leave me much, but he left me what I need to get my start as an entrepreneur. You see, I’m after more than just a finder’s fee, Mr. Russert. This deal is going to be the catalyst that sets the rest of my future in motion.”
“You want to make a career for yourself in agriculture?”
“I want to make money. How I do it at this point is incidental.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very meaningful way to live.”
“I searched for meaning a long time and didn’t like what I found. Now I’m focused solely on the living part. Leave the meaning to the ministers.”
Russert’s eyeglasses slid almost imperceptibly down the ridge of his nose. I would have been surprised to learn that he was a godly man, as opposed to a sometime convert like Dad, or some brand of agnostic like so many in his field claimed to be. He said, “I can’t get a clear read on you, Mr. Temple. Can’t tell if you’re the real deal or some joker off the street.”
“In this instance, all I’m asking for is the right to approach the sellers on your behalf. You’ll lose nothing if the deal falls through. And if I succeed, which I will, you’ll have a leg up on everyone else trying to move in on the valley.”
“You’re welcome to go and talk with these people, and if you can work your magic on them like you say, I’ll consider making an offer. But they’d have to agree to a full transfer of tenancy rights. Land, house, and all. I don’t have time to mess with squatters.”
“Don’t worry. You won’t even know they were ever there.” I emptied my glass and stood to leave. As I was refastening the middle button on my suit jacket, I looked up suddenly and raised my finger to hold his attention. “One more thing.”
He sighed and reached again for the decanter. “Go on then.”
I smiled. “Do you know a good place around here to print up some business cards?”
We were halfway through our second round when Kylee brought our starters out from the kitchen. I was so hungry and tipsy that each bite of carrot soup seemed to replenish something essential in me, without which I didn’t know how I was going to survive the rest of the evening. Dad didn’t speak for a while after the food arrived. He kept his fork suspended over his plate, delivering clumps of romaine and blue cheese dressing to his mouth with mechanical stiffness. With every sip of vodka that entered my system, I grew angrier and more aggrieved by his stubborn silence. I wanted to lash out at him, to seize him from across the table and demand that he say something, but then the weight of my guilt rolled back onto my shoulders, reminding me that he was paying for my food and drinks tonight, just as he had paid to support me through all the years I was in school. And so I made myself drunker waiting for him to talk, taking hurried swigs from my glass every time the ice had melted enough to offset the burn.
He finally wiped his lips on the napkin and said, “There are only two ways to make a living from God, you know. Being a minister and being a fraud. And maybe selling Bibles.”
I smiled. “What about poets?”
Even before Dad glared at me, I knew the joke had been a mistake. He set his knife and fork down and pushed the plate away. He said, “I’m talking about making a living, which is something you should be thinking about from here on out. If you won’t go to college, then you’ll have to figure out a way to earn your keep from day to day. Unless you plan on living off your mother indefinitely, stringing her along with promises of getting into Stanford one day.”
“I’m not a leech. I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“Maybe that’s why you agreed to drive down here with me. Because you thought you could coax me into supporting you until you get on your feet. As if ten years of monthly checks weren’t enough.”
“I followed you down here because I hadn’t seen you since I was fourteen. If I had said no, who knows when we would have seen each other again?”
Dad shook his head and took another drink of whiskey. He was already acting surly, and I couldn’t be sure if he had even heard me. “There are times I worry your generation will forsake the rest of us the moment we stop being useful to you. Like those native tribes in the Arctic, where the young people set their elders adrift on the ice so they don’t have to worry about being burdened by them.”
“I don’t know where you get these ideas about me. You’re my father. I wouldn’t think you’d set your father adrift for convenience’s sake.”
“Your grandfather died of a heart attack not long after disbandment.”
I blinked several times in rapid succession. I never knew about my grandfather or how he died; Mom had never met the man, and Dad hadn’t mentioned him until now. That someone so close to me in blood and influence should remain such a mystery seemed wrong somehow, not because I felt incomplete without the knowledge, but because no one had ever thought to satisfy that curiosity they should have assumed I was bound to feel.
But all I said was, “That’s sad. Did he lose his business in the crash?”
“He wasn’t an entrepreneur. He was a school teacher in Stockton. Eighth grade science. Never had any real ambition.”
Kylee’s return offered a momentary reprieve from the gloomy streak we suddenly found ourselves on. For dinner we were presented with cuts of pink and charred tri-tip served on heavy cast iron platters with grilled asparagus, potatoes, and mushrooms. Dad waited for her to freshen our drinks before cutting into his meat. I tried forcing some of the starchy potatoes down my throat, but since the soup my stomach had turned around on itself, shedding hunger in favor of mild nausea and disgust.
I said, “It must have been rough, living through disbandment. When I was younger, some of my friends’ parents used to talk about what it was like back then. Sounded like everybody lost something that was dear to them.”
Dad nodded as he finished chewing through a bite of steak. “It was the crash that really made things difficult. Your mother and I were living near Carmel at the time and overnight the whole area was overrun with economic refugees from other parts of the state. Davis, Riverside, Fresno. People came from everywhere and flooded the coast looking for work. Used to be that inland folks would say we were crazy living so close to the water. Conventional wisdom said that, when the next big earthquake hit, the entire coast would break away and fall into the sea. Hicks around here, they laughed at us before, but the second things started to fall apart, they came running to beg at our door.”
“You’ve got to admit, though, there is some cause for concern. We might never fall into the ocean, but if the sea walls ever broke, we’d be under water regardless.”