The Cool Dad (A Calvin Recker Mystery Novel)- Chapter 3

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The Cool Dad is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle HERE (or click image) for $2.99.

Here's Chapter 3.

Enjoy!

3

Yeah I do!

His name is Grover.

I learned pretty early on that it’s hard to be a stay-at-home dad and play detective at the same time. I can’t just up and leave the kids behind to follow a lead.

That’s where my buddy Grover comes in.

Grover’s perfect. There isn’t anyone I know who has more free time and less responsibility than my old college roommate.

And check out what he does for a living.

He’s a movie location scout.

He gets freelance assignments from producers to drive around and find suitable Midwest film locations and takes pictures of them.

He’s worked on some pretty big films, too.

The Dark Knight.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Man of Steel.

And a whole bunch of independent movies that no one has ever seen.

This one horror movie he worked on called Knifer 2: Back to the Cutting Board was unwatchable. It’s not even worth streaming.

Also, and this is not an unimportant point, Grover is a pretty big dude. He’s like a hair over 6’5”, and works out like it’s an activity that he actually enjoys. I haven’t worked out since the kids were born. Who has the time? I don’t, but Grover does.

Private detectives get the pulp beat out of them all the time on cases, so it helps to have an intimidating sidekick to watch your back.

Not that Grover is a violent dude. Ninety-nine percent of the time Grover is as gentle as a petting zoo goat. The reason is because 99 percent of the time Grover, like the goat, is stoned.

But let’s hope, not right now.

I call Grover.

“Go for Grover,” he answers.

I hear him huff and puff.

“You sound like you’re exerting yourself? Did you attach your bong to an exercise bike?”

“No. I’m outside running. But I’m going to file that idea away for later.”

“Jogging?”

“No, that’s what you do. Jog. I run.”

I don’t even do that.

“How far?” I say.

“Um, I’m on mile eleven.”

“Jesus, Forrest Gump. Are your nipples bleeding yet? What would possess you to run that far?”

“There’s this outrageously hot chick like twenty yards in front of me. Here, let me take a picture of her ass. Hold on.”

Click.

Do-do-do.

I get the picture text. “Yeah, nice,” I say. “What about her face? All I see is ass, shoulders and ponytail.”

“Haven’t seen it. I’ve been behind her the whole time.”

“How long have you been following her?”

“About ten miles.”

“Has it occurred to you that she might be running AWAY from you?”

“She does seem to speed up every time I get close. I figured she was just trying to play hard to get. I was thinking that maybe after she stops we could split a protein gel. What’s up with you? Diaper wipe drama?”

“No, we’ve got a case.”

“Paying?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What kind of case?”

“Cheating husband with a twist.”

“Is there sidekick work involved?”

“You know it.”

“Fuck yeah!” he yells. “Holy shit, she turned around!”

“And?”

“I’m going to veer off. See you in thirty. I’ll take a shower at your place.”

“Please don’t.”

Click.

He’s there in twenty-five.

The shower wakes up both kids.

Naptime is over.

It’s time for a walk around the block.

Ryan is out in front on the Breeders Street sidewalk in his red Schwinn tricycle with me close behind, and Grover, in back, pushing Daisy in her red and yellow Cozy Coup push car.

“SLOW DOWN!” a woman yells.

Not at us.

At this Dodge Grand Caravan going thirty-eight in a twenty-five.

That’s Mona Denkle yelling. She took her constant bitching on the Stable Bluff Facebook page about cars speeding in the subdivision offline and to the streets. She sits in a lawn chair on the sidewalk wearing a reflective vest with a hand-painted “SLOW DOWN” sign in one hand and a radar gun in the other. When she sees a resident or a pizza delivery driver coming along the curve too fast, she jumps into the middle of the street waiving her sign and screaming. Then she takes a picture of the car and license plate and shame-posts it on the subdivision’s Facebook page with the caption, “If I were your child, they would be dead!”

It’s a bit much.

“Good afternoon, Mona,” I call out.

“Did you SEE how fast that Caravan was going, Calvin?”

“How fast?”

She checks her radar gun. “Forty-frickin’-one! This isn’t Talladega. Children play in this subdivision.”

“Well, they would if they could ever put down their iPads.”

