Daddy’s Girl
Pia had black hair with dyed streaks of red and blond. Daddy’s little girl, she wore baggy overalls and baby-tees most of the time. She had dark blue eyes and pale, freckled skin. In the afternoons she went swimming out back in the family pool, but she didn’t quite feel like swimming today. Instead she sat in the kitchen watching the ice cubes melt in a tall glass of orange juice. 
It was four o’clock when her mother walked in. Sometimes Pia called her Carol but mostly she called her Mom. Mom was of average height for a lady, but with heels she was as tall as most of the men she worked with. She was an imposing woman. Some of it came from her broad shoulders but it was mostly the face, angular and absent of emotion. Pia’s mother had become a junior partner in her law firm nearly a year ago. It made up for her father’s financial shortcomings. Unemployed mechanics don’t make very much money. 
Carol peeled off her overcoat and laid it on a stool. She strolled past Pia to the fridge and poured a half glass of orange juice from the jug. Carol sighed and filled the rest of her glass with vodka and ice.
“Mom.” Carol spun around, her earrings flashed in the sunlight. 
“Oh hi dear, how are you?” There was surprise in her voice, as if she hadn’t even noticed her daughter was there. “How was school? Gosh you look so cute with your hair colored that way!”
Pia started to respond but her mother cut in before she could get a word out. “You know we should go out this weekend and get you a new pair of jeans. You do need a new pair you know. How about shoes? We should get you some shoes. I know a place--”
“Mom.”
“I know. I know you don’t want your mother to take you shopping. I was just like that when I was young you know. Your father was too. He says you get your independence from him. I think it comes from me. What do you think dear?”
“Carol!” Pia slapped her hand on the table as hard as she could. Carol jumped back. “What?! What’s the matter? Why are you yelling like that?” She took a long sip of her drink.
“Mom, I need to talk to you.”
“Honey we are talking aren’t we?”
“No, you’re ranting, and I’m listening. We need to talk. There are some things I need to tell you about me. About dad too.”
“What did your father do this time? He was drinking again wasn’t he? Drinking and driving. I swear, if he wrecked that new car—“
“No Mom, it’s not that at all. Dad doesn’t drive drunk. He’s smarter than that. Besides, he used to be part of a racecar crew remember? The only way he’d ever get into an accident if his car was out of whack.” Pia twisted the glass in her hands as she spoke. She watched how the ice cubes held their ground, no matter how many times she turned the glass completely around. She never took her eyes off that glass.
“Oh, I guess your right. Of course he wouldn’t drive drunk, it’s ridiculous of me to think that he would. So what’s wrong with him then?”
“It’s me. I had my period.” And then she added, “Finally.”
Carol sucked in a huge breath, “Oh honey!” She set down her drink and cupped Pia’s head in her hands and pulled her daughter against her chest. Pia wriggled slightly in her mother’s grasp. Being held by her was unusual; alien.
“There’s so much we have to do. We have to get you pads. I have to tell the ladies at work…” Carol rubbed her daughter’s neck softly with the pads of her fingers. Suddenly she stopped. There was a smudge of something there. Something wet. She wiped it off with her fingers and then looked at it. It was an oily substance, thin and dark red. 
“What’s this?”
	Pia ignored the question. She stepped out of her mom’s grasp and retrieved her orange juice from the countertop. Pia took a long drink and swallowed hard. Ice cubes clattered noisily in the empty glass.  “I thought that there might have been something wrong with me, but I didn’t know how to ask you about it.”
	“Ask me about what, Pia?” She rubbed her fingers together and sniffed the substance. “Is this blood? Honey what is blood doing on your neck?!”
	“Mom, no it’s not blood calm down. It’s probably grease.”
	“What would you being doing with that?” Carol wiped her hand off on a towel. “Were you working on the car again?”
‘The car’ was a broken down 79’ corvette. It was her thirteenth birthday present. Pia’s dad had bought the car from a buddy he used to race with years ago. Pia and her dad had spent the last year working on it, ordering parts and piecing it back together late at nights and on the weekends when her mom was out of town. They had expected to have it up and running by her fifteenth birthday, but Pia hadn’t touched that car in months. 	
	“Pia, are you listening to me at all?”
	“Yeah, I mean yes, mom, I was listening. 
	“Well, I asked you why you haven’t said anything about your period to me before now.”
Pia frowned, “Because I know you’re busy working all the time and I know how hard things have been between you and dad lately. I just didn’t want to be the one to mess anything up.”
Carol shook her head and took a gulp of her own drink, “Pia dear, the problems between your father and I have nothing to do with you. It’s just something that happens to people when they get older. When you’ve been around someone for as long as I have dear, you get a feel for how they work.” 
	“What do you mean?” Pia stepped back slowly.
	“I mean you know when someone is doing something that they aren’t supposed to do.”
	“Mom…I—“
	“I know.  No matter what that man says, I know that he’s gone out and found himself a younger, faster…” Carol cleared her throat. “You don’t need to be hearing all of this anyway. You have your own problems to worry about. We have to set you up an appointment with my gynecologist, and—“
	“I didn’t think it would come.” Pia’s voice was on the edge of tears.
	“Of course it would honey, some girls just bloom later than others.”
	“That’s not what I mean. I mean… Dad…” Her mouth open and closed several times but no more words would come out.
	“Oh honey,” Carol moved in to hug her daughter again. Pia let her. She buried her head in her mother’s arms. “You were just a bit late that’s all. Nothing to worry about now. My little girl is growing up.”
	“I’m already grown up Mom. I’m in high school now and—“
	“And nothing! You’ll always be little to me. My and daddy’s little girl. Now give mom a big smile.”
	She obliged, “And don’t worry about your father and me. Everything will work itself out in the end. He’ll get over his little fling and we’ll all go back to our normal lives.”
Carol pulled her hand away from her daughters back. It was covered in more of the red substance. “This grease is all over you, what have you been doing?”
Pia’s smile wore thin.
“All the things that man could have chosen to teach you and he decides to show you how to rebuild a car. I mean, look at you! Grease, fluid, whatever it is it’s all over the back of your pants, were you lying in it or something? Really, those stains will never come out.” Carol dabbed at the back of her daughters overalls with a napkin. 
“Mom, there’s something else I need to tell you…”
“Oh Pia, haven’t we had enough surprises for one day? Let’s celebrate. I just settled out of the Nielsen case today. The settlement was better than any of us could have hoped for. So, I’m taking you and your father out to dinner. Wherever you want to go.”
“Do you still love him Mom? Do you really?”
Carol sighed. She set down her drink and put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “I know he’s made mistakes and he’s been a putz to the both of us every now and then, but he is the man I married, and the man that helped bring you into this world. Yes. Only God knows why, but I still do love your father very much.” Carol paused and looked around. “Where is your father?”
“He isn’t coming home.” 
“What? Is he subbing for somebody at a race or something? What did he say?” Pia didn’t answer. Carol shook her head angrily, “I don’t believe this. I know where he is. He’s at some cheap motel with his—“
The phone screamed from across the room. Pia jumped back so startled that she knocked her mother’s glass over.
“I’ll get that honey, don’t you worry about it. Are you ok?”
	“Mom…I’m sorry Mom, I never wanted to...” Pia’s voice cracked.
“For what honey? The glass? Honey?” Tears cut dirty valleys across her daughters face. The phone screeched again.
	“I’m coming already!” Carol shook her head and started across the room towards the wall phone. It screeched a third time before she pulled off her earring and lifted the receiver to her ear. 
	“Hello, Brandt residence. Yes, this is Mrs. Brandt speaking… Accident? What do you mean there’s been an accident?”