I can’t believe I’m actually saying these things, but it feels good to open up at last, and I couldn’t ask for a more appreciative audience.
“So if this Paige girl is so hot, why’d you want to go out with Jessica?”
Hmmm, tricky one that, since I’m not exactly sure myself what happened there.
“I guess I didn’t want to get pinned down by her,” I say, improvising. “Although I must admit that I did feel kind of bad going out with Jessica so soon afterwards. And I didn’t have the guts to tell Paige that it was all over.”
“Hey, forget the guilt, okay?” Dad’s wagging his finger at me and looking stern. “It’s not like they wouldn’t put one over on you if they could. You know it.”
“Um, maybe.”
“Yeah, so … ” Dad polishes off another beer but this time I don’t think I can keep up with him. “So Paige wasn’t exactly Little Miss Perfect, huh?”
“No. She’s kind of vapid and self-obsessed—”
“Oh, you’ve got to watch the self-obsessed ones. They’re the worst. One moment all you can think about is how hot they are, the next you’re wondering why they completely rule your life. Take my advice—get whatever you want from whoever you want, then move on.”
“But isn’t that kind of cruel?”
He’s wagging his finger again. “Forget cruel. I played the part of dutiful husband for two decades, and let me tell you something, they don’t hand out any medals.” He shakes his head. “No sir, they weren’t lying when they said that nice guys finish last. So I say, stop trying. Just accept that it’s in a man’s nature to sow his oats.”
What has this man done with my father?
“Look,” he continues, gaining momentum with every sip of beer, “I’ve been reading this book that proves how men are genetically programmed to seek multiple partners; it’s all about evolution and survival of the fittest. So it’s really not our fault, ’cause it’s just in our nature to play the field. To deny that is to deny what makes us human.” He takes a deep breath and sighs. “You wouldn’t want to deny what makes you a man, would you, Kevin?”
I hesitate. So much of what he’s saying is confusing, if not downright freaky, but I can’t deny that it’s reassuring to have my own experiences rationalized and justified.
“No, Dad. I wouldn’t want that.”
The corner of Dad’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “You’re a good kid, Kevin. I know I can trust you not to make the same mistakes I made.”
“Um, thanks.”
He nods vigorously, like he’s proud of me, like I impress him. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel wonderfully empowering.
I smile right back.
18
Over the next hour I consume my second and third beers, and discuss my conquests in greater detail. Dad is actively engaged the whole time, encouraging me to realize that the only thing I did wrong was to settle for kissing and a grope when I could probably have haggled for more. I’m not sure about that, but he seems absolutely positive, so I promise to move faster and more decisively the next time.
I’m about to ask him for some advice about sex when he leaps up from the sofa and says it’s time to head out for dinner. I suggest we stay in so that we can continue talking, but he just laughs and points to the kitchenette, which looks like it hasn’t been used in years.
As we head outside, I can feel the beer dulling my senses, slowing my reactions. I have that blurry feeling of my legs being disconnected from the rest of me, although they carry me forward in roughly the right direction.
Then something kicks in—maybe a sixth sense. In any case, it warns me that we shouldn’t be getting into Dad’s car.
“Um, Dad? I don’t think we should be driving.”
“Don’t be stupid. Get in.”
“Seriously, I don’t think you’re legal.”
Dad looks off into the distance and shakes his head. “Not you too. I figured it was just your mom, but I guess you’re going to act like her, huh?”
“No, no.” Before I know it, I’m fumbling for the seat belt, hoping he can see more clearly than I can.
Dad seems to drive okay, although I’m hardly a reliable judge of what counts as straight. Three beers really shouldn’t have this much effect on a person.
I want to ask him what’s for dinner but I’m having trouble forming words, so I just sit back and close my eyes and dream of making out with Paige, or Jessica, or Paige and Jessica—
“Are you coming or not?” Dad shouts from just outside the passenger’s side window.
I hadn’t even noticed that we’d stopped moving, but I pull myself out of the seat and stumble across the parking lot to the restaurant entrance. We walk inside and a cute woman with bleach-blond hair says, “Oh hello, Darrell. Your normal table?” and Dad says, “Yeah, Daisy,” and then I notice that her enormous boobs are barely contained by her cheerful Hooters top, but something tells me not to mention this to her.
“Damn, Daisy, that top ain’t gonna hold ’em in if they get any bigger,” Dad says.
Daisy smiles wanly and deposits us at our table before striding away.
“Why are we at Hooters, Dad?”
Dad narrows his eyes like he’s examining an alien life form, then points to a sample of the waitresses sauntering around the room.
“Use your eyes, son. This is the kind of view eyes were made for.”
I look around, but all I see is a collection of Daisy-clones—phenomenally well-endowed women with fixed smiles and tight shorts.
A waitress makes eye contact with me to indicate that she’ll be right over. Moments later she scuttles to my side.
Then she sees Dad.
“Oh, it’s you, Darrell,” she says like she’s just lost a game of spin the bottle. “Would you like your usual?”
“I would, thank you, Amber. But my … brother might like to order as well.”
