Chapter 136: Mr. and Mrs. West; the Easy Half

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 (Continued)

It was well after my normal dinnertime and I was hungry, plus there were some excellent smells to encourage my hunger, so I was getting underfoot searching around in the kitchen for any surplus pieces of food when the Wests arrived.

I suddenly realized that no one had told me the plan for tonight! I didn't even know if there was a plan for tonight. Tonight was IMPORTANT, and I was very uncomfortable with not knowing anything about anything. I should've realized this earlier, but I'd been VERY hungry. I blurted, "Help! How are we handling this tonight? What should I do?"

Vanessa said, "Just be yourself. Relax, it'll be fine."

Even though I could probably carry out the "be yourself" part of that plan reasonably well, I couldn't relax. Being unrelaxed was myself when something important was happening and I didn't know what to do - that's precisely why I'd asked for help. Sometimes I wished females knew logic, as it'd considerably improve their ability to give useful advice.

I went to meet the Wests at the front door, with - Vanessa decreed - just Vanessa and Mom with me.

Ava ran forward and latched onto me. When her parents caught up, Ava said, "Mom and Dad, this is my... ," Ava turned to me to ask, "Boyfriend?"

I said, "Sounds good to me." I couldn't think of an alternative, especially not one we could tell her parents before they'd so much as stepped inside the house.

" ... my boyfriend, Mark Anderson. Mark these are my parents, Katie and Carson West."

We did the "Nice to meet you" stuff while they scrutinized me very closely. I was glad I'd brushed my hair. Then I introduced my mom, as "my mom", and Vanessa as "a friend of the family".

After which, Katie (Ava's mom) said, "Ava's been very mysterious about tonight. She wouldn't even explain why we're having dinner in the Williams' house rather than the Anderson's?" In other words, "Who are you?" to Vanessa.

Vanessa said, "Come in, I'll introduce you to everyone else and we'll sit down to dinner. Mark's hungry. I realize you don't appreciate the urgency of that yet, but you will." Ava giggled. "We'll have dinner almost immediately, so we can spend the rest of the evening talking freely. All will be explained in due course." I hoped not "all", but the bit about sitting down to dinner sounded good.

The Wests were ushered in and directed through to the dining room. While the usual, "You've got a very nice home, Vanessa," etc., were going on, I volunteered to go get the others.

I found nearly everyone in the living room, which was next to the dining room. When I got them to move into the dining room I saw that my wives had already joined the other women.

Because I was trying to be seen as mature and responsible, I introduced the Wests to the new arrivals: Dad, Prof, Andrew, Robert, and - last and currently least - Donna. I checked, very maturely I thought, "And were you introduced to my sister Carol and Julia Williams, Mr. and Mrs. West?"

"Yes, thank you."

#3: <Notice they didn't ask to be called by their first names, or use ours. This might not be easy.>

Mom made the comment, "Please excuse Donna's look. She recently misbehaved and is still recovering from the telling off she got. She's normally a very good girl."

Donna hung her head while the Wests indicated that they accepted that such things happen.

Vanessa directed us all to be seated: herself at one end, Prof at the other, "Mark, you're over there, with Ava beside you. Julia and Carol, you're on Mark's other side." Ava's and my parents were placed opposite us, with The Boys and Donna filling in the gaps.

As people were starting to get settled, Vanessa said, "Ava and Carol, would you help me bring the food in please?"

#2: <Presumably so Vanessa can give them a quick briefing in the kitchen.>

#3: <Oh dear. I was hoping it was so they would bring in the food.>

As the designated individuals were heading to the kitchen, Katie West asked, "I'm still puzzled about why we're having dinner here?"

Julia said, "I'm one of Ava's girlfriends, Mrs. West. My family is very close to Mark's family, and I suggested having it here."

"Oh, is that all. I'm surprised Ava was so secretive about it then."

"Because that's only a partial explanation, Mrs. West. It was difficult for Ava to tell you anything without telling you everything, and we thought it was better to do that face to face with all of us. My mother will satisfy your curiosity shortly. Mom's very good at explaining things. She lectures in ethics at OSU, and a lot of that material is conceptually very difficult to convey."

