“The minute Aimee told the family she was pregnant, my mom started watching what she eats like a hawk. She’s such a fatphobe.”
“Homophobe too,” Wendy interjected, sipping her coffee, a croissant in her other hand.
“But she’s pregnant,” I interjected. “You’re supposed to get fat when you’re pregnant!”
“You should hear my mom.” Carrie rolled her eyes. “’You don’t want to use this as an excuse to eat junk, dear.’ I keep telling her to knock it off but every time I turn around it’s all, ‘No ice cream for you, we don’t want any fat babies in this family!’”
“Are you kidding me?” I put down my hot chocolate and decided to work on my scone.
“Just because we’re all long and lean she thinks the whole world should be that way.” Carrie put the entire bottom of the muffin into her mouth. When she chewed, she looked like a chipmunk.
“Poor Aimee.” I made a mental note to call her. Our senior year had been the perfect storm of disaster. I had to drop out because of my pregnancy, and then Aimee had gone into treatment for her eating disorder. I was so grateful they let her come when I went to the hospital or I wouldn’t have had anyone there with me at all. I knew Aimee was sensitive about her weight—she probably always would be—and it sounded like her new mother-in-law was pushing all her buttons.
“”Okay, done.” Carrie gulped the rest of her coffee. “Are you sure you brought the shot records, Wen?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Wendy rolled her eyes, still nibbling on her croissant.
“Shot records?” I asked, finally able to sip my hot chocolate.
“We got a puppy.” Carrie grinned. “It’s our moving in together present to ourselves.”
“You’re moving in together?” I exclaimed. That was huge—Carrie’s mother didn’t know she was gay and Wendy’s parents—well they didn’t care if she was much of anything.
“We’re ‘roommates,’” Wendy said, making air quotes with her fingers.
“Come on, I don’t want to leave him in the car too long.” Carrie was practically bouncing in her chair.
“I’m not done!” Wendy protested.
“What kind of puppy?” I asked.
“Boxer.” Wendy slung her purse forward and opened the top flap. “Here’s a picture.”
“Awwww!” Of course he was adorable. “What a darling little puppy!”
“He’s going to be dead little puppy if we leave him much longer.” Carrie snapped her fingers. “Let’s go!”
“She’s the one who insisted we stop,” Wendy said to me, rolling her eyes. “Now she’s in a big hurry.”
“Oh, there’s my dad.” It still felt a little strange referring to Ben as “my dad.” I called him Ben when we were together—if I called him anything. I tried not to let it come up.
“That’s your dad?” Carrie raised her pierced eyebrow. The pink streaks were back in her hair again. “Niiiiice. If I swung the other way…”
“Oh shut up.” Wendy put her croissant down, gulping the rest of her coffee. “Let’s give Sara and her dad some privacy.”
“About time!” Carrie waggled her fingers at me and I waved back as they left, passing Ben on the way.
“Friends of yours?” he asked, sliding into the seat across from me. He was wearing a suit, ready for work.
“Yes.” I watched them walk past the front window and disappear around the corner. “From high school.”
“Whoa, what happened to your eye?” Ben frowned, reaching over to touch my cheek. I winced—it hurt. He looked at his thumb where he’d touched the bruise. “Makeup?”
“Oh.” I covered my cheek. I’d forgotten. “I… stupid, I was on a stool in the kitchen and I slipped. Hit it on the edge of a cupboard.”
“Hm.” He nodded, still frowning.
How many times had I heard my mother give excuses like that? I’d learned from the master.
“So how is the new place?” I asked, changing the subject. His company had moved him up from Florida—they even packed it all!—but his house hadn’t been ready so they set him up in an apartment temporarily. Now he was finally moving into his permanent house.
“Great,” he replied, finally smiling. “You’ll have to come by and see for yourself. Bring the boyfriend.”
“I’d like that.” It had been weeks and it still seemed surreal. Sometimes I forgot that the man sitting across from me was my biological father. Dale was still wary, but he knew I was talking to Ben, that we met for coffee at least once a week. Ben knew Dale was suspicious and he had gone, without any prompting, and had a DNA blood test done. It was very expensive, but he hadn’t asked for a dime.
When I triumphantly told Dale that, he said, “I hope he isn’t going to try to show you fake test results. Maybe we should do another one?”
When Ben agreed to have his blood drawn again for a separate test, Dale said, “I hope he’s not long gone before these results come back.”
I could never win!
