Daddy Knows Best

I’m worried about a friend of mine. Actually, I’m worried about his daughters. One is fifteen, the other, twelve; nice girls, smiling, innocent, yet I’ve begun to worry that their father deploys parenting techniques that are – how should I put this? – heterodox.

It all began in the summer of 2009. We live in a small New England city, home to a famous art school and an Ivy League university. The local newspaper announced that an attractive young movie star, known to millions of children for her portrayal of an apprentice witch in a famous English film series about a school for wizards, was going to attend our university in the fall. My friend’s daughters were overjoyed, hoping that they might one day catch a glimpse of her.

My friend proclaimed that he would make that happen. To that end, on a hot September afternoon at the beginning of term, he told his girls that they were to walk through the campus and see if they couldn’t spot her. They squealed with delight.

Did I say it was a hot day? As anyone who has ever been on an American campus in fine weather is aware, such meteorological conditions immediately cause a physiological phenomenon known by specialists of exhibitionist psychology as the Mass Garage Sale Erotic (MGSE), wherein scores of unbuttoned and unlaced biomasses loll about on the grass seeking to tan hitherto inaccessible recesses of flesh in the most public manner imaginable. The mean age of an MGSE participant is 21 years, 3 months.

As they passed through the fine wrought-iron gates and entered the quad, my friend said to his daughters, in a strangled voice they had never heard from him before, “Remember, Daddy used to interview lots of famous people, so he knows that movie stars don’t look the same in real life. She could be anywhere.” He gestured to the college green before them, its acres of verdant lawn strewn with recumbent MGSE practitioners, as if a blizzard had passed through and left hundreds of sculpted, shapely drifts on the grass.

His daughters, as instructed, led him through the green. Daddy had told them that his eyesight was failing, so he would have to rely on them. And, remember, to be a movie star, you have to be really really pretty.

They picked their way slowly through the sunshine. Every now and then they halted before someone, just to make sure she wasn’t the actress they sought. It was important to look very carefully, girls…

Most of those subject to such close scrutiny eventually sat bolt upright, a look of disgust crossing their faces as they saw the rheumy eyes of a vacationing Santa upon them, then broke into a smile once they spotted the girls on either side of him. The iPhone to call the campus police was dropped in the backpack as a warm feeling suffused them: Awwww, how cute, I remember what it was like to be a little girl…

The day drew on, but no actress appeared. He sensed that his girls’ disappointment matched his satisfaction. Then, at a distance, he spotted Aphrodite beneath an elm tree.

“That must be her.”

“Daddy, she’s black.”

“Could be a disguise.”

Miss Brazil put down her heavy book, sat up and adjusted her many adjustables. Her face broke into a wide grin. It was different from the awwww smiles of the others.

“When I was a little girl,” she said, “My father used to walk with me on the beach and do the same thing. I was supposed to ask them if they had any lip balm, ’cause Daddy had forgotten it at home.”

My friend laughed softly at the memory. “The beach… lip balm… genius… pure genius…” His voice trailed off, he closed his eyes.

There was an awkward pause. We were in his apartment, sitting on a sofa, under the portrait of a young woman he called “The Etruscan Babe-a-licious.”

In front of us, on the coffee table, lay open the book we had been examining, “Ophelia Unplugged: The Unpublished Sketches of the Pre-Raphaelites.” I was beginning to understand my friend better.

Or so I thought.

The unmistakable scent of vodka filled the room. His fifteen-year-old daughter stood before us, a full martini glass in hand. She placed it on the table.

“See if the three o’clock is better than the two o’clock,” she said expectantly.

He took a sip.

“The grain juice could be a little colder, honey. Try to get it right for the four o’clock.”

She frowned.

“That’s all right, darling. Now make one for him,” he said, turning to me. “You’d like one with juniper juice, right?”