I can’t believe he just said that, and neither can Amber. She rolls her eyes. I can tell she can’t wait to leave our table.
“And you’d better bring us a couple of beers each,” says Dad.
“Fine, but I’ll need to see some ID for your … brother.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I don’t want any.”
I order a burger and fries and spend the next twenty minutes listening to my father identify each of the waitresses. I get the feeling they know he’s watching them, because they all cast disgusted looks in our direction and move quickly out of sight. As each one disappears, Dad asks me if I can guess their bra size, and even though I can I don’t want him to know it, so instead I listen to him talking me through each answer like it’s a math problem that requires serious consideration.
Unfortunately the beers arrive before the food, and Dad digs in. He gets louder as he knocks them back, and his bust-estimates become public knowledge. When Amber finally brings the food he never takes his eyes off her breasts, directing his thanks to the left breast and his request for more beer to the right. The moment he stops talking, she seizes the opportunity to leave.
“D’ya see how she completely shoved them in my face?” he says, his speech slurred.
I don’t know what to say, so I stuff my mouth with fries and shrug.
“Yeah, I think she wants me,” he confides in a voice that easily carries across the room.
Some guys at the next table laugh loudly, but Dad seems oblivious. The effects of the beer are wearing off me now, and as things come into focus I can’t help feeling a little embarrassed to be here with him.
“You don’t really believe that waitress finds you attractive, do you?” I ask, hoping that this display is all part of some elaborate self-effacing joke.
“What are you talking about? Every time I come here she remembers my name. And you’ve seen the way she
stands right next to our table.”
“’Cause she’s a waitress. And she probably remembers your name because you tip well, or because she thinks you’re old and fatherly.”
Dad wields a chicken wing menacingly. “That’s got nothing to do with it. She thinks I’m good-looking, and she doesn’t know I’m older than her, so don’t go blowing it for me.”
I almost choke on my burger. “What … you’re not thinking of asking her out on a date or anything, are you?”
“Yeah, of course I am. That’s why we’re here. Talking to you this evening finally made me realize that I’ve got to seize the bull by the horns, and there’s no time like the present, and all that crap.”
“But … but … ” I gasp, struggling for words. I feel suddenly sober, like someone’s doused me with ice water. I know that I can’t let him ask her out or she’ll probably have him arrested for stalking, or indecency, or being inappropriately old. But what can I do? I try to concentrate, and all the while Dad chugs beer, his movements cumbersome and his voice booming. I have the feeling all eyes in the room are on us, even though I can’t bear to look around and check.
“Next time Amber comes by, I’ll ask her,” he says, clearly delighted with this foolproof plan. “I bet it’ll make her night.”
I twist around to look for her, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I have to prevent this from happening. I know I do. I’d die from embarrassment, and I’m not sure I’d ever be able to speak to my father again.
“Can we go, please?”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m waiting for Amber.”
Okay, so Plan A just failed. Time for Plan B.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I say.
As Dad washes down another chicken wing with his beer, I hurry over to the hostess’ desk at the entrance. Daisy is still there, but she doesn’t seem thrilled to see me. I guess it’s guilt by association.
“Um, I know this is weird,” I stammer, “but I really need to get us out of here right now.”
Daisy tilts her head and puts her hands on her hips. “And I’m supposed to care?”
“No, I guess not. What do I need to do to make sure Amber doesn’t come back to our table?”
“Hmmm,” she muses, leaning against her desk. “Well, you could just settle the bill.”
Before she can say another word, I pull out the emergency credit card Mom gave me, and Daisy disappears with it. A minute later she reappears with a credit slip for sixty dollars and suggests that a generous tip really helps the waitresses look charitably on some of their more “deplorable” customers. She says it just like that, and I’m surprised to hear a busty woman with bleach-blond hair use such big words. But then I imagine what Mom would say to me if she knew I’d thought such a thing, so I add a twenty dollar tip and hightail it back to the table.
Dad’s looking around the room vacantly, wondering where his beloved waitress has gone. His beer bottles are empty, but I don’t think he needs any more—he looks like he’s about to pass out.
I wrap an arm around him and drag him across the restaurant, to the amusement of the other diners. All the way, he keeps protesting that Amber will be over soon and he needs to speak to her. A couple of the neighboring tables cheer as we leave; when even Hooters patrons recognize how profoundly desperate Dad sounds, I know things are grim.
We step outside, and the cool air feels refreshing. Dad reaches for his car keys, but there’s no way I’m letting him drive. I don’t know the way to his apartment, so I hail a taxi that’s hovering nearby. The driver pulls up and I open the door for Dad, who crashes in.
“I ain’t taking no drunk dude,” the driver says. “I’d need an extra ten bucks to take him.”
I say that’ll be fine, and I tell him the Grovington Apartments, and he looks at me like I must be kidding. Dad mumbles the address, then loses consciousness.
The driver pulls up at the apartment and I hand him the credit card, and he informs me that there’s a five dollar surcharge for credit cards. It bugs me, although I guess I should be grateful he only asked for five. I’d have paid twenty if that’s what it took.
