Tara Sivec - Passion and Ponies

I walk through the doors of Quick and Delicious, scanning the restaurant for a dude in his forties who looks like me. After a quick glance, I don’t see anyone that fits the bill. I walk up to the hostess counter and wait for one of the waitresses to finish cashing someone out.

“Hi, I’m supposed to be meeting someone here. His name is Dean,” I tell her. I refuse to give his full name to anyone ever, even a complete stranger. That shit needs to stay quiet.

She smiles at me as she comes around the counter. “Yep, he’s been here for a few minutes. Right this way.”

My palms start to sweat and I feel like I’m going to puke as I follow her through the restaurant. I get more and more nervous with each table we walk by and I contemplate turning around and running back out to the car.

Why the hell am I doing this? Gavin is right. Nick Branson is my father, for all intents and purposes. He taught me how to play catch, he bought me my first My Little Pony and he passed down his porn collection to me when I turned eighteen. I couldn’t ask for a better father. I shouldn’t feel like I don’t know who I am just because I suddenly found out the man who raised me doesn’t share the same DNA as me. It shouldn’t matter.

And yet, it does.

What if I need a kidney transplant and the only match is this guy? What if my sperm doesn’t work and the only way I can get my future wife pregnant with a baby who shares my DNA is by using this guy’s sperm? I have to do this. I have to be strong and do this for the health of my kidneys and for the lives of my future children. It wouldn’t be weird at all that their grandfather is also their father, right? I mean, people do that shit all the time and you never hear anyone say, “This is my grandpa-dad” when they’re introduced. It will be fine. It will all be just fine.

“Here we go, I’ll be right back to take your drink order.”

The woman smiles at me and walks away and I get my first glimpse of my father. He’s got the same blonde hair as I do, but that’s about the only similarity I see.

The man smiles up at me as I slide into the booth.

“So, you’re Dean,” I state, breaking the silence after a few seconds.

“I like mushrooms,” he replies.

Uh, okay.

“Did you know a female swine will always have an even number of teats? Usually twelve,” he adds, the smile never leaving his face.

Thankfully, our waitress comes over and I’m saved from having to comment on pig nipples. She takes our drink orders and leaves us alone again.

“So, thanks for agreeing to see me. I know when you do this sort of thing you never expect to actually meet one of your kids,” I tell him with a nervous laugh.

“I like to smell magic markers. Purple is my favorite smell,” Dean says, his smile growing even wider.

Oh, my God. They really scraped the bottom of the sperm think tank for my mom, didn’t they?

I guess it’s random fact time at this Father-Son event.

“Yeah, well, I like to give my balls names that coincide with holidays,” I admit, trying to get him to do something other than smile at me.

“Every time you lick a stamp, you consume 1/10 of a calorie. So far today I’ve had twenty-five calories. I like stamps.”

The waitress drops off our drinks and as she turns to leave, I grab onto her arm and pull her close to me.

“Please tell me you made a mistake and sat me at the wrong table,” I beg as I whisper in her ear.

She glances across the table and then back at me. “Nope, that’s Dean. He was really excited about meeting his son. But just so you know, he’s already eaten four paper napkins and he’s got one in his hand right now under the table.”

She stands up and pats me on the back before walking away again.

“Dean, give me the napkin,” I tell him, reaching across the table with my palm up.

He shakes his head at me and frowns.

“Give me the napkin right now. You can’t eat napkins, Dean.”

I give him a stern look and he slowly lifts his hand out from under the table, a small napkin clutched in his fist. He reaches towards my hand and right when he’s about to drop the napkin into it, he quickly pulls his hand back and shoves the entire thing in his mouth.

I stare at him with wide, unblinking eyes as he chews.

“The average human can eat two pounds of paper before risking a bowel obstruction,” Dean mumbles through his mouthful of paper.

As the waitress comes back to take our food order, I let my head drop to the table with a thunk.

 - Ava -

“Look, I told you it’s fine with Gavin and I if you stay here until you can find your own place. But do you really think going out and getting drunk tonight is a good idea? You just got in a fight with mom. Maybe you should just stay in. We can pig out on ice cream and watch movies,” Charlotte suggests.

I know she means well, but staying here is not going to happen. I’m depressed and pissed off and sitting around watching her and Gavin be all cutesy with one another is just going to push me over the edge.

I ignore her as she sits down on the bed in her guest room while I dig through my suitcase trying to find the perfect outfit for getting tanked and picking up a random stranger at a bar to help take my mind off of things.

I think of Tyler and a flash of guilt washes through me.

Shit! I have no reason to feel guilty. Tyler and I are NOT dating. We have sex every once in a while and, now that I’ve put an end to it once and for all, I need to get laid and blow off some of this steam. I’m not a slut; I just enjoy sex. Really, really enjoy sex and it’s been seven days, thirteen hours and twenty-seven seconds since I last had sex. Not that I’m counting or anything.

“You know mom didn’t mean anything that she said today,” Charlotte continues as I pull a black, quilted, drop-waist skirt from Forever 21 out of my suitcase and hold it up.

“Do you still have that teal, bow-front, studded tube top from H&M that you wore to Molly’s sixteenth birthday party?” I ask about our younger sister, ignoring what Charlotte said about mom.

I made the stupid mistake of showing her the finished blog after Aunt Jenny had worked her magic. I was so excited to show someone how great it looked and she shit all over it, telling me once again that I was wasting my time on something that had nothing to do with my future.

“Dude, seriously? Molly’s sixteenth birthday was three years ago. How in the hell do you even remember that?” Charlotte asks.

“Do you still have that top or not? It would look great with this skirt and my black Nine West phantom peep toe ankle boots,” I muse.

“It’s under the box of dildos.”

“JESUS CHRIST!” I shout, jumping in surprise and quickly turning around when I hear Molly’s quiet voice.

“How long have you been standing there? And that door was closed and locked, how did you even get in?” I demand.

I swear to God, Molly should have been a ninja instead of a pastry chef. After being around her for nineteen years, you would think I’d be used to her stealth, but it still catches me off guard. Out of the three of us, she’s the most quiet. And I’m not just talking about the way she can move in and out of a room like a ghost. I’m talking about the fact that we don’t know anything about her life. She keeps to herself and never shares any personal information, but you can bet your ass she knows everything about everyone else.

Molly just shrugs. “I have my ways. As I was saying, Charlotte still has that shirt. It’s on the top shelf of her closet under the largest box of vibrators I’ve ever seen.”

With that little piece of information, she turns and walks out of the room.

“Jesus fuck, she scares me,” I mutter before turning back to face Charlotte.

“I swear she can read minds or some shit,” Charlotte adds as I pull off my jeans and slip into the skirt. “Did I tell you the other day I was looking all over the place for a twenty-dollar bill that I swore I left on the counter? My phone rang while I was tearing the kitchen apart and when I answered it, all she said was ‘It’s in the pair of jeans on your bathroom floor’ and then she hung up. I think we need to ask mom just how much pot she smoked when she was pregnant with her.”

Pulling up the zipper on the side of the skirt, I walk over to the full-length mirror hanging on the wall across the room.

“I’m sure our sister doesn’t have special powers. She probably just has your house bugged,” I say with a laugh as I check out my reflection. “Now, go get me that shirt. Or do you need some extra muscle to lift that giant box of dildos down off the shelf?”

Charlotte curses at me before getting up from the bed and walking out of the room. She comes back a few minutes later with the top. I slide it on and put the finishing touches on my make-up before blowing her a kiss and telling her not to wait up for me.

“So, what do you say we get out of here? My van is parked outside.”