When I turned up the side walk and went to knock on the door I saw the same back truck about half a block away. It was still running but the lights we...e turned off. I got a sudden shiver down my back that went from the base of my neck to my tail bone. That's weird, I thought. That never happens. When I knocked on the door, Karen's mom opened the door. Karen lived only with her mom. She doesn't really know here dad. He took off when she was three or something."Hey, Mrs. Jenson. Is Karen here?". ” I saw her look down at my legs which were clearly not naked. “For the wedding. Today. Here. This afternoon.” “Oh. Righto. Well …” She launched into a potted geography of the local area, punctuated with snippets of her own very local history and that of various neighbours, school friends and family members. Eventually she disgorged that there was a gentleman’s outfitters in the small town about fifteen minutes away. I thanked her and left, texting Alice, knowing that it’d make her laugh. Her. He is my father.“Maggie, can you do me a really big favor?”“I don’t know, Jason, I don’t buy pigs in pokes,” she said. “What?”“Well ... see, I’d kind of like to take a weekend,” he said, staring down at the apron. “Like ... maybe this one. And I can’t unless you—”“—take the shows?” she finished for him.“Right. So, well, would you?”“This wouldn’t have anything to do with little miss Barbie, would it?” she asked in a slightly brittle tone. Over the last couple of weeks a girl had been a frequent. “I'm lt.Mac , new engineer” she introduced herself back and smiled. “Can I get you another drink Captain?” I asked. She nodded and accepted. I bought her one and we kept talking, she told me about how she had lost her long time boyfriend who was the stations head of security and how a lot of her oldest friends had moved on with their lives away from the station.Hours past and we kept talking, she was drinking heavily and you could tell she was becoming intoxicated. Quark finally kicked us out.