On an Edge of Glass

me.  He swallows me in our traditional hug. 
    He’s wearing a navy blue sport coat dabbed with gold buttons and a small checked pocket square.  His khaki pants have stiff creases down the front, and he’s got on a shiny brown belt and matching loafers.  This is my father in uber-casual mode. 
                  We have the same untamed hair and milky skin dotted with sunny freckles.  Mark told me once that my father and I are like a walking, talking advertisement for Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger.  My mother is darker—the planes of her face stronger and more impressive.  The only traits she passed on to me are her lean, willowy frame, and allergy to shellfish.
                  I watch Ben rise from the armchair.  He’s obviously been chatting up my dad while I’ve been getting ready.  The idea frightens me as much as it excites me. 
    Ben’ s hair is mostly dried off by now, and, thankfully, he’s wearing clothes.  I don’t think I could handle my father and a shirtless Ben Hamilton at the same time. 
    A quick glance around the room proves that there’s no use in pretending that a party did not happen here last night.  All the surfaces of the house are littered with plastic cups and metal bottle tops and wadded up papers.  Ainsley’s friend Laurie is curled in a ball, fast asleep in the corner.  A steady stream of drool is running down the side of her face.
    Payton is in the kitchen, her back nestled between the refrigerator and the wall and she’s got a bag of frozen peas balanced on her upturned forehead.  When I ask if she’s okay, she moans and skulks back to her bedroom.
    There’s an open pizza box in the middle of the living room floor and a pair of white women’s underwear sprawled over the back of an armchair.  A busted piñata dangles from the slowly circling fan.
                  “Fun night?”  Dad chimes, a little too brightly. 
     
     
    Somehow, Ben is in the car going to lunch with my father and me.  I’m listening from the backseat as my dad asks him about his band and which orchestra he’d like to play for next year and whether or not he writes any original music.  Ben is talking animatedly and my dad is laughing, and nodding, and acting like a normal human. 
    What the hell?
    An hour earlier if you asked me how my father would react upon learning that his one and only daughter is living in the same house as some guitar-playing man with long hair, I would have told you that aggrieved would be a muted version of his reaction. 
    But dad barely hesitated.  He slapped Ben on the shoulder and said some malarkey about not having to worry about us girls so much. 
    Say what?  
    And now they’re exchanging opinions of classic rock albums.  Honestly.  It’s like I passed out last night, and woke up this morning in an alternate universe or something. 
    The restaurant we pull up to is the one that my parents choose every time that they visit.  It’s posh and quiet save for the delicate tinkling of silverware on plates and glass. 
    Everything is shaped like a crescent moon—the sloping walls, the tables and booths, the suspended pendant lights, and the logo etched into the frosted glass of the door.  
    The hostess is standing behind a high desk by the front door, jotting something down in a large book.  She has her long coppery hair twisted in a side braid that hangs down over her shoulder.  When she sees us walk through the door, her already lively face lights up even more.  She skips around to the front of the desk and swings her arms around Ben’s neck.  Gently pulling back from the hug, he smirks down at her and whispers something in her ear.  She tilts her head, laughs, and bats her eyelashes.  Meanwhile, my father and I are hanging back in the corner like a pair of old shoes. 
    “So, you two know each other?”  I ask as we slip into the curved dark leather booth—Ben and me on one side, dad on the other. 
    “Hmmm?”  He lifts his eyebrows then turns his attention to the menu.
    “You and the hostess?”  I don’t mention the shooting pain that’s clawing through my gut.  And I don’t ask the thing that I’m thinking: what’s with you and all these girls?  Lily, the angel girl, the hostess…  Because the answer is probably exactly what I think it is.
    Ben barely looks up from the menu.  “Uh, yeah… we have a few classes together and we played in the same section last year.  Julie’s