The Talk

It didn't take any manner of clairvoyance for Vivian Garcia-Shapiro to figure out that something was bothering her daughter. For almost the past week now, Isabella had not quite been as vibrant as she usually was. Vivian knew there were a limited number of things that could cause such a change in her daughter, and the most likely one lived just across the street. As Isabella lay with her head down on the kitchen table while waiting on lunch, Vivian took a seat across from her. It would be some time before their chicken and lentil enchiladas were done, after all.

"Okay, let's hear it," she told Isabella.

Isabella looked up at her mother blankly. "Hear what?"

"Whatever it is that's on your mind. Isa, I know a troubled look when I see one. You're acting like you broke up with mi yerno, and I know that hasn't happened. So talk to me, dear."

"No offense, mom, but I'm not sure you'll approve very much of what's on my mind these days."

"Unless you're trying to hide that you're with child, I doubt that."

The very thought turned Isabella's face beet red in an instant. "Mom! Come on! Phineas and I haven't even hardly touched each other yet! Even though all my other friends…"

As Isabella's voice trailed off, Vivian now understood a fair bit more of what was plaguing her daughter's mind.

"It must be hard to feel like you're being left behind," Vivian said, to which Isabella just nodded in embarrassment. "It begs the question of what's holding you back, dear."

Isabella chewed on her lower lip as she looked at her mother, who simply smiled back at her pleasantly. She could tell her mother would sit waiting like that all day if that's what it took to get the truth out of her. She sighed heavily and decided to simply give her the full brunt of it, though inwardly she braced herself for whatever reaction she would get for it.

"I'm not sure I want to just make out with Phineas," she said. "Rather, I feel like I want…something more than that with him."

"I see now," Vivian said, the full scope of the issue now revealed. She took a moment to gather her thoughts on the matter and then said, "So what's stopping you?"

Isabella looked at her mother in full disbelief. "Seriously, mom? Your teenage daughter is here talking about…you know...something so illicit…and with her boyfriend…"

"It's called sex, dear. You don't have to mince words."

Isabella propped her head up on her hands at the table as she tried to avoid her mother's gaze. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation."

Vivian just grinned at her daughter and leaned forward onto her arms. "You still need to answer my question."

"Oh for the...come on, mom! Nevermind that I'm talking about having…sex with Phineas, there's kinda, y'know, the whole age thing?"

"Oh please, I was roughly your age when I had sex for the first time."

Isabella stifled her gag reflex at the thought of her mother being sexually active. "Wow, I really didn't need to know that."

Vivian laughed as she sat back again. "You're the one who wants to talk about sex, Isa."

"Mom, come on…"

"Okay, okay. I won't tease you about it anymore. But really, my question stands. What's stopping you?"

Isabella blushed once again as she tried to avoid eye contact with her mother now. "I…I honestly don't know."

"Do you love Phineas?"

Isabella looked somewhat scathingly at her mother. "That's a rhetorical question, right?"

"Well, if you love him that much then I don't understand what the problem is."

"There's pregnancy for starters."

"You've been on birth control for two years to regulate your menstrual cycles."

"And disease."

"Do you really think Phineas has had sex with anyone else?"

"And I don't want to be thought of as easy."

"You've been dating him for almost a year, Isa. Most adult couples don't wait even half that long to be intimate with each other."

"And I'm worried about what it might do to our relationship. What if we do it and he loses interest in me?"

"Phineas certainly doesn't seem like that sort of a man to me, dear. Do you think so little of him?"

"Of course not! But…mom, why are you doing this? You're practically telling me to just go ahead and do it with him!"

"No dear," Vivian said as she stood up to check on their lunch. "I'm merely pointing out to you that all your so-called reasons for not doing it are nothing but excuses. You haven't come up with anything that could actually be a concrete reason to not have sex with the man you love."

"What about the impurity of it? Pre-marital sex is supposed to be bad, right?"

It was Vivian's turn to look disbelievingly at her daughter. "Explain to me how making love to someone you love with all your heart and who loves you back the same could possibly lead to eternal damnation."

"Mom, you're really not making this any easier for me…"

"It's not supposed to be an easy decision, Isa. If it were easy, we wouldn't be talking about it; you would already know. The bottom line, dear, is this is nobody's choice to make but yours. It is your relationship with Phineas. It is your body to decide to give to him. It is your love for him that you want to express to him. No religious book or moral code has any authority over you here aside from whatever power you allow it to have. And certainly no other person has any right to judge you no matter what you decide to do or when. It is no one's business but your own, and anyone who tries to make it their business for any supposed 'reason' is not worth your consideration."

Isabella frowned yet again and sprawled across the kitchen table, her confusion and frustration simply too much for her at the moment. As sure as she was that her mother was making valid points, things like logic and reason simply weren't resonating with her.

