“Too boring? What nonsense! He offers stability and a chance of a good life.” He gestures his hand as if slapping the air between us.
“That’s not what I want.”
My father tilts his head and sweeps back my hair with his hands.
“You look so much like your mother. The same black hair, same olive skin, and the same depth in your eyes. So beautiful, my Mia.” My father turns his head away from me, looks out ahead to the empty store, the autumn sun trickling in through the front windows. People of the town are walking up and down enjoying the reasonably mild weather. “I just want you to have a good life. To know that your mother would be proud.”
I let out a sigh. This time of year, as beautiful as it is, always tends to burden my father with thoughts of my mother’s death. In a way, I’m glad I can’t remember that time of our lives. I was too young, and I’m not sure that I would even remember how my mother looked if it weren’t for the few pictures my father kept of her. I’m not sure why, but he never talks about his life before. It’s like he made a conscious effort to forget everything, it’s like everything we have, every bit of furniture, every memory, is from the time we came to this town. Before that, it’s one big mystery. That is, of course, apart from the toys I just found downstairs. I wonder what else is in there. Maybe I should just ask him?
I turn to my father with the full intention of asking him the reason he seems to hide his past life from me. And I would have if not for, as if just to fuck with me, Chad walking into the store.
“Chad, my boy, what brings you here?” My father shouts out with friendliness in his tone. He pulls the glasses back down to their place on his nose.
“Mr. Costa, how are you?” Chad walks toward us with a straight back, a privately educated kind of stride. His combed blonde hair and ironed chinos confirm that he truly is unaware of the privileged white male persona he carries around with him. Then again, all the guys around here are pretty much the same.
“Mia and I are doing just fine,” my father says, leaving me no choice but to give a polite smile.
“Hello, Mia. It’s a shame we couldn’t have dinner last weekend.”
“A big shame,” my father adds with a nudge to my side.
“I was busy,” I answer, then pick up a stack of books that needed to be shelved.
“So, what can we do for you, Chad?”
Chad tries to keep his eyes on me as I walk to the fiction section. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to Mia for a minute.”
“Ah, I see. Why don’t I go and check the stockroom and give you kids a moment?”
“Papa?” I ask, my voice laden with annoyance. Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with my father. He always seems to have a knack for putting me in the most awkward of situations. I continue placing the books on the shelves while Chad approaches me.
“Good guy, your dad.”
I tighten my lips and nod.
“Listen, Mia. I’m not sure what I’ve done for you to be so opposed to going out with me.”
A roll of my eyes feels almost instinctual at this point. I say nothing.
“I think if you gave me a chance, you would see that we’re a good match.” Chad leans against the bookshelf and folds his arms in a way that each hand props up his biceps. Fucking men.
I push past him to get to the shelf behind.
“If I’ve done something to offend you, I truly apologize.”
God, I want to vomit.That’s the thing with these guys. So quick to apologize, to hesitate on every decision. There’s no excitement there. The only life I see with a guy like Chad is one where we sit on the opposite sides of a dinner table, in our bland knitwear, gossiping about the couple next door because we ourselves have nothing of interest to talk about. He’ll probably end up having a fling on the side, and I would do my best to ignore it, just like all the other so-called ‘happy’ couples in this town.
“What is it exactly that makes you believe we’d be a good match?”
He hesitates, straightens his polo top. “You’re beautiful and deserve to be with someone who can give you everything that you want.”
His response angers me, I stop what I’m doing and walk over to him. “And what do I want?”
This time, his hesitation transforms his face into that of a little boy who had just been told he wasn’t good enough to make it onto the football team. “You… you want…”
“That’s right. You don’t know because apart from my beauty, you don’t know anything about me. And if you did, you sure as hell wouldn’t believe that we were a good match.” I’m now standing inches away from him, I can practically feel his balls shriveling up inside him, drying up like grapes left out in the sun. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve been so blunt with someone, and I have to say that I’m enjoying every minute of it.
“Here,” I say as I hand him a copy of the new romance novel. “Read this, and who knows? Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.”