Family Ties

“I’m sorry we haven’t had much time together,” I said after a while.

“It’s okay. Everyone’s so busy.”

“Yeah. Only going to get worse until exams are over.”

She nodded.

“Maybe then we can go on a real date.”

“I’d like that. You are my boyfriend, after all.” She grinned up at me. “I like saying that.”

“I like hearing it.”

I glanced at the easy chair and was thinking about an impromptu make-out session when the phone rang. I looked at my watch.

“Who’d be calling this late?”

Wren answered it and then shouted from below, “Paul, phone!”

“Paul, phone,” Christy echoed with a grin.

We went downstairs to find Wren in my room at the computer. She held

out the flowery telephone handset.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“How should I know?” she snapped. “Sorry,” she said immediately. “This dumb computer lost my other paper.”

“It didn’t lose it,” Christy said patiently. “You have to put in the right disk.” She glanced at me. “Why don’t you use the phone in my room.”

I grinned and imagined her mother saying the same thing.

“I got it,” I called when I picked up the extension in her room. I heard a click as Wren hung up. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Sara said. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“It’s the last week of the quarter,” I said. “Projects and papers due. A mountain of work. Exams coming up.”

“Oh. Right. Want me to let you go?”

“Nah, screw that stuff. I’d rather talk to you.” I moved clothes from Christy’s bed, including a wine-colored bra and panty set. They were lacy and revealing, and I imagined her wearing them. I chuckled to myself and set them on top of the other clothes, where she’d know I’d seen them.

“How was your Thanksgiving?” Sara asked as I sat down.

I searched for the right word. “Eventful. Some good, some bad, some…

exciting. It’s a really long story, though. Tell me about yours first. How’d it go with the gallery owner?”

“Eventful,” she mimicked.

“Good? Bad? Exciting?”

“All three, I think.”

“Start with the bad. Then the good. End on a positive note with the exciting stuff.”

“I’m glad I called you,” she said with a long-distance smile. “Not just tonight, but back when Jamie first gave me your number.”

“I’m glad you did too.”

“I really mean it. You make me think everything’s going to be all right in my sometimes-crappy life.”

“Everyone’s life is crappy sometimes. Just find what makes you happy and forget all the other stuff. So… what’s the bad? Let’s get that out of the way.”

“Well, the bad isn’t really all that bad. Just… the same.”

“Daphne?”

“Yeah. She spent Thanksgiving with her guy.”

“Did they visit his family?”

“Oh, God no! He won’t do that while she’s still working at the club.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “Love the double standard.”

“You know it.”

“And she’s still pulling away from you?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “She hasn’t been home since last week. She still has a few things here—I think she’s too scared to officially break up with me—but it’s over. In all but name.”

“I’m sorry to hear. Why don’t you end it, for both of you?”

“I should, but…”

“Yeah, I know. Easier said than done.”

“Right.”

“You’re going to have to do it eventually. Or you’ll come home one day and she’ll be gone for good.”

“You know her so well.” She laughed, but it was forlorn.

“Yeah, I guess I do. I mean, she was my girlfriend too… at least for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“So be a grown-up and end it. Then you can be friends after. You know if she just disappears, you won’t hear from her again. Ever. She’ll feel too guilty.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I know it, but…”

“Easier said than done,” I repeated.

“Let’s talk about something happier.”

“Okay. What’s the good part of your Thanksgiving?”

“I had fun with the gallery owner and her friends. They’re mostly older than me, but they’re really cool women.”

“Romantic possibilities?”

“Yes, but not like you’re thinking. Not like I was thinking either.”

“Oh. How then?”

“Well, Max— Wait, lemme back up. The gallery owner is Maxine, but everyone calls her Max.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, so… Max.” She paused and considered her next words. “Let’s talk about the good first. Then the exciting, like you said.”

“Right.”

“So, the good: she definitely wants to help my career.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re really talented.”

“You’ve always said that, even when I was a total bitch to you.”

“’Cause it’s true.”

“Thanks. Sometimes I have a hard time believing it, though.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Yeah, I guess you would. Anyway, Max can do a lot for my career. And I don’t have to sleep with her.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I was prepared for her to tell me I was spending the weekend. It wouldn’t’ve been the first time.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured,” I said.

“Maybe the first time a woman said it to me, but… it didn’t happen.”

“Oh?”

“No. I get the feeling she wouldn’t mind if I did, but on my terms.

That’s… new to me.”

“What? Someone treating you like a person instead of property?”

“You have no idea,” she said quietly.

“No, I don’t. But I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” she flared.

“It isn’t pity. It’s… empathy.”

“Oh.”