Empire Falls

boy, that John.”
    Miles nodded agreement, though he had no idea whether or not this might be true.
    “You think Tick will be finished in time for a nine-thirty movie?” the girl wondered.
    “I’ll do what I can,” Miles said, and was surprised when this casual assurance elicited a smile that was out of all proportion to the circumstance. Miles recognized it immediately as the same smile Cindy Whiting, at her age, had offered in response to even the smallest kindness. The kind that bespoke a miserable existence.
    “Too bad John can’t come, huh, Candace?” said a skinny boy Miles vaguely recognized.
    “Cut it out!” the girl yelled, loud enough for everyone in the restaurant to turn and look.
    “Hey,” Miles said, and he was about to add that yelling wasn’t permitted in the restaurant when he saw that the girl’s eyes had instantly filled with tears. My God, he couldn’t help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about—acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind.
    “Okay, Mr. Roby,” Zack Minty said. “Tell Tick not to worry. We’ll stop back by for her. And thanks for the refill offer.”
    When they were gone, Miles set the booth for five, seated the only party of that size in the foyer, and added the names of three more parties to the waiting list. It was an hour before things slowed down enough that he could go into the back room.
    “Your friends said they’d be back,” he told his daughter.
    Tick’s eyes flickered before she could turn away to open the Hobart and extract the plastic tray of steaming glasses. “Okay.”
    Joining her at the drainboard, Miles selected a few glasses at random to hold up to the light. They weren’t as bad as he’d feared, but many of them had tiny, hardened nodes of calcified soap on the outside, which Miles flicked away with his fingernail.
    Taking off his outer shirt, he hung it on a peg by the swinging door and grabbed the ice pick from the top of the Hobart, where it was kept for the more or less constant adjustments the fussy old machine required. When its spray jets clogged—the most consistent problem—the glasses didn’t rinse cleanly, and the ice pick worked as well as anything for unclogging them.
    “I thought you gave Zack Minty his walking papers last spring,” Miles said, his head inside the machine, which made his voice sound hollow.
    When Tick didn’t reply, he turned to look and saw her shrug. “What’s that mean?”
    “What?”
    “That shrug.” He knew perfectly well, of course. It meant that this was none of his business.
    “Nothing,” she said. Further confirmation, if any were needed.
    Miles stuck his head back into the Hobart. Several jets were indeed clogged, and it took about five minutes to do a half-assed job of cleaning them out, good enough to get them through until tomorrow and a more thorough cleaning. By the time he’d put in a new load of dirty dishes, his daughter’s eyes were full and her body and head had bowed, as if under some great invisible weight.
    “Oh, darlin’,” he said, drawing her toward him, as much as she’d allow. “It’s okay.”
    “I know how much you hate him,” she sniffled into his chest.
    “That’s not true,” Miles said. “He’s just a boy. What I do hate is the idea that you’re afraid to tell me things.”
    “There isn’t anything to tell,” she said, pulling away, still not meeting his eye, sullen. “We’re just hanging out. The whole gang. Not just me and Zack.”
    “I gather that was Candace out there?”
    “Was she wearing a unicorn shirt?”
    Miles said she was. “I think she’s got a crush on Zack too.”
    “What do you mean, too ? I don’t have a crush on him.”
    “Okay,” Miles said, still uncomfortable with the whole arrangement, but figuring he’d questioned her about as much as he could. “It’s up to you. You aren’t a kid anymore.” Though she was. Okay, more than a kid, maybe. A kid with adult intelligence and maybe even some adult experience, brighter and more trustworthy and responsible and grown-up than most kids her age, but still a kid, Miles knew. He only had to look at her to know that. And not just any kid, either —his kid. His, far more than Janine’s, never mind what the court said. His kid to adore and to protect for a while