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“You better not have been.”
“Dad, I was in high school twenty years ago. That ship has sailed.”
“Youbetter not have been.”
“Dad.” Rhea put down her wrap, elbows on the table. “I was a virgin until boarding school. There. Happy?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, “I knew sending you there was a bad idea. Even though it was all girls… actually, that was the reason. Bunch of rich girls doing blow or whatever.”
“The biggest drugs of choice were pot and Ritalin, Dad.”
“You weren’t doing neither, right?”
She couldn’t look him in the face. “I have never abused Ritalin, no.”
Although the silence told Rhea her father figured out what that meant, he thankfully changed the subject. “So, what were you wanting to ask me? Because if it’s about your grandparents, I’m afraid I haven’t spoken to them since you got married.”
“Really? Thought it would have been when I graduated high school. They were never interested in my life.”
“Eh, they were mildly interested to know you were getting married. I only thought it right that they knew. Then they found out it was another woman and… poof. They were gone again.”
Rhea had figured as much. “Do you think that if Mom never got sick or died… do you think you’d still be married? Or would you have divorced in the years since she passed?”
She expected her father to take that question hard, but he remained blasé about the whole thing. “What makes you think your mother and I would have divorced? She tell you something?”
“No. Just wondering. Marriage is hard.”
“You’re telling me. We had our first big fight over your name. Thought she was gonna leave me because I wanted you to have a different moniker.”
“Really? Like what?” Here Rhea had assumed that her father was the one primarily behind the name Rhiannon.
“I wanted to name you Christine. Good solid Christian name, too, but your mother wasn’t having it.”
“Because she just really loved that song?”
“Because she was a huuuuuge Stevie fan.”
That took Rhea a second to interpret. “Wait. You mean Christine as inChristine McVie?”
“Who else named Christine am I talking about?”
This was almost too much for Rhea, who knew her parents were Fleetwood Mac fanatics anyway. Yet to take it this far? “You mean my name could’ve been Stevie?”
“But it wasn’t, because your mother had better taste than that. It was some Celtic goddess or whatever or ‘get the hell out ofmi casa,Danny!’”
“She didn’t talk like that.”
“It’s how I remember her!”
“See, that’s the real reason you two would’ve divorced by now,” Rhae confidently said. “Your terrible stereotypical Spanish.”
“Like yours is any better.”
“Si, tienes razón. Es muy mejor que el tuyo.”
Danny stared at her, daring her to call him out for not knowing what she said.To be fair, I only know how to say “it’s better than yours” because I wanted to tell my Puerto Rican roommate off for saying her family was better than mine.She cringed to think about it now.
Her father finished his wrap with a smack of his lips. “I don’t think your mother and I would have ever gotten divorced. You know why?”
