Poor Man's Son - 34. Chapter 33

August 2, 2000

Claremont, OH

Gathan

“I love this place, but it is still freakin’ hot,” Kristin said, as we lay out at the watering hole. I looked over and took in the beautiful sight in front of me. Sure there was the small dam and beautiful little pool of water, not to mention the waterfall that was formed around the dam. And there were the big trees that seemed to shelter the whole area except this rock, making it the perfect sunbathing spot. All of that natural beauty paled in comparison to Kristin Hendrickson, who was sprawled across the rock, stark naked.

“You’re beautiful,” I told her.

“I know,” she said, joking. “I should be out in California with all the movie stars.” Her words flew through my brain like an avalanche, knocking my neural pathways wide open.

“You should. Let’s go.”

“What?” she asked me, confused.

“Let’s go. Let’s go home and pack up, and leave in the morning.”

“We can’t leave,” she said. Then she looked at me and smiled. “Can we?”

“I have to go out there anyway. School doesn’t start for you until the end of the month,” I reasoned. “Let’s go out there now, you can stay until right before school starts, then fly home and stay with your parents. They can pretend that nothing ever happened.”

“I think they need to remember and face up to a few things,” she growled. She was still really pissed at them.

“We already fought a battle with them. Do we have to make it a war?”

“You don’t think you’re in a war? How clueless are you?”

I didn’t want to think about the Hendricksons and their issues, so I switched tacks. “Besides, El is miserable without Darius.”

“She is a major buzz-kill,” Kristin said. It sounded funny, but it was true. “God, I hope I’m not like that when you’re gone.”

“Not me. I hope you’re miserable without me,” I joked, then got her re-focused on leaving. “We can get Darius to fly out here and go back with us.”

“Two couples, travelling across the land,” she joked.

“Unless he bugs you,” I said. “We don’t have to take them with us.”

“I like being with them. They’re kind of like in-laws.”

I laughed. “Especially since we’re engaged.”

“Asshole,” she said, and rolled over on top of me. “This can be our honeymoon.”

“We’re not even married yet.”

“We’ll do it in reverse order.” I got up and started gathering our stuff together. “What are you doing?”

“Let’s go,” I prompted. Now that I’d made the decision, I couldn’t wait to get moving. I loved Claremont, but there was no reason for me to be here right now. Besides, here I was under the watchful eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson, the concerned eyes of Wally and Clara, and the evil eye of Zach. I could shed all of them like a snake sheds its skin, simply by going to Cali a month early.

“I should talk to my parents about this,” she sighed as she took a handful of our stuff and followed me back to the Chevy.

I waited until we got back to the paved roads to call Stef, even though the Tahoe had so much better suspension than my Dodge. It was funny, though, that just thinking about the Dodge made me smile. I’d put a lot of myself into that truck. Brent had been saving money for a car, but now that he had the Dodge, he was putting his cash into it instead. It would probably end up being one sweet ride, for an old truck. I put my vehicular musings aside, flipped through my contacts, and dialed Stef.

“Hello darling!” he said, flirting.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said. “JP goes into surgery tomorrow, so we are all preparing ourselves.”

“He’ll be alright,” I said emphatically, like I had some control over it.

“You are most likely correct, but that does not mean it is not wise to prepare for the worst. He has acquired a lot of responsibilities along the way that he must decide how to deal with.”

“Aren’t you rich people supposed to be fighting over his money?” I joked.

“You watch too many soap operas,” he sniffed. “I am wondering if you actually were calling me for a reason, or just to chat.”

“You said I could call you just to talk,” I said, my voice deep and husky.

“Yes, and that is most certainly true,” he said, giggling, “but it would be unfortunate for us to run out of time when you have a point yet to make.”

“We decided to leave early and come out to California,” I said, blurting it out. “That is if it’s OK with you guys,” I added, remembering my manners. I got an approving look from Kristin. She was such a lady.

“You are always welcome. No permission is required. I am curious as to who this ‘we’ is?”

“Kristin and I, Darius and Ella,” I said. “Even though we haven’t talked to Ella and Darius yet.”

“You should call Darius first,” he said. “Bradley says he is mooning around the house worse than Will.”

“Alright.” I had one more thing I needed to cover with him. “Stef, I still have that business credit card Jeff gave me. I’m not sure if I have enough credit on mine for a cross-country trek. Do you mind if I use it?”

“That is fine,” he said dismissively.

“I’ll pay you back when I get there,” I promised. “We’ll see you in a few days. Give JP a hug for me.”

“At least,” he joked. I hung up and dialed Darius next.

