23. Ned #2
He doesn’t fucking know. She didn’t come with instructions.
Baxter didn’t either, or Abbot, or anything else in life.
Though he’s pretty sure if Peggy had, giant block letters would warn: Appear as put together as possible in front of Dr. Charles Henry Abbot.
This is the first time Peggy’s meeting him, and the first time in over a year that Ned’s seeing his—
His what? His ostensible future father-in-law?
It’s not like he knocked it out of the park the first time they met. Round two might go better if his daughter wasn’t covered in marker and wearing a stained cape, but fuck it. Ned can only do so much.
And she won’t take it off. Not when he gets her out of the car, and not standing on the sidewalk with her hands clutched around the knot, the ragged hem of the fabric hanging below the bottom of her coat.
“Please,” Ned says, squatting in front of her. “It’s a nice restaurant. Nobody wears capes to a nice restaurant.”
“But I’m wearing it right now.”
A car pulls up. Ned tenses, but a couple emerges, high heels on the salted sidewalk, the man in a coat that reaches his knees and shined shoes as he holds the door for his date.
“It would be really fun to wear it,” he agrees. “But right now we need to put it in the car.”
“No.”
“Baxter can wear it while we’re eating,” Ned says. End up pissing all over it, maybe. Suddenly the idea to leave him in the car while they eat seems like an awfully bad one, no matter the mild temperature. “Let’s put it on him together.”
“Abbot,” she says and moves around him.
Great. They’re already here. Charles’s kids probably never defied him.
Though Abbot did move to a different continent, so there’s that.
Abbot’s face is stern now. From last night still or from today with his father, Ned doesn’t know, and Abbot doesn’t say, just returns Ned’s peck of a kiss hello in silence. It’s something, at least, that small, warm affection between them, and it heartens Ned somewhat as he steps back.
Next to Abbot, Liesl seems impossibly older, her hair left loose over her shoulders, and she’s wearing little sparkling earrings. She is taller, like Abbot said, and Ned wants to shrink her back down to the kid he first met, not this teenager standing before him.
“Look at you,” Ned says and she’s shy like she always is when he first sees her, so he holds his fist up for a bump instead of folding her into a hug like he wants to. “How many movies did you watch on the plane? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“It wasn’t that long a flight,” she says.
“Seventeen, nice.” He bumps her fist again. “Good to see you, kid. And Charles, hello.”
There. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. If the Band-Aid were a conversation with a man Ned is pretty sure keeps a file of his myriad failures, and enters in a spreadsheet everything he hasn’t done to be worthy of dating Abbot.
Like the latest, riding Abbot’s coattails to a job Ned couldn’t ever hope to land on his own.
He puts on a smile and hopes it doesn’t look too horrible.
“So nice to see you.” Charles’s tone suggests anything but as he shakes Ned’s hand.
“This is Peggy,” Ned says, taking her shoulders. “Hon, can you say hi? This is—” Shit. Charles? No, he doesn’t seem the type to go by first names with kids. Mr. Abbot? Dr. Abbot?
“Pleased to meet you.” Charles holds out a gloved hand to her.
Shake it, Ned silently pleads as Peggy stares up at him. He squeezes her little shoulders. Slowly, she extends her hand and he lets out a breath.
“Pegs, you remember Liesl, right?” he asks and yes, that’s better, the two girls clustering around Abbot as he opens the restaurant door for them and ushers them in outside of the cold.
Which, great. Leaves Ned with this guy. Wonderful.
“Really so nice of you to come all this way to celebrate our engagement,” Ned gets out, his smile still firmly in place.
“I’m very glad to,” Charles says shortly.
Yeah, Ned can tell, all that warm bubbly enthusiasm he’s so clearly showing. They’re not so different, him and Abbot, tall and austere and reserved. But beneath the cold surface, Abbot is funny and kind, and Charles probably eats qualitative researchers for breakfast.
“I rather thought you would have come to visit.”
“Oh.” Ned nods, unsure why he’s doing it, but it feels right and gives him a moment to reach for some words. “No, yeah.”
Which are not the articulate words this man is probably expecting. Sentences, Ned tells himself. Actual language that makes sense. He has a PhD for fuck’s sake. Ned needs to answer with something other than, I absolutely can’t afford to, which is the truth of the matter.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he gets out. Yes, that sounds right.
“When?” Charles asks, his voice flat.
“We’ll have to find a time that works.”
“And you’ll bring your daughter?”
Two plane tickets. Great. “Absolutely.”
“I’d enjoy that,” Charles says.
Really? That feels hard to believe, but the words sound surprisingly genuine.
Well, he better be honest about inviting Peggy, because he’ll be learning quite a few dinosaur facts if he’s really going to host her someday.
And she’ll likely be wearing her cape, the way things are going.
