Natalie called out from the kitchen. “Want a glass of wine?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
I kicked off my shoes and shuffled two paces to my left, where I collapsed onto the sofa.
“On a scale of one to ten, how awful was he?” she asked.
“I’m not sure I saw enough of him to judge,” I replied.
“Does that mean you didn’t get the job?”
“I don’t think so.” We settled down with our wine and I used my last drops of energy to relay the whole sorry day.
“Honestly, it doesn’t sound that bad. If he didn’t want you to stick around, he would have had you thrown out. I think you can assume you have the job.”
That was a relief. Kinda. The wine was like pure liquid energy. I felt myself coming back to life little by little with every sip.
“I’m sure I haven’t seen the half of it yet, but I think I can handle Andrew. I mean, he’s rude and curt and has mommy issues or something, but like I said, I have a thick skin. I think I’m just going to learn to tune out what he’s saying and focus on what he looks like, because holy moly he’s hot.”
Natalie blew out a breath. “Yeah, there’s no doubt he got lucky in the gene pool lottery. But I bet he’s really selfish in bed. Like, expects it all his own way.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m ever going to find out. I just need him to sign my paycheck.”
My phone began to ring and I pulled it out of my pocket.
All the liquid relaxation of the wine froze in my veins. “It’s Des.”
“As in Des, your father?” Natalie asked.
“Is there another Des?” Technically he was my father, although considering the fact that I’d only spoken to him once in my life, I wasn’t sure if that particular shoe still fit.
“It’s not like he calls all the time,” she said, peering over at my cell screen. “Or ever. Answer it.”
Yeah, I should accept the call. It wasn’t hard. And I needed to speak to him. Needed to create some kind of relationship with him before I asked him for a favor.
I should definitely answer.
I took a breath and swiped to accept the call. “Hello?”
“Sofia?”
“Hi.”
“It’s your—it’s Des.”
“Hi,” I replied. My mind went blank and I glanced at Natalie as if she was going to be able to save me.
“So . . . I said I’d call,” he said.
The one time I’d spoken to my father, I’d called him to say I wanted a British passport. It had been an excuse. I’d needed a reason to call him.
However much I resented him, he was also the solution to at least eighty-five percent of my problems.
“Hi, yes. Thanks.” When I’d spoken to him to ask about the passport, he’d sounded happy—delighted even—to hear from me. Which was weird, because if he’d wanted to speak to me, he could have picked up the phone sometime over the last twenty-eight years and called. It wasn’t like the phone had just been invented. But I didn’t say any of that, because I needed him. Or rather, his money. I had to keep my mouth shut and my eye on the end-game.
“You’re in London now?” he asked.
I’d messaged him when I’d gotten my UK cell number and he said he’d call. I just wasn’t prepared for him to actually pick up the phone. What did you say to the man who was half your genetic make-up but who you’d never met before?
“Yes. Kilburn.” I was supposed to be friendly, supposed to lay the foundation for some kind of relationship. I just didn’t know what to say.
“And you’ve got a job?”
“Yes, in Bloomsbury.”
“That’s good,” he said.
I gave myself a mental kick. I needed to woman up. My mother’s health and welfare was at stake. I didn’t know anyone else who had the kind of money that could pay for a knee replacement out of pocket. So I had to be nice. Friendly. Persuasive. I needed to convince him to pay. My mother’s insurance company had denied her the replacement because she could still walk. When I’d enquired about self-pay options, I’d been told we would need to budget nearly fifty thousand dollars once my mother’s medication and physical therapy were factored in. Not even working for Andrew Blake was going to get me that kind of money any time soon. My mother was in pain all day, every day. She wasn’t going to be able to keep her job much longer without a new knee.
My father was the only person with the money I needed. But before I could ask for it, we needed some kind of relationship.
That was the whole reason I was here.
“Yeah, I’m enjoying it so far. Do you . . . work?” I asked. It seemed easier to ask questions rather than answer them.
“I do. And I’m often passing through Bloomsbury. Perhaps we could meet? Have lunch, or even a coffee?”
He sounded nice. Friendly. Hopefully he could be easily persuaded that leaving my mother pregnant and penniless at nineteen, then never paying child support, constituted a string of piece-of-shit moves that warranted reparations. My plan was to convince him that he could make amends by paying for my mother’s knee replacement. And in my dream of dreams, foot the bill for some decent health insurance for her going forward. At least until I was earning enough to pay it myself.
“That would be . . . nice.” Would it? How would I avoid launching myself across the table at him and trying to strangle him?
“Have you been to the British Museum yet?” he asked. “It’s in Bloomsbury and it has a nice restaurant we could go to.”
“I haven’t,” I said, starting to worry about how I was going to be able to leave the office to go get a coffee without getting fired.
“Well, we could try there? Or somewhere else if you’d prefer?”
“What about a Saturday? My working hours are a little . . . unpredictable.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding enthusiastic. “You could come to the house if you wanted. Or maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
I swallowed. When he said “the house,” I presumed he meant his house. His house, where he lived with his actual family. The woman he married and had two children with. All while my mother and I were struggling to pay our rent. But maybe if I met his wife and his other children, that would help? Maybe they would directly or indirectly help me win my argument, which presently amounted to “this is a debt you owe me and my mom because you were a complete douchebag twenty-eight years ago.”
“Sure. That would be great.”
“I can’t do this Saturday. What about the following week? At half eleven?”
“Eleven thirty? Absolutely.” At least I would have been at my new job more than a nanosecond. Hopefully I’d be able to tell him a little more about what I did by then.
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Great.”
I ended the call but kept staring at the phone. Could I really handle having lunch with the man whose absence had meant my mom had to work three jobs? The man who could have saved me from a childhood of plugging holes in the floor so the roaches couldn’t get in?
“We’re going to need more wine,” Natalie said.