Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father) Read Online Free

heard you were back. But the receptionist said a lady came by to see me and the lady part threw me.”
    Sarah laughed. Same old raucous laugh, somewhere between an engine starting and a gaggle of geese.
    “I ran into your mother in the cafeteria last week,” he said. “Almost literally. You know Rose, a hundred miles a minute. She said you were coming back. She seemed surprised that I didn’t know, but I reminded her that keeping in touch was never one of your priorities.”
    “Yeah, well…you know.”
    “Listen, before anything else, I’m so sorry about—Ted…”
    “Thanks. Me, too.”
    Something in her voice warned him to move on. “I want to see you,” he said. “Soon. Now . Oh, no, I can’t…when are you available? What are your plans?” He could see Lucy in his peripheral vision; the wooden spoon in one hand had gone very still. “My daughter’s here with me,” he said. “Lucy. Fourteen going on thirty and about to set the theater world on fire.” Lucy flashed him a look over her shoulder and he winked at her. “And you didn’t hear this from me,” he stage-whispered, “but she’s a dead ringer for a young Elizabeth Taylor.”
    “She looks like her mother then,” Sarah said.
    An almost imperceptible change in her voice reminded him of the last time they’d exchanged anything more than polite formalities and he found himself at a loss for words. “Very much.”
    “Don’t you owe me a Frugal burger?” Sarah asked.
    “Frugals.” Smiling now, he leaned back against the wall. “Haven’t eaten one of those in years. I’m of the age where I have to think about cholesterol.”
    “We both are,” Sarah said. “But you still owe me a Frugals.”
    “Hold on.” He glanced at the calendar above the phone. “How about…tonight?”
    “Dress rehearsal, Daddy,” Lucy said. “Remember? You promised.”
    “Okay, tonight won’t work.” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m on call tomorrow night, but if we keep our fingers crossed that no one gets creamed on the 101 or mistakes their significant other for a shooting range, I could pay off my debt to you.”
    “Great,” Sarah said. “What time?”
    “Around six? I’ll pick you up.” He thought for a minute. “Guess I need to know where you’re staying. Your mother’s?”
    “Actually, I just rented an apartment,” Sarah said. “Yesterday. At the foot of Peabody, just above Front Street. The Seavu. I was walking back to my mother’s, saw the For Rent sign, called the landlord and moved right in. I’m still bringing boxes over from my mother’s.”
    He mentally located the place, a rambling multistory wooden building with fire escapes running up the sides and seagull droppings on the front steps.
    “You don’t mean the old hospital?”
    “Yep. I always wanted to live there. Especially after it became a place for shady ladies. Kind of appeals to the outcast in me.”
    He was still laughing when he hung up the phone.
    “That wasn’t very nice of you, Daddy,” Lucy said, her back to him.
    “What wasn’t very nice?”
    “What you said about people getting into accidents and getting shot at.”
    “Oh, honey,” he said, still thinking about Sarah, “it was just a joke.”
    “People dying is just a joke?”
    “Give me a break, Lulu,” he said. “How’re the cookies coming?”
    “They’re not.” She carried the pan to the sink. “Who was that, anyway?”
    “I CAN ’ T BELIEVE that out of all the places in Port Hamilton, you actually chose this,” Rose said when she dropped by to see the apartment. She stood in the middle of the tiny living room, gazing out through the window. “Nice view, though.”
    “Isn’t it?” Sarah stood beside her mother. Windows on this side looked out over the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the distant coast of British Columbia. From the bedroom, she could see the soaring Olympic Mountains, still covered with snow as they would be for much of the year. “Last night I watched the