Chapter 7
Knock, knock.
Victoria looked up towards the door. "Come in."
The door swung open, revealing her father. He stepeed in quietly and stood at the edge of Victoria's bed. She was reading Esperanza Rising and was not thrilled about being interruppted. But she hid her frustration. Her father was going through a hard time, and so was she. Mother was still in the hospital after her sudden heart attack. The doctors were trying to figure out what had gone wrong, what had caused her heart to suddenly act disobediently. Meanwhile, Victoria and her father returned home, both reluctant to do so. Victoria wasn't in the mood for dance (a new experience for her), so she had decided to relax her mind with reading, leaving her father on the couch staring down at a newspaper in his lap, but she knew he wasn't reading the words at all. Now that Victoria thought about it, leaving her dad all alone didn't seem like a good idea. Guilt started to fill her.
"I want to talk to you." Her dad looked down at Victoria seriously. She closed her book and set it aside. "Does it have anything to do with Mrs. Fonteyn?"
He chuckled nervously, denying it.
Yeah, right, Victoria thought. She had seen them talking a bit... agitated, for her taste. But she pushed the thought aside. Who didn't trust their dad?
"Anyways," he shifted his weight onto his left foot, "I was thinking whether or not you'd like to go out for dinner tonight. We haven't, um, spent any time together for a while."
Victoria stared at her father. Did he really just suggest that? The idea wasn't what she'd had in mind. Victoria thought hard, but couldn't recall a time when her father had suggested that they do something together. "What about Mom?"
A nervous look appeared on his face. What about his wife? It wasn't like he could go on with his life and pretend that nothing had ever happened, taking some other woman's advice... "W-we'll check on her after dinner. Is that alright?" That didn't seem very adult-like, he scolded himself. Asking his daughter for permission as if she were his mother! Disgraceful. He desperately needed to get this parenting thing down, but it was obviously going to take a while.
He glanced at the snowman-shaped clock hanging on the wall. "It's getting late. We should go."
"Um... okay." Victoria slid off the bed uneasily. It certainly felt weird to have her father asking her to do things. Usually she had always planned ahead and completed all sorts of chores around the house--anything from washing the windows to mowing the lawn. "Where are we going?" she asked as she pulled out a light jacket from her closet.
"We'll be going to a friend of mine's. She makes the best food." Her dad opened the door, walking out. "I'll meet you in the car."
Just what was her dad up to? Victoria wondered. The day had been eventful enough, what with her mom being sent to the hospital and all. Now, her father wanted to take her out for dinner to a "friend of his" that she had never even heard about.
Splendid. Just splendid.
Their car pulled into the driveway of a small house twenty minutes later. Victoria climbed out and slammed the door shut behind her.
Through the last bits of the evening sun (it had gotten quite late), Victoria could see a neatly tended lawn strewn with pansies. A huge pine tree lumbered over them. As she and her father climbed the front steps, she spotted a rose plant crawling up the bricks of the house. The smell of clam chowder soup wafted out of a nearby window. Victoria's stomach grumbled. She didn't realized that she'd been so hungry.
