Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Yeah, well, I like a man who’s not afraid of you getting a second, third, or even fourth opinion. That’s why he’s still my doctor today.”
Kola nodded.
“You were just bored in class, which is why you talked all the time,” Sam said, chuckling. “That third-grade teacher of yours thought you, Jake, and Harper all had ADHD.”
“Mrs. Byrd, poor lady,” Harper said with a sigh. “I think there were thirty-five boys in her class and two girls.”
“That would have worn me out too.”
“She used to say we all smelled like rope,” Jake grumbled. “What does that even mean?”
“Well, the good news is, after that, we moved you to private school,” I reminded Kola, “and Harper’s and Jake’s parents agreed with us and you all went together.”
“Yeah, Mrs. Coleman was way better,” Harper apprised us. “First day she had us doing an experiment with electricity.”
I turned to Jake. “Didn’t you do something you weren’t supposed to and blew the circuit breakers at the school or something? I seem to recall that.”
“No,” Jake said, coughing. “It was faulty wiring, and it wasn’t just the one building.”
“How many buildings was it?” Sam asked him.
Jake cleared his throat. “You know I don’t—I’m not sure.”
Hannah was laughing. “Your mother told me! It was the whole block, Jake. Your mother said you took out the whole block. She was terrified they were gonna be sued until the building inspector found all the Frankenstein wiring.”
“See,” he said, gesturing at Hannah, “that’s what I said, bad wiring.”
“You helped,” Kola reminded his friend.
“I have no memory of this,” he said drolly.
“You were eight years old!” Harper crowed. “Oh dear God, they should have known right then that you were gonna be a menace to society.”
“What? No.”
Hannah was smiling as she walked over and hugged him. He didn’t seem to mind so much having all of us laugh at him with her wrapped around him.
Father’s Day was amazing. Kola and Hannah gave me, Sam, and Thomas, Sam’s father, a combined gift. In our driveway, they created a fifties drive-in movie theater. They put a white tarp over our two-car garage, rented a projector, love seats that they put inside cardboard cars so two people could comfortably sit side by side, and made dinner for me, Sam, Thomas, and Regina, as she was her husband’s date. The movie they picked was The Odd Couple from 1968, which I loved. Since drive-ins used FM radios with a specific channel for people to hear the movie, Jake and Harper had made replicas that Kola put Bluetooth speakers in. It looked good and sounded better than any drive-in I’d ever been in.
When Hannah skated down the driveway in a car hop outfit, I nearly died. She looked so good, and everything matched, and of course, she was excellent on roller skates, so it was amazing. They had hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, and Hannah snapped gum the entire time, telling Sam, when he ordered, that no, he couldn’t have a meatloaf sandwich.
“But we have leftovers in the fridge,” he told her.
“I’m sorry, sir. Do you see meatloaf anywhere on that menu?”
Of course they printed out two adorable cardboard menus made to look terrible with ketchup stains and what looked like brown gravy.
“No, but––”
“Don’t be difficult or I’ll have the soda jerk give ya the boot.”
He shook his head at her.
“Whatcha havin’, doll?” she asked me with a big smile. Her makeup was fifties fabulous, as was her bouffant hair and pink plastic hoops that matched her garish pink lipstick.
“Two hot dogs with mustard and relish and cheesy tater tots, please.”
She blew a bubble, popped it, sucked it back in her mouth with a noisy slurp, and then returned her narrowed gaze to Sam. “Ya see how easy it is to not be difficult, sir?”
“The service here is terrible,” he told her.
“Just wait ’til ya have some watered-down beer.”
“Oh God,” he groaned.
“May I have a vanilla coke as well?” I asked her.
She tipped her head at me and lifted her eyebrows at Sam.
“Fine,” he muttered. “May I have a double cheeseburger with chili?”
“Yes, you may,” she told him with soooo much attitude.
“Can I have chili-cheese fries too?”
“Maybe,” she told him, glaring at him before she rolled away.
Kola delivered Sam an old-fashioned with his favorite Bulleit Rye, which cheered him up considerably. My son looked adorable in all white with one of those paper hats and a red bow tie. He brought me an excellent gin and tonic and took his grandparents two flutes of champagne.
As expected, before dinner, there were gifts.
Sam got a new fishing reel, ridiculous gadgets for his car, and a new case for his phone that supposedly could be dropped from an airplane and survive. Maybe an airplane sitting on the tarmac, but I kept quiet. I got the burgundy Montblanc pen I’d been looking at for ages, with my name engraved on it, and a new pair of sunglasses, as I’d recently lost yet another pair.