by P. Dangelico
“W-what sort of a p-promotion are you looking for?”
This earns me an evaluating glance. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Not really. Thanks to all the time we spend together I’m a little more knowledgeable about men, but only marginally. “Umm, no.”
The corners of his mouth quiver. “Boyfriend.”
A deep flush covers my neck and crawls over my face. My heart expands to encompass the universe. It’s at risk of bursting. I’m almost too happy to form a cohesive sentence. God knows what will come out if I try to speak now, so I don’t.
“Yeah, I figured you should make an honest man out of me. We don’t want rumors spreading that I’m some kinda player.”
After two minutes of silence, the humor falls off his face and he suddenly looks stricken. “Dora…”
It kills me to see him look so vulnerable. And it reminds me to be gentle with him. Some of us wear our insecurities on our sleeves. Some of us camouflage them better than others.
“If you don’t––”
“You want to be my b-boyfriend?” I rush in, cutting him off before he goes any further down that line of thought.
“I don’t think it would go over well with my grandfather if I introduced you as my sex-pupil. You think Jay and Evan would appreciate it if I told them I’ve been upgraded from friend to sex-educator?”
Yeah, I can just imagine my parents’ faces. Closing the gap between us, I reach out and trace the sharp line of his straight nose, the steep angle of his cheekbone, following it down his cheek to stroke his lips still swollen from all the kissing.
Then in the name of this new bold brave me, I push the thoughts in my head and the feelings in my heart out of my mouth one slow syllable at a time.
“I want to be your girlfriend.” No stutter. No hesitation. No doubt.
His expression transforms from serious to tentatively hopeful. He’s not entirely sure he can trust it yet and I understand. He’s more guarded with my feelings than I am.
“I do,” I repeat, my voice carrying twice the strength and ten times the conviction.
Taking my face in his hands, he pulls me closer and covers my mouth with his. And in that kiss that lasts and lasts and lasts are a million silent words.
Promises. Confessions. Assurances.
Words have always been difficult for me so I’ve learned to pay attention to what a person does rather than what he or she says. And in every act Dallas has ever committed, he tells me that I’m needed and treasured. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted.
“Ready?” my friend, my partner in crime and tattoos and great sex and––and other misadventures asks me. Sitting in the passenger seat, he looks more handsome than ever in his dress shirt and gray slacks, his face the very picture of encouragement.
Talk about fantasies. If a magic genie had told me all those months ago that the boy passed out in a tub wearing an adult diaper would end up becoming the agent of my transformation and the champion of my dreams, I would’ve laughed myself dead.
And yet here I am, sitting in my car a block from Katherine Hamilton’s office on the corner of Ashbury and Haight with the same boy who’s turning into the man not even my wildest dreams could conjure. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.
He’s proven to be the best person I know. I wish he knew that about himself. Sometimes I’m afraid he doesn’t. He’s given me so much, but what have I given him in return?
“H-H-Have I told you h-how much”––I take a deep breath––“how much I appreciate you?”
He gives me a small encouraging smile, his eyes filled with affection. I wish I could say love but all I see is affection. Affection is good though. I can make affection work.
“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can turn the car around and drive straight home, or back to a hotel.”
Slowly nodding, he holds my gaze and says, “We could go out…we never made it out of the room last night.”
Yes. And thank god for that. “In c-case you were w-wondering I’m glad we s-stayed in last night.”
Both of us smiling now––his bright white teeth peeking out between his pouty lips. “A guy likes to show off his girl once in a while…”
I’m seriously tempted to turn the car around now, but I know I’d regret it later. The driving force to stand before my mother and face her is as irrational an urge as it is too strong to deny.
“I n-need to do this.”
Unconsciously, I reach over and brush the small cursive tattoo written on the side of my ribcage.
“Let’s go crush some ass, then.”
I start laughing and the tension is magically lifted, even if only for a moment.
As we get out of the car, I take in my surroundings. The Victorian houses, the landmarks, the history. Almost immediately a homeless man––an addict by the looks of him––approaches Dallas for money. Dallas waves him off and promises to bring him some food later, but the guy curses him out and continues walking down the street.
Taking the time to shore up my courage, I smooth the dark purple DVF wrap dress I bought for the occasion and check my open-toed slingbacks. Dallas comes around the car and, lacing his fingers through mine, leads me away.
“Watch you step,” he warns. “I already saw a couple of hypodermic needles and you’re wearing open shoes.”
He looks so adorably disturbed that I want to kiss him until that look is wiped off his face. Instead, he drags me across the street, heading for the Law Offices of Katherine Hamilton, a wingman with a job to do. We reach the glass door to a rundown storefront. This isn’t the top floor of a fancy law practice. This is the bottom floor of a practice struggling to survive.
Taking me by the shoulders, he ducks his head so we’re eye-to-eye. “You got this. I’m gonna hang back and––”
“A-Are you c-coming inside with me?” A flash of panic makes me speak louder than necessary.
Taking mercy on me, he says, “Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
He nods and pushes the sooty glass door open.
“Gladys, get me the files for the Torres case and call the clerk at Judge Wozniak’s––do we still have leverage on him?” says the woman that looks exactly like me.
