The Last Best Kiss by Claire LaZebnik

every comment and covers her mouth with her hand, laughing and protesting.
    “You’re terrible!” she says with delight. “Stop making me laugh! I feel awful laughing!” Then she laughs some more.
    The couple sitting next to us—whose only sin was picking this restaurant for a romantic dinner—are also considered fair targets for Lizzie’s delicate wit.
    “Should we tell her her boyfriend’s gay?” Lizzie asks, jerking her head toward their table.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” my father says with a wink. “Ignorance is bliss. Maybe the situation works for them.” Dad’s looking handsome tonight in a jacket and tie. He likes to dress up for dinner out. I’m wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket over a silk top, Lizzie is wearing black pants and a tight sweater, and Ginny Clay is wearing a narrow skirt and a brightly colored, flowing top with a wide neck that shows the lacy camisole underneath.
    “Now you two stop that!” she protests with a giggle. “They’re just having a nice date!”
    “Ginny, Ginny.” Lizzie shakes her head fondly. “You are so innocent. You probably still believe in the tooth fairy.”
    “Oh, is that who that guy is?” says my father with a nod toward the next table. “The tooth fairy? That explains everything.” And the three of them laugh while I check my texts under the table so no one will notice.
    Dad calls the waitress over and tells her that Ginny needs a refill on the white wine that she and Lizzie both ordered. (Lizzie’s still six months shy of her twenty-first birthday, but the waitress didn’t ask for ID.) He orders himself another scotch while he’s at it.
    Lizzie says, “I like your pants,” to our waitress, who thanks her for the compliment. After she’s walked away, Lizzie whispers, “That’s because they make me think of sausages and I love sausages!”
    Ginny slaps her wrist. “You’re awful! So terrible!” Then she turns to Dad. “Thank you for ordering for me. I love being taken care of.” Dad smiles magnanimously as she goes on with a pretty little flutter of her hand. “Although I really shouldn’t have any more wine. I’ll get tipsy. And in front of one of my students!”
    “I’m not actually one of your students,” I say.
    She brings a slender-fingered hand to her chest. “Maybe not officially, but I feel like I’m mentoring you.” She turns to the others. “Anna has so much talent.” She touches my father lightly on the wrist. “But you already know that—there is no way she could have gotten this far without a supportive parent.”
    “I try,” he says. Which is debatable.
    “I’ve just been urging her to push herself a little more.” Ginny taps her chin thoughtfully. Her blond hair is piled on top of her head, and tonight she’s wearing the kind of small black glasses that pretty young women wear to make themselves look like pretty young intellectual women. “She needs to spread her wings artistically, but I think she’s scared of stepping out of her comfort range.”
    My father peers at me. “Anna, I hope you’re not going to be one of those people who goes through life crippled by the fear of taking risks.”
    I roll my eyes. “Really? But that sounds like such a good plan.”
    “If I could wish one thing for my girls,” Dad tells Ginny, “it’s that they have the courage to take chances in life. That’s how you succeed.”
    “You are so right,” she says eagerly. “That’s what made the great artists great—Van Gogh, Picasso, Gauguin . . . they all took risks.” What a genius: she can distill all the greats down to one single shared quality that I lack.
    “Are you a risk taker?” my father asks Ginny.
    She tilts her head sideways and slowly fans her long, mascaraed eyelashes at him. “Just try me.”
    Dad lifts his chin ever so slightly and smiles.
    “I think Ginny was flirting with Dad,” I say to Lizzie later that night. We’re in her room, where she’s desperately trying to finish all her