Chapter 8

She was up and out of bed in the morning when I woke up. That was strange, because I’m not usually a heavy sleeper. I had gotten Friday night performance tickets just so we’d all have Saturday to recover from a late night. Okay, I got them so Cynthia wouldn’t have to go to school after a late night at the ballet. The only clothes I had to put on were the components of the tux, less cummerbund, tie, and jacket. I felt a little seedy, but there was nothing to be done about it.

I found them in the kitchen. Mandy was stirring something in a bowl that would turn out to be waffle batter and Cynthia was spooning a cheerfully-colored cereal into her mouth. Mandy was fully dressed in jeans and a T shirt. Cynthia had on flannel pajamas.

“It lives,” said the girl, but she smiled at me.

“It stuffs its face,” I said, also smiling. “That reminds me. We should go to the zoo sometime.”

“It’s too cold right now,” said Cynthia. “All the animals would be in their houses or whatever.”

“It won’t be too cold in July,” I said.

“So, you think you’ll still be interested in my mother in July?”

There was no smile, this time. Mandy looked over her shoulder with a frown but didn’t say anything.

“I’m pretty sure I will, yes,” I said. “She’s a remarkably good executive assistant.”

“Is that what she was last night ... your executive assistant?”

“Cynthia!” scolded Mandy, “Don’t be rude!”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m intruding on her life. That gives her the right to wonder how long that will go on.”

“It doesn’t give her the right to be rude,” said Mandy.

“Want me to give her a spanking?” I asked. Don’t ask me why I did that. It was just an impulse.

“No!” squealed two females in perfect synchronization. Both also looked horrified.

I held up both hands, palms out.

“Kidding,” I said. “Hey, I’m as harmless as the day is long.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. I sat down across the table from Cynthia.

“Is there coffee, by chance?” I said. I knew there was. I had detected its scent.

“Over there,” said Mandy, pointing. “Cups are in the cupboard above the coffee maker.”

I got up and poured myself a cup.

“There’s milk in the fridge and sugar in that little flowered bowl under the cabinet,” said Mandy, who knew how I liked my coffee.

“Thank you,” I said. “And thank both of you for going with me last night. Hundreds of men were jealous that I had the two best looking women in the house on my arm.”

“I don’t remember taking your arm,” said Cynthia.

“Metaphorically speaking,” I said. “Are we having an argument?”

“No,” said the girl.

“Please don’t,” said Mandy.

“I’m just not used to a man sitting at the breakfast table,” said Cynthia. “I know I said it was okay for him to sleep over, but that’s never happened before. I just need time to get used to it.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “I’m not used to eating breakfast with two gorgeous women.”

“You’re kind of cheesy, aren’t you,” Cynthia pointed out.

I heard the sizzle of batter being poured into a hot waffle iron.

“I prefer to think of myself as factual,” I said.

“I’m not gorgeous,” said the girl. “My mom is, but I’m not.”

“I beg to disagree,” I said. “Last night you were a vision of loveliness.”

“I don’t even have any boobs, yet,” said Cynthia.

“Cynthia!” snapped Mandy.

“Boobs are not as important as a woman’s personality,” I said, as we both ignored Mandy’s outrage. “You’ll grow boobs, sooner or later, but your personality is already in place. I happen to like yours and that makes you a beautiful young lady.”

“So if my mother didn’t have big, beautiful boobs, you’d still be interested in her?”

“Cynthia Marie Potemkin, go to your room this instant!” snapped Mandy. “I will not put up with that kind of disrespect!”

Cynthia stood immediately. She did not argue or defend herself. For a few brief seconds I wondered if there was a submissive gene that a woman could inherit. She left her cereal on the table and padded out of the kitchen.

Mandy looked at me. I could tell she was uncomfortable.

“I love you,” I said, softly. “That means I have to engage with your daughter. You two are a unit. One doesn’t come without the other, and that makes her part of the equation.”

“I understand that, but it doesn’t mean she can be snippy or rude,” said Mandy.

“She’s thirteen,” I said. “Give her a break. She’s navigating choppy waters.”

“She can navigate them politely,” said Mandy. She sniffed and turned. “Oh! The waffle is burning!”

I went behind her as she opened the little round machine and tried to get a very dark waffle out of it. She used a fork and the waffle broke apart, but didn’t come out.

“Can I go talk to her while you deal with this?” I asked. “I get that you’re teaching her values, but if we’re going to keep seeing each other she and I need to forge some kind of relationship. I’d like that relationship to be on her terms so she’s comfortable with it.”

“Okay,” she grumbled.

I lifted my hands and cupped her breasts. She’d left off her bra when she got dressed and I was able to gently maul them.

