4. Dominic
FOUR
Dominic
I knew and remembered that she was gorgeous from the front, but at this moment, I decide that Lina from the Back should be its own Wonder of the World.
She walks ahead with Frankie, the two of them chatting like they’re old college friends who haven’t seen each other in a while and they are catching up on years’ worth of news and gossip.
This is fine with me, because I can walk behind them and wonder how well the eighth Wonder of the World would fit in my hands. They’d fill them quite nicely, probably, with the perfect amount of overflow, considering the size and the shape and the generous amount of movement with every step.
What are the fucking odds? Well, I suppose pretty high actually, considering Lina was at Ollie and Georgia’s housewarming, both of whom have deep ties to PS 2, but did she have to be so fucking beautiful, too? What are the odds of that?
Lina turns to check I’m still behind them and catches me staring. Instead of getting all embarrassed like I did, her gorgeous mouth takes the shape of a shit-eating grin.
Which goes straight to my dick.
It also, however, goes the other way and kicks my ass and reminds me in big billboard letters that I have a five-year-old daughter who is entirely dependent on me and I won’t be fucking around, thank you very much.
It was nice to imagine, though, just for a second. Lina looked at me like I was a piece of meat, and I really liked it, okay? Until she laid eyes on Frankie, I was just a regular, uncomplicated guy at a party, in a cafe, and not a dad who is in permanent need of a nap or a Xanax or both at the same time.
In a dark turn of events, I begin to think about the woman who was, who is , Frankie’s mother. How hot she was, too, how good that one night was. But I force myself to remember then, the way in which she abandoned her daughter with a complete stranger. The work and the struggle I’ve had, amazing or not, to raise Frankie myself because of the mistake my dick made. I think of Viv, how I thought she was it, the one. The ring I bought her. Then I think of the twist in her face right before she stormed out of our lives for good, with a firm, “This is not what I signed up for,” and “I don’t want to be this baby’s mother, Dom.”
I’m clearly an awful fucking judge of character when it comes to women, and this thought is enough for me to wrench my eyes from Lina’s ass and the dip of her waist and stare straight ahead.
At her hair, which is a mass of heavy curls that I want to hold in my hands, too.
“Do you have a list?” Lina is asking Frankie. “You seem like the kind of gal who would have a list.”
Frankie rolls her eyes. “Of course I have a list.” She walks behind me and points up at the backpack I have slung around one shoulder. “Can I have my backpack, Daddy?”
I take it off and hand it to her, and she places it on the dirty Brooklyn sidewalk to rifle through it, while Lina and I stand like sentinels or a pair of well-adjusted parents around her. I try my hardest not to look at Lina’s tits, because I am the respectful father to a daughter. Frankie pulls out a piece of paper crumpled into a small ball and hands it to Lina, who has to peel it open to read it.
Lina’s heart-shaped face is surprised. I know it’s heart-shaped, because I’ve spent an unnatural amount of time mapping every inch of it in the thirty minutes we’ve been together. “Wow, Frankie. Did you do this all yourself?” she asks.
“Daddy helped me with the letters.”
Frankie is still working on her writing, so I have her draw the grocery item, and next to it we put the first letter of the item. The first item is a crudely drawn carton of blueberries with the letter B next to it.
I’m actually good at this whole parenting thing , I hope this conveys to Lina. She gives me nothing, though, except for a hint of surprise, which is incredibly disappointing considering I dedicate every hour I’m not working to being better at the whole parenting thing.
My phone rings when we’re a few feet away from the store. I glance down, frowning when I see it’s the CFO of my manufacturing startup.
“It’s Sunday,” I tell Greg, instead of hello.
“I know. I’m sorry, but—” he begins.
“I’m with my daughter right now, Greg,” I say, not bothering to hide my irritation.
Lina glances back at me, eyebrows furrowed. I send her a tight smile.
“Frankie, can you get started on our list?” I ask my daughter as we walk into the store. “I’m right behind you. I just need to take this. Don’t bother AP Sanchez. I’m sure she has her own shopping to do.”
“‘Kay,” Frankie says, grabbing one of the rolling baskets and skipping away, eager to completely ignore me and show off her skill and aptitude as an independent five-year-old shopper to her school administrator and new best friend.
“What is it, Greg?”
“I’ve been going through the financials, and we’ve got a bit of a cash flow issue coming up. GreenTech just informed us that their payment on the order is going to be delayed by at least thirty days due to their internal financial restructuring. We’ve got payroll coming up next week, and we have enough in reserves to cover it, but if the delay goes beyond that, we’re going to face a liquidity crunch. How do you want to handle this?”
I scrub my face, now supremely annoyed. “How much do they owe us?”
Lina’s body turns slightly towards me.
“Five hundred grand,” says Greg.
“Unacceptable. We’re not waiting thirty days for five hundred grand,” I press.
Lina is now frozen, looking at me with both eyebrows raised. I turn around and walk a few feet away, making sure to keep Frankie in my line of sight.
