Page 63 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
He shut up after that, his face at its most forbidding, so I said, “You know…Karen’s sixteen. You and I are teaching her how to have a relationship, right? Role models. And…open communication. It’s a thing.”
He still didn’t look thrilled, and I said softly, squeezinghishand now, “Hey. It couldn’t work any worse than the examples we had, right?”
His expression eased some, and he said, “You may have a point.”
“You mean I’m right?” I asked, widening my eyes at him, and he smiled, said, “Later,” and reached for his own dish of flan.
“Hemi and I worked out an agreement,” I told Karen, “on how we’d…deal with various things. Which included that he can’t grow a beard, for one thing.”
As a sidetracking tactic, it worked. “Beards are hot,” Karen said. “They’re in. Like, sexy lumberjack. Wolverine.”
I said, “Not to me,” and Hemi smiled again and kept eating.
“So is your agreement about, what, money and housework and kids and sex?” Karen asked. “Besides appearance. I’ve never heard of havingthatin your prenup. But that’s what couples fight about, you know. Money, chores, kids, and sex. We learned about it in Family Life last year.”
“Ah…” I said, “what’s family life?”
“Excuse me?” she said again. “You signed the permission slip. Putting condoms on bananas.” Hemi made a choking sound, and Karen went on, “I think it’s a cool idea to have an agreement about that stuff. Probably make you fight less. Did you decide how many kids you’d have, and what their names would be, and all that? You wouldn’t believe all the girls in my class who’ve already picked out their kids’ names and their wedding themes. It’s like their hobby. At least you never did that, Hope.”
“No.” I got up and took my flan dish and Hemi’s plate to the dishwasher.
“So how many?” Karen asked.
Hemi, of course, just sat there. He could outwait anybody, as I’d learned long ago. Finally, I said, “We haven’t discussed that one yet.”
“Really?” Karen asked. “Huh. See, I’d think that would be in your agreement. I’m pretty sure I’d put it inmyagreement. It’s not like Hemi’s going to become a househusband. Although every rich person I know has nannies, so…”
I grabbed a sponge and was wiping counters, and now, I was the one who wasn’t talking.
You’re wondering why Hemi and Ihadn’ttalked about that. It was a fairly glaring omission. Because Hemi hadn’t brought it up, and I’d figured I knew what that meant. That he wasn’t sure yet whether he wanted kids. And maybe because I’d wanted them too much, but I wanted a life, too, and if he didn’t even want them…
It had all seemed too complicated, too risky, and too soon, so when he hadn’t gone there, I’d stayed away, too. There’d be time for that later, when we’d gotten the rest of it down.
Open communication. It might be a thing, but Hemi and I still had a ways to go to get there.
“Geez,” Karen said, getting up from her stool, “you don’t have to draw me a picture or anything. Awkward. I’m going to watch TV.”
“Straighten up before you go to bed,” I told her. I’d seen Hemi picking up after her in the early mornings when I didn’t get to it first, as if he couldn’t stand to see her clutter even for the short time before he left for the office, and it always made me wince. I still felt like I was tiptoeing, somehow. I knew he wanted us, and yet…
Well. Another thing I hadn’t explored as well as I probably should have. Time enough. For now, we were feeling our way.
Karen sighed and said, “You’d think I was some kind of slob. I’mneat.You should see guys’ rooms.”
“What guys’ rooms?” Hemi asked before I could.
“I doknowpeople,” she said. “I do havefriends.”
Hemi said, “If you’re going to somebody’s house, you need to ask first. Especially if it’s a male somebody. But anybody.”
“OK,”Karen said. “Iwill. Geez.I take it back. You guys shouldn’t plan to have kids. It’s like you’re stuck in the fifties.”
She left the room, and I thought,Open communication. Yeah. We’ll work on that.I felt too tired to try. It was well past nine, and there was all that new exercise in my life, which was kicking my butt. And never mind that less than a year ago, I’d been coming home at eight myself, with a sleep debt that would have done justice to a small nation. It seemed, though, that all you had to do was get used to something better, and it became your new floor. Which was a very disturbing thought.
Hope
The next day was Friday, the end of my second week in Marketing. The point where you normally start feeling like you’re getting a clue in a new job, except that I didn’t, because there wasn’t much to get a clue about.
I dressed carefully, as usual having a full hour to do that after Hemi left and before Charles showed up to take me to the office. I dressed up not because I was expecting anyone to notice me at work, but because I was going out to dinner afterwards with Hemi—after I’d met Nathan for a drink, the first time we’d had to catch up since I’d been back from vacation.