“She’s right, you know,” I said. “You do have big, beautiful boobs.” I squeezed them again. “I love them, but I’d still love you if you were flat as a board.”

“You’re right that she’s right,” said Mandy, leaning back against me. “You’re very cheesy.”

I tapped on the door but there was no answer. I opened it a couple of inches and asked if I could come in. There was silence for a few seconds, and then the door opened a foot. Cynthia stood and stared at me.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

“I’ve been banished to my bedroom,” she said.

“We can talk in your bedroom, can’t we?”

“Is that what you did in Mom’s bedroom last night ... talk?” Her chin jutted out. I could tell she expected me to bark at her.

“I thought you didn’t want any details,” I said. “Anyway, two different bedrooms. Different rules. Can I come in, or not?”

She stared at me for five or ten heartbeats.

“Remind me to tell you about your eyes some day,” I said.

“What about my eyes?” she asked.

“They’re devastating,” I said. “Your mom’s are, too. They’re an unusual green and both of you have a stare that just stabs right into another person’s inner being. They can be very intimidating, but they’re also beautiful.”

“You are so weird,” she said.

“I’m not weird. I’m just the only grown man who’s ever talked to you very much. Am I wrong?”

Ten more heartbeats.

“No.”

“So can I come in? I’d really like to talk a little.”

“My room is messy,” she said.

“Couldn’t care less,” I said. “I’m here to talk to you, not inspect the barracks.”

She opened the door and stepped back. I entered what I imagined a typical girl’s bedroom looked like. One wall had a K-Pop poster on it, with a group of five or six Asian girls mugging for the camera. There were frilly curtains on the single window, which I suspected gave only the view of the apartment building next door. Her bed was rumpled and unmade and there were clothes scattered around. It wasn’t a mess. It just looked lived-in. She went and sat on the bed, Indian style, and just looked at me.

There was no place for me to sit, so I stood.

“I love your mother,” I said. It wasn’t the opening I might have planned. It just came out. “I think she loves me, too,” I added.

“That’s pretty obvious,” said the girl.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told her,” I said. “I don’t love her in a vacuum. It’s complicated. At work we have to be professional and set our relationship aside. That’s difficult, sometimes, but it’s how things have to be. And outside work it’s also complicated because you’re involved. You two are a package. I can’t love her and ignore you. I hope you and I can be friends.”

“I’ve never been friends with a grown man,” she said.

“I hope you can be friends with lots of grown men as you get older,” I said.

“Does that mean you might break up with her?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that I hope, during your lifetime, you can have guy friends as well as girlfriends.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m not likely to break up with your mother,” I said. “I’ve never felt about a woman what I feel about her. But you’re part of the equation. I told her you two are a unit. You come together. That means I have to engage with you, or it won’t work.”

“And if I refuse to engage with you, does that mean you’ll break up with her?”

This was a much more adult conversation than I had expected it would be.

“I wouldn’t want to,” I said, carefully. “The last thing I want to do, though, is cause a rift between you and your mom.”

“What you mean is if I chase you away, my mom will be pissed,” she said.

“You’d have to ask her that,” I said. “All I can do is talk about how I feel.”

“So, what do you want?”

“I want you and me to get along,” I said.

“Even if I’m rude?” she asked, sarcastically.

“What your mother considers rude and what I think is rude could be different,” I said. “I’m more interested in you feeling like you can say whatever is on your mind. If that comes off a little rough, I get it. You’re thirteen. The world is a big, scary place sometimes. You feel vulnerable sometimes. That’s not unusual. Grownups face the same issues. I think it’s more important that you and I can talk to each other fruitfully than worry about whether or not it’s strictly polite.”

“My mother doesn’t feel that way,” said the girl.

“Obviously, you need to follow her rules,” I said. “But I think you and I can make our own rules for being friends, at least when we’re in private.”

“How can we be friends?” she asked. “I’m thirteen and you’re, like, ancient.”

I grinned.

“That’s a wonderful example of something your mother would yell at you for saying, but I won’t. I’d rather talk about the issue, which is, can we be friends. Did you enjoy last night?”

“Yes,” she said, perking up. “It was amazing.”

“I enjoyed it, too. That means we have something in common. “Do you like picnics?”

“We haven’t been on a picnic since I was a little girl.”

“Would you like to go on a picnic, once the weather warms up?” I asked, patiently.

She nodded.

“I would too. That’s something else we have in common. Do you like to hike? How about camping? Have you ever been on a sailboat? Does that sound interesting?”

She ticked things off on her fingers.

“Hiking is okay. I’ve never been camping. I’ve never been on a boat of any kind.”

“Would you like to find out if any of those things are fun?”

“Maybe,” she said. “What about bears and sharks?”