“We need speed bumps in this neighborhood. I’m putting together a sign up sheet to present to the homeowners association. I’ve got your support, right?”

“Right.”

Yeah, right. The last thing I want is stupid speed bumps messing up my car’s suspension.

“I can always count on our friendly neighborhood private detective.”

I smile and put my foot on the back of Ryan’s tricycle and push it forward to get him going.

“Fight the good fight, Mona,” I say.

Mona nods and sits back down in her lawn chair. She takes a quick sip from her thermos, and then leans forward with her radar gun primed.

We continue on down the sidewalk. I make mental notes on whose lawn looks better than mine until we get to the end of the block where the residence of Henry and Elise Newcombe sits.

The house is the same exact model as my own: the Seattle Slew Series. The developer named all the models after Triple Crown-winning horses. I guess it was supposed to add a touch of class.

Gallant Fox, Man O’ War, Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed.

Man O’ War didn’t actually win the Triple Crown. I think the developer messed up and meant War Admiral, but since the Man O’ War was one of the more popular models; they didn’t bother to change it.

 Even though all the houses in our neighborhood look about the same, if you get a bunch of homeowners together for a real John Cheever-style cocktail party, they all ask each other, “What series do you live in?” It’s just a not-so-subtle way to gage how much money you have versus someone else. Especially those top-of-the-line Secretariat Series snobs. “We’ve got a super family room AND a tandem garage.” Oh, la-di-da, go fuck yourselves.

Click.

Grover snaps a picture of the house with his iPhone.

“An establishing shot,” Grover says. “For the case file.”

“Good thinking.”

“So, what’s the plan, detective?”

“First, I run into this Henry Newcombe and we get to talking. Then we become friends and I get all the inside dirt. Meanwhile, you do the at-a-distance surveillance. You find out where he goes and who he sees when he doesn’t think people are watching.”

“Maybe we should switch that,” Grover says. “I’m much better at making friends than you are.”

“Having random people over your apartment to smoke doesn’t count as ‘making friends’.”

“Casa de Grover: Come for the bud, stay for the effervescent personality and sparkling conversation. When you work in the film industry, like I do, you have to be able to make fast friends.”

“You’re barely in the film industry. I’m his neighbor. We both have kids. He hasn’t been in town long enough to meet many people. It’s natural for us to strike up a friendship. You’re Mr. Outside.”

“And if shit goes down, I start throwing haymakers.”

“Shit go down? Why, Uncle Grower?” Ryan says, looking up at Grover.

“Because, Ry Guy,” he says to Ryan, holding up two fists. “Sometimes in life, you’ve got to bring the thunder AND the lighting.”

Ryan nods like this makes sense.

I say to Grover, “I don’t think we’ll need the services of any thunder or lightning for this case. At worst, we’ll get a little cheating-husband action. I saw this dude at the pool and the housewives were practically throwing their Spanx at him.”

“Good-looking guy?” Grover says.

I nod.

“Not as good-looking as me, though. Right?”

“Better.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“I don’t even know what that means. Just follow him around, take the pictures and try not to get made.”

“What are we getting paid, anyway?”

“Five hundred a week.”

“Plus expenses?”

“Yes, plus expenses.”

“How long do you think we can stretch this out for?”

“At least a couple weeks, I imagine. Our client clearly has the means.”

Grover pounds his fists together. “I am so pumped for this.”

I smile. “Me too.”

“So what’s the next move?” Grover says. “Knock on his door?”

“No, I’m thinking maybe I’ll run into him at the pool or in the park.”

“Ah, a meet-cute.”

“A what?”

“Like in a romantic comedy when the couple accidentally run into each other in an adorable way. You could spill coffee on him. Or overthrow a football in the park and have it land on his picnic blanket. We could get a dog.”

“I want a dog!” Ryan says.

“No,” I say.

“I want a dog right NOW!” Ryan screams.

I turn to Grover. “Look what you started.”

Grover says, “I think getting a dog is a great idea. He could help us solve crimes!”

The Cool Dad (A Calvin Recker Mystery Novel)- Chapter 2

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Here's Chapter 2.

2

Naptime.

I’ve looked forward to a lot of things in my life.

Summer vacation.

Opening day baseball.

The new Radiohead album.