#4: <Julia slid the "We are ethical" implication in nicely.>

Prof said, "As you probably guessed from my nickname, I'm also at OSU. I'm a professor of Mathematics there. Not as relevant to day-to-day life as Vanessa's subject, but I enjoy it. So does Mark, by the way. He's one year away from finishing his Bachelor in Mathematics."

Carson (or, as I think of him, Mr. West), said, "Ahh. We wondered how old Mark was. Ava wouldn't even tell us that. It's unlike her to be so secretive."

Prof said, "Rather than getting into the subject of Mark's age and related topics, can I suggest we put all that on hold temporarily. Ava is very happy now, so please just accept that everything is fine for the moment. Vanessa is a good cook and it'd be a pity to miss the pleasure of this meal because we were concentrating on serious issues. With your approval, can we pass the time by your spending a few minutes talking about yourselves. Ava has told us that you are both accountants, but that's as much as I know. Where do you work?"

Very much aware that they were being diverted, the Wests nonetheless cooperated by talking about their jobs. They both worked as in-house cost accountants, for different firms, but met when they'd worked for the same firm many years ago...

During that discussion, the food started arriving; large dishes of it for the center of the table. Sadly, it wasn't roast chicken; merely some sort of meaty pasta dish, with a variety of different vegetable side-dishes. It still smelled fantastic and looked delicious. My mouth started salivating. Carol brought in the dinner plates which had been warming in the oven. The size of the plate that she put in front of me caused a couple of eyebrows to rise; one on each West parent. They were sitting opposite me, so could hardly fail to notice.

#3: <Just wait till they see us fill it up. I'm VERY hungry!>

#4: <Me too.>

After the last dish was placed, the girls were seating themselves, and my hands were itching to leap into plate-loading mode, Vanessa said to the Wests, "We do not say grace, but we will wait for you, if you wish to." I hoped they didn't, because I didn't want to wait any longer.

"That's all right," said Mrs. West, my new favorite of the two of them.

Dishing up began. Ava's chair had moved to be very friendly to my chair, so she was ideally placed to help me load up my plate, with me helping by telling her "more" from time-to-time.

"Really?" she asked the first time, having already put what she considered - but I did not - a lot of that dish on my plate.

"Yes please. I'm VERY hungry."

"{Giggle}."

I wasn't sitting idle, of course. I couldn't possibly resist helping her help me, by loading the contents of other dishes onto my plate. And onto hers too, because her parents were looking on.

Julia, sitting a decent distance to my other side, was not showing me any special attention. Nor was there anything significant going on between Julia and Carol.

When we was about to start eating, Mrs. West observed, "That's a great deal of food, Mark. Are you going to eat all that?"

#3: <And get seconds!>

I said, "I have a metabolism that requires me to eat a lot. Here and at my home I have an extra-large plate to help with that. Plus I'm especially hungry now because I missed my usual after-school snack and it's well after my normal dinnertime."

"Aren't you in danger of putting on a lot of weight?" I was wearing non-revealing clothes so my shape, especially my freakishly narrow waist, was well hidden. I obviously wasn't fat, but how slim I was couldn't be seen.

Ava leaped to my defense, "Mark exercises a lot, Mom. He is very, very fit. He went..." Ava turned to me, and asked, "Can I say you went for a run?"

"Sure. Generalities are fine."

Ava resumed, "He went for a long run after school, Mom. That's why he missed his snack and is so hungry now."

Ava was slightly wrong: I wasn't hungry now because of the run, and I don't exercise hardly at all. Well, I probably do if you count all the sex, but I don't think of that as "exercise". Neither of those errors were worth correcting her about in front of her parents, especially not the full extent of the second error.

Both her parents' faces fell, and her mother said with considerable disappointment, "Oh, he's a runner."

Her very disappointed, and almost scathing comment reminded me of Ava's saying her parents hadn't wanted her to look for "a good man" at her running club. This needed fixing! I immediately insisted, "I am NOT a runner, Mr. and Mrs. West. I went for a run today because I've been doing a great deal of study lately, and I needed to get some exercise. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been for a run in the last couple of years." I nearly said, " ... other than being required to, for PE at school," but thought I'd leave school out of it for now.

