Chapter 794

• In late May, Jack banged out a term paper on Hemingway that earned him a respectable B+. (Vanessa's paper had received an A-.) That meant that he had passed the class. So a celebration was decided upon, which would in fact commemorate three more or less simultaneous events: Jack's real diploma (to replace the illegitimate one awarded him twenty-three years ago), Vanessa's twenty-first birthday, and the graduation (cum laude) of Jack and Joanna's daughter Eileen.
• A swank restaurant was chosen for the occasion, and Eileen was supposed to come to the house ahead of time. Vanessa thought it odd that she hadn't met Eileen yet, given that they were attending the same college. She could have passed her a dozen times on campus without knowing who she was! But she sensed that, even more so than in the case of his friends, Jack had felt hesitant to introduce his daughter to Vanessa--because of her age, and because of her apparent "replacement" of Joanna in Jack's affections.
• So Vanessa was prepared to encounter a frosty politeness, even frank hostility, from this young woman, who was a year older than herself. But when the doorbell rang and Jack let Eileen in, Vanessa heard a somewhat low-pitched woman's voice saying, "Where's Dad's girlfriend?" She didn't sound angry; if anything, she seemed excited.