Daddy's Other Little Girl, Part TwoLater, Heather #1 and I would discuss how stupid it was for us to split up and go our own separate ways with two separate boys we'd just met. Townies, no less. At the time, though, I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about how cute Rob was.
Heather #1's aunt and uncle had brought us with them to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. They were in their 20s, the "cool" aunt and uncle. They let us do whatever we wanted, and kept the refrigerator well stocked with beer. We were 15 years old, and it was the best vacation ever.
I'd met Rob on the boardwalk, and our "date" consisted of us hanging out at his house while his mother was at work. He looked like Satan, my boyfriend back home, only with longer hair and a smaller nose and big brown eyes I couldn't stop staring into. It wasn't technically cheating. I'd decided to dump Satan after a boardwalk psychic told me what I already knew – that he was abusive, scary and an all-around bad first boyfriend. It was one thing when no one knew about his fondness for throwing me into walls, calling me fat and threatening to kill every guy who so much as looked at me. It was another entirely when a stranger called me on it.
So there I was with Rob. We weren't having sex. We weren't even making out, yet. We were talking. About our families.
"What about your dad?" he asked. "You haven't mentioned him once."
I hated that question. It's a normal question, a question anyone would ask. The question was simple. The answer was not.
"Hey," he said, taking my hand. "Did I say something wrong?"
"It's just that," I began. "It's just… my dad is dead."
He asked me how. Car accident. He asked me when. When I was two years old. He said he was sorry. I thanked him. He kissed me. I let him.
It was a lie, of course. As soon as I said it, I had a moment of panic. Like, what if I found out that my father actually did die in a car accident, that day. Would it be my fault? Would the fact that I said it make it happen? The same way you never want to tell the principal that no, you weren't skipping school. Your grandmother died. Whenever I lied and said I was sick, I actually got sick. I didn't want to take that same chance with someone else's health.
The truth, or what I'd been able to cobble together to form a truth, was that my parents had gotten divorced when I was too young to remember and I hadn't heard from my father since. When I told people the truth, I usually started by explaining that my parents were divorced, which didn't explain why the only thing I knew about my father was his first and last name. I mean, divorced dads are supposed to pick you up on the weekend and take you out for ice cream. They're supposed to take you to baseball games and buy you enough stadium food to make you sick. They're supposed to let you take "just a sip" of their beer and warn you not to tell your mother. They're not supposed to just walk away.
I didn't tell Heather #1 about the lie. I didn't tell anyone about it. But I liked the lie. I spent that whole summer lying my face off to everyone I met. Cancer. Suicide. Motorcycle accident. Shark attack. Every time, the death was different. Being The Girl with the Dead Dad was much more fun than being The Girl with the Deadbeat Dad.
While Heather #1 and I walked along the beach and traded date stories, we saw a presumably homeless guy lugging a bag full of cans and bottles behind him.
"Hey," Heather #1 said, "Isn't that your dad?"
It was an old joke, but I still laughed. This time, though, I wasn't thinking about how much it hurt. I was thinking, "Nope. My dad's dead."