^-- I continued, "My sister Donna is an enthusiastic runner and belongs to the same club as Ava. I've gone for a pre-breakfast run with her twice in my life. I ran in a 10k race a couple of weeks ago mostly as a favor to Donna, and I went on a run today. Otherwise the only running I do is for soccer. That's my ENTIRE running history. To be completely honest, I'll also be going to Donna's athletic club this coming Saturday, and doing a little run there, but that's a one-time thing and I won't be going back."

^-- It wouldn't do any harm to insult running, so I added, "I think running around in circles is silly and boring. Plus I would far rather spend the time studying."

#4: < ... or having sex.>

#3: <We're a teenage boy so they know that already. Although it'd probably be wise not to remind them right now.>

They still appeared doubtful. So I added, "Ava told us that you didn't want her to look for her next boyfriend at her running club, and I want to assure you that she didn't. I've never been to any running club, and other than this coming Saturday, I have no intention of ever doing so. I am not a runner. My future is in my head, not my legs."

While the Wests thought about that, Donna said, "Are you still going to my club on Saturday?"

"I made a commitment to them to do so, sweetie." Giving her something to think about.

I made my belly rumble loudly. They got the hint, and we were able to start eating. They appeared to no longer be unhappy about my being a runner, just unhappy about everything in general.

A couple of bites into the meal, Mr. West asked me, "Ava told you that we'd asked her not to get another boyfriend from the Athletic Club?"

You may not be surprised to know that I was temporarily unable to answer due to my mouth being full, but Vanessa fielded it, "I believe Ava has told us everything, including your preference for her looking elsewhere than that club because of her sexual history with men from there. She's also told us of the systematic way you got her to search for 'a good man', your cancers, your prognoses, and your concern that her inheritance not be tricked away from her. I believe that covers the main points?"

"It seems Ava has told you a great deal more than she should have."

"Yes. She's a credit to you. You can be very proud of her."

#2: <I love it when they do things like that.>

"What do you mean?"

"Ava correctly identified that Mark will be the most important man in her life for the next several years. She decided that such an important relationship had to be started with total honesty, so she opened her life to him. To us all, because most of us were with her at the time. Many girls would've been economical with the truth to maximize their chances of starting a relationship with Mark, but not Ava. We are all very impressed by her. Her honesty and wisdom are two reasons why both the Williams and Anderson families are so willing to support and help Ava over the next few years."

Vanessa did not allow any of the follow-up questions, saying, "Please, after the meal. We can spend several hours answering your questions then."

The rest of the meal was full of small talk. Not only involving the Wests, as Vanessa discussed some small family stuff with The Boys, for example. It was normality, even if forced.

I was amused to note the Wests expressions when I started helping myself to seconds. Vanessa noted them too, and commented, "Katie, I predict that you'll be buying a large plate shortly too."

Ava laughed, "Yeah, we'll need one of those. Mark eats a LOT!"

Mrs. West primly replied, "We haven't yet decided whether we will allow this relationship."

Vanessa visibly thought better of whatever her reply would have been, but Ava didn't, beseeching, "Mom, you HAVE TO! Mark is..."

Vanessa said, "Ava, it's okay. There are several hours of more talk with come and no one has made a decision yet. I think Mark wants you to pass him that dish," correctly pointing to a dish I had my eyes on.

The rest of the meal was more "normality". Dessert was also delicious, and I enjoyed one and half Mark-sized bowls of it.

When my bowl was first produced, Vanessa said, "It serves a dual role, for Mark's dessert and for his cereal in the morning. Just so you know."

#2: <Whoa! Vanessa's playing hardball, especially as there's an implication that we sleep here and that we'll be sleeping at the Wests. This'll be interesting.>

#4: <There's only a message that we eat breakfast here. If Vanessa's asked, she could say we come over in the wee smalls to study and then eat breakfast.>

#2: <True. Good point.>

Both Wests noted the comment, but decided to leave it alone. Perhaps wisely, as Vanessa was obviously prepared.

