How I Met Your Father
Author's Note: Sorry about the anonymous review thing. I hadn't realized that was the default. I've changed it, so y'all can leave a review, even if you prefer to be anonymous. Flame away if you're so inclined.
Author's Note 2: Thanks for the feedback Mauigirl, it's your story. I hope this satisfies your request.
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I'll admit it. It was a too cold for tennis. But Mom and I are stubborn and frankly neither of our schedules had permitted us to have a game for such a long time, we decided to stick it out, even though we were freezing. Not that we'd tell Dad.
Mom won the first game, but I beat her in the second. Probably because she couldn't feel her hands. We ran back to the car and she started it up and blasted the heat. "Brr. Okay, that was fun. So what do you want to do now?"
She looked at her watch, "Let's have an early lunch and do some shopping."
"Okay. I need some stuff for work." I did. I think people were getting tired of seeing me in the same three pairs of pants. That's a real problem for me; finding stuff to wear that's appropriate for work, fits my figure and doesn't look like I've been playing dress-up in my mom's clothes.
"There's no dress code." Mom said simply.
"I know, but I want to look nice. I mean, there are some doctors there, I'm not naming names, who look silly in their clothes." I was thinking of Cameron. She wears these vest-things and they are hideous on her. Bad colors. Bad style.
"Chase?" Mom guessed.
"Well, that goes without saying, but that's not who I meant." I took a drink from my water bottle.
"Oh. Doctors aren't known for their fashion sense." Mom loved clothes and wore all kinds of designer outfits. Good thing she's in administration. I'd freak if someone puked all over my five-hundred dollar shoes.
"Yeah, but is it too much trouble to put something together that at least looks like it matches? Daddy sets a bad example. All those fossilized concert T-shirts and then a regular shirt over them. What is that?" I realized I was hungry, "Let's eat first, I'm starving."
"Your dad has his own style." She smiled and disappeared for a minute. I think it's cute that they're still hot for each other, but it's not something I want to witness. If you know what I mean.
"So tell me again how Felix and Oscar got together that fateful night seventeen years ago." I never get tired of this story.
We parked and headed in. I hate this mall. It's probably the same dumb mall that you have in your town. Only Macy's is worth going into. I'd rather go to King of Prussia; they have Nordstrom, Bloomingdales and Neiman's. But it is over an hour away, without traffic.
We were seated in a booth and I studied the menu while Mom told me the story.
"Well, I was fresh out of Penn and trying to decide where to do my residency. Your Dad was doing a fellowship at PPTH. I liked Philadelphia, and my friends and family were there, but I wanted some place quieter and it seemed like a good compromise." She stopped so that we could place our order.
"Go on." I encouraged her, hoping that they'd haul and get my food out in a hurry.
"You've heard this at least five-thousand times," she protested, stirring a sweetener into her coffee.
"Five-thousand and one. So what?" I said, sipping my lemonade. I love it when they put that sugary stuff on the rim of the glass.
She sighed, but I could tell she wanted to tell it again. "Fine. So I go to the orientation and he's there, probably under pain of death, as a presenter." She gave me another look, but continued, "I sat down and the first thing I noticed was how blue his eyes were." She drifted for a second.
"Mom! That's such a cliché!" I rolled my equally blue eyes. It's true though, it's cool to have eyes this color. The only thing cooler would be to have violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor.
"So? You've got 'em too. I expect that you'll be breaking hearts just like he did."
"Right." That's hard to believe. I'm still a social freak, but I hope to grow out of it soon.
"You will. Take my word for it." The waiter brought our soup and we began eating. I was starting to warm up.
Tomato basil. Yum. "So go on," I kvetched.
"My first thought was, nice looking guy. He was freshly shaved and he wore a white shirt with a very skinny black tie. Fashionable for the day. Oh, and he'll kill me for telling you, but he had a mullet."
"Ew!" I dropped my spoon. This wasn't the first time she had told me, but it's part of the story. She discloses the mullet, I squeal.
"It was cute at the time and his was lush and curly," she ate more soup, "I tried to sit close enough for him to see me, but not too close to be obvious. The board introduced everyone, and there were some speeches, and then House stood up." She still called him House. Never Greg. Not that I know of anyway. "We didn't have PowerPoint back then, so he used transparencies. The first thing he did was drop them all. There must have been about thirty of them. Knowing what I know now, they were just random things; he never bothered to put together a presentation." We laughed; it's such a dad-thing to do.
"So it was a ruse?" I had finished my soup and was using the bread to sop up the last bits of goodness.
