Chapter 17

My father had his hand over his mouth. His fingers were tapping his cheek. This was not a good sign. Well, at least not to me.

My father looked me in the eye and asked, "Before this moment, how was your love life?"

Jeanie started to laugh.

Jessica was looking at me with interest in the answer to that question.

Theresa said, "I know."

"What?" Jessica said, looking at her mother with unbelief in her eyes.

There was a slight smile on my father's face.

"Well, Theresa, tell me about it."

She suddenly realized the can of worms she'd opened up and turned red with embarrassment.

"I just meant," she stammered out, "that he's only kissed three girls."

"Three?" Jessica asked.

"Only three?" my mother said.

I was the one with a rather red blush on my face that that point. I could tell from the heat it was producing.

I cleared my throat, as it felt like there was a frog in it. Everyone else in the room took that as a signal I wanted to say something. I didn't, but I needed to now.

I said the first thing that came to mind.

"It's four now."

Jessica smiled and her eyes twinkled. Jeanie had a smirk on her face. Theresa didn't look happy at all. I noticed my mother had a frown on her face.

"Only four?" she said. "But what about Barbara, or Monica?"

"Mom!" I said in mild disgust. "I can't believe your friends tried to set me up with them. Do you know..." I stopped realizing that I was defending what I didn't need to defend. "I never asked to be set up and frankly didn't need the interference."

"If you've only kissed three girls before," my mother said in her sympathetic voice, "maybe you did need a little help."

My father, thankfully, intervened before I said something that I might well have regretted.

"This is a problem about maturity levels. Now," he looked at his wife, "how would you or your friends ever pick someone out that would be suitable for him, if you didn't know he lacked the experience that would have made him confident with any of the ... women ... you picked?"

Jessica sort of winced and whispered to me, "I think you're getting it worse than I was."

I nodded and whispered back, "I sort of expected it."

My mother, in the mean time, said, "He could have told us."

My father laughed. I looked at my mother in disbelief.

"You mean when I said, 'Don't ever do that again, ' after Barbara?"

My mother crossed her arms and wasn't about to answer me.

"You're trying to suggest that Jessica and John are about as mature as each other," Jeanie said.

"Jeanie!" Theresa blurted out. "Please!"

"Well, aren't you?" Jeanie asked my father.

Before my father could answer, Jessica said to my father, "I'd like to answer your question now."

"What question?" Theresa wanted to know.

"About why it was different. I mean why I was willing to say to you things I couldn't before," Jessica said to her mother. Then turning to my father, she said, "It was just as you said to me. Maybe there hasn't been anything worth fighting for, before John."

It looked as though Theresa was about to have a coronary.

Jeanie, I could see, was appraising the situation. If anyone, she, like my father, might be able to separate herself from the family dynamics that were taking place here.

"You really don't want them to get married when Jessica turns fourteen, do you?" Jeanie asked my father.

He smiled, and replied, "No."

"Then why ... all of this?" Theresa said, standing and waving her arms around dramatically.

Almost as expected, he didn't answer that question, but asked one himself. This time he directed himself to Jessica.

"You don't want to get married when you turn fourteen, do you?"

"No," she answered immediately. She then followed that up just as quickly with, "But I do want to..." she stopped and paused, choosing her words, "grow and mature, with John."