That sort of describes the tone of the dinner. It wasn't a laughter-filled meal, but no one caused trouble either. The Wests were civil, stiff, and too quick to disapprove if given half an excuse. Everyone was civil back to them. There was a great deal of mutual sounding out of each other going on. Questions about what The Boys were doing at OSU, what grades Julia, Carol and Donna were in. Stuff like that, with the questions about me being deflected.

When dessert was finished, Vanessa got us to move to the living room for coffees and conversation.

Robert said, "Andrew and I will clear the table and take care of the dishes, Mom."

Vanessa answered, "Thanks. Just do the bare minimum please because I'd like you to come back and sit in on our discussion."

It was obvious to the Wests that The Boys were not involved in any of this, so Katie said, "There's no need. I'm sure they've got better things to do."

Vanessa answered, "No one in either family has anything more important to do than demonstrate their commitment to Ava."

Vanessa is really good at firing zingers at people, and that one rocked the Wests back a bit, but they didn't comment. We made our way to the living room. Vanessa got me to sit on a sofa, and without prompting, Ava planted herself on my lap. Again her parents chose not to make an issue out of it. Vanessa put Julia next to me, and Carol next to her. There was a little furniture rearranging to get everyone able to look at everyone else, but it was soon achieved. Both my parents and Julia's had to double-up on single-seaters, but they had wide armrests so it wasn't a problem. Donna was on the floor, rather than sit next to the Wests on their sofa, and The Boys also sat on the floor after they finished the tidying up.

Vanessa led off, "I know you already have several questions, but it will be more efficient if I give you more information first, and then you can ask whatever questions you wish."

The Wests consented to that.

"Before we start, I will repeat that Ava has told us of your cancers and prognoses. You have our sympathies, BUT," Vanessa forestalled the imminent comments, "tonight is not the time for a sympathetic discussion about your illnesses. We do not know each other well enough to do that justice, and more importantly, tonight's discussion is about Ava and Mark. Do you agree?"

"Yes. That is why we came."

"And why you were invited. Good. From what Ava has said, you have been very direct with her about your illnesses and what the consequences are likely to be. Because your prognoses are central to Ava's circumstances over the next few years, would you object if I am similarly direct?"

"That would be best."

"Thank you. If at any time during the conversation you need to stop in order to collect yourself, don't hesitate to ask. We respect that this may be very uncomfortable for you."

"Thank you."

Vanessa gave a little nod to acknowledge their thanks, then carried on, "Last night everyone in our two families promised Ava that we'll do our best to help and support her over the next few years. To be, when required, her surrogate families. Andrew and Robert told her that they wished to be treated as her brothers, and Ava has responded by teasing them mercilessly already."

That lightened the mood a little, and Ava helped further by adding, "Julia says I've got seventeen years of brother teasing to catch up on, and I should grab every chance I get. So far it's been a lot of fun."

Vanessa said, "Andrew's reasonably good with cars and has offered to help Ava if she has car troubles. Robert is apparently only good for opening jars, but he's offered to do that for her, if she needs it. Without belittling the male contribution at all, Ava will especially need female support when the times come. That will primarily come from Julia and Carol, but Felicity and I will be involved too. We'll be supporting Ava almost as if she was part of our families."

"But why? We don't know you people."

"I'll come to the why shortly. Let me give you the rest of the facts first. You're right about not knowing us. Even Ava doesn't know us, as she met most of us for the first time only last night. This has come about because of Mark and Julia. Primarily Mark. Mark and Julia are supporting Ava, and everyone else is supporting Mark and Julia in their doing so." I had my arms around Ava's waist, and Julia had now taken one of Ava's hands, and was holding it in Ava's lap. None of which had been commented on by Ava's parents.

^-- "In the future, when you are no longer able to do so, we'll provide Ava with thanksgiving dinners, career guidance, teach her what she needs to know to maintain a property such as dealing with repairmen such as plumbers and electricians, and all the usual family stuff. Probably with the occasional admonishment, as young women have been known to go astray from time to time. All of these things are in no way taking away from your rights or obligations, as I am only talking about when you are no longer able to parent her yourselves. Until that time, Ava is all yours. At most we'll provide shoulders for her to cry on, if they're needed. Other than 'Why', which I'll come to later, do you have any questions about our role?"

