Authors: Michael Malflic
His eyes met her “I didn’t tell you, but it’s Vincent Ma’am”
Realizing that he wasn’t backing down easily she bitterly stated with fake white bread pleasantness
“ Nice
to meet you, Vincent.”
He responded by placing his arms on her shoulders and kissing each cheek and then the left one a second time just for good measure. Mother became visibly distraught.
As mother took her seat she barked “Have you ordered yet?”
Vincent still not liking her, “No, I thought we established that we were waiting for YOU.”
Daddy smirked secretly inside of his
head,
he was enjoying watching someone not care about what his wife thought for a change.
Nadrea
again looked on in horror hoping Vincent would just shut up and let them get through the meal.
Vincent continued “ I don’t like to be kept waiting but would never be so rude as to order before an expected guest arrived, a cocktail perhaps even a round of appetizers but never a salad or entrée.” His tone was polite but pressing.
Nadrea
had never seen anyone deal with her mother quite like he was, most just kowtowed to her, before running back into the shadows. Suddenly the idea of being there with her mother became bearable, for once mother wasn’t focusing her wrath and her disappointment at
Nadrea
.
“I thought we established I was with my patients.” Her words directed at Vincent who could have cared less, he was not at all inclined to give an inch let alone back down he pressed further.
“Yes, you did say that, were there unexpected problems?”
Mother just glared at him, he continued. “No? No problems. How was traffic?”
She just stared at him indignant that he dared to question her about her actions, refusing to speak she Physically turned away from him, an intended insult. “That’s exactly what I thought.” Vincent added mocking her earlier tone, becoming the fake assed positive person that his profession required continuing on “So that means one of two things, we are not important enough for you to be here on time for or your time management skills fucking suck. Which is it?”
Daddy couldn’t help himself as an audible giggle escaped from his normally cautious lips
Mother finally responded “And what is it that you do that that makes your time so important, an artist?
Actor?
Or a well dressed sanitation engineer.”
Nadrea
watched not able to look away as the conflict escalated Vincent and Mother had yet to sit back down since he had greeted
her with a kiss, she thought that she had finally put the bastard in his place.
Vincent pulled out her chair in a gentlemanly gesture
“ I
invest in companies.”
Daddy’s ears perked up, dialing in closely to what Vincent was about to say, a fellow business man, a finance type he thought perhaps all hope for
Nadrea
was not lost. Perhaps she finally met a decent human being and actually liked them, even if it was only a little.
Vincent continued “The companies I invest in are primarily in technology, some pure data the occasional bio tech and there is one that is working on next generation surgical equipment but it won’t be much use to you since they are trying to cure something slightly more substantial than undersized and sagging breasts.” His direct, seemingly honest and slight spiteful twist at the end caused another chuckle from Daddy, which quickly met with Mother’s disapproving glare.
Her nostrils flared like
Nadrea’s
when she wasn’t getting her way. “No wine yet
Nadrea
? Or did you have them slip Vodka into the juice for you?” Mother knew her daughters propensity to indulge in too many drinks, she never once thought that she at least in part might have anything to do with why.
Vincent was unrelenting “No wonder she didn’t want to show up today. Is your bedside manner this deplorable?”
Mother stood “I’m leaving!”
Vincent not caring, “OK,
have
fun.”
She looked at Daddy, “I said I was leaving.”
Daddy sat there pausing, analyzing the situation like a financial transaction, the very second she stood Mother expected him to leap from his chair and follow her out. Instead Daddy replied with, “Vincent has a good point. I’ve been sitting in restaurants waiting for you for years and years.” He had never spoke up before, and for the first time it dawned on
Nadrea
that maybe Daddy didn’t like the way mother treated him either. As she began to step away from the table he added, “Fine we can discuss it later. Now sit down Carroll.” She sat down and it was the most fun
Nadrea
could ever remember having at meal with her parents, Daddy turned it into a get to know each other session, and small talk when the inevitable question came up of “how did you meet.” He expected
that it was it would be through work or perhaps a charity event. Vincent was mostly honest in his reply. “
Nadrea
picked me up in a restaurant.”
Nadrea
thinking to herself “thank God he didn’t say bar.” Vincent continued on “To be more specific in the hallway of a restaurant.” The table all nodded in understanding and Vincent felt the need to add “and it went about as well as when I met Carroll today.” Turns out for all the things Vincent wasn’t he was at least the same direct person no matter who was around him. After the meal was finished they left the table like animals boarding Noah’s Ark, two by two.
Organized to a fault Vincent had arranged to have driver pick up their luggage before collecting them at the restaurant. Soon they found themselves at Penn Station, making their way through the tourists and locals alike to find their train. Not much was said on the ride home, Vincent read and reread the Sunday sports section, before moving on to the latest pro football articles in a stack of magazines he had picked up, he
bitched incessantly
about the intermittent access of the days scores on his cell phone before finally resigning himself to listening to music. Vincent for some inexplicable reason was feeling somewhat festive and even through the holiday season was still a few months away he listened to “
Oi
to the World” the punk rock Christmas album by the Vandals Nothing substantial happened they were just sitting there watching nothing in particular as the world rushed by outside the window.
