#46-Thunder
Darryl’s Dad didn’t say, “Well done.” He didn’t say “I’m proud of you.” The silent embrace he gave Darryl might have been to comfort a little boy who struck out of the baseball game. I saw the light go out of Darryl’s eyes. As he stood up, his shoulders were slumped. He walked behind his father’s chair and saw that Elizabeth and I were holding hands.
“I shan’t break up this combination,” he said. He sat between me and his father. The excitement had left his face and he looked exhausted. I groped beneath the tablecloth to find his thigh. His face jerked toward me at the touch and his lips parted in a blazing grin.
“Not here! Be nice.”
“I can be very nice,” I assured him, “Somewhere else. Later.”
Darryl looked down at the place setting, trying to school the smile off his face. We had spoken to one another hardly giving breath to our voices. No one had heard but Deuce stared, Virginia glared, Elizabeth giggled and Richard…Richard was staring at me with hungry eyes.
Trey Hixson sat between his parents, cold and silent, a ghost at the feast. The waiters moved along the table with the salad: artichoke hearts and sliced peppers garnished with nuts. The dressing had a touch of hot sauce. I admired it; Elizabeth told me about the chef. Richard asked Sylvia about using the holograms for three dimensional computer models.
Deuce turned to Darryl. “Why didn’t you include the Anderson project?”
“Legal had yellow flagged it,” said Darryl, “I understood a change in the law would be required. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to adequately explain in the issues in the time…”
“I might have known you were afraid,” Deuce interrupted, “The legislation for the change is pending in the Senate right now. By not featuring the Anderson project, you may have doomed the bill. The key votes to get it out of committee are right here in this room!”
If it had been me, and my father, I’d have told him that was a conflict of interest. We could have had a knockdown, drag-out ethical discussion and been good friends when the dust settled. But Darryl just bent his head and said, “Sorry, sir.”
“I realize you did your best,” said the senior Hixson, “That wasn’t meant as a criticism.”
“Dr. Deweese,” said Virginia, “Few women these days know how to walk or sit down properly. Did you go to finishing school?”
I blinked. “I suppose you could say that…We practiced walking in six-inch heels and sitting down like the Queen of England with a book on our head. I also learned to pick locks and hot-wire cars. However, the Commonwealth of Kentucky referred to it as a reform school for criminal juveniles.”
Richard crowed. “You can hot-wire cars? So can I!”
“Jeez Louise, Tiffany.” But Darryl was laughing.
“None of those skills have ever been useful to me,” I told him, “but maybe I should write the name and address of the school down for the convenience of your father’s private investigator. And to save time, mention that I was incarcerated for the murder of my parents.”
All conversation at the staff table had halted. Virginia didn’t turn a hair.
“I found that information in a profile of you online. The writer pointed to the murder of your parents and your wrongful incarceration as the driving force behind your professional practice in the field of post-traumatic stress treatment. He cited your work with battered women, abused children and juvenile offenders as giving energy and empirical rigor to your innovative approach to the human psyche. I was just trying to reconcile that with a woman who wears pearls and dates a man several years her junior.”
