Don't Tell Daddy (12 page)

“Ma, are you at the boutique?”

“Yes, love. Why?”

“I need a blouse. A size bigger than normally.”

“Why? Did your breasts grow?”

Pamela blew out a breath. This was getting out of hand and she was tired of having to buy new bras.

“Yes.”

“Ay mis Dios, you’re too chesty for me.”

“Well, sorry. Can I come and pick it up in an hour or so?”

“Sure, Pamela.”

“Oh, gracias tan mucho, Ma.”

“You’re welcome."

Pamela hung up and waited for Bryan to come over. When he did, they headed up to their meeting, and then he took her to Carmella’s boutique. He walked in simply to speak to Carmella. “Hey Bryan,” she greeted, coming from behind the counter.

“Hey, Mella.”

Pamela was so used to people saying her and her mother’s full names when they were in the same room because their names shortened sounded the same. Pamela didn’t enjoy being called Pam because it was too common and her mother had thought it was cute when she was a little girl to call her by the same nickname. So it just sort of caught on with everyone else.

“Make sure you let Jada know that Jonta and I will definitely be there. But maybe a few minutes late. Jonta’s been getting bogged down at work the last week. He literally asks me to bring dinner to the office.”

“Must be a big project,” Bryan commented.

“Yeah.”

“Ma, the blouse,” Pamela urged.

“Oh yeah. I’ll have her right back to ya, Bry. Don’t mean to hold you guys up.”

“It’s no hold up. We’re just going to the office. I doubt Mela has very much on her plate today, anyhow.”

Carmella led her daughter to the fitting room and gave her a few different blouses. Pamela went for the biggest. It was snug, but it fit. “Thank you.”

“If those things get any bigger, you’re getting a reduction,” Carmella said, her face straight. “This is ridiculous, Pamela.”

“Are you actually scolding me about my bust like I control it?” Pamela asked, pulling her blazer on. “Besides, I was only a C.”

“Only?” Carmella raised her brows, her lips pursed. “Honey, did you forget, I have designed for you. I know your waistline is less than thirty inches around. A C is big.”

Pamela cupped her heavy breasts and shrugged with a wry smile. “Oh well. These are my best friends.”

“Why? Got a new crush?” her mother teased. Pamela rolled her eyes. “You got a crush on Bryan?”

Pamela tried not to worry as she rolled her eyes again and scoffed at her mother. “He’s older than Daddy. That’s disgusting. I guess he’s cute for an old guy, Ma. Did you like old men?”

Internally, Pamela hoped her mother had. Just because she didn’t want to feel weird for liking a man more than twice her age.

“Hey, when I was your age, I was infatuated with a professor of mine. I couldn’t be paid to look your father’s way for a good while, just because he looked so young. Maturity looks good on a man.”

“Okay. But he’s my godfather.”

“Okay, Mela.”

Carmella surveyed her daughter’s thickening body. “Are you having sex?” she wondered idly. Pamela had been having sex for the last two years. Now her mother chose to ask?

“Why?”

“Because, you’re getting thicker. Your hips,” she said, holding them. “They spread.”

Of course, when Pamela lost her virginity, her hips had spread a bit. But now they were getting really wide now that she was sleeping with Bryan. Maybe it was the amount of sex she was having. Or could it be her body finally fully coming into its womanhood?

“Gosh, Ma. I am so hungry. I must be PMSing. I am eating, like… everything.”

“I have some rice cakes.”

“Those things taste like Styrofoam.”

Carmella chuckled a little bit, still eyeing her daughter’s thickening frame. “Why do you know what Styrofoam taste like, loquita?”

“Between me and you, your cooking is so good, sometimes I eat the plate too.”

Carmella cracked up at her hot mess of a daughter. She was goofy. Sometimes, Carmella forgot her daughter was on the fast track to womanhood. She found it hard to believe sometimes that the sweet little bundle she had once wrapped in pink blankets and decorated in bows and ribbons was grown. Sometimes, she missed having her daughter home. Sometimes. She usually rejoiced in being able to tactlessly make love around the house.

“You’re a mess, child. Get outta here.”

“Thanks for the blouse.”

Pamela gave the other shirts back and left the fitting room. “I’m ready to go, Papi. Bye, Ma. Love you.”

“I love you too.”

The couple left and Pamela felt more comfortable in the new shirt. She made a mental note to go shopping soon. Or to go back to her previous size. Whichever came first.

Bryan went home to change out of his slacks, pulling on a white tee and putting his own blazer on. Pamela gave him a glare. “Really?” she asked, putting a hand on her hip. “You just had me sweating over not wearing a blouse, and you put on jeans and a white tee?”

“I told you I’d ignore it if you kept the blazer on.”

“That’s just assholish. You took me all the way to the boutique, and I could’ve kept on the shirt?”

“Oh it was too tight anyway. Stop trippin’.”

“Trippin’? Who are you?” She threw her hands up and stormed back outside while he chuckled behind her.

He opened the door for her and closed it before going to the driver’s side. “Do you want to go to the lingerie store?” he asked.

“I need to,” she muttered. He liked her filling out, if he was honest.

He took her out to Belleville to a lingerie shop, and she let him pick out the pieces he wanted to see her in, and then she picked up just a few pieces to wear casually.

They got to the office, and Pamela had virtually nothing to do. She turned on her earphones and listened to music, dancing in her seat. “Vamos, Papi,” she said, pulling Bryan up and out of his seat. As loud as she had those things, he could hear every word. She was listening to Te Quiero remix by DJ Flex and Belinda. To Pamela, although Belinda did turn a Spanish song into a Spanglish song, she saved it. Pamela couldn’t listen to Flex’s solo version. He couldn’t sing.

Cuando te tengo cerca, I feel I’m going crazy 
she sang.

