***
Tanissa saw her suitcase come out of
the machine. “Can I come here and work
with you?” She’d seen the inner workings
of the luggage department, the conveyor belots, the baggage handlers, the
walkie talkies . . . it was kind of great, actually.
“Sorry, baby, but I can’t. Supervisor’s gotta, I don’t know, obey the
rules more than everybody else.”
“So, what do I do?”
“First do not tell your mother. She’s
mad at me already.”
“Why is she mad at--”
“Please, Tanissa, don’t tell
her. I’m off at five, which means by
five-thirty, I’m all yours.”
“Okay. Don’t worry.”
Tanissa liked her dad more than her mother, so it was easy to agree
to.
She grabbed her suitcase as it
slowly passed in front of her. Dad took
her suitcase from her without a word and steered her toward the exit.
“Second?”
“What?” he asked.
“What’s second?”
“I don’t remember. But you can watch TV, hang out, read a book,
sleep, for three days. The rest of the
time, we’ll hit the town, eat ice cream, go do laser tag, see scary movies,
whatever.”
“Can we go to the beach?” The ocean was only a few minutes away; she’d
seen it from the plane.
“Sure,” he said, then, “I thought
you didn’t swim.”
“Nobody swims at the beach, Dad.”
He didn’t know what that meant, but
simply nodded, and reminded her to send her mother a text to let her know she
had landed alright. “And don’t mention
the other thing.”
“I won’t.”
“Oh,” he remembered, “there might be
a couple of girls in the complex you can play with. I don’t know.”
“Alright,” she told him. “But let’s hit the gift shop. I’ll get a big, boring new book.”
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