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“Who is it?”
“You’ll see.”
We went outside and he asked, “Where are we going?” as we got in the van and he pulled his seatbelt on. Lucy roared to life in a cloud of exhaust smoke.
“Patience, sweetheart. You’ll find out soon enough.”
He didn’t argue with me. He was uncharacteristically subdued, obviously rattled by the events of the last hour. I hoped I was doing the right thing with where I was taking him.
After just a few minutes we emerged in the Richmond, and pulled up across the street from a narrow yellow row house. I jumped out of the van and held Dmitri’s door for him, then took his arm and crossed the street and led him up the flight of stairs to the front door. As I pushed the doorbell, he asked, “What is this place, Jamie?”
The door swung open, and a booming voice asked, “Why the hell are you ringing the bell, Jamie? Did you lose your key?”
And I pulled Dmitri into the light spilling from the open doorway and said, “Hi, Dad. I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Dmitri Teplov.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dmitri and my father stared at each other for one very long, very tense minute. Ok, so maybe blindsiding both of them hadn’t been the best idea I’d ever had. It had seemed sound when I’d thought of it a few minutes ago – not giving them a chance to build their defenses up, and all that. But now, as I wondered if my dad was going to shove my boyfriend up against the wall and frisk him, I thought maybe calling ahead might have been a better way to go.
My mother appeared behind my father and exclaimed, “For Pete’s sake Ray, what are you doing? Who’s out there?” She peered around her husband and said, “Jamie! Why are you out on the porch? Come in before your father lets in every fly in the city.”
My father stepped back slowly and I stepped around him, clutching Dmitri’s arm and towing him in behind me. “Hi, Mom. This is my boyfriend, Dmitri.”
Her social skills were a lot better than my father’s, so it only took her a few seconds to wipe the look of utter shock off her face. And then she smiled fairly convincingly and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dmitri.”
“You too, Mrs. Nolan,” he managed, his voice a notch above a strangled whisper.
“Come on in, boys,” she said. “Are you hungry? We just finished eating, but there are plenty of leftovers.”
“No thanks, Mom.”
I led Dmitri into the small living room, where we found Brennan and Brody sitting in front of the TV watching a golf program that had to have been my father’s idea. Brennan exclaimed, “No more gawf! It’s so boring. We want cartoons!” He turned around to look at us and caught sight of Dmitri. “Uncle Meaty!” he shrieked, and launched himself off the rug and into Dmitri’s arms.
“Hey, buddy,” Dmitri said softly, catching the little boy by his armpits and hauling him up onto his hip.
Brody turned around too, and grinned hugely. “Meaty!” he exclaimed, and I bit back what would have been a slightly hysterical laugh as he flung himself at Dmitri’s leg and latched on like a tree sloth.
“Now all we need is the – ” I started to say, when Tippy crawled out from under the sofa and shook himself. “Oh, there he is.” The dog jumped up on Dmitri too, panting and wagging his tail delightedly.
“Oh,” my mother said with surprise. “So, they’ve all already met, then.”
“Yeah, just recently. Erin and Maureen came by my apartment. Are they here, too?”
“No, your sisters are on a girls’ night out, so we’re babysitting the kids.” Tippy fell under that category.
“Ah.” I perched on the couch while Dmitri sat down cross-legged on the carpet, and the boys sat on his knees and demanded his phone game. He produced the cell phone for them and brought the screen to life before placing it in their grimy little mitts.
I hazarded a glance at my father. He had seated himself in his La-Z-Boy recliner, white- knuckling the armrests as he ground his teeth together and stared at me, silently demanding an explanation as to why I’d blindsided him, and why a suspected felon now sat on his living room rug. I could practically see the black storm clouds gathering over his head. I was sure the only reason he wasn’t screaming at me right now was because the kids were over, and they always started crying hysterically whenever he yelled. That in turn drove my father completely crazy.
My mother’s gaze hadn’t left my boyfriend. He’d propped himself up with his hands behind him, looking perfectly comfortable on the worn beige carpet in his two thousand dollar suit, her two grandsons on his lap. Dmitri was agreeing with the boys in a low voice that golf really was the most boring thing on the planet.
