Chapter 11 A Pretty Girl
A PRETTY GIRL
“You’re around the wrong people if they don’t like you speaking your mind,” he said. “I grew up around strong women.”
“And that’s what you want?”
Matt knew better than to say what he wanted, expected, or was looking for in a woman.
There was too much on the line and not a lot of answers for the millions of questions that he had.
“It’s not about what I want,” he said. “There is so much more to consider.”
“Spoken like a true attorney,” she said.
Half her burger was gone and she was picking at her fries now.
“I’ve had a lot of training. I’m good at my job.” He held the last quarter of his burger up. “This is great too. I’m glad you picked this place. I’ll have to come back.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said.
He was looking at her. He saw her. “Oh, I know that. I also think you are avoiding telling me about why you’re this changed woman when I haven’t hesitated to bare my soul to you.”
She laughed. “It’s hardly baring your soul.”
“I just admitted that at thirty-two years old my mother is still lecturing me, putting me in my place, and making me feel guilty about letting her down. How much more do I have to give you?”
Anya was still grinning at him, her blue eyes almost sparkling. He hadn’t seen that in years and was ecstatic she’d graced him with it now.
“Fine,” she said. “You win. You’re baring your soul. For me, it’s a lot of guys that I’ve dated that have taken advantage of me.”
He clenched his fist under the table. That was what he feared she’d say.
“I worried about that when you were younger.”
“Did you now?” she asked, popping a fry in her mouth.
“Yes. You were so na?ve.”
“I was,” she said. “I won’t even take offense to that.”
He got lucky there with those words slipping out of his mouth.
“How were you taken advantage of?”
“I’ve had guys string me along. Make me pay for everything. I had someone borrow money and not pay it back. I picked a lot of losers.”
“It sounds it,” he said.
“I haven’t picked anyone in a long time. I’m on a sabbatical.”
Not exactly what he wanted to hear.
“How long have you been on one and are you still?”
That would have been good information to have.
“It’s been over a year. There was no set date for the length of time.”
“But you were at Ben’s wedding with a date,” he said.
“A date only. I’m sure you know he works at Fierce. His name is Brendan and he’s been overly friendly. I’m a friendly person.”
“And he read it wrong?” he asked. He’d make sure the next time he was in there no one would doubt his intentions.
“He did. I corrected it or thought I did. He asked me to go to Ben’s wedding. I politely declined twice. Then he said he didn’t want to be a loser by himself. He only wanted a plus one. I made sure he was aware that is all it was.”
“You didn’t look as if that was the only thing on the dance floor.”
She was out there busting a move to both slow and fast songs.
“I was having fun and assumed he was too. My life has been minus that for a while. Brendan was a good time more than I thought and I figured it wouldn’t hurt. He knew where I stood.”
“Did he really?” he asked. “Or did he hope to wear you down?”
Her cheeks puffed out as a gush of air was released. “The second. Is that a guy thing?”
“If a window is open a crack, any idiot would try to lift it wider for a pretty girl.”
“I’m a pretty girl to you?”
“You’re an attractive woman to me. You were a pretty girl when I was being a dick to you and I wanted that attention.”
There he was baring his soul again and laying it on the line.
He hoped the line didn’t snap with the weight he was piling on it.
“You got more attention than you bargained for,” she said.
“I did. And I have to live with it and the fact I did it to a lot of women. I didn’t learn my lesson for a long time.”
“And now you have?”
“I’d like to think so. I also know that when it means something you put more effort in.”
“You’re laying it on thick, aren’t you?” she asked, laughing. “Is that a lawyer thing too?”
“Let me ask you, are you enjoying this dinner?”
“Surprisingly, I am.”
“I’ll take it. Can I ask why you are?”
She took her time answering. “I’m being myself.
I’m not worrying if you’ll like it or not.
I didn’t like the way I was around you before.
It hurt and I don’t want to feel that way again.
That’s one change I’ve made. I’ll get nowhere in life if I can’t be true to myself.
I’m putting it out there with you when in the past I would be hesitant about someone just getting to know them. ”
“That might be the best response I could have hoped for.”
“Why?” She picked her wine up and downed it. It was a nervous gesture and he hated she’d felt that.
“Because I’m sick of fake people. I never thought you were and though you’ve changed, I didn’t think it was in that regard.”