But I’ve never looked forward to anything as much as I look forward to NOT seeing my own children for a few hours each day.

Every action I take with the kids all day long is geared toward getting them tired enough to get to this point.

Naptime.

Me time.

I walk downstairs after successfully setting Daisy down in her crib with her pink blanky and, after two separate trips to the potty, Ryan in his big boy bed with his blue blanky, two green binkies, a stuffed Mickey Mouse, a stuffed brown bear named Muddy, three Matchbox cars, a wooden serving spoon (I don’t know why either), and a sippy cup of water. For added security, on the floor lined up next to the bed, there’s a Tonka garbage truck, a Tonka fire truck and a Tonka tow truck. The boy is prepared.

What should I do first? Clean up the disaster of a kitchen after lunch and pick up all the mac n’ cheese and pools of Go-Gurt that always ends up glued to the floor or grab a big bag of potato chips and couple juice boxes, plop on the couch, and continue watching this TV series I found on Netflix called Ninja Awesome?

It’s about ninjas.

And there’s like 150 episodes.

Awesome.

The answer is obvious.

I open the pantry and grab the bag of chips I keep hidden from the kids on the top shelf tucked behind the cereal boxes. I sweep the Cheerios off the couch to clear a spot to sit and fire up episode forty-eight of Ninja Awesome.

I crunch my chips and watch the silent ninja, katana poised, approach the door of a split-level ranch house in the San Fernando Valley.

Ding-dong.

A ninja would never ring the doorbell. That’s my own front door.

Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

I swear, if the person ringing the doorbell is anyone other than a couple of Girl Scouts selling Thin Mints and Tagalongs and they wake up the kids, I’ll be royally pissed.

I run to the door before they ring the bell again and open it.

And it’s not Girl Scouts; it’s an older man with steel gray hair and matching suit.

I’m about ready to whip out my pre-prepared, “I already have a church I don’t go to, but thank you for this pamphlet and I find your belief system weird” speech, when the man says, “Mr. Recker, my name is Don Harper, and I want to hire you for a case. Kelli-Anne Bradley referred me to you.”

Kelli-Anne Bradley is a local real estate agent at Best Offer Realty who hired me to find out who was damaging her For Sale signs. It was my second case. Thanks for the referral, Kelli!

“Step inside,” I say. “And don’t mind the mess.”

He steps inside and eyes a pile of what looks like every Lego ever made. “Are your children up?”

“No, it’s naptime,” I say. “We can talk in my office. Follow me.”

We walk through the land of Legos that is the living room, past the nuclear waste site that is the kitchen, and a pillow cushion fort set up in the family room, until we reach the sliding glass door that leads to the deck.

“You’re office?” Donald Harper says.

Hey, man. If you’re going to hire a stay-at-home dad detective, you have to expect a certain amount of quirk.

“It’s a nice day,” I say instead. “Can I offer you a juice box?”

He looks at me funny like, “Is that a real question?”

It was a real question. Does he think I have a decanter of Scotch sitting around? And besides, juice boxes are A. delicious B. fun and C. potent enough, based on evidence provided by my own children, to supply you with sufficient energy to run through walls.

“No, thank you,” he says. “This is a nice deck.”

I was hoping he’d say that so I could say this to him, “Thanks. I built it with my own two hands.”

“Impressive.”

Yes it is. Of course, I failed to mention how much of the deck I built with said hands compared to my much more competent father-in-law, but we’ll just leave that part unsaid.

“So, Mr. Harper. How can I help you?”

“It’s my daughter.”

That’s a good start.

“Is she missing?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”

“She hasn’t run away or been kidnapped?”

“No, actually she lives just down the street at the end of your block.”

“The new house?”

The famous last house built in the Stable Bluff subdivision. It only took five years, a few housing market collapses, and series of deep discounts to sell all the lots in fulfillment of the developer’s divine prophesy.

“I bet your daughter got a great deal. What’d she pay, three? Two-eighty? Two-fifty? Not two-fifty? Two-forty? If she paid two-forty, I’m breaking down in tears right now.”

“Whatever the price was, she got a great deal, because she didn’t buy the house. I did.”

“Very generous.”

“It was a wedding gift.”

“You obviously went off registry.”

