Chapter 3: Being Found Out

At home I walked into our kitchen smelling of dinner. Kara had cooked, for which I was grateful as always. In ordinary times, she would recount her day at high school as we tucked in. In the eleventh grade and popular, she always had something going on to talk about. In these times of COVID, her life was more restricted to the small circle of very local friends she could visit with, albeit with masks on. At this time, her high school was still completely suspended, not having built any online infrastructure.

These days her dinnertime storytelling was much more limited.

It was some five minutes after we began to eat that I realized the only audible sounds were from cutlery and my chewing. I looked into my daughter’s worried face. “What’s wrong, Dad?” she asked me.

“Nothing.”

“Dad, two minutes ago I told you that Vladimir Putin was moving in next door. You said, and I quote, ‘That’s nice.’ Now what the hell is bothering you?”

“Kara, I met a nice woman today, and then I upset her,” I told her.

A look of concern appeared on her face. “What happened?” she asked.

“So you know how, because of COVID, I’m working on this seemingly empty floor.” I waited for her to nod before I continued. “Well today, a woman came by my desk ... One of my colleagues, whom I’ve never met apparently. She explained, working alone in the other end of that empty space was uncomfortable. She wanted to be near another person once she noticed I was there. It’s been weird for me, too, as you know.”

She nodded again and I continued on, “I helped set her up in the vacant cubicle opposite of mine. Her name is Sallie Macron. I was pleased, hoping she would be good company. More or less my age, good looking. She saw your picture on my desk and I was telling her about the world’s best daughter.”

“World’s best daughter, huh?” Kara grinned. I ignored her and continued.

“Suddenly, and I don’t really understand why or how, it all blew up. I said something about how pretty she was. Suddenly she was tearful, then angry, like I had insulted and then slapped her. Her reactions shocked me, I didn’t know what to say or do. I thought she would leave and never come back.”

Recalling Sallie’s reactions, I was having trouble staying calm and keeping my voice level. “I was upset, retracting and apologizing as fast and as hard as I could.”

“Let me understand this, Father.” Already, there was a tone in Kara’s voice. The “what were you thinking” tone women use when they see their men about to blunder badly.

“You told her she was pretty, then you were backpedaling? So, telling her she wasn’t pretty? Then, you said you were sorry that you told her she was pretty?” Kara’s voice was definitely sharp, now. I winced and nodded.

“You fucked up, Dad.”

Leave it to my teenage daughter to stick the knife and twist it. Hard. Kara had me convinced, in just a few words: after just meeting Sallie, I drove her away. I failed with the most attractive woman I had met in months. Years!

“I did, you’re right. I am hopeless with women. I should accept being alone forever.”

“Don’t say that, Dad.” She held my hand reassuringly. “We’re going to fix this. You said she was angry. Did she leave?”

“No, we finished the day doing our work, and then I walked her over to the station for her train home.”