Intrigued, I followed her into the kitchen. On the counter a well-thumbed volume: “Teenage Bartending for Dummies.” In a corner, covered in dust, an AP Chemistry textbook, a World History textbook, and several school notebooks. She had her back to them, hunched over her task, pitting olives.

I rushed back into the living room. “For the love of God, Montresor!” I exclaimed, “She’s just a child!”

He shrugged, lifted a dainty spoon to a nostril and snorted a pinch of snuff.

I turned away, appalled. What was his other girl doing, stomping grapes in the basement?

I looked around. Where was his other daughter?

“At her sewing lesson,” he explained. His fleshy, degenerate lips creased into what I was meant to take as a smile. It made me queasy.

The twelve-year-old was taking a six-month course, 15 hours a day, six days a week, in the unventilated premises of the Providence Perspiration Shop, a vocational finishing school in the fine old tradition of New England manufacturing.

“Her sister packs her a knish for the three-minute lunch break,” he said in answer to a question unposed.

“Good heavens, man!” I shouted. “What about her field hockey? Her fencing? Why on earth should the poor thing learn to be a seamstress?!”

He rose, the hem of his scarlet silk dressing gown tickling a naked Ophelia on the coffee table as he crossed the room to a tall bookcase. He took out a large flat volume, of the format customarily used for fine-art books about the Trump properties.

“You know, I’ve handed in my manuscript,” he said absently, prising open the glossy pages.

My heart sank. No doubt the tiresome fellow was about to launch into another of his long speeches about his latest book, some incense-and-mirrors rumination on the medicinal properties of mead or the best jousting techniques or some other surefire bestseller topic.

To my relief, he said only, “I shall need a seamstress.”

I now saw the book’s cover: “Ecclesiastical Fashions of the High Middle Ages.”

He spoke softly to himself as he turned the pages: “Curate… abbot… bishop… cardinal…” His eyes widened, his breathing became labored. “Pope!” he whispered, “Pope… pope…”

I cleared my throat, loudly, as if entering the rectory of a Catholic church and thereby announcing my presence so that whatever was going on inside would stop.

“This will be my daughter’s first commission,” my friend said, opening wide the book. A double-spread centerfold showed a handsome man reclining, playmate-style, although his entire frame was covered with a cowled white robe, set off with a jet-black scapular.

“Dominican?” I ventured.

“Mmmm.”

“Inquisitor?”

“Grand Inquisitor.”

That was when I noticed the entire ensemble was trimmed with fur.

“Ermine?”

“Sable.”

“But you can’t possibly afford that, my good man! You’ll be a bankrupt!”

He raised a finger, trained his red eyes on mine.

“I know, I know. So I have bowed to the inevitable.” He retreated through a doorway and returned clutching what appeared to be a half-dozen fur stoles.

“Synthetic. Faux-fur boas. They’re for dress-up parties.” He smiled, with easy family-man condescension. “Found them in the tween section of Toys R Us.”

I nodded, impressed.

“Warwick?”

“No, no, noooo,” he tut-tutted. “Attleboro. Just past the Wendy’s.”

“But won’t your daughter… won’t your tween daughter… the seamstress… won’t she want them for herself?”

He stopped short. His mouth fell open. Clearly, the thought had never occurred to him.

The monster.

A girl’s voice wafted in from the kitchen. “Daddy… daddy… we seem to be out of juniper juice. I… I… can’t find any…” Her voice faltered, apprehensive.

My friend recovered himself. He glanced at his watch.

“On your bike, then,” he called out. “Mick’ll still be there. Get a bottle of Gordon’s. Tell him to put it on the tab.”

“Your tab?”

“No, your tab, sweetheart. What do you think your allowance is for? Candy?”

The door closed behind her.

“Kids these days!” he chuckled.

Despite his entreaties, I left shortly thereafter, wondering if my worries had any foundation to them. There are, after all, so very many different ways of growing up. Who was I to say?

I spent the next day in my rooms, lost in thought, the blinds drawn, torturing my canary.

Who was I to say?