“Did we invoice them on time?” I ask.
"Yes, the invoice went out on time, but they said they’re restructuring some of their financing and cash flow processes. It’s corporate bureaucracy, really. They assured us they’ll pay, but we’ve got no solid date yet. Normally, we’d have enough cushion, but we’ve got an unusually high amount of inventory purchases lined up this month as well."
Sighing, I watch Frankie attempt to manipulate Lina into grabbing a box of cereal with negative levels of nutritional value. Lina sees right past her ruse and shakes her head, pointing at Frankie’s list. Lina reaches up and grabs something else, but I don’t notice what it is, because her shirt rises up the front and shows the rounded flesh of her stomach and my mind blanks. It looks unbelievably soft, which probably means it’s really fucking soft in actuality and would feel insane if I rubbed my face into it.
“Hello?” Greg’s fucking voice interrupts my daydream.
“Okay,” I say to Greg. “Two things. First, reach out to GreenTech’s finance department directly and see if we can negotiate partial payment upfront. Emphasize that we have operational commitments tied to that payment. If they can't do that, ask them for a firm date, something we can plan around.”
“Got it.”
“In the meantime, look into opening a line of credit with the bank. We should have enough leverage with our assets and receivables to get favorable terms. But I don’t want to jump into that unless absolutely necessary.” I think of other potential options. I have more than enough capital allocated for other projects, but I prefer not to touch it. That will be the last resort. “Let me know how GreenTech responds. Anything else I need to know about?”
“That covers it for now. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I hear back from their finance team.”
“Make sure payroll is the top priority, Greg. And I’ll handle any conversations with GreenTech’s leadership if we don’t get a response soon.”
I hang up the phone and walk back to Frankie and her school administrator. “Sorry about that, Frankie,” I tell her. “Work. Did you manage to finish your list?”
“Just need milk,” she says, walking down the aisle.
We follow.
“What is it exactly that you do?” Lina side-eyes me suspiciously.
I shrug, not wanting to get into the complications of being a serial entrepreneur. Saying that I create businesses and scale them up or build entire empires across industries or turn ideas into multimillion-dollar companies all sound like really douche-y things to say. “I’m a… business operator.”
Her eyes narrow even further, but she’s looking at Frankie, not me. “Fascinating,” she whispers, as if she’s watching the mating rituals of birds in a nature documentary. “Would you say that’s a… safe line of work for your five-year-old daughter?”
Huh? I frown. “I have a very flexible schedule, since I’m in charge. It lets me spend more time with Frankie.” It’s probably not safe that I’m fucking exhausted all the time, but at least I’m not driving our car anywhere.
“Hmm…” She doesn’t clarify.
Frankie hefts a gallon of milk the size of her torso into the rolling basket. “All done, Daddy.”
I peek into the basket, double checking her work. “Thanks, Frankie. Let’s check out.” I turn to Lina, who is currently loading some cheese into hers. “We’re going to head out, Lina. AP Sanchez.” She stands and looks me directly in the eye, and I’m smacked in the face by the force of her gaze. I realize her eyes are light brown or something, the color of melted caramel, but there’s a stripe of dark brown in the left one, making the entire effect look extraordinarily beautiful.
In fact, it seems like her entire person is painted in brighter colors than the rest of the world, so bright that I am forced to look away.
She looks at Frankie. “It was really nice to meet you, little lady. I’ll see you in a few weeks, okay?”
Frankie smiles at the ground, doing the weird, suddenly-shy thing that little kids sometimes do, as if she weren’t just telling Lina about the giant canker sore she had a few months ago.
“Please use your words, Frankie,” I whisper down at her.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she mumbles.
Lina and I look at one another again. Her eyes flick down to my mouth. Fuck . I clear my throat. “I’ll be in touch about that back to school stuff, AP Sanchez. Have a great rest of your summer.”
She smiles. “Lina. Please.”
“Lina,” I amend, but it’s more like a prayer.
* * *
Get your fucking ass in your fucking room right fucking now, you little shit , is what I want to say to my daughter, who is currently screaming like she is the Queen of the Demon Rat Banshees. Because I didn’t let her watch five more minutes of YouTube before bed.
Instead, because I am the Gentlest Parent of the Year, I force my face into an unaffected mask and continue tidying up the living room. “It’s time for bed,” I say neutrally. “Please go brush your teeth.”
“NO!” she cries through ugly tears. “ I just want five more minutes! ” she screams, taking the stray socks I’ve already picked up and hurling them back on the floor.
You little fucking… “I understand you’re upset, but I don’t understand you when you scream like that,” I say to her for what may be the ten thousandth time in her five years. “I’m here and ready to listen once you calm down.” Fuck this fucking gentle parenting bullshit ? —
The little doorbell on our front door rings. I sigh, walking over to answer it. This only means one thing.
“Hey, Tita Gloria,” I say to my aunt—Oliver’s mom. I can barely be heard over Frankie’s raging.