“Do you mind if I sit down,” he says, reaching for a deck chair. “Or did you build this with your bare hands as well.”

That cut like a knife. I lean up against my Weber grill, my baby, and think about barbecuing some ribs tonight, or maybe some grilled chicken, but who am I kidding, it will be hot dogs for the kids, again. I wish I had a really killer barbeque sauce or rub recipe, something I could bottle and sell. How does “Cayenne Calvin’s Secret Suh-Weet Q Sauce” sound? Oh, it looks like Don Harper is ready to speak again. I smile and nod and non-verbally indicate he has my full attention.

“My daughter, Elise, has always had problems with men. Tall men, short men, handsome men, bald men; all her relationships have ended poorly, often with me having to get involved to untangle her from whatever she got herself tangled up in.”

“That sounds awfully vague. What type of problems? What tangles? Was bubble gum involved?”

“Drugs. Drinking. Bad loans. My daughter is a wonderful person. A beautiful woman. But she doesn’t see herself that way. I don’t know what she sees reflecting back at her in the mirror, but it isn’t what her father or anyone else sees. If I had to forward a guess, it would be that she sees herself through the man in her life. If she’s dating a real loser, than that’s how she sees herself while she’s with him. The last boyfriend, Lyle, got her pregnant. Christ, what a fuck-up he was.”

“He left?”

“Three months into the pregnancy, Elise had a craving for olives and Captain Crunch cereal. You know those crazy cravings women get.”

“Oh, I know,” I say. “For my wife’s first pregnancy, it was Nutty Bars and chocolate milk shakes and for our second, Daisy, it was eggs Benedict. That poor girl’s got hollandaise sauce pouring through her veins.”

We both shake our heads in agreement on how crazy women can be during pregnancy, which is something guys feel they can do when women aren’t in the room.

“So Elise had a hankering for olives and Captain Crunch, and Lyle the Loser volunteers to drive to the store to pick some up for her.”

“And he never came back.”

“That’s right. He took their only car, emptied their joint checking, and took the diamond earrings I gave her for her high school graduation. Can you imagine that? He left his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child stranded in an apartment complex with no vehicle and no money.”

“Did you ever find Lyle?”

“Oh, sure. He blows into town every once in a while, pretending like he’s interested in the son he abandoned. But he doesn’t care about him, he’s just looking for another hand-out.”

“From you?”

“That’s right. Look, Mr. Recker.”

“Calvin.”

“Calvin. I’ve made two worthwhile things in my whole life: a beautiful daughter and a pile of money. And like most men who make a lot of money, I think that I can use the second thing to save the first. So I pay whatever I need to pay to help Elise. But now there’s a third thing in my life.”

“Your grandchild.”

“Max. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how grandparents feel about their grandchildren.”

“I think my parents forgot my name when my first child was born.”

“They’re our chance at turning back the clock.”

“So you want me to keep an eye on your daughter in her new house down the street?”

“That’s right.”

“But you said the house was a wedding present. Did Elise marry Lyle?”

“No. And thank God for small favors. Three months ago, Elise went on a trip with some girlfriends of hers to Australia. I bought her ticket of course. I thought it would do her good to get away and have some fun. That I got to spend some time with my grandson was a bonus. While there, the ladies went snorkeling. But something malfunctioned with Elise’s equipment and she would have drowned if it weren’t for a local surf instructor who saw her struggling from the shore. He swam out and pulled her back to shore, gave her mouth-to-mouth, and brought her back to life. It turns out the instructor was an American. They spent the rest of the vacation together. And when it was time to fly home, he came with, as her husband.”

“That’s fast.”

“Now this husband of hers is handsome. Real handsome.”

“Is his name Jake Ryan?”

Don Harper shakes his head. “No, Henry Newcombe.”

“Mr. Harper, I’m sure you are rightfully gun-shy about Elise’s past relationships, but this all sounds like a real love story.”

“A love story is just that. A story. Not the real thing. There is no one on this planet who thinks Elise is beautiful more than her own father, but seriously, why would a younger good-looking guy who somehow won life by spending his days on the beaches of Australia drop it all for a woman in her late thirties with a eight-year-old son he’s never met? Then agree to move to a subdivision in Hatchet, Illinois, in a house bought by her father? He doesn’t even have a job. He just stays at home and watches the kid.”

