Page 92 of The Game Plan

Fiona

I meet my dad at our favorite Chinese restaurant on Mott Street. He and I have almost nothing in common, but we do share adeep and abiding love for soup dumplings and have thus hunted down the best of the best. Despite my fluttering nerves, I slideinto the cracked red pleather booth with a hum of anticipation.

“What’s doing, kid?” Dad asks as he sets down his phone. He already has a bottle of Tsingtao beside him, and the menu filledout.

I don’t protest because he knows what I like here.

Proof of that, the waitress sets down a Tsingtao for me too. She grabs our order and leaves without a word.

“Lots and lots,” I answer before taking a long pull of the beer. It’s bordering on lukewarm, but then we don’t come here forthe beer.

Dad grunts, focuses on his drink. He’s a big guy. Not in the muscular way of Dex, but all long limbs and towering height.

I don’t know how long he’s been in the city. I never ask. Dad’s sort of transient, seems to like it that way. When he’s here, he stays at some swanky, members-only hotel downtown. Which is fine by me.

I love my dad. I really do. Only, aside from a mutual love of dim sum, we have always been painfully awkward in each other’spresence. I don’t even know why, but it hangs over us like a cloud of bad gas no one wants to mention. And there is the factthat he’s never approved of me.

To that end, I brace my palms on the worn wooden table and take a breath. “I quit my job today.”

Dad sets down his beer. “Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. If you were sexually harassed, I’ll get up and hunt the bastard down, make him sorry he ever lived. Ifyou were bored, I’ll tell you to get over it, pick a better job next time.” He shrugs. “The reason makes all the difference.”

I am warmed by the idea of my dad kicking someone’s ass for me. “I guess you’re right.”

I tell him why I quit, the whole time shaking deep within the pit of my stomach. I hate admitting failure. But I hated mysituation more.

While I talk, the waitress sets down a steaming basket of fresh soup dumplings.

Dad picks up a delicate, pale little rose of a dumpling. The fragrance of chicken broth and ginger fills the air as he bitesand sucks down the soup hidden within.

“So,” he says, “lesson learned. Don’t trust sudden friends who are after the same position as you.”

I have a mouthful of dumpling, so it takes me a moment to swallow and gape up at him. “You’re not going to give me shit?”

“Why would I do that?” His brow scrunches up, making the wrinkles in his face deeper.

“Um, because you always give me shit about my—” I hold up my fingers to air quote “—‘flighty nature.’?”

He frowns as if he can’t make out what I’ve just said.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” I say, impatient now. “You’ve called me Flighty Fi since I was a kid.”

“Hey, now. It was a nickname. A term of endearment.”

“Your terms of endearment suck, Dad.”

His frown grows to a scowl. “Okay, fine. I’m sorry you don’t like the term. but...” He shrugs. “You are kind of flighty.”

Shit. That shouldn’t hurt, but it does. Enough that I blink to clear my vision.

I push back my plate. “Do you have any clue what it’s done to me to know you think that?”

Dad pauses, dumpling halfway to his mouth. Slowly, he lets it settle on his plate. “Honey...” He pauses, his mouth twistingas if he’s groping for some platitude to placate me.

I want to get out of here, but I can’t run away from this.