by Amber Lynn
The dang dreams were back again, but they were worse. Along with the naughty bedroom bits, me and Nate were married and had children. It must have been Frannie's fault with her talk about how cute our kids would be. Technically, in the dream they were the cutest little things, but I wanted to keep them a figment of my unconscious mind.
Getting up for the morning, I made my way to the kitchen and grabbed a honey wheat bagel. I wasn't awake enough to bother with cream cheese, so I ate it plain, which turned out to be very dry if you didn't have milk on hand. I'd run out after sharing it with Nate. I settled for grabbing some water to wash it down.
Knowing I was going to be getting all sweaty, and need to take a shower in a little bit anyway, I picked out a clean t-shirt and a pair of jeans and threw them into a backpack. Then I put on some dark purple workout pants and a matching tank.
I found some plain white sport socks from my drawer and my purple Reeboks and headed to the couch. After my shoes were on, I put my flip-flops in the backpack and collected my disposable phone, my keys and my wallet and was off for the gym.
When I arrived, Nate was already there working out on a treadmill, the dang overachiever. I waved at him when he looked up and saw me, but headed towards the Spinning classroom. Frannie wasn't there yet, so I picked a couple of bikes in the back and saved one for her.
A few minutes later, she arrived, looking glamorous as usual. "Good morning, darling," she said, drawing out her darling. "I expect you had a marvelous evening."
"Jelly Bean, you be talking funny this morning. Someone be slipping something in that latte?" I asked. Hey, if she could speak oddly, so could I.
"Oh Peaches, come on dish. What happened last night when you got home?"
The instructor had joined us and we started pedaling. Pretty soon conversation would be impossible, so I figured I might as well get it over with.
"I had a nice dinner, nothing more. Oh wait, I did get to see Nate in my apron. That was definitely worth the price of admission."
"Ha," she laughed, already starting to breathe heavy. "That would be pretty funny. I can't believe you though. You go home to that," she nodded her head to the door, evidently indicating Nate out in the other room, "and didn't handcuff him to your bed."
"For starters, I don't believe I'm into kinky sex. Secondly, I'm telling you we've had maybe two or three decent conversations in all these days we've now known each other. You need to clear these romantic notions out of your head."
The last part I huffed out and apparently she was all out of breathe too, because she didn't respond. At least I had fifteen more minutes of not having to worry about her dreams of Nate and me getting together.
When class was over, we trekked towards the locker room. I didn't see Nate on any of the machines, so I guessed he was getting cleaned up too. After my quick shower, I put on the clean clothes I'd packed and threw the sweaty ones in the backpack.
I told Frannie I was going to take off, I predicted she was only on step one of her ten step hair care treatment, so she was going to be a while. Outside the locker room, Nate was waiting for me. Imagine that.
He was wearing a blue, short-sleeve, V-neck top with a pair of jeans and some tennis shoes. That seemed to be his standard look when he wasn't dressed for work.
"Did you have a nice class?" he asked, offering to carry my backpack for me. Wasn't that nice, how high school of him.
I kept my bag where it was and walked towards the exit as he followed along. "Class was pretty good, except my usual partner in crime keeps telling me how good our babies will look. She won't listen when I tell her those are imaginary babies who will never be born. Maybe you should talk to her about that."
In the parking lot, we made our way over to his car. "Now your dreams are revolving around us and a white picket fence, isn't that adorable."
"Eww, no. Can you imagine what your little lippy, demon children would be like? They'd talk back to me constantly and plot ways to drive me insane. I'd probably have to lock them in crates to get any work done and I'm told that's frowned upon."
"Don't worry, I'm sure they won't be that bad, and somehow the motherly instincts in you will kick in."
"Nope, I sold all my motherly instincts years ago. There's nothing left. It's another good reason why I shouldn't ever get married. You know how there's a whole group of guys who like to be mothered by their wife. Not only would I not talk to them during the marriage, I'd probably forget to feed them too."