LIKE ME! I mean, like me.

Don Harper continues, “Who is Henry Newcombe? What does he do all day? And can I trust him with not only my daughter, but my grandson?”

“And maybe catch him cheating on Elise with any of the Stable Bluff housewives? And those housewives, let me tell you, are ready and willing to cheat. Next to bitching about the local elementary school on Facebook, bed hopping is like their number one hobby.”

“It’s more than that, though. I want you to really get to know him. Become his friend,” Don Harper says.

“His friend?”

“I figure you two would have a lot in common. You are both stay-at-home dads in a sea of suburban women. It’s not like he has any friends around here. You could have play dates or whatever you call them. Maybe take him out for drinks, get him drunk, and see what comes out when he spills his guts. Maybe he’ll tell the real story about why he gave up the young man’s dream in paradise for an insta-family in fly-over country.”

“But if it gets out that I’m a private detective, won’t his guard go right up?”

“Oh, let him know you’re a detective. I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it. I sure do. Take him on a case if you’d like.”

“It will make it tough to do surveillance if I’m spending all this time with him. You’ll probably want to know things about him that he won’t even let his friends see.”

“That’s true. You’ll need someone else.”

Don Harper thinks for a second.

I take a sip from my juice box.

“Do you have a sidekick?” he says.

The Cool Dad (A Calvin Recker Mystery Novel)- Available Now!

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My first novel, The Cool Dad, is available as an ebook today on Amazon Kindle HERE (or click image) for $2.99. Other formats (Nook, paperback) will follow.

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Here's a short synopsis and the first chapter. I'll post a chapter a day on the blog for the next couple days until you're sufficiently hooked. Warning: I won't post the whole thing and I WILL stop abruptly. So if you like what you've read, you're just going to have to buy the darn thing.

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Meet Calvin Recker. He's a stay-at-home dad by day. And night. And naptime. But in between changing diapers and making lunches, he's the hardest-boiled private detective in the western suburbs of Chicago. His specialty is cheating spouses. His three rules for taking cases are: no murders, no cops, and no guns.

Despite what Calvin Recker may think, he is not the cool dad.

Meet Henry Newcombe. He's the cool, young, and impossibly handsome stepdad who just moved into the sleepy subdivision of Stable Bluff.

When Calvin Recker is hired by Henry Newcombe's rich father-in-law to uncover his new son-in-law's mysterious past, he's forced to break his rules, and will need all the help he can get from his wife, Juliet, and his unreliable sidekick, Grover, to get out alive and solve the case by bedtime.

THE COOL DAD is the hilarious and shocking first novel in a series about stay-at-home dad detective Calvin Recker that will keep your whole neighborhood talking all summer long.

1

He looks like Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles.

Ladies, you know exactly who I’m talking about.

He was the sensitive senior hunk with those chiseled cheekbones and thick head of dark hair, forever leaning against his red Porsche while rocking the sweater vest.

Remember him sitting on the table and blowing out the candles with Samantha?

Melt.

“Marco!” the guy who looks like fictional teen heartthrob Jake Ryan calls from the pool.

“Polo!” a swarm of neighborhood kids treading water scream back.

I pull out my iPhone from Daisy’s diaper bag, click on IMDB, and search the cast of Sixteen Candles.

The actor who played Jake Ryan is named Michael Schoeffling. He only acted in a handful of films after Sixteen Candles and nothing since 1991. I guess he builds handcrafted furniture now, which is totally a Jake Ryan thing to do.

Regardless, Michael Schoeffling is fifty-three years old now and the guy in the pool couldn’t be a day over twenty-nine. Imagine Jake Ryan drove off your TV screen in his red Porsche 944 and landed in Hatchet, Illinois in 2013 without aging a single second since 1984.

And I’m not the only one who noticed the uncanny resemblance. I look around the pool and see all the moms raised on John Hughes movies staring him down while something primal stirs underneath their tankinis and Old Navy cover-ups.

“Marco!” he calls out.

“Polo,” the moms all mouth under their breaths.

Guys, if this all doesn’t make sense to you, imagine Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High jumps off the diving board.

Then climbs out of the pool.

And walks toward you in slow motion.

