Phoebe

"Pheebes, where are my socks?" called my father from down the stairs.

I rolled my eyes and answered, "I think they’re in the box labeled 'socks'."

"Thanks!" he shouted back.

I was lying on my bed doing nothing -- which, believe me, I do very well -- when my dad had called me. We were moving into a new home. This time my father decided to settle in a little town in Georgia. How my father chose each new place was a mystery to me; I suspected it had to do with a mixture of the internet and a detailed, United States map.

Eventually, I decided to get up and start unpacking. But then I started to think -- which I also do exceedingly well at -- that it would be a waste. Why bother unpacking and getting situated if I knew that I would be moving at the end of the school year?

Oh, yes, I knew indefinitely that I would be moving in roughly ten months. I had been doing so since the age of nine. There were ghosts that my father was running from, and I don't mean that in Halloween, jump out at you "BOO!" kind either. No, he was running from something more substantial, and I was taken on for the ride. And, of course, I never questioned the moving because I loved my father; sure, he was a quirky and weird, but he was my dad and I understood his reasons.

When I finished organizing all my books by author and placed each of my freshly laundered shirts in my dresser, I looked about my room proudly. In the usual scramble to find the best room, I had discovered the stairs to the attic in what I had earlier believed to be a hall closet. The attic took up the entire area of the house, and so there was plenty of room even though the ceiling did slant with the roof.

I was hungry after all this work; so I exited my room and found my father scrambling through his dresser drawers. He didn’t look up when I knocked on the door so I called out.

"Hey, Alfie? What’s for dinner?"

He looked up then, as he always did when I called him by his nickname. My father’s name is technically Frederick Whitaker Jr. -- that’s what his birth certificate says, but throughout school he went by Fred. Later, when he went to college, his new friends dubbed him Alfred instead of the usually cutesy Freddy or Freddie. And so when my dad met my mother, he was introduced to her as Alfred. After they started dating -- or maybe during their courtship -- she re-rechristened him Alfie as a sort of play on ALF -- Alien Life Form -- because you know, my dad is so weird. Even though the days of Alfie had long passed, I still called my patriarchal unit by it occasionally.

Alfie rubbed his eyes tiredly and then ruffled his blonde hair – so not like my own curly dark brown. We always got strange looks when we went out to eat, at least, in our old town. It seemed weird to the townspeople there that a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed father was able to produce someone with such dark features as mine. What they didn’t see was my mother . . . who I look almost uncannily alike.

"Hm, Phee? Do you want to just order a pizza?"

I leaned against the door frame and raised my eyebrows. "You know any sort of pizza is great in my book."

My dad laughed then, like he always did when I swiveled my eyebrows playfully. I smiled at him, and thought that maybe, just maybe, this time would be different. Maybe this town would make him happy. Perhaps the Alfster would be able to forget . . . finally. Possibly he will be able to meet someone else who will make his eyes crinkle. That is the only thing I want after all -- my father’s happiness.