Mom’s eyes bugged out and her fork clattered to her plate. “Do not tel him to run for the hil s! Sweet Jesus!” she cal ed to the ceiling and then looked at Hank. “We’ve been waiting a long time for Roxie to get herself a good man, a decent man. Thank the Good Sweet Lord you’re sitting right here. She’s a good girl, Roxie. She’s a little wild but not anything you can’t tame, I’m sure of it,” Mom declared with authority.

Hank pressed his lips together, likely so he wouldn’t laugh out loud.

I noticed Hank’s lip press, but only in a vague way because it was my turn to have my eyes bug out of my head.

“I don’t need Hank to tame me! I don’t need anyone to tame me. I’m not wild!” I snapped at Mom.

Dad let out a bel y laugh.

“Not wild? Girl, you’re too much,” he said to me then turned to Hank. “You’d think there wasn’t much trouble to find in a smal town. Probably wasn’t, but what trouble there was to find, Roxie found it and if she couldn’t find it, she made her own.”

“Dad!”

My father ignored me.

“Got good grades, which was a plain miracle considering she spent most her time beer-drinkin’, joy-ridin’, drag-racin’ and toilet-paperin’,” Dad looked back at me. “I don’t even want to know what you were doin’ on that golf course at midnight when the cops found you.” I put my elbow on the table and my head in my hand.

“This is not happening,” I said to my pancakes.

“I told you to try out for the cheerleading squad, but did you listen to me? No,” Mom put in and I knew she was warming into her famous Cheerleading Squad Lecture that had been a constant in my life, even though I’d graduated from high school over a decade before.

When I looked up again, Mom was forking into her pancakes heatedly.

“The cheerleaders were good girls, never broke curfew, not once. I know because I was friends with their mothers.

Had steady boyfriends. Wore cute, preppy clothes. Not Roxie. No. Curfew? What’s that? Going to the mal , like, every weekend. Her closet had more clothes in it than mine! Always flouncing around in mini-skirts. Nearly gave her father a heart attack every time she walked out of the house,” She looked between Dad and me, fork lifted half-mast and glaring at us both. “The fights you two would have about those mini-skirts and, Lord! Those tops! Al cut up and fal ing off your shoulders so you could see your bra straps. Sweet Jesus. What the neighbors must have thought.”

I looked at Hank, certain he was either going to run for the hil s or tel us al to get the hel out.

Instead, his eyes were on me. They were lazy and sweet and then, he winked at me.

I felt something settle inside me, and, where it settled, it grew warm.

Then I felt my face move. I didn’t smile, exactly, but I knew my face went soft and my lips turned up and, if my parents weren’t there, and the table wasn’t between us, I would have jumped him and torn his clothes off.

“Sweet Jesus,” Mom whispered and the moment was lost. I looked to her and she was gazing between Hank and me, her face soft too, but her eyes were bright and happy.

My eyes slid to Dad and he was smiling at the last bite of his donut.

“Are we done tel ing Hank about my past as a juvenile delinquent?” I asked.

“Yep,” Dad said. He’d finished his donut and was wiping powdered sugar from his lips with his napkin.

“You weren’t a juvenile delinquent. Just… spirited,” Mom said. “Though…” she mumbled to her pancakes, “wish you’d have used that spirit to cheer on the footbal team.” I sighed, heavy and huge, and forked into my pancakes.

* * * * *

“Damn, Tex, this is f**kin’ great!” Dad yel ed, real y loudly, foam from his butterscotch latte coating his upper lip. “Herb, keep your voice down,” Mom stage-whispered.

We were in Fortnum’s, I was sitting on the book counter and I noticed the Hot Pack, including Hank, Lee, Mace and Luke, al standing around the couches, had turned to look at my parents when my Dad shouted.

I looked over to Indy who was behind the book counter, and Daisy, who was standing in front of it, both of them were grinning at my Mom and Dad.

“I asked Hank to shoot me last night, but he wouldn’t do it,” I told them.

“Oh, Sugar, chil . They’re sweet,” Daisy said.

“What do you say you cal this? Lah-tay?” Dad, who was not one for fancy coffee drinks, asked, again loudly, cal ing our attention back to him. He stil hadn’t wiped the foam off his lip.

“Fuckin’ A, Herb, you need to get to the big city more often,” Uncle Tex suggested, handing a coffee to one of the two customers standing in front of the counter.

“Fuck that,” Dad swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand when he caught Mom pointing to her own mouth, giving him a clue. Then he went on talking. “Ain’t nothin’ in the big towns I need. Anyway, I heard they started making these eye-talian coffee drinks in Miriam’s Café,” Dad looked over to Indy, Daisy and me. “They got frozen custard there too. That custard business pissed off the folks at Dairy Palace, which is right across the street. Ain’t no cookie shake in the world better than frozen custard, I don’t care if they double up the cookie crumbles, which was what they started to do.”

“The Dairy Palace doubled up the cookie crumbles?” I asked, forgetting to be embarrassed by my father’s behavior.

I loved cookie crumble shakes

“Damn straight, Roxie,” Dad told me. “You gotta come home. I know you like your cookie crumble shakes but you’l f**kin’ flip over those turtle sundaes they make at Miriam’s with the frozen custard. Swear to Christ, thought your mother would rol up and die after she got her first taste of one,” Dad looked at Hank. “Roxie likes her ice cream,” he informed Hank as if this was the key to future happiness with me.

“I’l remember that,” Hank said, his eyes came to me and I noticed his trying-hard-not-to-laugh look because it was now very familiar.

In fact, the Hot Pack were al now looking at me, al of them grinning. Except Luke, who was looking down at his boots but I could tel his half-smile was in place. I felt their grins in the form of goose bumps running along my skin and I said to the entire room, “Can we stop talking about ice cream?”

That’s when Luke’s head came up and his eyes sliced to me.