She shoves me aside unceremoniously. I let her, because I’m just so fucking tired. “ Hoy, anak ,” she croons at my daughter, wrapping her into her arms. “What’s wrong?”
As with all her tantrums, Frankie’s amped up, adrenaline-fueled anger screeching eventually vacates her body, leaving her a heaving, sloppy, crying husk of a child.
I leave the room, needing a second, while Frankie cries in her pseudo-grandma’s arms. Just one second, though, before I feel the need to resume my fatherly duties.
“Let’s start our bedtime routine, Frankie,” I tell her upon my walk back into the living room.
“I can do it with her, Domy,” Tita Gloria tells me.
I shake my head. “It’s fine, Tita?—”
“I wanna do it with Lola,” Frankie sniffles, toeing that line again, the one between passive compliance and World War III.
Not wanting to negotiate with terrorists, I start, “Frankie?—”
“Let’s go, Frankie,” Tita Gloria tells her, picking her up like she’s a toddler and carrying her to the bathroom.
Defeated, I collapse onto the couch and resist the urge to curl into a ball.
* * *
“I can do it myself, Tita,” I tell her, once Frankie is down. “I don’t want you to step in whenever she has a tantrum. I want her to learn the concept of boundaries.”
“I know you can do it yourself, anak ,” she says crossly. “That doesn’t mean you have to. Take the help when you can get it.”
“But I don’t want or need your?—”
“What you need is a vacation, hah ,” she cuts in. “I think you should leave her with me and Ben and go somewhere on your own, or with friends, but…” She holds up a hand when she sees me start to retort. “I know you would never do that. So I think you and Frankie need to go somewhere with other people… where she can run around and you can relax and let others watch her for a second. Have you been on vacation since she was born? That’s a rhetorical question,” she says, when she sees me freeze.
I wanted to say “we don’t have any time for vacation” but I knew this would further prove her point.
“You look tired, hija ,” she tells me, which roughly translates to ‘you look like shit.’ “It’s starting to show, and it’s rubbing off on Frankie. Your fuses are growing shorter and shorter,” she says, with the confidence of a retired elementary school teacher.
“Maybe the two of us can get a house in the Catskills or something next weekend. Or go camping. Or maybe the beach,” I concede, scrubbing my face.
“I think you should go with other people who could…” Tita Gloria pauses. She perks up, looking at me with a gleam in her eye.
“What?”
“Hear me out first, Dom…”
“What?”
“So Sunday?—”
“That’s tomorrow?—”
“Ben’s sister and their family are in Europe, so Ben and I and Ollie and Georgia are heading up to her place on the beach on Sunday.”
“That’s tomorrow, Tita?—”
“In Westerly. In Rhode Island. And I think you should come with us. We’re going for the entire week.”
“I have work?—”
“You work remotely.”
“Frankie has camp?—”
“So she won’t go this week.”
“No one will watch her while I’m working?—”
“We will.”
“That’s a lot. I can’t ask you to do that?—”
“You’re not asking us, we’re telling you. That we are watching her.”
“That sounds far?—”
“Three hour drive, max. You have a car.”
“We just bought a ton of groceries?—”
“Bring them up.”
“Where would we even sleep?”
“There are a million bedrooms. It’s like a beach mansion. You would each get your own.”
I stare at the socks Frankie threw on the ground as Tita Gloria the Tiger Mom somehow wins the Gentlest Parent of the Year award.
“Five years is a long time to go without a break,” she continues. “This is free childcare, free lodging. I’m doing all the cooking. Frankie can go swimming and roast marshmallows in a bonfire. You can finish work and step right out onto the beach.”
I scrub my face, my nose itching and eyes inexplicably stinging.
She notices, then quickly stands and pats my cheek. Like many Filipino mothers of her generation, she is highly uncomfortable with any public display of emotion. I huff a laugh in spite of my mood. “Think about it,” she says, walking to the front door. She pauses. “I’ve known you your entire life, Dom. I helped raise you. I know how much your parents worked you. I think they inadvertently instilled this anxiety to do everything, all of it, perfectly, ever since you were a child, and I see it coming to a head. Your parents are old school Filipinos. All that fear of hiya ? That isn’t right. You shouldn’t be ashamed to ask for help. That sort of trauma is something that will rub off onto Frankie if you aren’t careful.” She leaves.
Christ. Of all the things she could have mentioned, this is the thing that gives me pause. I know I’m being neurotic. And I don’t like this change to our routine. I’m fine. I’m exhausted, but I’m fine. I shouldn’t drag Frankie on this vacation and inconvenience my aunt and uncle just because I need a break. Right?
But here’s the thing. After my parents went back home to the Philippines, I celebrated. I was free. And then after Frankie, I swore I’d never be like them.
A strategy I often employ is ‘what would your parents do?’ and then I do the opposite. Would your parents go on vacation? Absolutely the fuck not. I sigh. I have my answer, then.