Me and Mr. Plumb

Ok, so how many teenage girls would WILLINGLY choose to cruise around town with their fathers? I'm betting not many.

So when daddy proposed going to eat at the local bistro place -- just the two of us -- I think I might have squealed like a two year old.

I should have known it was a ruse. I would get my car back... if I agreed to go with him.

When he dangled the keys in front of me, I could have jumped for joy, literally.

When we got there, he ordered piles of my favorite food -- sushi -- and I ate, literally, until I couldn't eat anymore. I decided I needed to try to walk some of it off.

"You know, Savannah, I got you your car back for a reason. I'm real proud of the way you've picked your grades up (I'm at a B average now) and your boss at work says you're a model employee."
"O...k..."
"That isn't the reason I did this tonight. I wanted to know how you felt about your brother's wedding, and I didn't want you to feel left out."
So then I decided to come out with it. I couldn't hold it on my tongue much longer. "Dad-"
"Yeah?"
"How come you and Mom haven't gotten married yet?"
Actually I think I already know the answer, but a part of me wanted to hear it from his lips. Dad didn't have the reaction I thought he would. He burst out in laughter.
"I mean, you're practically married now, have been for awhile now."
"Well, it is true," dad said, "that I've been with your mother longer than I've been with anyone else --" I could tell that, for the first time, he was feeling just a little bit uncomfortable. I couldn't quite decipher what it meant.

We continued our conversation in the car ride home. Dad, for all his professed flamboyance and ebullience, is a remarkably reticent man; it's a quality he inherited from his own father and generations of Plumb men back in England and Ireland (Aunt Margaret traced the clan back about ten generations, more on that later); and it's a quality my grandmother doubtless noticed back when he was a teenager.


When we got home, we went our separate ways -- dad to the telescope on the balcony (which I do believe is his, BTW) and me...


...down to his basement, his sanctuary. Why?

Seeing him with the telescope gave me an idea for my assignment.