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CHAPTER THREE
Peter was waiting for the elevator, leaning against the wall nonchalantly even though he was totally anxious. Mary almost ran into Peter as she was leaving the house. She had just had her father-daughter talk with Jim, and Peter wanted to know what happened.
“So…what did he say?”
Mary smiled. “As long as he meets Harry he’s fine with it.”
“Awesome.”
The elevator arrived at their floor, and Mary and Peter walked into it. They got out on the first floor and went to the subway. After 35 minutes, they arrived at school.
“Bye, Mary!”
“Bye! See you at lunch?”
“Obviously.”
They parted ways and headed to their classes. Peter had science first period, and Mary had English. English was one of Mary’s favorite classes. She liked the material enough, but her fondness for the class was mostly because it was one of the classes she had with Harry.
When she walked into the room, the teacher wasn’t there yet, and Harry was already seated. Harry’s face lit up immediately when he saw her. Mary smiled back at Harry and sat next to him.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
They both looked down for a moment; they were occasionally stuck in the awkward, oh-my-gosh-we’re-dating phase of their relationship. Harry was the first to break the silence.
“So, uh, what did your dad say?”
“He wants to meet you.”
“Should I be scared?”
“Not really,” Mary laughed. “Just don’t get any nose rings or anything like that.”
“You mean I can’t show your dad my awesome new tattoo?”
“A tattoo, huh?” Mary couldn’t help but smile playfully. “It might help if I knew what was on the tattoo… that way I could tell if it’d be okay with my dad.”
“Oh, it says Mary, and it’s in a heart of course.”
“Ah. And where exactly is this tattoo?” Mary’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, if it’s dirty, I swear-”
Harry laughed. “It’s on my back! I would show it to you, but I don’t think that the school would be very pleased with me taking off my shirt in English class.”
“Yeah, getting expelled won’t go over well with my dad, either.”
They laughed for a little while, and then Harry asked, “So when do I get to meet your dad?”
“I don’t know, he just said that he wanted to meet you.”
“So that I can show him my tattoo, right?”
Mary nudged Harry gently with her elbow. “Shut up.” Harry laughed, and nudged Mary back. Mary was about to nudge him again, but the teacher walked into the room to start the lesson. Instead of nudging, Harry grabbed Mary’s hand under the desk. After about 40 minutes, the class was over. Mary and Harry untangled their fingers and had to go to separate classes.
When they were outside of the classroom, they stood in front of each other awkwardly. Harry smiled sheepishly. “So, I guess I’ll see you at lunch?”
Mary smiled and nodded her head.
Harry quickly kissed her cheek, then gave an awkward wave and walked to class. Mary was smiling her entire way to math.
Jim was answering phones and making sales all day, but he couldn’t get this Harry kid out of his mind. Whenever he thought of the name Harry, he immediately pictured the man-whore, or the geek, or the guy with rings all over his body. If only he knew Harry’s last name, then he would have been able to find him in the yearbook. But what if Harry really was a geek, or a punk, or a man-whore?
At around 4:00, things started to settle down. Jim wasn’t getting that many calls and he had some time on his hands, so he decided to call his wife. Maybe she would make him feel better about the situation. He took out his cell and typed in her number. After four rings, she picked up.
“Jim? Everything okay?”
“Pam, our daughter is dating a man-whore.”
Jim heard Pam sigh on the other side. “Oh, Jim…”
“No Pam, listen to me. I was looking through the yearbook for Harry, and there was this kid with four girls! Four girls!”
“That probably wasn’t Mary’s Harry and you know it. She has better judgment than that.” Pam paused. “Besides, you can’t be sure that that was him. You don’t even know Harry’s last name.”
“Do you? It’d help me out. For Christ’s sake, I found 11 Harry’s.”
Jim was getting even more worried.
“Jim, calm down. You’ll meet Harry eventually. And I’m pretty sure we’ve taught our daughter to not date man-whores, okay? You need to calm down.” He heard her sigh again. “And you can’t look through her stuff, Jim! You need to trust her a little more.”
“I trust Mary, just not Harry. What if she doesn’t know that he’s a man-whore?”
“Peter knows Harry as well, and you know that nothing goes by Peter. Especially when it comes to Mary.”
“But Pam-”
“Nope, not listening. You are over-reacting.”
Jim sighed, knowing that he would never win this argument. “Fine. I guess I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”
“I love you too. Bye.”
They both hung up, and Jim tried his hardest to not think about the Harry-Mary situation.
Five o’clock couldn’t come soon enough for Jim. He wanted to go home and try to keep himself busy so that he wouldn’t worry so much. He wanted more than anything for Pam to be waiting for him at home though. He let out a sigh and collected his things. He said goodbye and goodnight to everyone that he needed to and walked out to his car.
He made the short drive back to his apartment and parked the car. Then he went to the elevator and to his house. He opened the door and could already hear Mary and Peter arguing.
He heard Mary’s voice first, “No, I want to make pasta for dinner.”
