Muriel Jensen - Daddy To Be Determined

She looked indignant. “I’m five! Paloma has pierced ears, and she’s only four!”

“I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”

“Can I have ice cream before bed?”

He lifted her onto his hip and carried her downstairs, wondering if part of her strategy was to ask for the impossible, knowing she could bargain him down. Ice cream at night sometimes gave her a stomachache, but tonight he’d risk it in the interest of making her feel less deprived.

The telephone rang when he was halfway down the stairs.

“I’ll get it!” Vanessa shouted.

When he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw that she was already dressed for bed. She used his bathroom at night and always got herself ready without fuss. He wondered if she was the only second-grader in the world with a tidy sock drawer and clothes on hangers instead of all over her room.

He worried a little about her efficiency at such a tender age but reminded himself that Julie had been a stickler for tidiness and order. Vanessa came by it naturally.

“He’s right here, Grandma.” Vanessa put her hand over the mouthpiece and handed the telephone to him. “Grandma’s having trouble with a guest,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” He put Roxie on her feet. “Van, can you scoop up some ice cream for you and Roxie?”

She looked surprised. “At night?”

“Just tonight.”

“How come?”

“Because I said so.”

With a shrug, Vanessa pulled open the door of the side-by-side refrigerator and delved into the freezer at the bottom.

“Ha!” his mother said into his ear. “You used to get upset when I gave you that answer, and now you’re doing it. The best revenge is watching you become me.”

“Thanks to the gender difference,” he said, backing onto a stool near the counter, “that’ll only go so far. What’s up?”

“Well…” She made a small sound of distress. “I’m not entirely sure. Do you know Natalie Browning?”

“No,” he replied. He’d never been wild about his mother buying a seven-bedroom house and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, inviting complete strangers to be locked in with her at night without benefit of any information about them except their names. “Why?”

“I think she’s a celebrity in the East. Her driver’s license says Philadelphia. When I asked her what brought her to Dancer’s Beach, she said something about needing to hide out from cameras and publicity.”

“Interesting.” He watched Vanessa struggle with the ice cream scoop, and was about to get up and help her when she went to the sink and ran it under the hot water. She tried again and the ice cream scooped out easily. He wondered if Julie had taught her that. What a kid. “Never heard of her.”

“Well, she arrived yesterday looking as though her only friend had died. And I haven’t seen her since, except peeking out from behind her door. Today I haven’t seen her at all.”

“Have you knocked? Or called?”

“She doesn’t answer.”

“Maybe she’s just sleeping.”

His mother sighed. “I think it’s worse than that. She had a terrible cold, so I mixed her a hot toddy with my apricot brandy. I left her the bottle, and I haven’t seen her or it since.”

“Sounds as though you have a guest on a bender, Mom. What do you want me to do?”

“I told her she could have that room for only one night. It’s reserved for a pair of honeymooners who are due in less than two hours. Would you…come and talk to her? Beautiful women always respond to handsome men.”

“Mom…” He groaned. She was always finding some excuse to introduce him to some young woman or get him invited to some event where single women would be present. Between her and Marianne Beasley, who came on to him at every opportunity, he was clutching his bachelorhood with both hands.

“It has nothing to do with that!” she said firmly. She’d always read his mind. He hated that she could still do it. “I’m simply trying to take care of a difficult matter in a discreet and civilized way. I don’t want to call the police or make a fuss, because she looks like a woman who’s had enough trouble, but if you’re too busy for me…”

“The girls are just out of the bath,” he pleaded, “and eating their snacks before bed.”

“I said that was fine,” she repeated stiffly. He could imagine her, wounded look in place on her carefully made up face, spiked white hair even spikier in her imagined state of neglect. “If you’re too busy, I’ll just—”

“We’ll be there.” He caved; it was inevitable. “Give me ten minutes.”

“You can have twelve,” she said. “Thank you, Ben.”

“Sure.” He hung up the phone. “Get your slippers and coats,” he said to the girls. “Put away the ice cream. We’re going to Grandma’s.”

They hurried to comply, and he had to smile as he watched them run upstairs. Coming home to Dancer’s Beach to give them a sense of family after Julie died had been a good idea. They loved their grandmother, who didn’t seem to persecute them the way she picked on him, and their Sunday evening dinners at the B-and-B were enjoyed by all of them.

He just hoped he survived the move. Leaving his work in Portland as a developer of high-density urban dwellings and purchasing the Bijou Theater Building in downtown Dancer’s Beach left him more time to be with the girls. However, their standard of living had taken a considerable dive, though he seemed to be the only one who noticed.

The old lodge-style house on a hill overlooking the town had been in serious need of repair. But, licensed in plumbing and wiring, he’d made short shrift of the major problems and was working slowly on giving the place a facelift.

He kept thinking he’d adjusted to life without Julie. Then Vanessa, who looked so much like her, would smile at him with an arched eyebrow, or Roxie would fold her arms in displeasure, and he was ambushed by old memories and ever-present longings.

He’d bought the house to keep him busy. Evenings after the girls had gone to bed were difficult, but Sundays were abominable. They’d always done special things on Sunday—picnics, sight-seeing, driving to the coast. With Saturday’s chores done and Monday’s responsibilities not yet upon them, they were particularly carefree.

Though the pace of his life had slowed considerably, Ben felt as though he never had a carefree moment anymore. He worried about the girls constantly, hoping he was giving them everything they needed, knowing it was impossible for a father to do so.

Slippers and coats on, Betsy tucked into Roxie’s pocket, the girls raced past him and out the door to the indigo van emblazoned with his logo and company name, Bijou Development.

He smiled as he followed in their wake. At least he didn’t have to worry about their physical well-being. He wished he could move that energetically.

LOUISE GRIFFIN’S bed-and-breakfast could only be described, Ben thought, as “country coordinates gone mad.” The living room, which flowed into the dining room, was wallpapered from ceiling to waist height in an all-over rose-and-ivy pattern that had a coordinating border of tightly clustered roses. Then a rose-and-green-striped paper swept down to the rose-colored baseboards.

Every room in the house was similarly decorated, though the motifs and colors were different. Every bedroom had coordinating papers and border, as well as bedding and curtains that also matched. Each bed had several sets of pillows, all mix and match, like something out of a linens ad.

Looking at them too long made him crazy, as though there was no room for free thought, and everything in the world had to coordinate with or match everything else.

But his mother loved it and apparently so did her guests. Ben did her books, and after only three years, she was doing very well.