Chapter 29: Kim’s Parents

Kim’s parents lived in Denver. Bart, her stepfather, worked for a local accounting firm, and Penelope, her mother, was a dental technician. Kim’s step-brother lived nearby with his wife and two children, which Bart and Penelope apparently doted on and for whom they frequently babysat. At the drop of a hat, they were quick to remind Kim and June that they were always ready for more grandchildren.

The last time that Kim had seen them was in the hiatus in our relationship between the time we met and when we rediscovered and reimagined ourselves without the luggage that we’d loaded atop our first meeting, most of that deal with the implications of our twenty-plus-year age difference.

My parents had passed a few years earlier in their California home, so introducing Kim in that direction was not necessary. We’d done the hard part with my daughters and their husbands.

Given all the work at TNA, our somewhat carnal desires to be with our lovers in the Circle, the IPO, our formal engagement, and then the holidays, we found ourselves overdue to make the trip for me to get the Parents’ Seal of Approval, if there was such a thing.

We took our new Challenger 350 one Friday after work and flew nonstop for three hours from Chapel Hill to Centennial airport, south of Denver downtown. The trip was planned and Kim called them from the plane to confirm our arrival time after we were in the air. They were amazed that we were in a private jet on our way. Kim wasn’t sure that they took in what had really happened to her business and her new wealth. I didn’t think that she wanted them to know, and she made that explicit when I asked.

Kim gave me some background about our visit and what she’d told her mother and step-father about me, which, as it turned out wasn’t near as much as she’d told June before we met. She’d never mentioned my age, my adult daughters, my new post at TNA, or too much else. I was a ‘guy’ that she ‘loved’ and had just gotten ‘engaged’ to that she wanted them to meet. She did mention she was thinking of a wedding in Pennsylvania late summer or autumn. As far as they might recall, I was a high-powered consultant in the energy industry.

Kim warned me without mincing words that her step-father could be ‘severe’, rude, and highly judgmental. She didn’t know how that would play out with him just meeting somebody new. Kim said, “He was the main reason that I rebelled as I did, and why I couldn’t wait to leave home at eighteen. He was and is insufferable. I’ve only gone back when he was there under duress. Just so you know, this visit is mainly for my mom’s benefit. She puts up with him, Lord knows how or why, but she says she’d try to corral him and keep him in line. Personally, I doubt that’s possible. He can be a real ogre. June had already left home and stayed away as much as possible except for visits with her mother.

Our sleek jet touched down and rolled out with the services building on our left where Kim saw them waving at the plane. We taxied back to the ramp and got directed to a parking space right in front of the FBO’s building. We got our go-bags, and I dropped down the plane’s stairway and helped Kim down to the tarmac. She ran over to the fence to greet her mother and step-father, and I followed behind. Introductions were made and I could tell that Penelope was pleased to meet me and that Bart seemed displeased with my presence on the planet. We then headed into the services building with one of the pilots and our bags. Bill, our pilot, would handle all the things plane related such as checking in, overnighting, and refueling.

We’d already arranged the weekend with the pilots to be on standby, so they were set. We just went in through the building to landside, and then I got the more formal introduction, hugs, and handshake instead of just the quick introduction through the fence. At least, Bart was civil. As they studied me more closely, I could see their eyes flare. I was only a year or two younger than either her step-father or mother. Heck, I was well into graying at my temples and in a few years would be rated as ‘salt and pepper’.

Bart, Penelope, Kim, and I made small talk during the thirty-minute drive to their house – a nice three-bedroom home in a well-developed neighborhood in Littleton. I was asked to call Penelope the nickname Penny. When she said that, Bart looked really pissed at her. I had the feeling that idea wasn’t popular. I wondered if that was his pet name for her.

Mostly, the chatter during the ride was between Kim and her mother as she updated them on TNA, the stock price, mentioned her holding stock that went up with the market – without being specific about dollar figures, the home she’d bought in Pennsylvania that we would be living in with her sister and friends, and then the new (to us) corporate jet. They had lots of questions about each of the items on the agenda.