Ned holds the door for Charles. Inside, he spots the girls and Abbot at the host stand. Peggy has her coat off, her cape on full display. It was cute when Mom sewed it for her. It’s still cute, at home or at the type of place where kids can draw on the paper tablecloth with crayons.
Charles looks down at it, and then at Ned, and fuck losing his job, his credit card debt, and that he lives with his parents—nobody gets to look at Peggy like that.
It’s one thing for Ned to be embarrassed and another entirely for her to face any part of the brunt of Charles’s disapproval.
So Ned puts his hand on her head and steers her to follow the host to their table, letting her walk with all the joy she has in her little self for her battered and wrinkled cape.
“Congratulations to you both,” Charles says when they’ve sat.
Peggy squirms in her seat. “I’ll be your aunt.”
“No, sweetheart, Liesl will actually be yours,” Ned says. “And thank you. We’re excited.” They’re something, at least. Strangely silent with each other, mostly.
“I want to be the aunt,” Peggy says, already frowning.
Charles gives her a silent look.
Ned starts to sweat. “Liesl is Abbot’s—Henry’s—” fuck, he thinks. “Sister, so if he and I are married, and you’re my kiddo, that makes her your step-aunt.”
Peggy’s forehead wrinkles. “That’s not as good.”
“You’ll get to be the flower girl,” Liesl says. “I’ll be a bridesmaid. Are you changing your name?”
“Am I…” Ned starts. He glances at Abbot. Of course he’s not changing his name. Is he expected to? Is Abbot changing his? “We haven’t gotten that far.”
“Mom and Dad got married in America and at home,” Liesl says. “Are you going to do that too?”
Beside him, Abbot stiffens.
Ned adds that to the only other thing he knows about Abbot’s mother: Don’t expect Abbot to be thrilled at the idea of pumpkin pie, and she had two weddings. Check and check. Maybe someday he’ll be able to add an entire third item to that list.
Oh, yeah, he can: She had some serious cash, too.
“You know what we’ll do?” Ned can head this off, at least, before Abbot grows even colder. “Your idea was great. We’ll definitely have Baxter carry the rings.”
If he’s better by then. Ned knots his fingers in his lap. He’ll be alright. Whenever this fictional wedding happens, Baxter will still be just fine. Right?
“I’ll show you the video of the dog.” Liesl reaches into her pocket, but Charles’s look stills her.
“You can show me later,” Ned says. Peggy, if she had a phone, would probably whip it out regardless of any sternness Ned could fit into a glance, turn the volume on full blast and dance along with music she blared across the restaurant, cape fluttering.
“What’re you going to wear?” Liesl asks Ned.
He wore a suit to his first wedding. He still has it in his closet at his parents’ house. Not that he wears it anymore. It’s a waste of a good suit to leave it on its hanger, but it’s too odd to consider putting on now.
“You know, I haven’t thought about it,” Ned says.
“Did you decide on the cake?”
“I can make cake,” Peggy says.
“Not yet,” Ned says.
“No, I know how. We can make some tonight,” Peggy says.
“Henry says we have to make caramelkopfli,” Liesl says.
“We can make both, I’m sure, but probably not tonight, hon,” Ned says. Unless the caramel thing is a cake? Oh, who the hell knows. Not him, clearly.
“Henry, you have the recipe for creme caramel,” Charles says.
“I’d eat that,” Peggy says.
“It’s very good,” he says in that deep, serious voice that is just so at odds with talking to a kid.
“Sounds delicious,” Ned says when Abbot doesn’t respond.
“But not chocolate cake, right?” Liesl asks. “When will you decide?”
“About the cake?” Again, Ned glances at Abbot, who’s no help, smoothing his napkin on his lap and doing an excellent job of not looking at his father. “I’m not sure.”
“But soon,” Liesl says.
“We have a lot going on right now,” Ned hedges. “And we aren’t really planning a big wedding anytime soon.”
Ned sips his water and looks for the waiter, hoping they’re on their way over to interrupt this delightful conversation.
But they’re not, and Charles asks, “Have you found a house yet?”
Oh hell.
“Just started looking,” Ned says as lightly as he can.
“With Sandy,” Charles says, and it’s not a question. “She’ll find you a nice property.”
Like Ned’s bedroom at his parents’ house? Because that’s what he’s in the market for.
“Yeah, it’s a process,” Ned says. Could take so, so very long. Ages. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“When will you list your house?” Charles asks Abbot, who just takes a drink of his own water too.
“You know, all of this has been happening pretty fast,” Ned starts, cutting through this latest silence. “So we don’t have a lot of answers just yet.”
“I get my own room,” Liesl says.
“No, I do,” Peggy says.
Ned lays his hand on her head. “Pegs.”
“Like I do now,” Liesl says. “Right, Henry?”