“Never. I’ve got a lot going on in my life. I’m working two jobs and when I’ve got time I’m helping my mother. Not just legally with everything, but in the house. I’m trying to give her a break and keep an eye on my father too.”
“I’d do the same.”
“I’m sure you would. All of your siblings. But it’s just me. EJ is as useless as dead batteries in a vibrator. He’s selfish and I wonder if some fights he’s had with my father haven’t contributed to this.”
It was hard for him not to say something funny about her vibrator comment, but he pulled out steel strength to show no reaction.
“To their relationship?”
“To his dementia. I’ve done a lot of reading on it. Traumatic events can cause the increase of cognitive decline. My grandfather had dementia. I think that is why my mother got the long-term care insurance.”
“They fought a lot?” he asked. “Your father and brother?”
He wanted to hear from her and not what his mother told him Phoebe had brought up years ago.
“Over everything. My brother would break out into fits of rage. He was selfish and narcissistic. It was his way or the highway. He felt everything was owed to him. My father kicked him out once when he was done with college and it was a solid month before my mother could repair the damage for him to come home. I hated it. I thought he was finally out after that, but I was wrong.”
“What caused him to be kicked out?” he asked. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s fine. It was one of many fights about my father wanting EJ to take over the business.
EJ had no interest. But he was mean about it.
He looked down at what my father did. But he also expected my father to pay for all of EJ’s college, all his living expenses, everything.
He’d graduated from college and was dragging his feet looking for a job and living like a bum. ”
“We always had to work,” he said.
They never wanted for anything, but it wasn’t expected either.
“I’ve always had a part-time job. I worked for my father early on and then found other things.
Not EJ. He’d put little time into the business, but enough to whine he needed money.
He’d break curfew. Which I think happened that night.
He didn’t think he should have one at twenty-two, but he snuck in at two in the morning, the alarms went off, my mother was upset, my father came downstairs thinking someone was breaking in. I was scared.”
“I can see where that could cause a problem. He didn’t know the alarm code?”
“He knew it. He was drunk and he drove home. All on my father’s insurance.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. That’s all a huge liability and I’m sounding like an attorney, but I can’t help it.”
“The next morning, EJ was hung over and my father got him out of bed by having the fire alarms going off. I thought it was funny in a way, but EJ wouldn’t come out of his room and had locked the door.”
Matt laughed. “I like your father.”
“He had his moments. They fought, EJ broke a chair and threw a piece of it at my father and that was it. He was kicked out.”
“Where did he go if he didn’t have a job?”
“He stayed with a friend, but they got sick of him being a bum also and he finally came home. He was on good behavior long enough to get a job and move out.”
“That’s something at least.”
“A couple of years ago, EJ found out a girl he was dating was pregnant. He wanted nothing to do with the baby.”
“So you’ve got a niece or nephew you don’t know about?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about that, but it’d never happen in his family.
“No. I think this was the last of the stresses that tipped it for my father. It was about three years ago. I wish he’d retired then.
The business wasn’t doing as well and he was stressing there.
Then EJ said his girlfriend was pregnant and he didn’t want it.
He told her to give it up. My mother begged him not to do it.
That they’d raise the baby, it was their grandchild. ”
“My parents would have done the same thing.”
“I had a panic moment. My mother was retired, my father should have been and now they were going to raise a baby? I was in no position to do it, but I was trying to find a way.”
He wasn’t surprised she’d sacrifice herself for her parents. “Even though you didn’t get along with EJ?”
“It wasn’t about him. It was about my parents.
But it never came to that. After a couple months of going back and forth, Krista, that was her name, she told him she’d gotten an abortion.
Come to find out, she wanted the baby at first, but her family wasn’t happy either and she’d get no support if EJ wasn’t helping.
She felt it was the best decision. The abortion devastated my mother.
My father too. EJ had already applied for a job transfer and it was in the works. ”
“He was leaving the country knowing he could have a child coming?” he asked.
“Yeah. As my father said, he was running. I think he thought if he couldn’t be reached they couldn’t get him for child support if Krista had kept it. He wouldn’t have felt he would have owed anything since he didn’t want the kid.”
“What a dick,” he said. He came across a lot of sleazeballs in his life, but this was a new level.
“Yep. See what I was surrounded by in my life?”
“And I made it worse,” he mumbled.