“There are no bears or sharks in Iowa,” I said. “Not outside the zoo or the aquarium, downtown. Actually, I don’t know if they have any sharks in the aquarium, but that doesn’t matter. All I’m saying is that there might be lots of things we both enjoy doing, and there’s no reason we can’t do them together, sometimes. That’s what friends do. They hang out and have fun together. We can do that, if you want to. That’s all I’m saying.”

“My mom would be there, too, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “At least I hope so. I like spending time with her, too.”

“Like last night,” said Cynthia.

I frowned.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you said I could sleep over. Right?”

“Yes, but...”

“But what?”

“She’s never let a man sleep over before. It’s just kind of weird.”

“We love each other. That’s kind of what people who love each other do,” I said.

“It’s so weird because I know you had sex. And it’s weird to think of my mother having sex.”

“She had sex before you were born,” I pointed out. “That’s why you’re here.”

“I know that,” she scoffed. “I just never thought about her doing ... that. I don’t think she’s done that since her and my father got divorced.”

So Mandy hadn’t told her daughter who her biological father was. That was understandable. It would be very difficult to explain.

“What do you remember about your father?” I asked.

“He yelled a lot. Sometimes he hit her. Mom was scared of him sometimes.”

“Don’t you have any good memories about him?”

“I don’t have hardly any memories of him at all,” she said.

“That’s too bad,” I said.

“Is it? I feel like I’ve never had a father. Why are we talking about this? Does this mean you’re going to try to be my father?”

“Nope,” I said. “Just friends. I’d like you to think of me like a person you can ask any question of and be rude to, sometimes.” I grinned. “In private, of course.”

“So that means you aren’t going to marry my mother?” Her face was impassive.

“Our relationship hasn’t quite gotten to the point where we talk about stuff like that,” I said. “We’ve only known each other for a year and most of that was at work, before we started dating.”

“Oh.” Her face was still unreadable.

“How about this,” I said. “If your mother and I ever do start thinking about that kind of thing, I promise we’ll talk to you about it before any iron-clad decisions are made. Is that fair?”

“Yes,” she said. I saw something that looked like relief seep into her face.

“Even if that ever happens, though, I’d never try to be your father. I have no idea how to be a father.”

“Well, you have one thing going for you,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“You’re fairly okay at being a boyfriend.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Let me ask you this. Do you think you’ll let me sleep over again sometime? And do you think you’d be comfortable sleeping over at my house now and then?”

“Me?” Her head lifted and she stared at me. Those fascinating eyes were just as green and tantalizing as her mother’s.

“Well, I kind of look at it like this,” I said. “I like spending time with your mother, but I don’t want to monopolize her time.”

“What does that mean?” asked the barely teen.

“It means a lot of things,” I said. “It means whenever I take your mother out, you don’t just disappear. She has to find a sitter for you, or make some kind of arrangements for somebody to supervise you.”

“I stayed home alone one time,” she said. Her posture suggested some level of hostility.

“Sure, but your mom came home that night. I think there are things we could all do together, but I don’t want to invade your apartment. My house is a lot bigger and I have more things for you to do while your mother and I ... um ... spend time together.”

“You mean have sex,” said the thirteen-year-old woman in the room.

“That’s not all we do,” I said. “We talk a lot.”

“Why are there more things to do?”

“I have a pool table and a PS5. I have a pool, but it’s a little chilly to think about that, just now.”

“How big is your TV?” she asked.

Now she was being just a thirteen-year-old girl.

“Alas, all I have is a Samsung 75 incher,” I said.

I saw her eyes widen. Their own TV was maybe a 40 inch.

“Are you trying to bribe me?” she asked.

“Nope. I’m simply saying if you slept over at my house, it wouldn’t be boring. At least I hope it wouldn’t be boring. I have a pretty good kitchen, too. You could maybe bake a cake.”

“Why would I want to bake a cake?”

“I love cake,” I said. “You don’t like cake?”

“Okay,” she said. “You want me to cook for you. Do you want me to clean for you, too? Are you trying to make me your slave?”

“I am not,” I said. “I’m merely saying there are things for you to do at my house so you won’t get bored.”

“I’d still think about what you and Mom were doing in private,” she said.

“Wouldn’t you do that here, too?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

“Have you ever played pool before?”

She shook her head.

“It’s all geometry and physics. It’s very complicated. It’s almost impossible to think about anything else while you’re doing it,” I said. “You might like it. It’s a fun challenge.”

She sat there, thinking. Then she looked at me with those eyes that would captivate many a man in the future.

“What if we came to visit, but didn’t stay all night?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d be happy to host you. I’ll even cook you dinner.”

“I thought I was the one who had to cook,” she said.