“Alright, Mela. I have to work.”

She pouted, but he just kissed her lips and sat back at his desk. Pamela didn’t even realize that she was slowly starting to let their love and professional lives collide head on, and even if she had, she’d shrug it off.

“Gimme your keys,” she ordered.

He tossed her his keys, and then he decided to know where she was taking his car. “I’m going to the coffee shop.”

“Okay.”

She left the office and ran into her godmother. She was all soft and squishy. Pamela kept that to herself, but in her head, her godmother was being analyzed. She wasn’t a full figured woman, she just lacked tone.

“Hey, Mami,” she greeted.

“Hey. Bryan in there?”

“Oh yeah. I’m taking his car to the coffee shop. Maybe the carwash. He was my ride, and I’m bored. You want anything ?’

“Oh, no. I won’t be here when you get back. Thank you though, mija.”

“Okay.”

Pamela left, and Heather went into Bryan’s office. He greeted her with a smile, getting up to go and kiss her. She noticed the jeans he was wearing with his blazer. That was something that young men thought was stylish. “Why aren’t you wearing slacks?” she asked, tilting her head.

“Oh, Pamela wasn’t wearing a blouse this morning—”

“What?” she cut him off, a little snap to her voice.

“Because they were all alleged to be too small,” he continued, ignoring her. “So she put on a V-neck. I told her I’d ignore it if she kept on her blazer.”

Heather seemed to calm down. Her mind jumped to the wrong conclusion when he said she didn’t have on a blouse. She scolded herself. A blouse was a type of shirt. He never said she was shirtless.

“So she sweated me—”

“Sweated? Bryan, I think Pamela is rubbing off on you. Working with that child has got you speaking like one.”

“Oh, lighten up, Heather. Maybe you should try acting younger. Smile.” He lifted the corners of her lips, and she rolled her eyes. He just chuckled. “She asked me, is asked okay?” he teased.

Heather rolled her eyes and went to take a seat on the sofa near the window. He leaned on his desk.

“She asked me to take her to Mella’s boutique, so I did. Then I went to change to mock her for making a big deal out of the shirt after I told her it was fine.”

“That makes you an ass. She was trying to be professional. Which, mind you, you don’t look right now.”

“She said the same thing. Both of you need to lighten up. I said the shirt was fine, and she kept worrying about it. Whose problem is that?”

“Have you forgotten you’re over forty?”

“Will you forget that you are?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “I came here to tell you something though. I’m going to ignore this newfound youth.”

“What’s up, Heather?”

“I have to go to Ecuador. My mother is sick.”

Bryan’s eyes darkened, and he was at his wife’s side immediately. “I can go too, Heather,” he said, his tone soft and sincere.

“No, stay here. She’s my responsibility—”

“You’re my wife. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine.”

“You have enough to do here, Bryan. I can handle it alone.”

“Well, when do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. I would just feel horrible if I miss Jada’s competition.”

Bryan knew his mother-in-law’s health was deteriorating. He and Heather had been making trips back and forth to her house and then she wanted to go back to her native home, and Heather tried to get back often to care for her. But now her mother was on her deathbed, and she had to be there with her.

He nodded. “Hey, I need twenty dollars. I left my wallet at the shop, and I need gas. Am so brainless sometimes.” She got up, and went to his desk, taking his wallet out of the drawer. His heart beat faster. The receipt for the lingerie he bought Pamela was in there. Fortunately, Heather just went straight to the bills and pulled out a fifty. “I’ll just keep the other thirty dollars too,” she decided. He chuckled, shaking his head, not letting on to the nervousness inside of him.

“I’ll see you later,” she said and kissed him goodbye.

She ran into Pamela again, this time not literally, on her way out. She looked over her thick, but tight body in envy. She used to look like that about twenty years ago and she had been privately trying to work out. She wanted to look that good again.

“Oye, Mela. Tengo un pregunta.”
Hey, Mela. I have a question.

“Wassup, Mami?” she asked.

“Do you work out?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your routine?”

“Um, when I go by myself, I just do a few squats with the dumbbells, I use the little leg weight lift. Sometimes, if I can find someone to spot me, I try to bench at least half my body weight. I run. Don’t forget to stretch, Madrina. Charlie horses suck.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

Heather kept that in mind to add to her own workout routine. She was going to work her ass off in her spare time down in Ecuador.

Pamela continued to Bryan’s office with her latte and a couple of pitas. She knew Bryan didn’t want coffee, simply because he’d already had a cup that morning.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the sandwich.

“You’re welcome.”

She took her iPod out and plopped on the sofa, kicking her feet up. Bryan looked at her laying there for a while before he went back to his work. That girl pulled that thing out every ten seconds. He wondered if it ever went dead.

After work, they headed to the Joe Louis Arena for Jada’s competition. They spotted Heather with Jada and Lila and headed over. Jada jumped on Bryan. “Ma told me you turned cool.”

“Did she?” he asked, his brow raising.

“Not exactly that way. She said you were acting like a teenager earlier. Awesome!” she said, the goofiest grin on her face. “Mela, you shoulda started working for him about five years ago.”

“No. He’s boring as crap.”

“He was, and then you rubbed your über youth on him!”

If only Jada even knew how very true that was. Pamela left the whole topic alone and changed it. “When can we expect to see the first place ‘bot?” she asked.

“My team is up fourth.”

“Cool.”

“I gotta go get ready.”

“We’ll be screamin’ for you, girl,” Lila called after her. “Hey, Mela. Let’s get snacks. I ain’t ate all day.”

The girls sauntered away to the snack counter.

Pamela ordered three double cheeseburgers, fries, lemonade, a pickle, and a milkshake. “You didn’t get two drinks for real,” Lila said, looking at the tray her best friend carried.