First Christmas-Chapter 3
~It's a long one, but I couldn't decide where to cut it. I know it's a Christmas story, which signifies fluffiness and joy, but with four girls ages 7-17, there is bound to be angst and drama. I promise there will eventually be holiday cheer in the story.
The next morning, Dave sat in the kitchen drinking coffee as he waited for his daughter to wake up. He'd had a nice time with his date the previous night and things had gone smoothly after their rough start at his house, but he was still a bit put out by his daughter's behavior and he planned on discussing it with her as soon as she woke up. The only reason he hadn't talked with her the previous night was because when he'd gotten home, he'd found her asleep on the sofa. Not wanting to wake her in order to read her the riot act, he'd scooped her up and carried her to her bed, where he had tucked her in. But now it was a new day and they were definitely going to have a refresher in proper manners.
Katie, who had been awake for a little while, correctly guessed that her dad was still angry with her for her actions the night before and she wasn't real anxious to go downstairs, especially when she was still feeling kinda pissed at him for going out in the first place, but she had to pee really bad and she knew that once he heard her walking around in her bedroom, he would expect her at breakfast soon after. For the next twenty minutes the teen tried to focus on ANYTHING other than the pressure in her bladder, but she finally admitted defeat and jumped up and ran to the bathroom. Once she was finished, she slowly washed her hands and then made her way down the stairs.
"Morning," she said meekly as she pulled a bowl and her box of cereal down from the shelves.
"Morning," Dave said coolly as he watched her fix her breakfast. He let her sit down and eat half of it before starting in on her. "What was last night all about?" He asked as calmly as he could. "You have better manners than that! Honestly Katie, you were acting like a spoiled six year old!"
"I was not!" She protested loudly as she slammed her spoon into her bowl. "You were the one acting all stupid, worried about your tie and everything! And you were the one who left me here by myself! Excuse me for thinking we were going to go out to dinner last night, LIKE WE ALWAYS DO!"
"You watch your tone, young lady," Dave warned. "I told you why I had to go to the Christmas party last night and I thought you understood, but I guess I overestimated your level of maturity!"
"I'm not immature!" Katie protested angrily.
Her dad ignored her and continued. "And even if you were angry with me, that didn't give you the right to be so rude to my friend!"
"She was a bitch," the teen said as she stared at the table. The second the word was out of her mouth, she knew she had made a colossal mistake. That notion was reaffirmed a split-second later when her father's hand crashed against the table loudly.
"That's it!" He said angrily. "Bathroom. Now!" He ordered as he stood up.
Katie jerked her head up, "What?"
Dave nodded, "You heard me. Now!"
She slowly got up from her chair and followed her dad into the small bathroom just off of the kitchen. She wasn't quite sure what was about to happen but, from the furious look on his face, she knew she had really pissed him off. She walked into the bathroom and saw him reach into one of the drawers and pull out small bar of soap; the type that was found in hotels all over the country.
"Sit." He barked, pointing to the closed toilet. Katie sat and waited for the next order. To her horror, he unwrapped the bar of soap, ran it under the faucet for a few seconds and then turned to her.
"Dad, you can't!" She practically begged.
"I can and I am," he said as he held the bar of soap out to her. "I've warned you about your language usage and what would happen if you ever swore at me again."
"But I didn't swear at you, I swore ABOUT her," she argued futilely; she could tell he'd already made up his mind.
"Open up," he ordered and wasn't too surprised when she clamped her lips together tightly and shook her head. "Kate Lynn Rossi, right now you're going to hold this bar of soap in your mouth for two minutes. If you make me start counting, it'll be even longer." She shook her head again and kept her mouth shut. "One...two...thr-" with that she finally opened her mouth and he slid the bar of soap between her lips. " Four minutes," he said as he glanced at his watch.
The first minute passed with a lecture from Dave. "It might interest you to know that Molly, or the 'bitch' as you called her, is a pediatric oncologist. Do you know what that means? It means she helps kids with cancer! She helps save their lives and there isn't a bitchy bone in her body! And even if she had been mean to you last night, which I'm sure she wasn't, you should have come to me about it instead of acting rudely towards her. Got it?"
Katie nodded as tears streamed down her face and just looking at her was almost enough to make Dave cut her punishment short, but then he thought of the way she'd acted, both last night and that morning, and he shored up his resolve. "If you ever, and I mean ever, swear at, to or about another adult, we'll be repeating this exercise, except next time you won't be able to sit down for it. Capisce?"
She nodded again as her tears fell harder and he was about to say something else when his phone rang. Recognizing the ring tone as Erin's, he said, "Two more minutes; I'll let you know when you can take the soap out of your mouth." With that, he took the phone from his pocket and stepped out into the kitchen.
"What's up, Erin?" He asked tersely.
