TWENTY THREE & FOUR
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Eddie left with the mask and gloves. Van made sure the order placed was correct. He and Armando needed to make three more spider costumes. Eddie turned to say good bye on the way out the door and had to smile at the scene. Van had taken a boxer’ s stance. Armando went toe to toe with the bigger man. To Eddie it looked like George Foreman squaring off with Roberto Duran, right up until both started to laugh.
Nicole arrived with Tanya. Running upstairs, she put her book from summer driver’ s education class in her room. Her room was gloomy, the shades had been pulled. She flipped the switch on the desk lamp, turned and saw the monster in her room. It did not sink in immediately. The thing took a shuffling step toward her and she saw it blink. She backed into the corner post of her bed and started to shake as she slid to the floor. Eddie saw the puddle start to form on the hardwood floor beneath his daughter. Nicole began to scream. He pulled off the mask as Tanya bolted up the stairs.“ I’ m sorry! Honey it’ s me,” Eddie said, to his hysterical child.“ What did you do?” Tanya screamed at Eddie. He held up the mask.“ I didn’ t think it was scary. I’ m sorry Nicole. I’ m so sorry,” he said, taking a step toward his wide eyed daughter. She began to scream again.“ Get out!” Tanya yelled and went to hold her cowering child. The wet floor and dark spot spreading on Nicole’ s jeans flooded Tanya with emotion.“ It’ s okay. Lets get you cleaned up,” Tanya’ s voice belied what was going on inside, it was soft and calm. She helped her daughter from the floor.“ I’ ll bring you clean clothes. Take a nice hot shower,” she said, leading Nicole into the well lit bathroom.
Closing the bathroom door she turned to Eddie who was standing slump-shouldered in the open upper hallway near the stairs.“ What is the matter with you? Do you see what you did to your child?” she fumed.“ I...” he started and tears poured from his eyes.“ Get something to clean the floor,” she said quietly. She could not hurt him anymore than the pain he was inflicting upon himself. He tried the best he could to clean up his stupid mess. The floor was easy. A sponge and bucket were all that was needed. Nicole would require a month of therapy before she could enter a dark room again. Eddie called a moratorium on scaring Nicole, probably forever. Nicole stopped being quite so angry with her childish father after he bought her the pretty, red, used car.
The car was older but impeccably maintained. Tracy put out some feelers for Eddie after he told her the story. She found a girlfriend who was about to trade in the vehicle. Eddie offered her a thousand more than the dealer. With just under a hundred thousand miles on the odometer and all the maintenance records, Eddie was confident Nicole would get through her junior and senior years of high school with this tough little car. Eddie searched the internet for a comparison and saw most of the 240 SX versions of the Nissan being offered, had over two hundred thousand miles, some were pushing the three hundred thousand mark. It had it’ s dings and scratches which Eddie buffed and waxed most of them away. The car sat in the portico while he prepared his peace offering.
Tanya drove it home and complimented him on his find.“ It rides and handles beautifully,” she said, as she stepped from the sporty vehicle and handed Eddie the keys. It was cleaned, detailed and shining, parked in the sunny driveway when Nicole was dropped off the day she received her certificate of completion. Stephie and her dad were bringing Nicole home from driver’ s education and Eddie wanted to hand her the keys in front of her best friend.“ Who’ s car?” Nicole asked.“ Yours, if you accept my deepest apology,” he said, handing her the keys. He knew Stephie heard the whole story and was giving him the silent treatment. Eddie stopped being the asshole father at that moment.
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