Chapter Seven
Zach
I could tell before we took our first sips that my mother had already read my aura.
“You’re all muddled today. More than usual.” She squinted at me, like I was a street sign she was trying to decipher through a rain-soaked windshield.
“Yeah? You see that in my aura?” I asked, with a knowing sigh. This would be a whole lot easier if I just played along. She was like a dog with a bone. If she felt there was something weighing on me, she wouldn’t let it go until she’d covered it from every possible angle. But the thing was, I wasn’t stressed, not in the way my mother thought I was, at least. I was just more interested in one of my advisees than I had any right to be. We were supposed to be studying literature together. Instead I wanted to take her off the shelf, crack her open, and read the shit out of her.
And when I’d texted her, and told her as much—radio silence.
My mother cut into my thoughts with a healthy dose of reality.
“I’m your mother. I don’t need to read your aura to see something is on your mind. It’s a girl. Please tell me it’s a girl,” she almost groaned this, excitedly drumming on the table. “Or a boy. I support all sexuality. You know that. I donate to that Human Rights Campaign every month.”
“I know, Mom.” I smiled, trying not to roll my eyes. She was adorably progressive. “Yes, it’s a girl. I may or may not have started,” I paused, “courting a girl I probably shouldn’t be.”
“Courting?” she snorted. “Such a poet. You’re hitting on her. You want her. You’re aching for—"
“Yes, yes, and yes,” I interrupted, knowing she’d keep digging if I didn’t re-steer the conversation.
“And how’s it going?” She smiled brightly, excited by the possibility of me dating again. She’d never really hit it off with my ex. Something about her aura.
“I’ve hit a wall. She’s… sort of a student that I’m advising.”
“Sort of? That’s like someone saying they are ‘sort of pregnant’...they either are, or they aren’t, so which is it?” Her eyebrows raised in that don’t-lie-to-your-mother way.
“Okay, she is. She’s a student. I’m her adviser.” This was the first time I was saying it out loud. I felt the weight of the words settle in my chest and into the air between us. Admitting my attraction to Poppy to my mother felt like going to confession.
Good thing Mom was no priest. She threw her hands up in excitement. “If that isn’t the sexiest damn thing I have ever heard!”
“Mom, keep it down,” I scolded her, but I couldn’t hide my chuckle. She was right. It was sexy. So sexy that it had me all kinds of worked up lately. “So, it’s obviously kind of complicated.”
“Complicated?” My mother placed a hand over her heart in mock distress. “No. It’s kismet! It’s fate!”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said to the woman notorious for taking everything too far. “We’re not exactly on the same page. Honestly, I don’t know if we’re even reading the same book.”
“Zachary, look at yourself. What other book could she possibly want to read?” She winked. “You’re welcome for the good genes, by the way.”
I deflected the compliment easily. “She doesn’t want to take it any farther than one kiss we had at a party.”
“Well, that’s because it was at a party. Have you wined-and-dined her? Has my son, the Poet with a capital P, tried to romance her? Or have you just Zach-Attacked the girl?”
“I don’t want to know what that phrase means,” I began with a grimace. “I don’t think she’d go for that.” It was one of the many things I liked about Poppy. She was strong in her convictions. I doubted she could be romanced into agreement. And I didn’t want to bend her to my will. I just wanted her to want me, because I sure as hell wanted her.
My mother narrowed her eyes at me. “Come on, Zach.” She scoffed at me.
Okay, maybe I deserved that look of disappointment. I retreated into my coffee, taking another sip.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” she continued. “One, invite her over for dinner. Two, pour the wine — keep pouring the wine. Three, do you still have that chicken picante recipe I sent to you or should I email it…”
“I still have it.” It’s tucked away in a drawer somewhere along with my dignity. I have never made a woman dinner, and I was not about to start with Poppy. If I were to fuck that up, who knows if my pride would ever recover? Imagining Poppy poking unhappily at an overcooked piece of chicken was not my idea of romance.
“Making dinner on a first date is a little bit of a commitment red flag,” I said.
My mother sank back into her chair, assessing me with the eyes of a hawk. “What’s that supposed to mean? What is it exactly that you’re looking for with this young woman, Zach?”
I paused, taking a sip of my coffee, while my mother continued, on a roll now.
“You have to decide if it’s just sex you want or if it’s something more. You can’t be in between on that point. You can’t do that to a woman.”
I wanted to argue with her, but I knew my mother was probably thinking about her own failure at relationships. Passion led to sex, which led to pregnancy, which led to a marriage with a swift and inevitable divorce shortly after.
My phone buzzed. I checked the message.
Are we still on for today?
Speak of the devil. It was my father. For years I had a strained relationship with him. He was much older than Mom, nineteen years her senior, and to be honest, I don't think he ever got over the loss of his first wife. My mom was the unlucky rebound he tried to reclaim his happiness with. But one disagreement too many, and my mom packed our bags, vowing we didn’t need him anymore.
“Who’s that?” My mother peered at my cell. I quickly lifted it out of her view.
