The Girl with the Mermaid Hair Read Online Free Page A

ate here?”
    “No,” said Sukie.
    “Where should we say we ate?”
    “At home. You cooked.”
    “What did I make?” he asked.
    “Tuna sandwiches.”
    “Great. I like that.”
    Sukie shook her head, letting her hair fluff out and settle. She did that when she felt especially good, as she did right now talking to her dad in a grown-up way, which gave her a momentary break from her agitation about Bobo and the sense, based on nothing except the security of being with her dad, that Bobo would texther. Any minute now. He’d probably been at football practice.
    “She drives me a little crazy,” said her dad.
    “Me too,” said Sukie.
    Her dad took out his money clip, refolded his bills, and clipped them again. He always did that when he was thinking.
    “Maybe it will calm her down.”
    “What?” said Sukie. “The spa?”
    He opened the door to Clementi’s. “After you, Your Gorgeousness.”
    Sukie loved walking into restaurants with her dad, because people glanced up and got stuck. Yes, up they glanced and then couldn’t tear their eyes away from Sukie’s tall, handsome dad, who oozed confidence. Sukie knew she was pretty striking too. A few of the lingering looks were directed at her. She imagined what people were thinking. “What perfect father-daughter specimens.” No. Something less scientific. Exactly what escaped her.
    Isabella, the hostess, escorted them to a booth (never a table) and personally served Sukie’s dad his usual, Bombay on the rocks with a twist, checking with Sukie and Mikey about their orders. “Diet Cokeand Seven Up, right?”
    “And three glasses of tap,” her dad added, which was the way he always ordered water.
    Isabella even set up the little pizza stand. That was what they always had, the margherita.
    “Move over, buddy,” her dad told Mikey so Isabella could join them for a minute. Issy had studied film at the New School in New York City and was working at Clementi’s while she considered her options. “I found a water bug in my kitchen as big as this.” She pointed to a dinner roll in the bread basket.
    “Next time you’ve got a bug to kiss,” said Sukie’s dad, “call Mikey.”
    “Me?” said Mikey. “I’m not kissing a bug.”
    “Did I say kiss? I meant kill.”
    “I’m not killing one either,” said Mikey.
    Everyone laughed, even the people in the booth behind them.
    “Do you like pepperoni?” Her dad addressed the table across the way. “I don’t know. I don’t get it.”
    “Me either,” said the wife. “See, I’m not the only one.” She punched her husband in the arm.
    The husband pretended to be injured and then offered Sukie’s dad some pickled peppers. Sukie’s dadtried one and passed them on to the booth behind, and pretty soon he had all three tables in a three-way conversation about pizza toppings.
    Sukie loved to watch her dad operate. That’s what he called it. Once at Cones, when he’d offered to pay for a woman’s sprinkles (a woman they’d never met before), the woman said to Sukie, “Your father makes everything more fun, doesn’t he?” As soon as they’d left the store, she reported the compliment to her dad, and he whispered (so her mom and Mikey couldn’t hear), “I’m a real operator.” Clearly this was information he could entrust only to Sukie.
    Being a towering six feet four inches, he cocked his head down to listen, smiling as people told him stuff, as if their confidences cheered his heart. “Love it,” he said sometimes for no reason that Sukie could figure, simply because he was enjoying himself. “How’s your back, any better?” “What’d you do about the bee infestation?” “Did you quit your job?” “Still scuba diving?” Warren Jamieson remembered what people told him weeks, even months earlier.
    “How’s Richie?” he asked.
    Isabella sighed, “I may give up men.”
    “Already?” said her dad.
    “I’m twenty-two.”
    “What happened?” asked Sukie.
    “Oh, I don’t know. You