Well, not exactly, like me. She’s more gaunt, less boobs and butt. The wrinkled beige silk blouse hangs on her bony shoulders, a flowery thrift store skirt skimming her slender calves. Her heavy hair is curly where mine is straight, the color dull and streaked in gray. It’s piled on top of her head all messy and held in place by a bunch of pencils.
She appears at least five years older than my my dads––early fifties––which is a surprise.
Gladys, presumably––a middle-aged Hispanic woman seated behind a metal desk littered with brown files––bites into her bagel with cream cheese. “Yeah, the pictures did the trick.”
The office is a disorganized mess. Dead spider plants in macrame holders hang in a glass store window that doesn’t look to have been cleaned since the last century, the small space crammed with filing cabinets. And dust. This woman hordes dust. Has she not heard of hard drives and Windex?
“If you don’t want your wife knowing you’re fucking your niece, then don’t fuck your niece,” Katherine continues muttering under her breath while she licks her fingers and flips through a stack of papers, her purple reading glasses halfway down her small nose…the same nose I see every time I look in the mirror.
“I gotta leave early today. That damn dog has so much gas I gotta take him to the vet. It’s a week now he’s been farting.”
“Before you do, see if you can suss out if that cocksucker Wozniak is gonna have ICE wanting for us.”
“Uh huh,” Gladys mumbles around a bite of her bagel.
All of a sudden they both glance up and notice us standing by the door. Dallas squeezes my hand and I step forward.
There’s no doubt Katherine recognizes me; she’d have to be willfully stupid not to. Even Glady
s gasps, her deep-set brown eyes moving back and forth between me and the woman who gave birth to me.
“You,” she says in a less that friendly tone. That’s fine I wasn’t expecting her to be happy about my surprise visit. She makes a defeated face and chucks the files she’s holding onto a filing cabinet. The papers miss their mark and hit the ground scattering.
“I guess you’re going to want to talk?”
“Yes. I-I’d l-like that.”
She frowns. “You stutter?”
Does she expect me to answer that?
“Your fathers didn’t mentioned it,” she announces with something weird in her voice. As if somehow this is important intel that was withheld from her. As if she has a right to know anything about me.
“I don’t have a lot of time so”––she gestures to the open door––“step into my office.”
Briefly, I glance back at Dallas. He’s wearing a perfectly blank expression, unreadable, though I suspect by the stiffness of his posture he’s not a fan of Katherine Hamilton. Parents are a touchy subjects with the boy I’m falling in love with.
I am falling in love with him. For real. Not the love tainted by endorphins and lust. With the real Dallas, not the fantasy one…and the real one is so much better.
Taking his hands out of his pockets, he follows me to the back of the room, walking past Gladys who’s watching us with unwavering focus.
“Have a seat.” Katherine gestures to the two ancient office chairs covered in junk. More files, a raincoat that has seen better days. The cramped room is trapped in time like the rest.
While Dallas leans up against the wall with his arms crossed, I clear one of the chairs and sit. Meanwhile Katherine rounds her desk to take her seat.
“Who’s Captain America, your boyfriend?” She jerks a chin at Dallas and smirks.
“Yes,” he answers before I can.
“How cute,” she snarks. Her scrutiny finds me again and after taking a solid sixty seconds to examine me like I’m a criminal she just caught in the act, she says, “I wish you hadn’t done this. I told your fathers––I was very specific about not wanting to be a part of this.”
“You’re n-not a p-part of anything. I just…I d-don’t know. I guess I-I just w-wanted to know…” A serious bout of frustration comes over me and whenever that happens the stuttering worsens. Taking a deep breath, I continue, “I wanted to know where or w-who I came from.”
Katherine stares back blankly. “My mother died of heart failure at fifty…you should probably know that. There’s high blood pressure on my father’s side.”
“I didn’t come for medical records.”
She exhales an exasperated breath. “I was born in Berkeley. My mother was a housewife and my father a cop. She caught him cheating with her sister and divorced him when I was eleven. We traveled a lot. Lived out of our car for a period of time.
“My mother was very smart in a lot of ways, but not about men. She kept getting involved with the wrong ones. One of them raped me when I was sixteen––” She says it so matter-of-factly that I almost missed it. To my left, Dallas straightens off the wall. “––I lived on my own for a while, but I knew the only way up was to get an education. So I went into the system and attended school. Graduated top of my class. Got accepted to Berkeley full scholarship. Yale law school followed. Graduate again at the top of my class,” she continues, sounding rehearsed. As if she somehow knew this day was coming and planned accordingly. “I’ve dedicated my life to helping people that have been fucked by the system…which is why I’ve never had any desire to have children of my own. Is that what you wanted to know?” The bitterness coming off of her is palpable.
“W-Why did you do it?”
It’s not that I expect her to spontaneously develop a modicum of sympathy or caring for me. It’s pretty clear life had hardened her in the worst way. It’s that I’m genuinely curious to see if we are anything alike. Because as it stands, other than sharing some DNA, I am the polar opposite of this woman in every possible way.