Then Peter said, “We should just order in Chinese.”
“No, we do that all the time.”
“We have pasta all the time.”
“No we don’t.”
Jim finally walked into their argument, “I’m home.”
They both turned to Jim and talked at the same time, “Tell Mary that we should have Chinese.” “Tell Peter that we should have pasta.”
“Why don’t we have soup?”
Mary and Peter just stared at him for a second. Then Mary said, “Soup?”
Jim nodded his head, “Yeah, soup and salad. Yum.”
Peter and Mary looked at each other and then shrugged.
“Soup is okay with me I guess…”
Jim smiled, he always knew how to settle these arguments, “It’s settled then. Get your shoes on and we’ll go to the soup place across the street.”
After a few minutes they were all in the soup place eating their soup quietly.
“So how was school?”
Mary smiled, “I think that I aced my math test!”
Jim smiled and kissed Mary’s forehead, “I knew that all of that studying would pay off. What about you Peter?”
“I have decided not to go to college.”
Jim’s eyes widened, “What?!”
Peter smiled, “ May and I have decided to run away to Las Vegas and get married.” May was Peter’s girlfriend.
Jim’s eyes widened even more. Mary was just in her seat trying to hold her laughter. Jim was too in shock to say anything. Then Peter and Mary started laughing uncontrollably.
Peter said, “Dad, I’m just kidding. Nothing interesting happened in school today.”
“You’re sure that you’re kidding?”
Peter nodded his head, “Yep.”
“Good, because your mother would have killed you.”
Peter smiled, “I know. And by the way, I’m out tomorrow for dinner. May and I have plans to see a movie and have dinner.”
Jim nodded his head, “As long as you too aren’t running off to get married.”
“Don’t worry.”
Then Jim turned to Mary, “And you don’t have any plans?”
Mary shook her head, “Nope. I decided to spend some time with my father.”
Peter laughed, “Harry is visiting his relatives this weekend and everyone else is busy.”
“Shut up Peter.”
“Hey, I was just saying.”
They finished up their dinner and headed back home. They put a movie in the DVD player and made popcorn. Then they sat down and started watching the movie. Half way into the movie Mary fell asleep. Once the movie was over Jim was still wide awake and Peter was tired, but not asleep.
Jim was a little tired, but he knew that he was never really able to fall asleep with Pam gone. Peter yawned and then got up. He picked Mary up and then turned to Jim, “I’ll take her to bed, goodnight dad.”
“Night Pete.”
Peter carried Mary to bed and then made his way to his own room. Jim turned on the TV and tried to keep his mind off of everything that was happening. About two hours later he was finally starting to get more tired. He made his way to bed. It took him a while, but eventually sleep overtook him.
Jim woke up in the morning, he looked at the clock, 11:42. YIKES! He slept in late, well he didn’t get to sleep the night before. Slowly Jim crawled out of bed and headed to the kitchen for breakfast.
Mary was in the living room reading a book and sipping on a cup of warm tea. Peter was in the kitchen trying to make waffles.
Mary, still reading her book said, “Keep trying Pete.”
“It’s harder then it looks.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes it…”
Then Jim cut in, “At least you’re trying.”
Peter said, “Thank you very much. You are supportive of me, unlike someone I know.” He was looking directly at Mary.
Then Mary said, “What idiot can’t make waffles?”
“Well you know what…just for that you don’t get any.”
“I don’t want any of your waffles anyways, I already made myself some eggs.”
“Well then. I’m sure that dad will like some waffles.”
Jim paused for a second, he’d eating Peter’s cooking before, “Um, I think that I’ll just um make myself some coffee.”
Mary started laughing and Peter just stared at his father then said, “I thought that you were supposed to be supportive of me?”
“I am supportive of you. Good job son.” He patted his son on the back and then went over to the coffee maker.
Peter mumbled to himself, “May would like my waffles.”
Mary laughed and then said, “If they don’t kill her first.”
A few minutes later, the phone rang. Mary sprang up, “I’ll get it!”
She hopped over the couch and over to the phone. After three rings she answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Mary there? It’s Harry.”
“Hey!”
Mary looked over her shoulder. Peter was still trying to make waffles and Jim was looking straight at Mary. Mary picked up the phone and walked into her room. Once she was in the room she closed the door.
“Where are you right now?” Said Mary.
“Our trip to my grandparents was cancelled. They live in Alaska, so there was this insane snow storm. So our trip was cancelled.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. But I was wondering…um,” Harry took a pause on the other line. They had been together for over a week and he still got nervous whenever he asked her out. “I was wondering what were you doing today?”
Mary started smiling like an insane idiot, “Um, I wasn’t really doing anything today.”
“Wanna um hang out?”
Mary smiled even wider, if it was even possible. “Um sure!”
“I was thinking dinner and a movie?”
Mary laughed, “Okay.”
Then Harry said, “So I’ll pick you up around six then?”
“Um, okay, six it is.”
With that they said their goodbyes and hung up the phone.
Growing Up by Morine
