With the boy’s tenth birthday looming in the distance, he has started to think about having a party. He’s at a new school, making new friends, so maybe a party would be good.
“I’m thinking maybe forty kids,” he says. “Or maybe it would be easier just to invite everyone from my class this year and my class last year.” Yea, right.
“Easier for you. All you’re doing is making a list. How many do you have so far?” I ask. “How many boys? How many girls?” He looks down at his list and counts.
“Twelve and zero.”
“Twelve girls!” I try to sound incredulous.
“Daaaaad.”
“Well, what about girls?”
“Yea, I kind of forgot about girls.”
This is an outright lie. Tonight at the movie rental store, everything he asked to get had a picture of some woman on the cover. “What about this one?” he’d asked, holding up a copy of Wild Things. “It looks interesting.” I think I answered with the International Sign Language Face for “Nice Try”. I had my eye on Robots, but for whatever reason, our household is all out of whack and I always end up the one begging to rent cartoons.
“So, how do you spell Nicole?” I tell him. “Emily?” The spelling goes on a bit.
“So, what are you up to?” I ask.
“Twelve and six.”
“Better invite six more girls and even it up.” My mock fatherly advice knows no limits.
“Why?”
“For the dance, of course. I’m sure you’re going to want to dance.”
I waltz around the room. He groans.