“Because your parents are grossly conventional. They wanted kids––to raise a family––and the oppressive and unjust laws at the time made it nearly impossible for them to adopt. So I did what I could. No other reason…you were a statement I was making, a great big fuck you to the white patriarchy.”
Anger, that’s the all I feel right now. Gritting my teeth, I tamp down the urge to say something spiteful. Is the anger edged with pain? Yes, I won’t deny that it stings, but the anger supersedes everything else right now. Maybe later I’ll have cause to cry my eyes out. Probably. But now I’m mad on behalf of my parents, who despite being “grossly conventional” are the most amazing parents anyone could ever wish for.
It’s then and there that I realize I wasn’t missing out on anything, I was being saved from a boatload of heartache. Dallas was so right. I am lucky. I’m the luckiest person I know and it took meeting Katherine to open my eyes to see it. Maybe part of me did hope for some kind of civil relationship. A mutual respect of sorts. Emotionally, I wasn’t prepared to close the door on this, whatever this is, before. I am now though.
Slowly, I stand and almost immediately my hand is swallowed up my a much larger and warmer one. He gives me a soft squeeze and I glance up at him, eyes open, seeing clearly for the first time in my life.
“T-Thank you for t-taking the time to see me…I won’t bother you anymore––in c-case you’re worried about a r-repeat of this surprise visit. I guess I should thank you––for g-giving me to my parents, who are the b-best. So…congratulations. Your s-statement was a success.”
When Katherine doesn’t respond, Dallas steps out first. As I follow, he takes my hand again, Gladys watching us closely.
“G-Gas-Ex for the dog. Ask your vet about the d-dosage,” I tell her as we pass by her desk. A trick Vi’s vet taught me. She has it stocked at the shelter at all times.
The warm afternoon sun hits us in the face when we step out on the sidewalk. I close my eyes and take my first deep breath in a really long time.
“What do you want to do now?” he says in a low sexy voice. He’s not even trying to be sexy––he just is.
A calm detachment gets into my muscles and loosens me up. Shielding my eyes under the roof of my hand, I say, “How do you feel about going back to the hotel and ordering in? Maybe a movie?”
He smiles. “Whatever you wanna do, count me in, babe.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dora
“Sweet pea, we told you––” I pull the phone away from my ear. Dad tends to be a loud phone talker. “expectations in the grave.”
Here comes the standard parental I told you so.
“I know,” I say cutting him off, “but I had to do it and honestly––as bad as it was, I don’t regret it.”
Dad’s tired exhale comes through loud and clear.
“Honey, it’s me,” Daddy says, stealing the phone away. “How are you feeling? It’s normal to––”
“Oh my gosh,” I interrupt before he really gets going. “I’m fine. I’m b-better than fine actually. I feel l-liberated.”
A knock at the hotel door has me getting up from the bed and shuffling to the door in my complimentary slippers and fluffy robe which both Dallas and I jumped into as soon as we got back to the hotel.
Peering through the view hole, a set of gorgeous lips smile back at me. I open the door and he walks in holding up the much needed bucket of ice for our sodas.
“I’m sorry, honey. I just wish I was there with you…” my father continues.
Yeah, I don’t. I much prefer the boy who just walked inside our room and threw himself down on the bed.
“Okay, Daddy I gotta go.”
“Call me later if you feel like talking about it.”
About all the orgasms I’m going to force him to give me?
“Umm, okay, bye Daddy. Love you.”
Dallas’s robe splits open, exposing a muscular thigh lightly dusted with blond hair and�
�
“Love y––”
I hang up.
“Did you just hang up on on your dad?”
“No…yes. D-Do you have anything on under t-that robe?” I mean, he was just traipsing through the halls a la nude save for a robe?
Mischief flitters across his face. “Come here and I’ll show you.”
I shuffle to the end of the bed, and with each step I take, the more turned on I get.
“W-What do you s-suggest we order for dinner?”
The smile is back. The wicked one. “Whipped creme. Love it or hate it?”
“Love it.”
“Then I suggest we order some.”
A knock at the door has both our heads swiveling in its direction. Dallas is first at the door and peering through the view hole.
“It’s Katherine,” he says. Looking over his shoulder, he makes a face as if to say what do I do?
I throw myself down on the bed and groan. It was seconds from happening, the food foreplay I was promised. And Katherine picks this time to show up? I swear it’s almost as if my parents got wind that something big was going down and sent reinforcements to mess with my plans.
“Let her in, I guess?” Sitting up, I tighten the belt on my robe and Dallas opens the door.
An embarrassed looking Katherine Hamilton meets my eyes from across the room. She’s wearing beige slacks that look a decade too old––at the very least––and a pink blouse with a small stain on the collar. Her hair is still a major pile-up on her head but this time its anchored in place by colorful Chinese chopsticks.
“May I come in?” she says with a touch of snark.
What a lovely woman. I’m so psyched that I found out this is the stock I come from.
“Sure…h-have a seat.”
Standing behind her, Dallas catches my eye and points to the door but I shake him off. He wants to know if I want him to leave and I don’t. I need him here more than ever.
While Katherine takes the armchair, Dallas and I sit on the couch side-by-side. “H-How did you find me?”