"You know, Avery, I really like your sense of humor. So what's the plan for today?" he asked, opening the passenger side door for me. "Do I get to meet your parents or are you going to face the dragon alone?"
"As much as it pains me, I'll let you come along on two conditions. Number one, no trying to get embarrassing stories out of my mother. I'll claim she's lying no matter how believable the story is and what the picture evidence proves.
"Number two, you can't act like we're a couple in any way. If my mother latches on to you thinking you're boyfriend material, we'll both be sorry. If you can live with those conditions, I wouldn't mind you coming along to act as a shield." I settled into my seat while he made his way around the car.
"Hmm. The first one might be tough, but I'll really try hard not to ask about your toddler days. For the second one, I won't use pet names and get touchy feely with you, but I can't promise she won't see me just being there as more than a friend," he replied. "I have a feeling she'll know exactly what my intentions are."
"Don't even say the word intentions. She might try to get a wedding date out of you before the night is through. You know what I forgot to ask last night? If you've heard anything about Jimmy and whether they were going to press any charges." I wanted to move away from Nate's intentions as quickly as I could, and with my phone trapped in the Pit, I didn't have a way to contact Jimmy myself.
"From what I've heard, because of the size of the bust and the fact that he was invaluable in making everything happen, they're going to let him go. He'll probably be in the city for the weekend, just to finish giving over anything else he has that could lead to more arrests."
"That's great. I'm happy he can get his life back on track now. After spending time with him, there's something about him that feels familiar to me. I don't know what it is, but I want him to find happiness."
"I'm not even going to try to delve into the reasoning behind that. So, what do you want to do? It's only nine and we don't have to meet your parents until what, six?"
"Mom said the plane was coming in around two and then they were going to go to their hotel and rest for a little while. So yeah, five or six is probably a good bet."
"When was the last time you went to the Central Park Zoo?"
"I haven't ever been to any zoo," I responded, not sure if I should be sad by my truthful answer.
"Really? Then today's plans will be easy for me. One of these times you're going to have to act like the person who actually lives in this city, so I can be the tourist."
He started up the car and drove us towards Central Park. The zoo was just opening by the time we arrived, which meant he was able to find a pretty good parking place.
We walked up to the entrance and bought our tickets. Nate then led me around to each of the animal exhibits. I could've sat and watched the red pandas all day. They had to be the cutest things.
The gentoo penguins were pretty fun to watch too. After two hours we'd gone through the entire zoo at least once. I had to make multiple visits to those little red pandas though.
"Since you like the penguins, after we grab some lunch, we should head to the New York Aquarium over in Brooklyn. They have another kind of penguin for you to fawn over," Nate said as we were climbing back in the car.
"You're the tour guide, so wherever you think we should go is fine with me."
We stopped at a sub shop on the way to pick up some quick sandwiches. At the aquarium, Nate again led me around to meet my new friends, the black-footed penguins and the California sea lions.
/> We sat through two of the sea lion shows because I enjoyed them so much. I also got to see an octopus and some sharks. Neither of those made it to my list of must-see-again animals. The sharks ended up creeping me out, so I left that part of the aquarium pretty much as quickly as I entered it. I finally got my fill of everything around three o'clock and we headed back to the car.
I sighed as Nate opened my door. "We should probably head back to my apartment and wait for Mommie Dearest to call. I imagine I already have a couple messages waiting to let me know they've arrived."
"That's a good idea. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot," he replied as we got in the car and took off towards home.
As predicted, my mother called not once, but twice. The first call was a simple message letting me know they'd made it to the hotel and were awaiting my call. The second message, a half an hour later, was to let me know Mom had reservations at Osteria Del Circo for us at five o'clock.
Then she went on about how she saw the chef on an episode of one of her favorite shows and right after making the reservations for the plane tickets, she reserved a table at the restaurant. I hoped they didn't mind us being four instead of only three.
