Casting Stones 1 | Page 99

Twenty
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“ Is it okay if Ryan spends the night? His parents said it was okay with them,” Justin asked, as he paused the game and turned down the sound. Tanya nodded. Tanya and Eddie retired to the sanctuary of their bedroom. She put down her latest novel when she heard Nicole come home an hour before her curfew. They met on the stairs. Tanya saw the angry look in her daughter’ s eyes.“ Would you like a cup of tea or a bowl of ice cream?” Tanya asked, as she passed. Nicole turned and followed her mom.“ Ice cream,” she said, and plopped herself into one of the chairs.
The only sound came from the metal spoons as they clinked against the glass bowls.“ Why do they do that?” Nicole finally said.“ To which particularly irritating trait are we referring?” Tanya smiled.“ Flirt when they are supposed to be on a date.”“ Oh. That one. I probably already know the answer but I’ ll ask anyway. Did Rich or the girl start the flirting?” Nicole thought about how it had started and remembered the girl had accidently dropped her purse. It just happened to land at Rich’ s feet. She was so embarrassed that some of the contents spilled and a couple of wrapped condoms were in the mix of makeup and lipstick.“ First thing you must realize is all men think they want a harem. Most find out pretty quickly maintenance fees come with all the most expensive toys. Whether it is cars, boats, planes or women, the more they acquire the deeper their pockets must be. There is a learning curve all men must go through before they discover they can only afford one woman. Rich is very young,” Tanya said, having her daughters full attention.“ What am I supposed to do?”“ Ignore the flirting or be incredibly generous with his money and ask if she wants to join the two of you. Tell her he will be happy to pay for her popcorn and movie. She was probably with a girlfriend or two,” Tanya said. Nicole nodded.“ He could pay for all of them and have his harem,” Tanya finished and Nicole started to smile as she pictured the scene. Doing the math in her head, Nicole figured he did not have that much cash.“ He didn’ t have enough money.”“ Then you would have been helping him move quickly along that learning curve,” Tanya pointed out the obvious. Nicole started to laugh.
The ice cream bowls were empty, unlike Tanya’ s bowl full of motherly advice. When she accepted Eddie’ s marriage proposal, his mother offered advice in the way of that generation. Tanya was gazing, in wonder, at Maxine’ s hand painted egg collection. The numerous art pieces were not for sale. The display cabinet housed dozens of nature scenes. Tanya was admiring, in particular, the robin’ s egg. The robin painted on the small, blue shell was how the bird inside would have looked had it broken out of it’ s shell destroying this amazing canvas. There were delicate pine trees in the background, the shell provided the perfect shade of blue for the sky.
Tanya asked Maxine when she began painting her personal gallery.“ When Eddie moved away from home. I needed to find something to that took as much patience and care,” Maxine said. Looking back, Tanya saw the warning that had been delivered as a kind of joke. She was determined not to have Nicole grow up trying to, constantly, read between the lines.“ Why didn’ t you tell me this stuff before?” Nicole asked.“ Because you would not have understood. It would have just been Mom noise,” Tanya explained nicely. The wheels were turning behind Nicole’ s brown eyes.“ What else do I need to know?”“ He may decide to search elsewhere for what he is not getting from you. Having sex with him won’ t allow you to hold on to him. It will probably have the opposite effect.”“ We have been going together for over a month.”“ I know, and that seems like a good amount of time to get to know someone. Do you want to continue dating him because you can’ t let go or because you don’ t want to let go?” Tanya asked the question that seemed important. Tanya hit the mark as precisely as throwing her darts and waited patiently. She wanted her daughter to ask questions rather than allowing Tanya to, blindly, shoot in the dark.“ You ask really hard questions.”