Page 8 of One Little Problem
“Oh, god,” I said, brain instantly going to crazy places. “Am I dying? Are you dying? Are you pregnant… am I pregnant?” I would probably know if I was pregnant. But maybe not, there was a TV show about that. I could be on TV!
“Have you been doing things that could get your pregnant?” he asked darkly.
“Isn’t this getting off topic?” I hadn’t been unfortunately, but if I made a precedent of answering questions like that, I’d either be in big trouble later or he’d notice when I started dodging, which hopefully would happen eventually. No one could be a virgin forever, right? Especially when they had a hot boyfriend, that just wasn’t fair.
Oh god, no don’t think about my hot boyfriend being hot when talking to my father. Think about anything else. Rainbows. Puppies. Luke shirtless. No! Luke shirtless riding on a rainbow with puppies in each hand. Aww. The Luke in my head laughed while the puppies licked his face.
“Ryan, it’s been a while since your mom passed away.” That brought me back to the conversation. His words were the kind of thing that never needed to be said. We both were well aware Mom wasn’t with us anymore. Sometimes she was hard for him to talk about. Me too. Why were we talking about this? What had I been thinking of before? This suddenly had my full attention.
“Are we going to start reminding each other about that now?” I grimaced. “Gotta tell you, I don’t love that.” Couldn’t we just kick each other in the balls instead? That seemed like just as much fun.
“No, um, it’s just—" Dad rarely looked awkward and uncertain around me. He could never appear anything other than in control or I would totally try to take advantage. I mean, I tried to take advantage anyway, but it rarely worked since he was always in control. What the hell was happening?
I wanted to keep imagining crazy reasons this conversation was happening, delay the truth even as it started to sink it. Dad seemed nervous last night too. He kept looking at me so seriously, even as he fidgeted. “You eloped,” I guessed. “And now you’re going to introduce me to your wife and new family with her 11 kids.” Oh, I still had it in me to think of crazy things. Except there was a small part of me that worried that one was true.
There was that long-suffering sigh again. “Does your mind just always go to the extreme?”
“You didn’t say no.” I liked extremes. Extremes always made the truth seem less extreme. Unless in this case the extreme happened to be the truth and then I was screwed.
I didn’t have to worry. “If I was gonna marry some lady with 11 kids, you don’t think I’d tell you?”
Dad had on a new shirt last night, he combed his hair. “Wait were you really going to have a beer with your buddies last night?” I questioned.
Huh, so that was what guilt might look like on my face. Not that I didn’t feel guilt, I just usually tried to spin things, to bluff, to charm. I totally had charms. “I panicked,” Dad told me, sounding confused. He wasn’t normally the type to panic.
Couldn’t really blame Dad for that though. Panicking and saying whatever came to mind first? I practically invented that. “And you wonder where I get it from,” I said. Pretty sure that was just me, but it was nice to say it was inherited, that I was cursed with it and it wasn’t my fault.
“Alright, it runs in the family,” he agreed dryly.
“I should have known, you don’t have buddies.”
“I so do and this is not what we’re supposed to be talking about.” Could we vote on what we should talk about? Off the top of my head, here were some ideas: Sharks, the housing market, him not dating and getting a million cats instead, who said that was just for women? The purpose of balloon animals, how yarmulkes stayed on one’s head, Venus fly traps.
I tried to tune back into Dad. “Yeah,” I told him. “You might date one day. I get it.” A hypothetical. It was still a hypothetical until—
Gently, Dad said, “That day is here.” Until now. He was rarely gentle with me. I was too stubborn. I wasn’t sure I liked this.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I offered with a strained probably slightly crazy smile. “But I don’t need details.” Maybe I could skip breakfast.
Dad didn’t agree. “Think you need to be in the loop.”
“It’s that serious?” I sounded hesitant. Maybe he was right, I did need to know, so I wouldn’t have to find out he eloped with some lady with 11 kids. Still wasn’t sure I wanted to know but I kept wondering things in my head, how many dates had they been on, did she have all her own teeth, how long had he waited to tell me—
“I had this whole thing I was going to say,” Dad’s voice cut into my thoughts. “It’s just, there’s no book for this.” He laughed. “Actually, there is. A bunch. Too many maybe and yet there’s no definite answer. I don’t want to blindside you, wait until it’s too serious, but then again what’s too serious and—"
“You’re rambling,” I said.
“Heard you do it for 17 years,” he snarked. “Thought I’d try it out.”
“What do you think?”
He shook his head. “Not a huge fan.” Then he fixed me with a serious look. “Just feels like you need to know about this, Ryan. I’ve tested the waters before, but now I’m sure I want to get back out there.”
“Wait an hour after eating.” Bless my ability to just talk, it meant I didn’t have to focus on what was being said.
“What?” Dad was confused.
“This ocean metaphor, you going swimming, and well, they usually say there’s plenty of fish in the sea, so the fish are women, right?” Straight dating made no sense. “Why are you going in the water if you’re trying to catch them? Don’t you at least have a net?” Or a fishing rod and worms, no.Do not wonder about what the rod or worm would be in this scenario.