Mrs. West checked, "You ALL want to be Ava's parents and family after we're gone?"

"From when you're too sick to parent her, yes. There's no legal contract in this; no adoption or anything like that. Ava will be an adult and not bound to us in any way, so she can come and go as she pleases. Which reminds me of one significant difference between our roles and that of a normal parent. Normally parents will try to stay in contact with their adult children. They will usually try to enforce such contact. It's a subtle point, but we won't be like that. We want Ava to become independent as soon as she is able, and to make her own way in the world, so we won't encourage her to cling to us. We won't drive her away, but we won't pressure her to remain in contact either. Our role is to help rather than to hold. Ava is almost an adult, she will inherit sufficient wealth to support herself..."

Mr. West started reacting, but Vanessa said, "I want to talk about money later, but I'd like to give you the big picture before we get into details, if that's okay?" Mr. West nodded so Vanessa continued, "She'll be able to support herself financially. After a few years, her relationship with us should be much more one of a friend than as a daughter. Although she'll have our permission to continue teasing Andrew and Robert until she's caught up on her seventeen years' worth.

^-- "Now let me turn to Mark. Mark is central to what has happened and why, and you need to understand some things about him in order to understand what Ava has fallen into, other than Mark's lap right now. I understand from what Ava said about your systematic approach to her finding a good man, that you consider intelligence to be of prime importance, correct?"

"We told her to start looking among intelligent boys, yes. If all else is equal, an intelligent husband is better than an unintelligent one."

"My point is that you didn't tell her, 'If all else is equal, a tall husband is better than a short one', or any other criterion. You made high intelligence the starting point."

"Yes."

"I married a guy called 'Prof', so I agree with you. I know IQ score is a simplistic way to judge someone's academic potential, let alone their ability to make good life decisions, but in purely IQ terms, could I venture a guess that you would be happy if Ava's boyfriend had an IQ above 120 or so. Maybe even above 130. You are familiar with IQ scores, aren't you?"

#3: <I wish people would stop using our IQ score like this. One day our so-called IQ score is going to bite us on the ass. Like next year, when we have to live up to it.>

#2: <Yeah. But what more can we do? We've tried to warn everyone that we're worried about third and fourth year courses, but no one listens and it's too destructive to do any more, like refuse to attempt completing the bachelor's next year. We're stuck, until it all comes unstuck.>

Mr. West answered, "Yes, we are." After some quick conferring, more by looks than words, he added, "We'd be happy if Ava's final boyfriend - her husband - had an IQ something like that. There are a multitude of other factors that are important to being a good husband..."

"Yes. I don't want my interruption to seem rude, but we are only talking about IQ at the moment. 'All else being equal', if you wish. I just wanted you to confirm that you considered IQ very important, and get a feeling for what values you considered acceptable. Have you noticed that teenage girls don't always behave the way you expect?"

I'd been sitting there, telling myself with a degree of dread, <Here it comes, Vanessa's going to tell them I've got an IQ of 226.> So Vanessa's question about teenage girls caught me by surprise. I gave a little start of surprise.

My reaction got the Wests attention, so I answered their curiosity with, "Sorry, I was expecting Vanessa to say something else." I'd had another idea while I was talking, and thought it'd be interesting to see the Wests' reactions to it, so I looked at Vanessa and added, "You mean I'm not the only one who finds teenage girls unpredictable?"

I looked at the Wests. Their small smiles could be considered a success. Very small from Mrs., but reasonable from Mr. The rest of the room chuckled more freely, but it was the Wests that mattered. I was pleased to see they had some humor and sense of reality, as I'd been starting to wonder.

Vanessa apparently decided that my question didn't need an answer, nor her preceding one either. Vanessa carried on addressing the Wests. "You sent Ava out to find AN intelligent boyfriend, but she greatly over-performed; she brought back THE MOST intelligent boyfriend."

They struggled to decipher what Vanessa meant. Vanessa gave them a second, then added, "If you need a context, I could say Mark's the most intelligent boy in Corvallis."