“Dude, I’m so glad you called,” he said. “I was actually just about to call you. I have this sweet idea!”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, wondering what he’d come up with.

“I’m gonna fly out and drive back with you, if that’s OK?”

“Dude, that’s why I’m calling you,” I said, laughing. “Only we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“What? You’re leaving tomorrow? Dude, I can’t get there that fast. At least I don’t think I can.”

“He can’t be here tomorrow,” I said, repeating his comment to Kristin.

“Then we’ll leave the day after tomorrow. That gives me time to wrap things up with my parents.”

“Kristin has announced that we will leave the day after tomorrow,” I joked.

“Sweet,” Darius said. “I’m booking a flight as soon as we hang up.”

“Then book your flight,” I joked, and ended the call.

Kristin and I were both making phone calls. My last one was to Ella, and I kept it short so I could eavesdrop on Kristin’s call. Ella didn’t really want to talk anyway. She was just thrilled that she’d get to see Darius so soon. I picked up on Kristin’s side of the conversation in the middle of her talk with her parents.

“Mother, I’m going out until school starts, then I’ll be back home,” Kristin said firmly. “Fine, put Daddy on the phone.” I heard her repeat the same statement to her father. The next 15 minutes seemed to involve her addressing his various fears and objections. Yes the car was new, and checked out just fine. Yes we’d have a map. Yes we’d stop if we got tired. And so on, and so on…

I’d kind of zoned out when I heard her talking to her mother again. “I’ll see, Mother. We’re busy packing, so I don’t know if that will work.” I had no idea what evil lay in store for me, only that it was evil. Kristin listened to her mother’s rambling for a while. “He will probably be worried that you’ll have him arrested for trespassing.” More rambling. “Mother, I have to go. I’ll ask him and call you back.” Five minutes after that statement, she was finally able to hang up. She sighed and shook her head.

“They want us to come over for dinner tonight,” she said, as soon as she hung up the phone.

“What are my other choices?” I asked, deadpan. “I’m thinking that if another option is getting a toenail or two torn out, I might go with that.”

She frowned at me. “Would it hurt us to try and be nice to them?” she asked, not being bitchy, but being sincere.

“What are their motives?” I asked. “They hate me and they’re inviting me into their house? I’m worried someone will pop out and machine gun me down.”

“Gathan, be serious,” she admonished. “Will you go with me and give them a chance?”

“I’ll go with you,” I said grudgingly. “I just want you to know how this is going to play out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to know what they’re going to do,” I said. She just looked at me, so I went on. “They’re going to be so fucking nice to me tonight it’s going to make both of us want to puke. Then when I’m gone, and you’re back here, they’ll start out by making nice statements about me, followed by ‘buts’.”

“Buts?”

“He’s such a nice boy, if only he didn’t come from such a bad family,” I said, mimicking her mother and making her giggle. “It’s very hard for a man to be faithful for that long when he’s in college.” That made her frown. “See?” I demanded. “I said it, and it pissed you off.”

“Is it hard for a man to be faithful?”

“Very hard,” I leered, emphasizing the double entendre. She gave me a dirty look. “It is hard to be faithful, but not with someone like you.”

“Smooth talker,” she joked.

“Always.”

“I’ll call them back and tell them we’d be delighted to attend,” she said playfully. “You can practice your smooth talking on them.”

“Great,” I said, with a total lack of enthusiasm.

“You’ll have to trust me to be smart enough to ignore their bullshit.”

“Now that I told you what I thought would happen, I totally trust you to handle it,” I said philosophically. She patted my leg even as she dialed her mom, so I grabbed her hand and tried to move it up to my groin, making her laugh and giggle just as her mother answered the phone.

We got back to JP’s house, made love, took a shower, then got ready to face the Hendricksons. I said nothing the whole way over there, and I could feel my stomach churning so badly I was worried I puke all over myself. I parked the Tahoe in the front circle of the Hendricksons’ house, just as Kristin directed. “I’m so glad you’re not nervous,” she said.

“You’re fucking hilarious,” I said. I’d been on edge for the past hour, the anxiety crawling around in my brain like a parasite determined to devour my sanity.

“You’re safe. You’re with me,” she said reassuringly.

“I feel like a pussy,” I told her. I had to hide behind my girlfriend for protection? What kind of man does that?

“No, you’re smart. I’m the only one with superpowers who is able to defeat them,” she joked. I snaughed, and started to loosen up.

“Alright Wonder Woman,” I smiled. “Let’s go fight the forces of evil.” I got out of the Tahoe and went around to her side to open the door for her.