"I don't know what you did or what you said to Ellen, but she's out for your blood this morning."
"Dammit! Can't her boyfriend keep his goddamn yap shut?"
"What did you do?" Strauss asked and Dave hesitantly recounted his actions. By the end of his explanation, Erin was laughing. "Good, I've never liked that kid; I'm glad you put the fear of God into his heart but you're on your own with Ellen. As soon as she finished her breakfast, she took off for the nearest Metro stop."
"She's on her way here?" Dave asked in dismay.
"Mmm, hmmm," Erin said as she took a large drink of her coffee. "In fact, she should be there soon."
"Great," he said with a sigh, "She and Katie can argue over who hates me the most this morning."
"Why, what happened with Katie?"
"She's sucking on a bar of soap right now," he told her and then informed her of the poor attitude their daughter had displayed both the night before and that morning. "So don't be surprised if you get another 'I want to come live with you' phone call this afternoon." The last couple of times they'd argued or Dave had to punish her, Katie had called her mother in tears asking to come live with her and each time Erin told her that she needed to patch things up with her dad, that running away wasn't the answer. Every time she called, Erin also informed her daughter that she agreed with the punishment that had been handed down to her since she knew she and Dave had to present a united front.
"I'll let her know that if I had been there, she would have gotten worse from me," she said firmly.
"Thanks Erin, I-oh damn, Ellen's here," Dave told her as he saw the girl start up the path to the back door.
"Good luck," Strauss said with a laugh.
"Thanks," he muttered as he disconnected the call. "You can take the soap out of your mouth and rinse," he called back to Katie as Ellen knocked on the door. He opened it and the girl immediately began to speak.
"I'd like to talk to you," she said in a tone that was dripping with anger.
"Come on in," he said as he held the door open for her. She strode into the kitchen and flung her coat onto one of the chairs. "Would you like some breakfast?"
"No, what I would like is for you to stay the hell out of my life!" She shouted.
"Watch it young lady," Dave warned. "I understand that you're upset, but-"
"Upset? UPSET? I am WAY beyond upset Dave, I'm livid! How DARE you terrorize my boyfriend! God, do you know what you did? Do you know how mortified I was to hear that you threatened him upon pain of death if he touched me? Do you know how humiliated I was when my friends found out what you did?"
"At least the SAT prep courses you took helped your vocabulary," he muttered and then saw the murderous look on her face. "Look Ellen, I'm sorry if I ruined your night, but-"
"IF you ruined my life? IF?" She screeched. "There is no 'if' about it, you definitely ruined my life! How could you DO that to me?"
"He did it because he's a big jerk!" Katie said loudly as she entered the room. Dave stared at her in angry amazement.
"I just washed your mouth out with soap for your disrespect; do you want some more?"
"No," she said haughtily as she stood next to her older sister, "You washed my mouth out for swearing about your date, not for disrespect!"
"You're right," he said tightly. "For your disrespect, you're grounded; you can spend the day in your bedroom."
"But I'm supposed to go to Kayla's to exchange Christmas presents this afternoon!" She protested loudly as Ellen gave her a sympathetic look.
"Tough, you should have thought of that before you decided to mouth off to me," her dad told her.
"Aarrrrgh! You drive me insane!" She screamed through her tears as she started up the stairs; for Katie that was one level below screaming 'I hate you' at him.
Once he heard his daughter's door slam, he turned back to his pseudo-daughter. "I'm sorry I ruined your night Ellen, but you don't understand what seventeen year old boys are like. They only have one thing on their minds and I didn't want to see you getting hurt."
"Did you ever stop to think that maybe I can take care of myself?" She snarled. "I'm Erin Strauss's daughter, don't you think she taught me how to defend myself? Do you really think my mom would let me go to a dance without pepper spray in my purse?"
"Pepper spray is fine, but someone needed to talk to that kid before he took you out and, no offense to your mom, who can be scary in her own right, that kid needed to hear it from a guy."
"God, you are such a caveman!" Ellen screeched. "You're NOT my father so from now on just stay the hell out of my life!"
"I can't do that!" He yelled back. "I may not be your dad but you're like a daughter to me and if you think I'm just going to sit back and let you go out with every Tom, Dick and Harry that shows up at your door, then you have another thing coming!"
"God, I can see why Katie's so mad at you, you're infuriating! I don't even want to spend Christmas with you after all of this!"
"Too bad," he told her as he began laying down the law. "You're coming to the cabin with your mother and sisters and we're going to spend Christmas together as a family. Like it or not, we are a family and I'm not going to let one member of the family sit at home and sulk during the holiday."
"You're just not happy unless you're telling people what to do, are you?" She asked snidely and to both of their surprises, the response to her question came from the top of the steps.
"No, he's not! He LOVES running other people's lives!"