"Oh, you mean he's a genius."

"To agree to that would be misleading. Geniuses are a dime a dozen where Prof and I work. We deal with dozens or even hundreds of students who meet the definition of genius every day of the week. I'm saying that Mark is THE MOST intelligent boy in Corvallis. If all the geniuses in Corvallis got together - and there are a large number of them, because of the university - then they'd ALL look up to Mark. It's safe to say that Mark exceeds your hope of a 130 IQ boyfriend by a considerable margin. Your daughter MASSIVELY over-performed."

Julia added, "As Ava would say, Mark is a 'super-genius'." Ava giggled happily.

"He's really that smart?" asked Mr. West.

Prof said, "I told you Mark is doing his Bachelor in Mathematics, and that I'm a professor of Mathematics, so obviously I'm aware of what's going on with Mark's studies. There is a frenzy of excitement in my department over Mark. We have NEVER had a student of his caliber before, and Mathematics attracts far more than its fair share of geniuses. Geniuses come and go in our department, and no one raises an eyebrow, but my whole department is currently running around like chickens with their heads cut off, organizing and reorganizing ourselves to give Mark what he needs next year."

"Oh," said Mrs. West. Unfortunately followed a couple of seconds later by her asking, "But what can he see in Ava?" That instantly made her no longer my favorite.

^-- A lot of people in the room stiffened in response to that, which Mrs. West couldn't help notice. "I didn't mean it like that. Well, to be blunt, I partly did. If he's as intelligent as you say, then why is he spending time with a girl like Ava? She's far beneath his intellectual level, and I have to worry that he's using her."

"For sex, you mean?" asked Vanessa bluntly, adding, "If we can agree to being frank about your illnesses, I presume there's little point in pretending we're not aware that young people enjoy sex?"

#2: <Let's hope Ava's sufficiently worried about this conversation that she doesn't give her view on the matter. The last thing we need is Ava telling her parents how good we are in bed.>

#4: <If that was the last thing, what does that make how good it is to be in bed with Julia AND us?>

#2: <Yeah, that might be somewhat worse.>

Mrs. West smiled briefly to concede the point. "Yes, I meant for sex."

Vanessa said, "We'll return to sex later. It's not an unexpected issue when dealing with teenagers. It's in the same basket as money, being something we need to tidy up at the end, after you've got a good grasp of the big picture. For the moment I'll point out that EVERY girl is less intelligent than Mark, and he's too nice a boy to treat all girls as sexual playthings, the way you fear he's treating Ava. In answer to your question about what Mark sees in Ava, let's just say that Mark likes Ava and leave it at that. There are other contributing factors, such as Ava's attitude to Mark and your illnesses, but his liking of Ava is at the core of it."

"Okay."

"Putting Mark's intellectual prowess to the side for the moment, let's turn to another of your criteria: physical ability. Ava told me that you wanted her to find someone who was good at sports."

"Yes. We want her to have a fit, healthy partner. Not a professional athlete, because their careers are too hard on their spouses and are too brief, but fit and healthy would be ideal."

"I've got some good news for you then, because Ava massively over-performed on that criterion too. Mark is an exceptionally capable athlete."

"He's an athlete TOO? As well as being a genius?"

"Not just 'an athlete', but an exceptional athlete."

"Come on! That's not believable. He can't be both of those things."

"I agree it strains credibility. However, everything I'm about to say is verifiable. I'll give you some examples of some of Mark's athletic feats:

^-- "We have a games room with a pool table. Robert and Andrew grew up competing with each other and they're both very good at those games. They've literally spent thousands of hours practicing. Mark first came to this house having never played 8-ball, snooker or billiards. After far less practice than my sons have had, he beats them. We'll all go watch him demonstrate in a few minutes."

Mr. West said, "That's not necessary."

"It IS necessary. It's very important you understand enough about Mark to be able to make good decisions about your daughter's future. Ten minutes of your time is an investment that will be well rewarded. It'll give me a chance to refresh the coffees too. Mark got a score of 300 at bowling last Sunday. You know what that means, don't you?"