She got out and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll show what I can do with my superpowers later, in bed.” I felt my dick twitch and willed it to stay down as we walked up to the front door. I instinctively reached for the doorbell, but then stopped as Kristin breezed right in.

“Welcome home, princess,” Chris Hendrickson said. He must have watched us drive up; he was waiting for us.

“Daddy,” she said evenly, and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Your mother wanted your opinion on the table,” he said. “Perhaps you can help her out?”

We both knew he was trying to get rid of her so he could brow-beat me alone. I knew there was no reasonable way out of this without looking like a total pussy, so I gave her a slight nod and she left me there with her dad. “Let’s have a drink,” he said.

“Just a Coke for me,” I said, feeling like we were replaying our first meeting.

He led me to his study where he made our drinks, then directed me to sit down. The only thing that made me even remotely less nervous was the fact that he was clearly uptight as well. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”

“So talk,” I said, unwilling to cut him any slack.

“I want to apologize to you for having you arrested.” I hadn’t really expected that from him. I figured they’d just have us over and pretend as if nothing ever happened.

“I’m kind of surprised to hear you say that, since a couple of days ago you were ready to run me out of town.”

He sighed. “It’s hard to explain this to you.”

“Explain what?”

“How I, how we feel about all of this. It’s hard to explain because we don’t really have a common frame of reference.”

I took that as a slam. “I’m not a stupid person. I can understand things. Try me.”

“No, I’m not saying you’re a stupid person,” he said. “But you aren’t a father, and you don’t have a daughter.”

“That’s true,” I said, getting where he was going with this, and how he was going to try to play it off.

“I have all of these ideas about the life I’m going to create for my daughter, about how we’re going to guide her through school, about the kind of person we’ll help her become, and about the kind of guy that we want her to end up with. Slowly but surely, all of those ideas have been blasted out of the water.”

“And that’s all me?”

“No, it’s not all you,” he sort of snapped. It was funny that I’d eroded some of his patient and calm demeanor. “This has been going on for about a year now.” That must be why Kristin had suddenly felt pressure from them this past year.

“Maybe you should just let her be the person that she is, and that she wants to be. I think she’s the most awesome person I know. I wish you could see that,” I said sincerely.

“And as I said, it’s difficult for you to understand me, since you’re not a father.”

That pissed me off enough to be candid with him. “That has nothing to do with it. Let’s face it. You don’t like me, and you don’t think I’m good enough for your daughter. You ignore how good we are together, and how happy we make each other.”

“You didn’t make each other happy in Paris, otherwise she wouldn’t have booked a flight on the Concorde,” he said smugly.

“Couples argue,” I said dismissively. “You and your wife always got along perfectly? You never had disagreements when you were dating?”

“That’s not the point,” he snapped. “I should have known this would be a waste of time. I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to make you see where I’m coming from.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him. “I see very clearly where you’re coming from. And I understand your frame of reference.”

“How is that possible?” he asked with a sneer.

“Because I have a sister who is very gifted and very beautiful. No one in this town messes with her, and do you know why?” He said nothing. “Because if they do, they know they have to mess with me.”

“So all of the teenage males are too afraid of you to date your sister,” he said sarcastically. “Why aren’t you afraid of me? You should be.”

I ignored his arrogance. “My sister started dating Darius. You see any bruises on him?”

“No.”

“That’s because he and I get along real well.”

“He’s a great match for her,” he said, pissing me off with his emphasis on ‘her’ as if Darius wouldn’t be good enough for someone else. “He comes from a good family, and he’s on a path to be successful.” I so wanted to say that he wouldn’t be a good match for Kristin, though, because he was half-Persian, but I left that off the table.

“That made no difference to me at all,” I said, amazed at how shallow he was. “What made Darius OK where most other guys failed to make the cut is that she loves him, and he loves her. When the two of them aren’t together, they’re miserable. Incomplete. When they’re together, they’re happy, and she’s safe. I’m not sure what more I could want for my sister than to be happy.”

“Sisters are different than daughters,” he said dismissively.

“Ya think?” I asked sarcastically. “I’ve watched out for her my whole life, as much as I could. When she brought guys over, meeting with my dad was nothing compared with them meeting me. Tell me what I’ve missed; what I was supposed to add to that equation so I can be as righteous as you are.”

“Maybe in your family, it is more similar,” he said, but did it in a way that really pissed me off. His tone was full of disdain, and full of the implication that white trash people like us lived blatantly uncivilized and very different lives.

“Maybe it is,” I said, pushing my anger into the background. “How many guys has Kristin been in love with?” He didn’t answer me. “How many guys have made her happy?” He didn’t answer that either. “Do you think she seems happy with me?”