"Yes. And a good one. I'm going to use it myself one of these days." She says that, but you know she's too much of a perfectionist to actually do it, besides, to scuttle a PowerPoint; you'd have to destroy a laptop. "So he just looked at everyone and said, 'Who are you kidding? You'd sell your grandmother to get a position here. We're just here to weed out the psychos.' He looked right at me. God help me, I couldn't help myself, I answered him back. 'Judging by the looks of things, it's not a very good screening process.' I wish you could have seen the look on his face." She laughed at the memory.
"So is that when he asked you out?" I pushed my empty and nearly spotless bowl towards the table's edge to make room for my salad.
"No. That happened after the presentation. Some of the selection committee were speaking to me after, and I had pretty much decided that PPTH was where I wanted to do my residency. I think that they decided that if I could handle House, that I could handle anything, so we were just chatting. House grabbed my arm and said, 'I think this young lady owes me an apology.' And he yanked me away." She forked up some salad and I waited for her to chew.
"So that's when he took you in the hall?" I prompted her. This is the best part.
"Yes. He took me in the hall. He didn't say anything for a moment, just looked at me. So I said to him, 'you're not really expecting me to apologize are you?' He let his gaze go down a bit. I was wearing a white blouse, not unlike most of my blouses." That means that it was cut down to here. Then he looked into my eyes. 'No. I expect you to let me get you drunk though. I'll bet you're fun drunk.' I think that's when I swallowed my gum. 'it's a regular party in my pants', it wasn't meant to be suggestive, but it came out that way. Then we went for a ride in his car. A week later we were living together. A year later you were born."
"So when are you guys getting married?" They had been promising me for years that I could be the flower girl.
"I think you should give up on that. We're just not the marrying kind." She had finished her salad and motioned for the check.
"So you won't get all hypocritical if I decide to do the same thing? I mean, you broke about six of your own rules right there." I cut a piece of tomato and put it in my mouth. Yuk. Tomatoes out of season are pointless.
"No. I'm going to be a HUGE hypocrite. Count on it. Now let's go get some outfits." We got up and went to Macy's.
We shopped for a few hours and got home at around four. Dad was playing the piano for the cat. George sat on the ottoman politely listening to Gershwin. George is incredibly cool that way. "So? Leave anything for the ugly girls?" he asked as we schlepped our bags down the hall.
"Nope. Bought out the whole store." I called. "Want to see? I can do a fashion show!" I threw my bags on my bed.
"No! Hell, No! So? Isn't it time for you to practice?" He leaned in the doorway with a glass of soda, or something. That's his way of saying that he wants me to play for him.
We went back in the living room and I sat at the bench. He plopped down on a chair near George.
"Any requests?" I asked. It's a game we play. The Gershwin songbook was right there.
He thought for a minute. "Someone to Watch Over Me."
"Am I accompanying you?" I started warming up.
"Not really my key. Accompany yourself." He suggested. He would; the song is brutal to sing. I've got one of those vocal ranges, good enough for school chorus, not good enough for much of anything else.
I started the introduction. Although it had been a while since I had played, I knew this one well enough to do from memory. I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood, I know that I could, always be good, to one who'll watch over me… The bear in this song is that it's syncopated. You've got to get the stresses just right or it runs away from you. I sort of felt like a lounge singer, taking requests. I needed a giant brandy snifter with dollar bills in it.
I finished it off, and while it was far from perfect, I was pleased. I mean, I'm not a professional or anything. We just play for fun. "Sir, is there anything else I should play for you?"
"I've Got a Crush On You. You could think of someone while you sing." He smirked at me. He's worse than a child some days.
"You're over the line Greg." I said. That never fails to put him in his place.
"Maybe so, but sing it anyway. I like the way you sound on it." He closed his eyes and leaned back.
I've got a crush on you sweetie-pie, all the day and night-time too… Just so you know, I did NOT think of Chase. I mean, what is the point of that? Besides, he's just pretty to look at. Nice enough I suppose. But could he really be my boyfriend? No. Let's get real. Then I hit a real boner of a note.
"Mind on your music?" Dad said from his seat.
I picked it up from the bridge. "Just a slip of the fingers."
"Uh hmmm. So it won't matter that I've invited the team to dinner tonight." Again, I faltered.
"You know, you could go to hell for that kind of thing." I reminded him, as I played. "You shouldn't tease me."
"You don't believe in hell. I don't either. And I'm not teasing."
"You could go to Newark. Newark's real enough." I said, trying to fill my voice with malice.
He chuckled. "True. But that doesn't alter the fact that there's lasagna in the oven."
Lasagna. Crap. He wasn't kidding. I was still in my tennis whites and my hair…when was the last time I shampooed it? I stopped playing. "I'm taking a shower. And I'm inviting Jenna."
I left him there muttering to the cat, "she's no fun at all, is she George?"