Читать книгу Bad Dad - Alice Shane - Страница 14

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Mary Lou! You’ve never met my father. It’s the first time we’ve spoken in five years, and right off the bat you’re asking him for $4500! I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do that! I don’t even know how you came up with that figure! The down payment is $2500, not $4500!” Danny said, trying to contain his exasperation.

She was such a greedy little bitch. He wouldn’t be surprised if his father refused to come across with the moolah, knowing he would be offended by the directness of such an approach.

Sometimes he hated Mary Lou and now was one of those times. He reached for the remote on the coffee table and turned the sound of the TV up so their neighbors wouldn’t hear them argue. The walls of their mobile home were thin. If they didn’t keep their voices down, the busybodies next door would hear everything.

Mary Lou curled her legs tightly under her body and arched her back, a position that emphasized her ample breasts. She leaned into the leather sofa they had bought at a yard sale.

“What’s the difference?” she said, brushing strands of long blonde hair away from her face and behind her shoulders. Dark brown roots were in evidence. She was due for a touchup at a local beauty school where the tab would be only $7.00 plus a small tip – cheaper than buying one of those Clairol bleaching kits.

“Your daddy is so rich, what’s $4500 to him? I was just tryin’ to help us. Sometimes you ain’t aggressive enough – he knows how to make big money. Why can’t you? Besides, he respects me for being so forthright about our predicament. I could tell when we spoke on the ‘phone. I’m sure he’ll come up with the money – he sounds like a nice man. Like I said, $4500 ain’t nothin’ to him.”

Mary Lou leaned over to play with a strand of his hair, but he backed away from this conciliatory gesture. At 28, he was starting to bald and felt self conscious about it. Her comments about his not making enough money rankled him. Her pathetic efforts to elicit money from his father were infuriating. Her fractured grammar echoed harshly in his ears.

“Just because my father’s rich doesn’t mean he’s going to throw money at us,” Danny said sharply. “ He inherited a lot and made millions more on his own because he works his ass off. But he watches every penny. My mother hated him for it. She thought that just because he was rich, he’d be a sucker. He’s the kind of guy who rarely talks about money even though he devotes his life to making it. You’ve got to be subtle when discussing finances with him – not too obvious, otherwise he’ll think you’re being pushy. That’s just the way he is; that’s how rich people are. They’re not interested in anyone else’s financial needs.”

Mary Lou’s face folded into an expression of hurt and disappointment, as if she was about to cry. “Gosh, I’m sorry sweetheart. I thought I was helpin’ us by askin’ for the $4500 – I figured the extra money would come in handy,” she explained, moving to the other side of the sofa, her breasts retreating into her chest. “I guess it looks like I’ll really have to sell those dolls – I wonder how much I can get for them?”

“Forget the fucking dolls! You’re ridiculous! I can see Dad laughing his head off at that suggestion. He’s not going to fall for such a harebrained scheme. Besides, he knows that a down payment wouldn’t be $4500! I know you mean well, Mary Lou, but I don’t want you to be disappointed or to hate him if he doesn’t come across with the dough.”

Danny wondered what Margo thought about all this, what kind of woman she was, whether his father’s marriage to her had changed him. Mary Lou had complained that she sounded ‘cold, conniving, downright mean’ on the telephone. Maybe so, maybe not. He knew that Mary Lou felt inferior to other women and competed with them by exposing her cleavage, slithering around in micro-minis and wiggling her ass like one of those whores who hang out in front of Taylor’s Bar in town. He honestly didn’t know who he hated more: his father’s new wife who would probably grab everything that might have been his, or Mary Lou whose manipulations dragged him down so badly.

He wondered if Dad was still the same control freak who used to make him account for every expenditure from his monthly allowance when he was a student at Bridgefield. It wasn’t that Dad gave him too little money. It was just that he had to justify every dime – keep records of his purchases, balance his checkbook, show it to his father every month on Parents Day. Lester would point out where Danny was overspending, or spending unwisely. Dad called it “inheritance coaching” – his way of training Danny to understand money and its responsibilities. But to Danny, his father’s oversight of his financial behavior was a crushing burden and a terrible invasion of privacy.

I’ll never do that to Charlie, he thought, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen his son since dinnertime. It was now 8:00 pm and dusk was settling in. The kid should be home by now, Danny thought, alarmed. He monitored the boy’s comings and goings very carefully because he knew pedophiles lived in the area, having checked out a state website identifying them. A trailer park was no place to bring up a child but that was all he could provide right now.

“Where’s Charlie?” he wanted to know, raising his voice so that Mary Lou, who had disappeared into the bedroom, could hear him.

“He’s over at Billy McGrath’s – they’re doin’ their homework together. But it’s getting late. If he’s not home by 8:30, you’ll have to go over there and get him,” Mary Lou shouted from the bedroom where she was lying on the bed, on her back, wrapped in a skimpy pink towel when he appeared in the doorway. “C’mon. Let’s play,” she suggested, opening the towel to reveal round, full breasts, porcelain white skin, a lush mound of light brown pubic hair. Her silky blonde hair was spread every which way over the pillow, her mouth slack and sensual.

That’s typical Mary Lou, always ready for a fuck, Danny thought, feeling too tired to take her up on her invitation. It was supposed to be his day off, but he had spent it working. repairing a power line – a job netting him almost $140 at $18 an hour – $3.00 more per hour than he made during his normal workweek. He accepted these overtime opportunities whenever they presented themselves, no matter how tired he was after a 40- hour week.

“You better get dressed. Charlie will be home soon,” he said, wishing her timing was better. He hated having to police Mary Lou about her appearance around the house. She often dressed suggestively. Her micro mini skirts were an embarrassment to himself and Charlie who sometimes asked Mary Lou if she wore panties under those tiny skirts.

“Whatsa matter, baby? We have time for a little quickie but I guess you ain’t in the mood,” she said in a pouty, whiney voice, rising from the bed, reaching into a closet for a robe, her round, perfect tush in full view.

“Now’s not the time, ok? I’m going over to the McGrath’s to pick Charlie up. It’s starting to get dark.”

He was anxious to get away from Mary Lou’s sexual demands. Besides, he wanted to check out the McGrath household, see what kind of people they were. If his son was spending time there, he wanted to be sure it was a wholesome place.

“OK, honey,” Mary Lou said good-naturedly. “When you get home, we’ll have dessert. I made some chocolate fudge brownies this afternoon. How’s that?”

“Sounds good!,” he said, walking out the door, not caring about dessert. He had other, more important things on his mind.