I waited for an answer, making him admit it. “She seems happy with you. For now.”

“Why isn’t that good enough for you? Why can’t you let this play out, give us some time to see if we were meant to be together or not?”

“That’s not what fathers do,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I snapped. “I’ll answer my own question. The reason you don’t want to leave her alone to figure this out is because you know that if she does, there’s a good chance we’ll find out that we’re right for each other. You’re worried that we’ll discover we’re the perfect team. And then she’ll be with me, and you want someone for her with better breeding,” I said with a sneer, “who has a house next door to you.”

“What’s wrong with wanting what’s best for my daughter?”

“What’s wrong is that with you, what’s best is measured in lineage and balance sheets. You don’t stop and think about what will really make her happy.” I put down the Coke and stood up. “I know that you are going to do everything in your power to break us up. So does Kristin. If you do, will she be better off? Ask yourself that.” I stared at him intently. “I’m going to go find Kristin.” I stormed out of his study and walked toward the smell of food.

I found Kristin chatting with her mother. “Are you alright?” Kristin asked.

“Peachy-keen,” I said sarcastically.

“We’ve got a few minutes before dinner,” Kristin said. “Let me show you the house.” She led me away from her mother and we walked around their sprawling Tudor mansion while I re-capped my conversation with her father for her.

“I don’t get why your smiling face isn’t enough to make them mellow out and put all of this bullshit aside,” I concluded.

She smiled, but basically ignored me. “So that’s why they’ve been all upset with me this past year. I walked outside of the box I was supposed to stay in.”

“Boy did you,” I joked.

“I’m not talking just about dating you,” she said. “Although that’s probably the biggest thing.”

“Oh? What else did you do?”

“I got involved in the last election,” she said. She had been at all the events we’d organized for our referendum earlier in the year.

“Your dad didn’t support that?”

“My parents supported it because of the economic benefits,” she said.

“Because of the land they could sell,” I added. “It’s worth more now than it would have been.”

“Probably,” she said.

“How did such a bright, talented, and principled girl like you come from such mercenary capitalists?” I teased.

“You’re asking me how I got out of the box I’m supposed to be in,” she observed dourly. “It’s just who I am.”

“And isn’t it funny that they don’t even know you?” I asked, even though it wasn’t funny at all.

My stomach growled, and she giggled. “Let’s go eat.”

“Goody,” I said sarcastically, getting a playful smack for my lack of enthusiasm. Dinner ended up being a pleasant enough affair, primarily because no one said anything of substance. As we drove home that night, I thought about how nothing had really changed, and how hard it was going to be to fight off their attempts to break us up this next year.

August 2, 2000

Malibu, CA

Will

I was lying on my back in my room, with tears flowing out of my eyes like they were faucets. I’d just talked to Berto for about an hour on the phone, and it had made me really sad. More than anything, I wanted to be back in Rome with him. I probably would have just lain there for a long time, making myself even more miserable, but I was interrupted by a knock on my door. It opened after I shouted “Come in!”

My mother came in and caught me hastily wiping away the tears. “Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.

“I was talking to Berto,” I said. “I miss him.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and sat next to me. She tried to lean down to give me a hug, but her stomach was too big, which made us both giggle. I sat up next to her so the hug would work.

“How long ’till you have this baby?” I joked. “That must get really old, carrying around all that extra weight.”

“You have no idea,” she groused. “So how is Berto?”

“He’s doing alright,” I said. “We talk on the phone, and it’s like an emotional roller coaster. And a linguistic one. One minute we’re talking in Italian, the next minute we’re speaking English. One minute we’re laughing, the next minute we’re crying.”

“So now would probably not be the best time to come down on you for stripping in a bar in Rome,” she observed.

“Go ahead,” I told her fatalistically. “I fucked up. I deserve it. Might as well get it over with.”

“I’m going to assume that your dad handled that with you, and we’ll leave it at that.”

I stared at her, stunned at her transformation. “Thanks.” She patted my knee. “You’re a lot easier to deal with when Tiffany is around,” I added.

“I could almost say the same thing about you,” she joked, “if you had just one guy you were with.”

I laughed. “I am Stefan Schluter’s grandson.”

“Now that does worry me,” she said. “You’re going up to Palo Alto tomorrow?”

I nodded. “I promised Grand I’d hang out with him while he recovers from his surgery.” I was making my contribution to his recovery sound a lot bigger than it probably was, but it made me feel better, anyway.

“I think that’s nice. Try to enjoy yourself too, if you can. You have a big year ahead of you in school.”

“I know,” I agreed. H-W was a tough school. She gave me another hug, and then left me alone.