Then unhooks her bikini top.

And.

Pause.

Okay, are you still with me? Or do you need a moment? Now you can understand the hormonal electricity buzzing through the pool at 11:45 on a lazy hot Wednesday in the suburbs of Chicago.

But who is this guy?

I haven’t seen him around town before.

He doesn’t look like a dad. Not with those abs.

Maybe he’s an older cousin or a cool uncle?

But he’s definitely not a dad with young kids.

“Hey, Daddy. Look at me!” my three-year-old son, Ryan, calls from the top of the water slide. “I go headfirst!”

Shit. How’d he get up there so quickly?

Daddy fail.

A whistle blows. “Adult swim!” a skinny teenaged male lifeguard wearing dark shades and an all-summer-long tan yells.

“Noooooooo!” the kids in the pool all cry.

More whistles from the team of teenaged lifeguards showing off their authority despite being armed only with their whistles, uniform bathing suits, and a rudimentary understanding of CPR.

The kids splash their way to the corners of the pool and climb up the ladders to their parents who are dreading their arrival.

Adult swim.

Or as it’s known to parents, “Fifteen Minutes of Begging for Money for the Snack Hut So Some Creepy Old Man Can Swim Two Super Slow Laps in the Lane Lines.”

But when the children arrive at their mom’s deckchairs looking for a shakedown, the moms hand over the cash without even looking at them, because they’re all staring at the Jake Ryan look-a-like arm-press himself up out of the pool in what feels like slow motion.

He strokes his perfect thick wavy dark hair back and the water beads and runs down his rock-hard torso. He hikes up his Budweiser bathing trunks, which droop dangerously close to his butt crack. The moms file the mental image away for later that night when they attack their grateful husbands.

Then he does something truly shocking. He walks over to the pale, doughy eight-year-old wearing a white bucket hat, lime green T-shirt, and a smear of pink zinc oxide on his nose, sitting on the edge of the pool and kicking water. He scoops him up and says to him, “How ‘bout some nachos, bro?”

Maybe the kid takes after his mother?

The lifeguard at the waterslide helps Ryan down the ladder and he runs toward me. His initial disappointment at not getting to risk a severe head injury by sliding headfirst is assuaged when he remembers it’s snack time.

“No running,” I yell at him.

Ryan considers my suggestion and decides that walking even faster with stiff legs is a fair compromise.

“Slow down,” I say just loud enough for all the moms in earshot to acknowledge that I’m a decent parent.

I shouldn’t have to worry about my standing here, because before Mr. Too Handsome showed up, I was the King of the Pool Parents. Of course, I’m usually the only dad at the pool during the day in the middle of the week. But still.

“I want pizza. I want a hot dog. I want candy,” Ryan jumps up and down, begging.

“You’ll get nothing and like it,” Mr. Too Handsome says to Ryan as he walks by.

We look at each other and nod the way guys do when a well-timed Caddyshack reference is made. He keeps walking toward the snack hut. I’ll admit that after seeing him up close, it makes me want to put my shirt back on. And shave my back.

Ryan looks confused. He’s never seen Caddyshack, but there’s plenty of time for that. He recovers and says, “I want, uh, cookie cheese!”

I don’t know what cookie cheese is or whether he just invented it out of thin air. “They’re all out of cookie cheese,” I say.

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes they are. They just ran out. There was big run on cookie cheese earlier this morning.”

This confuses the young man. He knows he made up cookie cheese, but he also knows that I’m probably making up the fact that the snack hut actually had the imaginary cookie cheese but has since ran out. We both stare at each other for a long moment, silently communicating, “How far do you want to take this?”

Ryan decides to play his last card.

He stamps his foot. “NO! I WANT COOKIE CHEESE!”

The public temper tantrum.

Royal flush.

“How about a granola bar,” I offer to nip this tamper tantrum in the bud.

“Chocolate ‘nola bar?” he counters.

“Fine,” I say, defeated.

I pull out a melty chocolate-covered granola bar from the swim bag, unwrap it, and hand it to him. He smiles, takes a bite, and I watch all his problems melt away.

I realize that once again I’m the victim of a long con.

“Ah, ah, ah!” I look down and see Daisy pointing toward the Ziploc bag filled with granola bars. Daisy doesn’t really talk yet, but she’s mastered the art of pointing at items she desires. And like most pretty girls, she gets what she wants.

