Chapter 10

While Sareen played with Tomy, I cleaned some of the fish, steamed some veggies and fried the fish.

Sareen was a little unsure about the fish at first, but then got intrigued by the idea of eating food that she had caught herself, tried it and really enjoyed it. Of course, she probably enjoyed the ice cream sundaes we had for dessert more, but heck, she was only three.

Sara had packed her a small bag so that she could stay over, but she asked if her Mamma could stay, too.

There was no way that I could say no to that little cherub, so I called Sara and invited her to come over and spend the night. Before she got her hopes up, I made it clear that she would be sleeping with Sareen, not me.

Over breakfast, she reminded me about escorting her to the charity function, and I told her I had already committed. Tuesday, I picked her up and immediately felt all of my resistance to her melting away.

She was stunning! She had her red hair tied back with a single ribbon at the nape of her neck, and then flowing freely down her bare back. Her dress was a simple halter style with a plunging V-neck displaying her generous cleavage. I swear that if the back went any lower you would see the sexy mysteries below. The skirt was a modest knee-length, loose and flowing.

By the time I returned from checking our coats, she was already flitting from one group to the other. I might as well have been invisible for all that my presence seemed to matter.

I felt like the forgotten man. She came and got me for the first dance and my spirits soared with this vision in my arms. When we got back to our table, she was immediately asked to dance again. The rest of the evening, I saw mere glimpses of her from afar, plying the potential donors and schmoozing with the social elite. I was becoming more frustrated and impotent feeling by the minute. Finally, I had enough. I walked over to where she was chatting up yet another potential donor, took her by the elbow and steered her to a corner where we could have some relative privacy.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, John?” she whispered angrily, “You embarrassed me out there. That was a major donor that I was talking to.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” I asked, “You’re the one who wanted me here, I didn’t even want to come, and now I wish that I hadn’t.”

“We can’t be having this conversation here,” she said, “Come with me.”

She dragged me out a side door to a small park.

“What is it with you, John? You’re acting like a child.”

“So what if I am! You’re the one that wants me back, you’re the one that dragged me to this foolish thing; I would think that my feelings would be more important.”

“God, you are so selfish; here I am trying to help raise money for sick children and you’re pouting because I’m not holding your hand enough.”

“Yes, of course, it’s always about you! First, you had to ‘find yourself,’ and now you’ve got to ‘save the children’, What will it be the next time, ‘save the puppies’?”

She sighed. “John, you’re not some hick. You know how these things work. My job is to make all these people with lots of money feel good about themselves, and good about the children’s hospital, so they’ll give more money. You know all that. I’m trying to be as efficient as I can, so we can get out of here and go dancing, and you’re still pouting about what happened four years ago. Why don’t you grow up, already?”

That tore it. I didn’t even go back for my coat, I just turned away and went back to my car to go home, ignoring her cries for me to wait.

I hadn’t been home an hour when I heard a cab pull up and she was knocking on my door.

“John, open up, you forgot your coat.”

‘Damn, I guess I’m going to have to let her in.’

No sooner did I open the door than she was blowing in like a force of nature, dumping my coat on the nearest chair.

“You are such an ass!” she said. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me to try to make up some lame excuse for why I had to leave so suddenly?”

“I’m sure they’ll forget all about it by the next fund-raiser.”

“Grrr, you’re just hopeless,” she said. “Come on, you need to take me home.”

I grabbed my keys and drove her home in stony silence.

As we pulled into her driveway I asked, “If I’m so bad, why are you trying so hard to get me back? Why not just leave me in peace?”

She didn’t answer as she got out of the car, but then she turned and leaned into the car.

“Because I love you, you asshole!” she said, slamming the door and storming into her house.

I just sat there stunned for a few minutes before heading home, shaking my head. I mean, who says, I love you, you asshole?

When I got home and undressed for bed, I found the checks for both of our coats in my pocket. How had she gotten the coat check person to give her both of our coats? I guess being a celebrity counts for something, but then why did she bring mine to my house? Why not just hold onto it until the next time we met? It didn’t make sense that she would take a cab to my house just so she could call me an asshole.

I thought about what she had said. Maybe she really was trying to be efficient: if I’d tagged along with her, she’d have had to introduce me to the people with whom she was schmoozing. That would take time, and be awkward, too. The more I thought about it, the more I thought she might have been right. I had acted like an asshole. I really should call her and apologize.

Next morning, I was all set to call her, when I discovered I didn’t know what to say. I just wasn’t used to apologizing. I mean, I could just say “Hello, this is asshole,” which might make her laugh, but what did I say after that? What made it worse was that over the last week, Sara had apologized to me several times. It was as if she knew how to do it, and I didn’t. That made me more nervous, so I dithered around and didn’t call. It didn’t help that they published the list of the top donors to the children’s hospital in the paper, and at the top of the list was Ms. Sara O’Keefe.

We didn’t speak again until Friday morning to schedule Sareen’s second visit. This time, Sara wasn’t staying over. Sareen was excited, and I was nervous.

Sara dropped Sareen off; she immediately ran off to find Tomy.

“Here are the DNA results, John,” she said, “As you can see, the probability is 99.9% that you’re the father.”