"It still feels like you're telling me to go ahead and do it, mom," she told her. "Would you still be telling me these things if it wasn't Phineas I was considering?"

"To be honest…I'm not sure," Vivian said, sitting back down across from her daughter after having taken their lunch out of the oven to cool. "I'd like to think I would, but I don't know. What I do know, though, is that it is Phineas you're considering. I have known his mother, Linda, for many years. She is one of my closest friends, and I have full faith that she has raised her children to be good, upstanding people."

Vivian then took her daughter's face in her hands and lifted it off the table so she could look into her eyes. "And I also know how much you love him, querida. In all my years I have never seen such love and dedication as what you have for Phineas. I know you would never think about giving yourself to someone you didn't truly care for with all your heart and soul. And he returns that feeling, yes?"

Isabella blushed as she recalled Phineas' confession to her weeks earlier in his driveway. A small smile crept across her face at the memory. "Yes. Yes he does."

"What more could I wish for, then, than to want my daughter to be happy with the man she loves? The rest is up to you and your heart, Isa, and know that I will never judge you for following your heart."

Isabella got up from her seat and walked around the table to where her mother was sitting, hugging her tightly upon reaching her.

"Gracias, mama," she said quietly.

"De nada, mi hija," Vivian replied in kind. "So do you know what you'll do now?"

Isabella shook her head at her. "Not really, but I'm at least not as stressed out about it as I was before."

"Well that's a start. Perhaps you just need some food in your belly to fuel your brain so you can think about it more properly."

"Mom, eating is your answer to everything."

"That's because food always helps," Vivian told her, patting her daughter's cheek lightly before going back to the oven. "Besides, healthy eating has certainly helped you so far. I'm certain mi yerno has appreciated how you have, uh…blossomed, Isa."

Isabella suddenly became incredibly self-conscious as she noted her mother looking straight at her chest and quickly folded her arms to hide herself.

"Phineas isn't like that, mom! Besides…I'm not that big. Gretchen has me beat easily." She pouted slightly as she once again admitted her jealousy of her best friend's figure.

"All the more reason to get a good lunch in you. I'll double your usual portion. We'll get you caught up, dear."

"Mom!"

Vivian laughed heartily as her daughter continued to fume at her. If nothing else, she was delighted to see Isabella getting her mind off of her concern over the direction of her relationship with Phineas, even if only for the lunch hour.

Tri-State Classic Custard was known throughout Danville as the best place for ice cream and other frozen treats. Isabella was no stranger to the place, having been on several dates with Phineas that had invariably taken them there. She had, however, never been there with the other Flynn sibling.

"You really don't have to do this, Candace," Isabella told her yet again as they stood in line waiting to place their order.

"I just made you waste half your afternoon on yet another dress fitting session," Candace replied. "I have to make it up to you, and ice cream never disappoints. Or frozen yogurt in my case."

"You do realize this is just wasting more of my time anyway?"

Candace looked at her sternly for her comment. "Ice cream is never a waste of time."

"True enough, I guess," Isabella conceded with a shrug.

Candace smirked and leaned towards Isabella, an inquisitive look on her face. "So…whatcha-"

"Don't even," Isabella told her flatly.

"Heh, sorry. Had to try. Whadya want?"

"I think I'll go with a banana split. You?"

"My usual: mint chocolate chip fro-yo."

"Always a good choice. I'll go get us a table to sit at."

A few minutes later, the two girls sat across from each other in a booth enjoying their treats. Candace finished hers quickly while Isabella took her time, savoring the different flavors as well as the banana.

"So…" Candace said, idly playing with her spoon as she watched Isabella eat. "When are you planning on jumping my brother?"

Isabella all but choked on a bite of banana at the sudden and incredibly blunt question.

"What kind of question is that," she asked, wide-eyed and incredibly alarmed.

Candace narrowed her eyes at the Mexican-Jewish girl. "Isabella, I've been picking up on your pheromones for the past hour now. And unless you're cheating on Phineas, which is all but impossible in my mind, then you're interested in more than just asking him what he's up to the next time you see him."

Isabella hung her head, feeling a bit ashamed. "It's that obvious, huh?"

"I think even Phineas would pick up on it."

"I was talking to my mother earlier today about it. There was a lot I was scared of with regards to…well, you know."

"It's called sex, Isabella. You don't need to mince words around me."'

Isabella could practically feel her head spin. "Wow, you too? Mom said almost the same thing to me."

"Well, that's what it is. Why bother trying to be cute about it?"

Isabella found herself sighing once again and stuck her spoon into her sundae before looking at Candace again.

