Chapter 5
“Where are you going?” I asked as Christine headed towards the door.
“Out.”
“Out wher—” I said as she slammed the door in my face.
Her defiance towards me was at an all time high. It just got worse every day. She wouldn’t listen, she wouldn’t tell me anything, and she hardly even looked at me.
I looked out the window and saw her going to Karen’s house. I quickly picked up the phone and called my neighbor.
“Hey Karen, its Jake. Did your daughter tell you where she’s going?”
“Yeah, didn’t Christine?”
“No, she won’t talk to me. She tells me nothing.”
“I’ll send her back.”
I saw Christine coming back from Karen’s house and she looked pissed. Maybe I should just have let her go. I heard the door open and she just stood there looking at me.
“I’m going to the movies. There, you happy?”
Before she could shut the door in my face again, I got in the last word.
“You need any money?”
The door suddenly stopped and slowly opened. She looked at the ground, not even bothering to look up at me.
“Yeah,” she said softly.
I pulled out a ten and a twenty and handed it to her. She took the money, very quietly thanked me and walked out.
When she was gone I sat on the couch and contemplated my life. I had been Christine’s legal guardian for three months now and things couldn’t be going worse. I had no idea what she did between the time she got home from school and the time I got home from work. I didn’t know any of her friends, except for Karen’s daughter. I even had no idea if she was doing well in school or not. The phone ringing broke through my contemplations.
It was Karen. She was inviting me over for pizza. I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed a light coat and headed over there with a bottle of wine.
Being with Karen was a joy for me, though I would never tell Christine that. She would probably freak out if she thought I liked the mother of one of her best friends.
I walked in and she took the bottle of wine from my hand. I took my coat off, put it on the coat rack and followed her into the kitchen. She set the wine down and came right at me from left field. She walked right up to me and backed me into the wall.
I stood a good five inches taller than her and had a solid well built body with just enough muscle to make the neighborhood women swoon when I mowed the grass without a shirt on. Still, I was defenseless against her.
She came real close, within inches as if she was going to kiss my body, but never did. She ran her hands on my chest and was starting to turn me into a bowl of gelatin when she finally whispered to me.
“You know what the problem is?”
What problem? Her daughter and my niece were friends? At that point I saw no problem whatsoever. I could hardly think anymore. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Umm, no,” I stuttered.
She pushed herself away from me gently with the hand she had on my chest.
“The problem is that you’re a push over around women.”
“What?”
She walked back towards the wine bottle and started opening it as she continued o explain to me what exactly she meant.
“You’re a push over, Jake. I mean, I thought you were this debonair gentleman the way Anne spoke about you, but then I come to find that you’re just as lost around women as every other guy is. When a woman says jump you do, mostly because you don’t know how to say no. You don’t know what you want so you jump. Christine knows this. She has free reign over you and until you put your foot down she won’t stop acting like a five year old child.”
“I just want her to like me. All she does is ignore me.”
“Yeah, I know, you want her to be your friend but the time for that has passed. Its time for you to be a parent. You’re the boss in your house. She might not show it right away but she wants a parent. She wants someone who will say no when it’s called for and make all the difficult decisions for her. She wants someone to care enough to ground her, if it comes to that. She needs you to have her back. She’s going to rebel because that what teenagers do but that doesn’t mean you should fold to her whims. It’s a balancing act, even more so because up until three months ago you were just a friend to her. It’s time for both of you to grow up.”
“Alright, so what do I do?”
“Get the door. The pizza is here.”
We ate and talked for a bit mostly laughing and enjoying each others’ company. My life prior to coming to the suburbs had never consisted of sitting at home having fun. I was getting used to this and I kind of liked it.
After we ate we watched a romantic comedy. I finally headed home before he girls got back and saw us together. At the door I instinctively gave Karen a quick kiss on the lips.
“Hey, what was that?” she asked, smiling.
I gave her another quick kiss.
“We’ll see,” I responded as I headed home.
Funny enough the kiss turned out to be very little as nothing further happened between us for a few of months.
Work had become very demanding for me after I had started working full time. We were getting so much new work and Marie insisted that I don’t work overtime so I could spend time with my niece. So when I was at work I was up to my ears in projects.
The trade magazines had written a small article about me after my surprise move and then a second one a month later when we were awarded the Horizon Chocolate account. Now Kirkpatrick Advertising was the talk of the town. We were the little agency that could.
Karen had asked me to go to Christine’s field hockey games. The first time I went I had no idea what field hockey was but I left work early and went anyway. I sat next to Karen as she explained the game. I was basically regular girls’ hockey with grass instead of ice, smaller sticks and the players all wore skirts. I watched with great interest. I got loud in my cheering a couple of times but after the first time I did, it kind of energized the other parents to cheer too. When Christine scored a tying goal I really got loud.
“Woo Hoo! Good job Christine, that’s my girl,” I screamed out.
After the game I waited in the car outside the locker rooms. Christine came out put her stuff in the back seat and climbed in the front seat. I took off.
“You’re loud, Uncle Jake. I heard you clearly out on the field. You’re like all the cheerleaders rolled into one.”
“Sorry but I’m devoted to my team.”
“You called me your girl.”
“Well you’re my girl. You don’t mind do you?”
“No, it’s cool.”
I knew she liked it. She wouldn’t come out and say it because she didn’t want to expose herself that way, but I knew.
“Uncle Jake, can I have a car for my birthday?”
“Ha, I don’t think so. Maybe if you get a summer job and pay for half of it, I’ll pay the other half—”
“Really?” she said bouncing up and down on the seat. “I can get a job now.”
“No, not until summer. I want to see you getting at least all B’s in all your classes.”
“But I’m getting mostly A’s now.”
I did it. I got her to tell me her grades. Now all I had to do was get a report card but I could get the school to send me a copy to my work address.
Karen’s daughter Emily and Christine both had their birthday’s in the same week. I had been planning a party with Karen but that had quickly changed into another plan. They had had a combined party several times and it was almost expected that we would do that again. So we had planned something else.
I late March we had them both pack bags for a warm destination, though we didn’t tell where we were going. They figured it out at the airport as soon as we got to the gate. The four of us were headed to a resort on the Grand Bahamas Island for their spring break.
We had gotten one room for Emily and her mom an
d another room for me and Christine but we let the teenagers have their own room so they could stay up as late as they wanted and sleep in. We had a couple activities planned for the four of us together but mostly we let them roam free.
Karen and I had a great time together. We went into town to go shopping a couple of times, we went snorkeling, had massages and sat by the pool a lot. We held hands when we thought we were safe from the possibility of the girls seeing us and we even kissed a couple of times, but we never took it any further.
Emily and Christine had a blast. We even caught them drunk one night but we let it go. They assured us the next day that they weren’t drinkers and had had a couple drinks each but didn’t realize the drinks were as strong as they were.
That vacation was the first time I had really seen Christine laugh since her mother had died. I didn’t know when she had stolen my heart, but she had it now.
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Turning Point Page 5