Since it was the polite thing to do, I called my mother back and let her know a fourth person existed, so she could contact the restaurant and make sure it was okay. Surprisingly, she asked no questions about who I decided to bring along.
After determining I didn't feel like changing into anything nice for dinner, we were on the move again, this time in the direction of Manhattan. We arrived at the restaurant and I didn't see my parents milling around the front, so we parked and made our way inside. I told the hostess which party we were with and she let me know that my parents had already arrived.
On the way to the table, I saw Mom and Dad studying a menu. My parents were in their mid-forties, but looked not much older than me. Mom had long blonde hair and I got my albino-like skin and blue eyes from her. She was a couple inches shorter than me and about my general build.
She was wearing a cute pink sundress and some gold gladiator-looking sandals. Dad was wearing khaki pants and a light blue button-down shirt. His brunette hair matched mine, but he had brown eyes that complemented his hair. He had a muscular frame that suited his six-foot height.
As we got closer to the table, they saw us and stood up to greet Nate and me. They both gave me the once over to see how big city life had been treating me, and then their eyes travelled to Nate.
I didn't think I'd ever seen their eyes that wide in shock. They took him all in, stopping at the tattoos peeking out from his sleeves several times. They probably thought I'd grabbed some UFC fighter off the street and brought him in to scare them off.
I brought Nate closer and started introductions. "Nate, I'd like to introduce you to Cyrus and Roxanna Clavens. Mom, Dad, this is my coworker, Nathaniel Barnes."
Nate extended his hand to my father first and then my mother. They both shook, but kept their heads bowed slightly in some sort of deference. What could I say? My parents were weird.
"It's a pleasure to get a chance to meet Avery's parents," Nate said pleasantly. "Why don't we all sit down and look over the menu, so we can order."
Once we sat down, my mother looked at me and quietly said, "I was hoping, since I've done a lot of research on this restaurant, that I could order for the table." ?
I glanced over to Nate and he replied before I had to send any secret eye messages. "That'd be fine, Mrs. Clavens. I haven't eaten here before, so your research will be greatly appreciated."
Mom signaled the waitress and placed our order. While we waited for our food, Nate tried to engage my parents in conversation.
"So, Mr. and Mrs. Clavens, what do you have planned for your visit?"
"Well, we weren't sure if Avery would be available, so we've left specific plans up in the air. Of course, there were certain sights we hoped to see," my father answered.
Our first course arrived immediately, and we started slurping up our soup. Okay, maybe not all of us were slurping, but I was. I was pretty sure my mother wanted to shoot me for it. I couldn't help the way I ate soup.
Nate continued the conversation between him and my parents by saying, "You know I'm from Chicago, so I'm a tourist here myself. I have the advantage of being here a couple of times previously, though. How about tomorrow I take all three of you on a tour of the city through the eyes of another tourist. I'll take you to all the usual attractions and a couple of my favorites."
"That sounds like a wonderful idea," my mother said.
They kept talking as we moved through the different courses of dinner. Everything was wonderful, although, I wasn't always sure what I was eating. Nate offered to pay the bill, and even though my dad tried to protest, Nate won the challenge, saying they were the real visitors.
We walked outside and they made plans for the morning about when and where to meet. I was happy to report I didn't hear a tale of me in the bathtub or making mud pies, so Nate lived up to his part of the bargain.
When we got back to his car, Nate said, "You know, my hotel isn't that far from here and you're going to have to come right back here to meet your parents in the morning. Why don't you stay over? We can run and pick you up some clothes at any of the thousands of stores in the area and I promise to sleep on the couch. You've seen the room; it's big enough for the two of us."
"First, thank you for tonight. That had to be one of the most pleasant meals I've had with my mother. Secondly, you know how disturbing it is when you make sense, and I'm exhausted from all the walking we did today. I could fall asleep anywhere."
"Great, let's find somewhere to pick up some clothes and call it a night."