"My talk with mom helped me work out some of it, but I'm still scared about it."

"You can pick my brain if you like. I do have experience in this matter too, after all."

"So I guess that means…you and Jeremy have done it?"

Candace smirked at her. "I doubt we'd still be together if we hadn't by now."

"When was your first time," Isabella asked, suddenly becoming keenly interested in Candace's perspective.

"Well my mother seems to think it was last spring when Jeremy and I went to Florida for spring break."

"And the reality is…?"

"It was the summer before my senior year of high school."

"Whoa, really?"

"Remember when I stayed home that summer while you guys went to visit Grandma Betty Jo and Grandpa Clyde for the weekend?"

"I thought you said that was because you wanted to be around to help Stacy because she broke her leg?"

"Which was true, but one day Jeremy came over after I'd been to check on her. One thing led to another and…you get the picture."

"Was it…I mean, did it…hurt?"

Candace saw the look in Isabella's face was equal parts concern and curiosity. For the most part she saw no reason to sugar-coat her answer, but she also didn't want to scare the girl off of the matter entirely. She composed her response in her mind for a moment before she spoke again.

"At first, yeah," she told Isabella, who was now hanging on her every word. "But it wasn't anything I couldn't bear. And it didn't last the entire time. Not to mention that there were other things I was thinking and experiencing as well."

"Like what?"

"For one thing, I was really incredibly happy to be sharing something so special and important with Jeremy. When it's with someone you really love, sex is more than just physically pleasing. I was also really touched by how much trouble he was going to just to try and make me feel good and comfort me. He could tell early on I wasn't necessarily enjoying myself, and seeing him so concerned for me was incredibly moving at the time. Of course, after about the halfway point of our first time the pain had pretty much gone away and it started getting really good."

"Really?"

Candace laughed a bit at Isabella's apparent disbelief. "Oh yeah. And every time since then has only gotten better, in more ways than one."

Isabella sat back, trying to come to terms with the reality Candace had presented her with. Combined with her mother's talk earlier, it had the effect of giving her a bit of a different perspective on the idea of taking her relationship with Phineas to a whole new level.

"All of that said," Candace said, gaining Isabella's attention once again, "that's just my experience. Yours may be totally different."

"But not necessarily bad, right," Isabella asked.

"Isabella, you and I arguably know Phineas better than anyone; including my own mother. Do you honestly think he could ever intend to hurt anyone, let alone you?"

Isabella shook her head vigorously at her. "Absolutely not."

"My sentiments exactly," Candace replied with a nod. "And what's more, you two are crazy about each other. I've seen it every time I've seen you two together over the course of the past year. You're a fantastic couple and I know when you finally do have sex it will be a defining moment in your relationship. Just don't do it because you think you need to catch up with others. I saw way too many couples in high school break up because they rushed things."

"I understand. Thank you so much Candace. It really is helpful to hear this sort of stuff from someone outside my family."

"Oh please. Don't you remember what I told you and Gretchen? So long as you two are dating my brothers, you're family. Besides, we're gonna be sisters-in-law someday anyway. Right?"

Candace winked at Isabella, who simply giggled in response. She was definitely feeling much better about her concerns over sex, though a bit of uncertainty still lingered in her mind. As she wondered what Phineas would say if she knew she had been thinking about this, her cell phone rang with the sound of "Gitchee Gitchee Goo", which told her it happened to be Phineas who was calling her.

"Hey Phineas," she replied upon answering her phone. "Whatcha doin'? Oh, really? Well yeah I'm free, but why? Wait…what? Run that by me again. This is for real? Well…I'll need to check with my mom, but I should be able to come. I'll call you back later, okay? I'm having ice cream with Candace right now. Uh huh. Okay. Love you too. Bye."

Isabella closed her phone, set it on the table next to her sundae, and proceeded to lose herself in thought at what had just happened.

"What's up," Candace asked, after giving Isabella some time to absorb the call. "Something up with Phineas?"

"You could say that," Isabella said slowly as she looked up at Candace. "Apparently your mom has asked Phineas to deliver a special antique to a buyer himself and he wants me to go with him."

"Well that doesn't sound like such a big deal. I mean, I've delivered stuff for my folks before as well. Ferb too, though he's under the weather right now. That's probably why Phineas got tapped."

"That's not what the big deal is. It's where the delivery needs to go."

"Well, where is it? Downtown? Over on the west side?"

Isabella pulled her eyes away from Candace and looked up to the sky outside the ice cream shop as she uttered the name of the place the delivery needed to go.

"Las Vegas."

Next Episode Preview: Phineas and Isabella travel to Las Vegas, Nevada in order to make a special delivery on behalf of the Flynn-Fletcher Antique Shop. What could possibly go wrong?