Chapter Twenty-Nine
Boyd got a call from Vanessa the next day. He'd just said goodbye to Opal after they spent the night together. It was only around eight in the morning, but he figured that older ladies like to get up early; especially if they had medical problems that made it uncomfortable to sleep in most of the time.
"Hi, Vanessa," he said with nervous energy. "You're Opal's mother?"
"Yes, I did say that, Boyd."
"Yes, sorry … I, what can I do for you?"
"I just thought that I should have a conversation with the man who's been dating my only daughter. You're lucky it's not too easy for me to hop on a bus, or I would have come for a visit."
Boyd wasn't sure what to say. "Ahh … that would have been, fine."
"I'm kidding," said with humor. "I have to admit I'm having some fun at your expense. Opal didn't tell you about my superb sense of humor, did she?"
"She might have mentioned something." But he wasn't laughing. "Did you want to arrange to have lunch with me and Opal, I mean Opal and I, sorry."
"My, how proper you are. That must be the good breeding. I'm just a little worried, and I wanted to talk to you about something. Opal says that you're helping her out financially, now that she's lost her job at the restaurant."
"The restaurant? Ah, yes. She was so tired after waiting tables, and her feet had blisters." He knew he could lie with the best of them, so doing a little improvising was not an issue.
"I thought she was working behind the bar. You do talk about that sort of thing with her don't you? I guess what I need to know is, well, this might not sound too polite but you must understand, she's my only daughter. I'm her only living relative as well."
"You're worried that your daughter is just dating someone for money, and you want to know if I truly care for her? Can I tell you something that I haven't actually told her yet? Haven't told anyone, now that I think of it."
"Okay, fire away."
"I love your daughter. I've never felt this way about anyone in my life. You've raised the most amazing person, Mrs. Wright."
"You can call me Vanessa, Boyd. And if what you're saying is true, I'm sorry I thought worse of you. I'd like to believe that you're telling me the truth too. If you're lying, I'll be disappointed. I won't feel bad for trusting you though. Being a cynic is no way to go through life, especially when you're stuck with my problems."
"That's a nice way to look at things, Vanessa. Thank you. Thanks for looking out for Opal too. I'm glad she has such a caring mother. It makes me miss my own parents …"
"Tell you what, Boyd: if you turn out to be a good egg like you say, I'll be happy to let you call me 'Mom' one day. Do you think you can do me a favor first? I don't want Opal to know that I was worried about her. Do you think we could keep this little conversation to ourselves? At least the part about money."
"I don't see how that could hurt. Sure," said Boyd.
After hanging up, Boyd wondered if he should tell Opal about the phone call. Vanessa did say it was okay, as long as Opal didn't find out about the money questions. He decided to tell her that they'd spoken, just to say hello and chat for a minute or two. Boyd would not mention the question about money.
He wondered how Opal was paying for things. If she had savings, it didn't make sense that she'd lie to her mother and say that Boyd was paying for things. That wasn't the kind of thing people were proud of, so why make it up? No, something was going on here. The problem was, Boyd was too afraid to ruin this new relationship, to actually say anything about it to Opal. And he always had Felicia do his snooping, but asking her to look into it would only make the feisty lawyer more suspicious of Opal than she already was.
Doing nothing seemed like it would come back to bite him in the ass, but there was not much else to be done. Boyd decided to let things be, and hope that nothing bad would happen. He just wanted to be with Opal, and try to keep up this new life he was carving with her. He whipped out his phone and sent Opal a text:
Did you give your mother my number?
The reply didn't come for half an hour, but he knew Opal was at work and probably busy. She sent back, Yes sorry, she wanted it in case of an emergency. Why?
She called me, just to say hello, she's nice :)
I think so too :) <3
He sent back a little heart emoticon, which was something the Boyd of the past would have laughed at. It didn't matter, because he was starting to realize that being a strong man wasn't all about being careless toward others. Bad boys were often just weak and scared, so they acted out and ran from their emotions. Boyd was starting to get the hang of this whole 'adulting' thing, it seemed, and he liked it.