A Nearly Normal Family(2)

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One Friday in August, Stella turned eighteen—I had booked a table at our favorite restaurant. Italy and Italian cuisine have always been close to our hearts, and there’s a little place in the V?ster neighborhood that serves divine pasta and pizza. I was looking forward to a quiet, cozy evening with my family.

“Una tavola per tre,” I said to a waitress with deer eyes and a pierced nose. “Adam Sandell. I have a reservation for eight o’clock.”

She looked around anxiously.

“One second,” she said, walking off through the busy restaurant.

Ulrika and Stella turned to me as the waitress fussed at her colleagues, gesturing and making faces.

It turned out that whoever had accepted my reservation had accidentally written it down for Thursday.

“We thought you were coming yesterday,” the waitress said, scratching the back of her neck with her pen. “But we’ll figure it out. Give us five minutes.”

Another party had to get up while the staff dragged an extra table into the dining room. Ulrika, Stella, and I stood in the middle of the crowded restaurant, trying to pretend we didn’t notice the annoyed glances shooting our way from every direction. I almost wanted to speak up, point out that it wasn’t our fault—it was the restaurant’s mistake.

When our table was finally ready, I hurried to hide my face behind my menu.

“Apologies, apologies,” said a man with a gray beard, presumably the owner. “We’ll make it up to you, of course. Dessert is on the house.”

“It’s no problem,” I assured him. “We’re all only human.”

The waitress scribbled our drink order on her pad.

“A glass of red wine?” Stella said.

She looked at me for permission. I turned to Ulrika.

“It’s a special day,” my wife said.

So I nodded at the waitress.

“A glass of red for the birthday girl.”

After the meal, Ulrika handed Stella a card with a Josef Frank pattern.

“A map?”

I smiled mischievously.

We followed Stella out of the restaurant and around the corner. I had parked her present there that afternoon.

“But Dad, I told you … it’s too expensive!”

She brought her hands to her face, gaping.

It was a pink Vespa Piaggio. We’d looked at a similar one online a few weeks earlier and, sure, it was expensive, but in the end I had convinced Ulrika we ought to buy it.

Stella shook her head and sighed.

“Why won’t you ever listen to me, Dad?”

I held up one hand and smiled.

“A thank-you will do.”

I knew Stella wanted cash most of all, but it felt so boring to give money as a present. With the Vespa she could get downtown easily and quickly, to go to work or visit friends. In Italy, every teenager drives a Vespa.

Stella hugged us and thanked us several times over before we all headed back into the restaurant, but somehow I felt disappointed.

The waitress brought our comped tiramisu and we all agreed that we couldn’t eat another bite. And then we ate it all up anyway.

I had limoncello with my coffee.

“I have to head out now,” Stella said, squirming in her seat.

“Not already?”

I looked at the time. Nine thirty.

Stella pressed her lips together as she continued to rock back and forth on her chair.

“A little while longer,” she said. “Like ten minutes.”

“It’s your birthday,” I said. “And the store doesn’t open until ten tomorrow, does it?”

Stella sighed.

“I’m not working tomorrow.”

She wasn’t working? She worked every Saturday. That’s how she’d gotten her foot in the door at H&M. A weekend job had turned into a summer job and more hours.

“I had a headache all afternoon,” she said evasively. “A migraine.”

“So you called in sick?”

Stella nodded. It wasn’t a problem at all, she told me. There was another girl who was happy to take shifts.

“That’s not how we raised you,” I said as Stella stood up and took her jacket from the back of her chair.

“Adam,” Ulrika said.

“But why such a hurry?”

Stella shrugged.

“I have plans with Amina.”

I nodded and swallowed my displeasure. This was just the way eighteen-year-olds were, I supposed.

Stella gave Ulrika a long, heartfelt hug. I, however, only managed to rise halfway before she put her arms around me and our embrace was awkward and stiff.

“What about the Vespa?” I asked.

Stella looked at Ulrika.

“We’ll get it home,” my wife promised.

Once Stella was out the door, Ulrika slowly wiped her lips with her napkin and smiled at me.

“Eighteen years,” she said. “How does it go so fast?”



* * *



Ulrika and I were both totally beat when we got home that night. We sat in our respective corners of the sofa and read as Leonard Cohen crooned in the background.

“I still think she could show more appreciation,” I said. “Especially after the incident with the car.”