I take Dad’s keys and open the door. The apartment looks even more squalid than it did earlier.
“Where’s the spare bed, Dad?”
He points to the sofa and chuckles. I pull it out and notice it still has dirty sheets on it.
“Where are you sleeping?” I say.
Dad points to the sofa bed because it’s the only bed in the apartment.
Ten minutes later we’re lying side by side, and his snoring is making the walls shake.
When I wake up the next day, Dad’s already left to do an open house. A spare key is taped to the TV along with a note saying there’s a coffee shop down the street where I can get breakfast. He’ll be home around five, it says.
I’m tempted to call Mom for a ride home so I can spend the day doing something enjoyable, but I know I shouldn’t—one glance at Dad’s squalid apartment and she’d be moved to stage an intervention. Besides, the way Dad’s been behaving this weekend, I don’t think her help would be appreciated. So I find the coffee shop, then go to a second-run movie theater next door, and finally hang out in a book store.
At five o’clock I’m back at the apartment, but Dad’s not there. I watch the Discovery Channel for another couple hours, but he still doesn’t show. Finally, I call Mom to come and pick me up, only I don’t really know where I am so it’s hard to give directions.
At eight o’clock she knocks on the door. I turn the lights out so she can’t see inside, and we walk to the car in silence. We don’t talk all the way home, because she doesn’t want to criticize Dad and I don’t want to relive the weekend.
But I must admit that it wasn’t a complete waste of time, because I’ve learned a valuable lesson: lusting after sexy girls is only cool when you’re young.
Which is why I’d better enjoy it while I can.
19
I wake up with a panic attack the next morning because there just aren’t enough days left in the school year. Under any other circumstances this would be a sign of grave illness, possibly of impending insanity. But I know I’m not insane, because things are different now. I’ve had two dates in the past week. Before that, I had zero dates in eighteen years. Even though math has never been my best subject, in my feverish state I do the following calculation and it makes me realize that time is short:
2 dates per wk x 2.5 wks remaining until prom
= 5 pre-prom dates
I resolve to make the most of every remaining day. But then I do another, hypothetical calculation and it makes me wish I were still a junior:
2 dates per wk x 54.5 wks until prom
= 109 pre-prom dates
Yes, 109 dates. All with different girls. Now, it’s true that there aren’t 109 girls in my class I would actually want to date—or even 109 girls, come to think of it—but that’s not the point. It’s the thought that, had things been different, I’d be the kind of guy who lines up 109 dates in little more than a year. But instead, the vagaries of the academic calendar are robbing me of this opportunity. And it doesn’t seem fair.
I fume about this all the way to school, but by lunchtime I’ve set up a date on Wednesday with Kayla Reid, so I begin to feel better about things. One pre-prom date down, four to go.
And then Taylor Carson asks for a date the same evening, and because she’s hot I get flustered and say yes, and suddenly my concerns are altogether different.
I start by trying to put off Kayla, because she’s not as cute as Taylor. She’s taller than me, has significantly more muscular legs, and wears a perpetually bored expression. But she’s also got Angelina Jolie’s lips, and a tongue-stud that she uses to great effect when making out.
Or so I’m told.
I stop her after
school and tell her I can’t make it on Wednesday, and she tells me that I can make it and I will make it.
And I say, “Yes, you’re right.” Because, like I said, she’s bigger and more muscular than me.
On Tuesday, I manage to catch Taylor just as English class is beginning. I say that since she’s dating Zach I can’t go out with her in good conscience, even though the thought of giving Zach the shaft is positively irresistible. She says they’ve broken up, so I don’t need to worry. I manage to hide my surprise and delight, then ask her if she’d like to try another night instead, because I’m busy on Wednesday. She looks deeply wounded, and asks me if it’s because I dislike her or find her unattractive. Even though I know she’s a born actress, I’m wracked with guilt. I promise to spend Wednesday with her.
Ms. Kowalski is hovering near my table, eavesdropping on our conversation. I don’t get Ms. K. She’s lost almost two-thirds of the girls in her class now, yet she’s never seemed happier. But every time she sees me she shakes her head and looks away. I’m tempted to turn up to class with a big scarlet A painted on my T-shirt, but that might count as being dorky, so I probably shouldn’t.
“Still five of you left,” she sighs, scanning the faces of the remaining girls disappointedly. “I guess the cheerleading squad just likes my class that much, huh?”
I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me before now, but all of my dates have been or will be with members of the cheerleading squad: Paige, Jessica, Kayla, Taylor. It’s a remarkable coincidence, and I’m fortunate that they’re also the girls who have chosen to avoid my mom’s class.
Ms. K slumps in her chair, then looks up imploringly. “Why not give Professor Donaldson’s class a chance? You might be impressed.”
Paige snorts. “I’m pretty comfortable with my femininity, thank you,” she says curtly.
“But that’s not really the point. Feminism is hardly synonymous with femininity.”
“Well, duh! If it was, feminists would be cute and like themselves more.”