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T H I R T Y
- Finn -
I sat in the only booth at the small Dunkin Donuts I frequented, sipping my coffee and staring out the window at the passing cars until the bell over the door jingled.
A heavy-set guy in a Cubs sweatshirt came in, followed by two children whose high energy levels made it seem like they’d already had a feed of donuts. Not that I was in a position to judge. Far as I was concerned, trying to raise a well-adjusted human was the toughest job a guy could take on.
Even raising Otis was a challenge, and I could no more take credit for his finer qualities than I could take the blame for his bad habits. Like the underwear eating thing, for example. I couldn’t stop it. He’d torn up another pair of my boxers a few days ago, and I was still finding scraps of them around the house. But it didn’t matter if he never learned. Because he was a dog. An underwear fetish wasn’t going to ruin his chance at a happy life.
But a kid? Why would someone want that responsibility? I didn’t get it. So much could go so wrong. Not that I didn’t like kids. If anything, I preferred them to adults. But just because I enjoyed volunteering at the Y didn’t mean I wanted to take those little punks home with me.
I watched the dad at the register get bullied into buying a dozen after explicitly telling his offspring they could each choose two donuts. Not that that surprised me. Kids could be highly persuasive, employing advanced negotiation techniques most adults couldn’t see coming.
Then there was the whole issue of homework. Who wanted the stress of realizing their second grader was better at basic multiplication tables? Brian’s daughter knew what a rhombus was before she graduated kindergarten. No thanks. I felt uneducated enough without having a child beat me at Jeopardy in my own home.
I could see why Maeve would take on the challenge, though. She was smart in all the ways I wasn’t. Sure, I liked to think I was fairly well read, and yes, I could draw and play music better than your average bear. But when we went to the zoo last week, I felt like a sorry excuse for an adult. She knew where Borneo was without having to Google it, knew that gibbons weren’t monkeys. She even knew the oldest zoo in the world was in Vienna.
I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it, but I had to assume she liked me more for my brawn than my brains. To add insult to injury, the more donor profiles she showed me, the more I realized she probably wouldn’t be interested in my sperm even if I offered it to her at a discount.
After all, my imagined profile couldn’t compete with the one belonging to Rob the Lawyer, who was a distant relation of Thomas Jefferson, or Nathan the Chess Champion, who had a pharmaceutical engineering degree and a parrot who’d memorized eleven Shakespearean sonnets.
Hi, my name’s Finn, and my dog eats underpants.
Not that I wanted her to pick me. I just wanted her to make a decision she’d be happy with. Nothing else mattered.
She walked in wearing a bright red coat that made her candy apple lips pop, and the muted tones of the donut shop’s interior faded into the background. Even Cubs-Dad did a double take when he glanced towards the sound of the door chime.
I stood to greet her and pressed my cheek to hers, her fuzzy red earmuffs tickling my nose as I considered commenting on the fact that she’d worn her hair down. It was a first as far as I knew. In public anyway. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“No,” she said. “I’m still shaking from the double espresso I had earlier.”
“Maybe a donut, then?” I gestured towards the brown bag on the table and checked my watch. “We’ve got some time to kill before the main event.”
“I’m not much of a donut person.”
I laughed and slid into the booth again.
“What?” she asked, sitting down across from me.
“I don’t think there are donut people and not donut people.” I slid the closed paper bag towards me. “I think there are only regular donut enthusiasts and disciplined donut deniers.”
She raised her palms. “Guilty.”
“Well, I have good news for you,” I said, peeking in the bag to build suspense. “There are two donuts in here, and they’re both mine.”
She cocked her head. “How is that good news?”
“Because other people’s donuts don’t have any calories.”
Her chin crept forward. “Is that so?”
I nodded. “It is. Did you not know that?”
“What kind did you get?”
“The two best kinds, obviously.”
“Blueberry and double chocolate glazed?”
