Free The Summer of Good Intentions by Wendy Francis

striking up a conversation. Shouldn’t she be pumping Virgie for information about college? But, then again, Virgie hadn’t thought that far ahead when she was in high school either. All she’d cared about was boys, one boy, in particular. Seth Laraby, a soccer player who spoke fluent French. His parents had worked abroad when he was young, and Seth had gone to private school outside of Paris. She hadn’t thought about Seth in years.
    She stared out the window and twirled the ice in her soda. She wondered if Sal would be around this summer. Of course, he’d be working at the store, but would he be dropping by the house like last summer, bringing her small treats? They’d had on-again, off-again flings over the summers, but they were getting a little old for that. Virgie had Jackson now—she couldn’t exactly be cavorting around with another guy on another coast. Maybe Sal had met someone serious, too.
    She readjusted her shoulder pillow (another item she never traveled without) and closed her eyes. This would be the summer of relaxation, not romance. At least for her. If anyone needed romance, it was her dad. Each Sunday night when she checked in with him, she would ask if there were someone new in his life, perhaps a dinner partner? But Arthur just laughed. “Honey, you know I’m too old to get back out there,” he said.
    â€œBut, Dad, you’re not.” Virgie recalled their conversation last week. “There are tons of senior women out there, online even, who are looking for someone. You should check out the dating sites. You don’t have to get married. Just go out to dinner!”
    Her father let out a heavy sigh. “ Senior women,” he said. “That has an appealing ring, doesn’t it?”
    â€œYou know what I mean,” she chided. “Don’t knock it before you try it.”
    â€œPerhaps I will one of these days.” But they both knew that he didn’t really mean it.
    It would be good to see Arthur in person. It had been too long since she’d laid eyes on her dad last Christmas, when they’d all gathered at Maggie’s house in Windsor. Even then, he’d seemed smaller to her, as if his clothes had outgrown him. She worried about him, asked him if he was eating well and asked her sisters if Dad didn’t seem lonely, maybe a little depressed? But Maggie and Jess told her she was being silly. Dad was the same as he ever was. A lovable curmudgeon till the very end.
    The thing was, Virgie loved Arthur like crazy. And she was pretty sure he felt the same way about her. She’d always been her daddy’s little girl, while Jess and Maggie had insisted on forging their own paths. Everything Virgie did was meant to impress Arthur, even her career in journalism. When she won an Edward R. Murrow Award for reporting, Arthur was the first person she called. When she got promoted to doing the personal interest stories, Verbatim with V (which Virgie closed every Tuesday and Thursday night with “And there you have it, word for word, with Virginia Herington”), Arthur had flown out to treat her to dinner and toast her as the “daughter most like me.” Virgie had nearly burst with pride. She thought back on that moment, how special it had been, how much she still wanted to make Arthur beam.
    Before long, the flight attendant’s voice came back on over the intercom, announcing they would be landing soon. Virgie shook the fog from her head. She must have drifted off to sleep. She glanced down at her empty glass and crumpled bag of pretzels and passed them over to the aisle. Earbuds Girl was still reading her magazine. Virgie righted her tray and pulled out her phone to double-check her car reservation. Sweet . The black Mini Cooper convertible she’d ordered was waiting for her.
    She imagined herself racing down Route 3, tunes blasting, her long hair blowing in the wind. On how many trips to the Cape in the