"Katie, unless you want me to come up there, I suggest you get your tail back in your bedroom," he called out in warning. He heard her footsteps above him and, once again, her bedroom door slammed shut.
Dave picked Ellen's coat up from the kitchen chair and handed it to her. "This discussion is over Ellen. You need to go home and pack for your grandparent's house and when you get back, we'll spend Christmas at the cabin and we will be one big, happy family. Understand?"
"Dream on," she huffed as she snatched the coat from his hands and stalked to the door. Like her younger sister, she slammed it behind her when she left.
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The rest of the day was quiet for Dave. With Katie up in her room, there was no one for him to talk to, nor was music or idle chatter in the background. No, the only company he had as he did his laundry and made notes for his next book was the television. At around noon and six o'clock, he'd called Katie down for both lunch and dinner, but she hadn't responded, nor had she come down to the first floor. He could tell by her footsteps as she moved around her room that she was still alive, but otherwise he didn't have any contact with her.
At around seven o'clock that night, he trekked up the stairs holding a tray full of food. He'd made Italian beef sandwiches and homemade French fries, along with a salad and he would be damned if she wasn't going to eat it. Plus, he didn't want thei anger hanging over them at the cabin, so he wanted to try to make peace with her before they left the next morning.
Once he got to her door, he balanced the tray in one hand and raised the other to knock when he heard voices. He felt his anger return since he thought she was talking on her cell phone, even though she knew it was off limits when she was on restriction, but then he heard her say "good boy" and he knew Mudgie must have gone up there at some point and she was talking to him. Feeling the tray begin to de-stabilize in his hand, he knocked on the door. "Belle, can I come in?" There was no answer, so he knocked again. "I'm coming in Katie," he warned as he turned the knob. He walked in to find both his daughter and dog sitting on the floor and Mudgie looked very content as Katie stroked his fur.
"I brought your dinner," he said as he set the tray down on her bedside table.
"Not hungry," she said as she stared at the dog. "I'm on a hunger strike, give the food to Mudgie." The dog's head perked up when he heard his name and the word food in the same sentence.
Dave fought the smile that threatened to overtake his mouth. "Hunger strikes are for political prisoners Katie and you are not a political prisoner."
"Don't care," she said, still looking at the dog. "I'm not eating."
"Yes you are," he said as some of his irritation came back. "Don't test me on this Katie, you won't win."
Katie, whose mouth was practically watering at the smell of the food, muttered, "Whatever," and then got up from her sitting position on the floor, ignoring her dad's hand when he offered it to her. She sat down on her bed and began eating quickly; she hadn't had anything since breakfast and she was starving.
Dave sat in her desk chair and studied her while she ate. He knew she could be moody, but today was the first time he'd seen it this bad. No, something must have happened to cause her to act so badly.
"Quit profiling me!" She whined as she ate her dinner. Once she was old enough to understand what he did for a profession, he'd agreed not to use his profiling skills on her but there were times he couldn't help it.
"I wouldn't have to if you would just tell me what's wrong. Did I do something to upset you? And please don't tell me it's about not taking you out to dinner last night, because we both know it's more than that."
Katie was torn; she knew if she didn't talk to him, he'd get even more pissed but her sisters would kill her if she ruined anything between their parents by blabbing that they wanted them to get together, so she was stuck. She finally decided to tell him some of what was on her mind, but not the whole thing.
"It was just weird seeing you with that other woman," she said quietly as she stared down at her plate. "Especially since you and mom have been spending so much time together."
"But your mother and I are just friends," he said carefully as he studied her body language. "And you've seen me date other women before."
Katie shook her head, "Not since we started spending time with mom and my sisters," she argued. "And…I don't know, it just didn't feel right seeing you with Dr. Thompson."
"Okay, I understand that seeing me with other women will take some getting used to for you, but that doesn't give you the excuse to act the way you did towards her last night, or towards me this morning."
"I know," the teen admitted, "And I'm sorry; I'm sorry for calling her the b-word and I'm sorry for calling you a jerk." She wasn't really sorry, but she didn't want to be grounded at the cabin and she knew if she mouthed off to him again, he would have done just that.
Dave stared at her for a moment, unable to tell if she was sincere in her apology or only telling him what he wanted to hear. He finally decided it was a bit of both, but he nodded his head. "Apology accepted," he said as he leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. Seeing she had finished her supper, he took the tray and stood up.
"Dad? Do I really have to stay in my room for the rest of the night?"
Dave nodded, "Yup, and I want you in bed in an hour; that will give you just enough time to pack for the cabin."
"Fine," she pouted. "I don't suppose you'd let me out of here if I told you I loved you?"
He shook his head, "It's a nice try, but it doesn't change your behavior from last night or today. But, for the record, I love you too." That got a small smile from her and, as he left her room, he knew something deeper was going on with her but for the time being there was peace in the valley and he would take it.