Page 4 of My Forbidden Boss
I could hear Dad’s hearty wheezes of laughter rippling through the phone. He, too, tried to offer a quote but couldn’t even get out the first syllable without another cough of laughter interrupting.
Finally, during a pause in our laughter, we heard Mom quietly repeat the ridiculous insult under her breath. In doing so, she was admitting acceptance and defeat. In the past, there were times when she either would not or could not comprehend how inept her attempts to adequately adlib ended up being. Dad’s and my reaction to such instances was to repeat the phrase back to her at random times during successive conversations until she finally caved.
Respecting her retraction of ‘pussy pancake’ as an insult feasible enough, I didn’t say another word about it.
Dad did the same, and, clearing the laughter from my throat, I tried to reorient our conversation.
“I’m telling you – I’ve seen more signs of civilization off the sides of random highway exits back home than they have out here. I’m serious! At least three times already, I’ve overheard someone around town going on and on and on about the farmer’s market here – and they’re talking about it as if it’s the most exciting thing happening in this whole tiny town!”
“Yes, well, what’d you expect, Tish? They don’t call it the middle of nowhere without a good reason. I’m sure that it could be worse, though. Tell me, what was the name of it again? … The name of the town, I mean,” Mom asked.
I sighed tragically and let my weary eyes close, displaying a wave of distress and despair worthy of a real damsel. If someone would’ve lent me a spotlight there and then, I swear that roses would have appeared at my feet, falling at the front of an auditorium full of thunderous applause, not a dry eye to be seen amid the aisles of audience members.
I took hold of the heavy coffee pot as the sound of dripping shifted, gurgling emptily. I quickly rooted through the kitchen boxes, balancing the phone against my shoulder until a proper mug appeared. I poured and replaced the pot, ignoring the sizzle of boiling drops that had pooled on the hotplate beneath.
“Tyler, South Dakota. The home of… well, nothing as far as I can tell, except for the company, of course. But even that isn’t all that big… maybe a hundred, two hundred people working there in total. They have tons of other offices all over the country, but still. The town itself is a pretty little place, don’t get me wrong. It’s cute, in a quaint, horse-and-buggy sort of way. There’s plenty of farmland and open space… It isn’t Chicago, that’s for sure.”
“It isn’t the kind of place that the locals would band together and be able to lift the whole city, all in the name of better drainage, huh?”
“No, Dad, of course not. Please, not another ‘proud to be a Chicagoan’ civil engineering lecture. Save it for your students.”
I moved back into the cluttered living room, listening and blowing the steam away from the mug as my mother jumped in to back me up.
“Honestly, Rich, Tish and I are well aware of how proud you are of the city’s history, no matter how trite and boring it might actually be in reality. If you’re so serious about plumbing, why don’t you get under the kitchen sink and fix that leak? I’ve only been asking for a month or… twelve.”
“What did I say? I was just trying to compare the two places and populations, that’s all.”
“Oh, please. There’s no need to burden our daughter any further with how thankful you think she should be. For Christ’s sake, stop confusing sanitation with salvation. We are all grateful that she hasn’t died of E. coli or whatever. Can we please move on?”
“For the last time, Sally… It was cholera, not E. coli. And quit with the sarcasm and sass, the disease killed your beloved Tchaikovsky, remember? Ha! I said it before you could. Oh, you thought I forgot? You only tell us every time the subject comes up and, the next thing we know, Tisha and I are dragged into another one of your meandering monologues touting the tragedies of modern musicians. She and I are all too happy to learn all about your precious music and composers while you ramble on – it’s all you ever talk about – but as soon as anything from the real world comes up… ‘Oh no!’ … of course, we can’t have any of that.”
I held my breath and kept silent, gradually backing the phone speaker further and further from my ear as the squabble between them grew too loud to endure at full volume.
“Dad! Mom! Can we keep the ‘civil’ in civil engineering, please? Save it for when you get home from work, will you? You two will have the whole house to yourselves from now on, and, since I won’t be there to stop you, the two of you can feel free to fill up the gaping hole in your lives. You know, the one that I’ve left behind? Fill it up with as much bickering and boring banter as your heart’s desire.”
My smirk faded as the argument between them instantaneously defused, and their attentions turned, teaming my way with unified chagrin.
“Oh, please, Tisha,” begged Mom.
“Do you always have to be so dramatic, Tish?” asked Dad.
“Seriously, whatever happened to you, honey? We didn’t raise you to be such a… brat. And don’t you even think about blaming it on your mother’s genes. That won’t stick. Evelyn has been a sweetheart since she gave you up and changed her lifestyle, so don’t even try it.”
I was aghast. “Dad!”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m just being honest. You shouldn’t use a person’s pain against them.”
I found my voice as my cheeks started to burn. “What are you even talking about?!”
In my mind, I could see him shrugging unapologetically, the way he always did when he smirked and playfully pretended to be the tough one in the family.
“I’m sorry, Tisha, but it has been kind of nice to have the bathroom all to ourselves again. We loved having you move back home for the past few weeks… you know, after your breakup with Stephen and all… but we hadn’t exactly planned for three people when we bought this place. It’s barely big enough for the two of us as it is.”
I scoffed and shook my head in disbelief, entirely forgetting that they could not see me. “Here I was, thinking my parents would miss me when I moved half-way across the country. It turns out that you two not only couldn’t care less… you are actually happy to see me go!”
A pair of sighs breathed through my phone’s speaker. “Oh, come on now, Tisha… You know that we are kidding. There you go again, being a drama queen… our very own little princess of hyperbole. Besides, half the country? Really? There’s only one state between us and… is it Texas? California? Alaska? No, honey. It’s Iowa. Come on.”
“Yes, Tish, listen to your father.”