I break off a piece of granola bar and hand it to her.

I’ve got ten more minutes of adult swim to survive.

I turn my attention back to the skinny lifeguard setting up the lane lines for the senior gentleman wearing nose plugs and a swim cap. The old guy is flapping his arms like Michael Phelps and stretching in preparation for his epic two-lap freestyle session. The lifeguard hooks the last lane line. I watch him walk around the perimeter of the pool until he reaches a lifeguard chair occupied by a pretty sun-bleached blond female lifeguard. He says something to her and she laughs while looking down at him from the chair. The male lifeguard looks up at his co-worker like she’s the most beautiful girl in the entire world, and since she’s a pretty high school girl who has spent her summer in the sun, at that exact moment, she just might be.

Her name is Ginny McConkey.

I hold up my iPhone and take a picture.

Click.

Okay, I realize that looked creepy.

I’m doing this because the girl’s father paid me to take the picture.

Okay, back up, back up.

In addition to a stay-at-home dad, I’m also sort of a private detective.

I don’t have a gun or a private detective’s license or anything, but since I’m usually around, people in the neighborhood from time to time ask me to “keep an eye on their spouses” while they’re at work. And usually when they ask me to find out if their spouse is cheating, I could save them the time and money and just answer, “Yes, they totally are.” But, you know, I follow the case through anyway, because other than dress, feed, clean, play, and fight with two kids under four, I don’t really have anything else to do during the day.

Look at it this way. After turning thirty, most guys accumulate weird hobbies like brewing their own beer.

Or running 10-Ks.

Or forming really, really firm opinions about where to buy vegetables.

Is operating a private detective agency any weirder of a way to spend my free time?

Don’t answer that.

But since you guys are coming in late to this Ginny McConkey case, let me just let you in on the twist ending. Ginny’s dad, Gary McConkey, is one of those overprotective dads I imagine myself to be in fifteen years with Daisy. He got wind that not only was his little princess spending her summer getting ogled in a bathing suit, but she also nabbed herself a secret (to her parents) boyfriend. Gary knew that I hung around the pool during the day watching my own kids, so he hired me to keep an eye on his little girl while she worked and to find out who the boyfriend is.

Is he a greaser?

A Shark or a Jet?

Jordan Catalano?

It only took an afternoon to catch Ginny kissing a shaggy boy back behind the snack hut. I followed the boy around for a few days and discovered that he was a year older.

Oh no!

And he was a drug dealer.

The horror!

I’ll let you get over the shock of a pretty teenage girl falling for an older boy with a used car and a cache of weed.

I dug a little deeper on the boyfriend and found out he was a pretty fair drug dealer. Nice product. Good pricing structure. The kid has a good head for business that will serve him well in the cubicle world when he grows up.

I usually specialize in neighbors having affairs or finding out who stole a John Deere riding lawn mower out of someone’s garage. I certainly didn’t become a part-time private detective to break up true love between teenagers or bust an entrepreneur with little dime bags of schwag.

So before I brought my evidence to Gary McConkey, I showed my case to Ginny. She broke down in tears and told me how much she loved Trev.

Teenage girls are so dramatic.

I told her that this wasn’t a reality show confessional booth, so she should save the waterworks.

She wiped her eyes and offered to pay me double not to tell her dad.

I didn’t want to take any of her hard-earned lifeguarding money, so I told her that I had another idea.

“What?” she asked.

“You need a beard,” I said.

“A what?” she said.

“A beard. Someone who pretends to be your boyfriend for the camera while you still date Trev in secret. You need someone who looks totally clean-cut and acceptable. I’ll show your dad the pictures of the two of you and he’ll be relieved that his little girl isn’t dating some serial killer from the wrong side of the tracks.”

She smiled and said, “I know just the guy.”

That’s the fellow lifeguard she’s talking to now.

Click.

 “I want ‘nother one,” Ryan says me with a chocolate-smeared mouth.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Daisy concurs, while pointing at the Ziploc bag.

“No more,” I say. “We have to go home soon. It’s almost lunchtime.”

“No!” Ryan protests.

And after lunchtime is my favorite time of the day.