Now that I was older, I'd learned to accept my dad's shortcomings and appreciate what he had to offer. Plus, I'd come to realize the old man wasn't going to be around forever.
“Dad,” I said. “I’ve got to run. Thanks for the advice, Mom.” I planted a kiss on her forehead before pushing my chair in.
“Mmm-hmmm.” She was not convinced. Don’t lie to an aura-reader, Zach. This is gonna bite you in the ass later.
“You’re a good boy, Zachary,” she called after me. I looked back over my shoulder to catch a knowing smile. Maybe she knew more than I thought. She usually did.
It took me less than twenty minutes to drive to my dad’s apartment from the café. The proximity in which my divorced parents lived was maybe abnormal, but it had never been an issue growing up. My dad was distant, if not physically, then emotionally. It took me most of my adult life to come to terms with the fact that I would have to make the first steps of having any sort of relationship with him.
I knocked on his front door and waited for him to answer. I heard footsteps from inside and then the door was opening to reveal my dad, just how I'd always picture him—gray wool cardigan, button-down shirt, and white hair, parted neatly at the side, looking dapper—even at sixty-nine years old.
"Hey, Dad." I smiled as he reached out and gave my hand a firm shake. "Happy birthday."
"Ah, when you get to be my age, it's no big deal. It's a Monday, you know?"
I nodded. "Happy Monday, then. What would you like to do today?" I told him I'd pick him up after work and we'd do something to celebrate.
I was guessing Dad would suggest the diner he liked near his house, or maybe just coffee. But he surprised me by allowing a secretive little smile to sneak onto his otherwise stoic face.
"I've got someplace in mind. You're driving."
Once inside my car, he directed me to a quiet little strip mall a few miles down the road.
We parked and got out of the car. I still had no idea where we were going, but I followed him along the sidewalk until he stopped in front of a door to a nail salon with a neon sign promising a "Mani-Pedi for $49!"
"Um?" I paused, sure he had the wrong place.
"Come on, kid. It's my birthday. Let's live a little."
Bells jingled over the door, and the smell of nail polish wafted out to greet us.
"Arthur!" the receptionist sang when she saw my dad, crossing from behind her desk to pull him into a hug.
It was clear my dad was a regular here. Interesting.
The place was almost empty—an older woman, probably a retiree like my dad sat in one of the pedicure chairs with her feet soaking in steaming water. A couple of other women sat getting their fingernails polished in vibrant colors.
"This is my son," Dad said, gesturing to me.
"Handsome!" the woman giggled into her hand.
"Thanks," I mumbled, feeling oddly out of place. I was hip. I was with it. I might even be a little metro-sexual with my manscaping and whatnot. But this? This was an entirely new experience for me. Still, I decided to just go with it. When in Rome and all that shit.
We were directed to a station in the back and seated side by side while two women emerged from the back of the shop to attend to us.
"You alright there?" Dad asked. Was that a playful smirk I saw?
"Of course."
The longer we sat here, the more I started to assign meaning to our visit here. Maybe it was the writer inside me, but curiosity was a strong motivator, and I needed to piece this together. Dad didn't say it, but I knew what he liked about this place. The petite dark-haired beauty filing his nails and massaging his hands reminded him of his first wife. He'd met her in Cambodia while stationed there with the Army. They'd only been married a couple of years when she was killed in a car accident.
The low hum of conversations around us was spoken in their native dialect. I was confident my dad didn't have a clue what they were saying, but a little smile remained planted across his face, like the sound of chattering women in this faraway language brought him back to a better time in his life.
I smiled at the woman filing my nails, proud that I'd flinched only twice as she trimmed my cuticles with some device that looked like it was straight out of the medieval ages.
As we sat here longer I realized it wasn't just the nostalgia that kept him coming back. It was the level of companionship, however brief, and the human touch that was of comfort to him. He was a single, sixty-nine-year-old man living alone. He probably didn't get touched by another person outside of these occasional visits. It made me feel sad for him.
As I sat there, my thoughts drifted to Poppy, as they often did during a moment of quiet. We needed to talk, to clear the air between us.
I had a weird relationship with love. I wanted it, but I wasn't necessarily looking for it. Honestly, it was probably the thing I wanted most in my life. But wasn't about to go out searching for it like some lovesick puppy. I was waiting for it to find me, if that made any sense. After watching my parents, I knew forcing it was pointless. True love — love that was real and tangible — now, that couldn't be stopped. However elusive it seemed, I knew when the time was right, it would come knocking. Until then, I was going to enjoy all the noncommittal fun I could, knowing that one day I may end up just like my father, having lost his true love and now getting his nails buffed and polished just for a little human contact.
Was this what my life was going to boil down to? That thought was a depressing one.
I thought about what my mom had said. You have to decide if it’s just sex you want or if it’s something more. You can’t be in the middle. You can’t do that to a woman, her voice rang in my mind.
I knew I wanted Poppy—but I also knew that as her adviser, she was off-limits. And my plans to move to New York City next year to pursue my writing full-time would be another problem. Hello, rock. Meet hard place.