As they pulled into the station
Nadrea
gathered her brief case, Vincent his oversized rolling garment bag in one hand and back pack in the other.
Nadrea
took it from him and slung over her shoulder. As they stepped off the train she placed her hand in his and he closed his fingers around her slowly, the pair walked down the platform through the grand and beautifully marbled halls. The pair meandered out to the cab stand where she finally and reluctantly let go of his hand only as Vincent closed the cab’s door.
Donna waited nervously in the lobby of the Washington Hilton, the lobby littered with tourists, politico’s and conventioneers most likely attending a national summit on the importance of some revolutionary widget that going to make it possible to send their oldest to the local state university rather than the community college, if they would only believe.
She wondered would they recognize each other, sure they had exchanged pictures in email and seen each other’s
facebook
photos but was the image of the other in their youth so ingrained in who they were looking for that they might blend one image into another. Meanwhile 15 floors above Paul’s family readied themselves for a busy day in the nation’s capitol, a day filled with monuments and lectures, buses and taxis. A behind the scenes tour at the Kennedy center for his oldest daughter was the first stop of the day. She was after all a budding young thespian, assuming that her teen years didn’t turn her into a boy crazy imbecile and ruin her other ambitions and dreams for a life of boring mediocrity, an existence that is living but not a life.
Finally as the family headed for the elevator Donna was well on her way to
participating
the Husker’s favorite hobby, drinking coffee. Sitting among the suits and uniforms, intertwined with running shoe clad tourists who were blatantly American based on their girth and footwear choice, Donna fidgeting with her coffee in an overstuffed chair that matched many of the
ego’s
surrounding her. Paul’s brood stepped off the
elevator,
he was lagging behind his bickering children and a few steps behind his wife who was loaded down with the day’s supplies. She was obviously not of a gypsy’s decent since her load resembled that of a pack mule rather than a nomad.
Paul recognized her from across the
room,
Donna was staring off into the distance, finally spotting him as he had moved halfway across the lobby toward her. He kissed his wife, quickly reviewing the plans they had to meet back up later in the day. His approach
toward Donna was as undaunted as it had been in his
youth,
his movements confident and unwavering, life had not worn away his resolve, at least not visibly on the surface and in his posture. Donna at first took particular notice of his
wife,
she was fit but still somehow very maternal looking. She quickly concluded the she was pretty in a Midwestern house wife kind of way. Donna imagined her in her team sweatshirt watching the local sports team play, cheering on little so & so or their friends.
Soon the awkward moment approached. How to greet each other, considering the years that had passed what would be appropriate? Donna worried, she had after all found him, and he in return had responded. They had gotten to know each other again through the occasional call and a litany of emails. She couldn’t shake the image of them in their youth. The one that was most common that she just couldn’t shake was of her as a teenager lying naked on a wooden picnic table in a musty old stone pavilion tucked away in the back corner of an obscure lush green state park.
All the thoughts that rushed through her head about his intentions and expectations eclipsed her other fears. Why were they meeting each other? What really was the purpose? All those other things would have to wait since Paul was now standing three feet away. As Donna stood he extended his hand, a formal completely appropriate and acceptable gesture. Donna stepped in and hugged him. She squeezed him tighter and tighter as his release resolved from odd and uncomfortable to familiar and warm. A touch that felt like time hadn’t moved. The embrace while of innocent intention brought back intense memories, the familiar touch of a lover’s arms.
He remembered how when they were together; he always felt so alive. Donna thought of how he never treated her as a whore or an object, as a passing plaything for his teenage lust. He had always been gentle with an unspoken softness and respect. Suddenly she realized how much and so long ago he treated her very much like the husker had of late been to her. Releasing their embrace the dialogue began “you still look like yourself” she began noticing that his look was still very much his own, a well kept more mature
demeanor but still who he was and had been. Until that point she thought she was very much the same way. Old Stories were
shared,
lives and relationships casually explained away, nothing that was truly out of the norm for old friends. She spoke in generalities about the husker, provided vague details about him and her feelings but not of who he was or what he did
, some
things never really change Donna thought to herself, “I’m still sleeping with someone and keeping it a dirty little secret from others”. Oddly enough Paul spoke the same way about his
family,
instead of names he referred to them as his wife, oldest, youngest or son, somewhere in the process noting the oldest and youngest were girls.
She sensed that he was not mirroring her level of detail or intending some sleight of hand for a more illicit purpose but rather his level of detail was how he always spoke about them to others. “Was he distancing himself from them?” kept running through her head, was he protecting their personal details from others for some perceived paternal reason? Finally she concluded that he did for no purpose other than simplicities sake when telling a story, their position in the family as it was, was nothing more than a reference point for
who
was doing what in a story. The morning wore onto Midday but the time passed like most people’s youth. It was nearly gone before they realized what a treasure it was.