And I knew Dale was avoiding spending any time with Ben, refusing to get to know him. I was ready to lock them both in a room until they stopped the nonsense. Well, until Dale did. Ben had gone out of his way to be friendly and inclusive. It just made Dale look even more ridiculous.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I tore off the triangle at end of my scone, dunking it into my hot chocolate before putting it into my mouth.
“I have a proposition for you.” He cleared his throat, reaching under the table for his briefcase. I watched as he opened it, taking out a manila folder. He set it on the table and slid it over toward me.
“What’s that?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to. I’d swallowed my scone but it felt like it was still stuck in my throat. A little voice in my head whispered, “Dale was right all along,” but I tried to ignore it.
“Do you know much about the computers? The internet?”
“The what?” I shook my head, still looking at the folder on the table.
“Well, there’s this new thing… I guess it’s not really a thing and it’s not actually that new. It’s like a place, except it isn’t real.” Ben laughed nervously. “I’m not explaining it well. Listen, I build computers. That’s what I do. You can do a lot of things with computers and some day they’re going to be an integral part of our lives. They’re going to be like TVs. Everyone will have one.”
“You think so?” I frowned. Just this year the library had put computers in. They had card catalogs still, but you could also look books up on their computers. I hadn’t used them much. It felt too science fiction to me.
“One of the things people can do with computers is talk to each other.”
“Like on the phone?”
“No. You’re typing to each other, not talking,” Ben explained. “But the thing about it is that you can talk to anyone, from anywhere. You can be here in New Jersey and they can be in Bangladesh.”
“Weird. Why would I want to talk to a stranger?”
“Well, say there’s something going on in the news or entertainment. Something interesting. People could talk about it together.”
“You mean type about it?” I snorted. “I type with two fingers.”
“I know it sounds weird.” Ben flushed. “But it’s coming. And I have a friend—well, it’s a business associate, really. He’s come up with an idea that’s going to connect people like that. So we can all talk to each other.”
“Well you have to have a computer first,” I reminded him. The last time I’d seen a computer, outside of the library, was as a freshman in high school. They offered Computers 101 and we wrote code in something called Basic. All I remembered was I got a C in it and had written a program that asked your name, your age, your gender and your favorite candy bar.
“It’s new,” Ben agreed. “But we’re going to double, maybe even triple, our investment money.”
“Our investment money?” I glanced at the folder again. “But I don’t have any…”
Dale was right. Dale was right all along.
“I know you said you were worried about Dale and the money he’s spending,” Ben said. “Look, Sara, I want you to have a comfortable future. I don’t want you to have to struggle and paint designs on t-shirts for the rest of your life.”
That wasn’t exactly accurate, but I decided not to quibble about what I did at the print shop.
“The music business is tough. I mean, when I was a kid, there were tons of bands and music artists making records. But only a handful of them are still around. What happens to them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Most of them go broke.” He leaned back in his chair, briefcase balanced in his lap. “Because they spent all their money on booze and dope. They started rolling in the money and thought the money fountain would go on forever. But eventually the money fountain stops.”
“So you… what? Want money?” I could barely get that last word out.
“It’s an investment,” Ben explained. “You’d get your money back. Plus more.”
“Well it’s not my money. You know that.” I picked up the folder but I didn’t open it. “I can ask Dale about it.”
I had no intention of doing any such thing. But I didn’t tell him that.
“Listen, I have to get to the shop,” I said, standing and slinging my purse over my shoulder. “I have some drawings to drop off.”
“Okay sure.” Ben stood too. “Listen, I can come by and talk to Dale about it. Explain it better. You can even come with me to work and see how the prototype works. He’s got a brilliant marketing plan. It will be a household name inside a year, a guarantee it.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. This man, who claimed to be my father—now I was doubting everything he’d told me—didn’t find me because he wanted to meet his daughter. He saw “rock star” and thought “investment money.”
Dale was right.
Fuck.
Ben didn’t say anything as I started to walk away.
I turned back and asked, “What’s this thing called?”
“He wants to call it Americans Online,” Ben replied. “I think we should think more globally, but I’m not the guy in charge.”
“Stupid name.” I made a face. “See you later.”
I managed to make it all the way to work. I even got the drawings from my case in the back seat and turned them in to Dave without too much trouble. It was in the print shop parking lot it hit me like a two-by-four in the gut. I didn’t make it back to my car. I sobbed and sobbed, collapsed against the side of the building, hugging my knees.