Daddy takes a drive
There had always been pressure, there had always been expectations, but nothing new ever came of them. Nardrea’s life has for all intent and purpose been an aimless crusade after lost cause after aimless crusade. It was about the social interaction, her social needs, her reckless abandon. Money had never been her issue, it wasn’t even a passing byline in the list of day to day things that concerned her. In her perfectly twisted little realm, nothing more mattered than the proper ratio and temperature of her next drink, who could she bully into her way of thinking at the next contract negation. Ok, bully might be the wrong word. Manipulate or coerce were certainly not any more flattering, more accurate perhaps, but certainly not more flattering.
Nadrea worried about her appearance, the latest fashions and the next time she might feel vaguely alive. That part usually consisted of a little chemical enhancement or libations and good hard fuck. She worried were her under garments precisely coordinated with her outfit, not just in the sense of functionality but in an appealing and matched or complementary color. She never broke a sweat and lived a bitchy restless upper class existence where nothing is ever quite good enough, even though very little ever truly bothered her. She wondered sometimes late at night why she felt so empty, why she is still sleeping alone and how most people in the world can be that stupid and still have evolved to the point we have as a species. STD tests were a regular part of life and except for crabs in college she has always been clean (and worked hard to remain that way). She stressed about what to eat or if her lover’s dick is large enough to really get her off. And there was, of course, the all too problematic relationship with her parents. Nothing was ever easy, everything had to be a production, an event and with absolute certainty completely proper according to whatever sick laws govern the ultra wealthy in Manhattan.
It was early Sunday afternoon and the phone rang…
“Cheers Love!” a voice proudly proclaims after a disengaged hello escaped Nadrea’s mouth.
“Daddy you’re not English, you’re from Manhattan and as close as you come to being English is based on the time you’ve spent in the Caymans!”
“I know love, but it is a smashingly beautiful day isn’t it” daddy responded. “How about a bit of tea?” he inquired.
She wondered if the man had lost his mind, perhaps it is an age related mental deficiency, he’s youngish, but it could happen. “Tea…hmm a little tea could be nice, where in the world are you?”
“In the car love, in the bloody car” as his poorly imitated English accent grew louder and thicker, not a bit more believable, but definitely louder and thicker as she held the phone away from her ear.
“OK, I’m game” she answered. “Where in the car?”
“Thought you’d never ask, just outside Philly on my way to D.C. But now ask me why!” he blurted out with a child like enthusiasm.
“Sure, why are you in the car outside of Philly?” she said in a mocking sarcastic tone now mimicking his brutally fake accent.
“Don’t be such a fuck wit, I’m in the car with Ronald on my way down to pick up me new toy” daddy responded. Dropping the accent, “We’ll pick you up in four hours or so, an early dinner work for you?”
“A casual dinner? Right?”
“Sure what the fuck, why not? We’ll make the reservation and surprise you when we get there.” And with that he was gone
These were the things that make Nadrea insane, unannounced visits, aloof if not deranged conversations with a man known for his conservative financial brilliance, but infamous for his ribald sense of humor. Daddy never heard a dick joke that he didn’t find gut wrenchingly funny and God forbid he ever meet a man named Dick. He would laugh uncontrollably for hours after the fact at the cruel and or witless intellectual properties of the poor bastard parents. Four hours of waiting would be pure hell, so a few calls were made to friends. Too quickly done, too much time left to kill before daddy arrived. A workout at the club, 90 minutes of cardio later and Nadrea was soaked in sweat and not at all calmed. Sure she felt better, but that was just the beginning. A short jog after her workout, back to the house, a good stretch and a long hot shower, lingering longer than usual under the hot water and it was time to dress and primp. Only an hour to kill doing that, she could kill an hour picking out a g-string if she needed to. So standing there in heels and garter, a less than modest set of panties and bra, drinking her home made Chocolate-tini the quest for clothes and how to wear her hair for dinner would consume the next 50 minutes. Two more drinks as a gray skirt and crème sweater polished off the look. Hair down and comparatively demure makeup and all was finally right in her world. At least for a few minutes, the phone rang…it was Daddy.
“Nod” as he affectionately called her despite years of her protesting it. “We’re at the Capitol Hyatt and running a touch late. Ronald will be there in about 10 minutes and then he’ll come back and get me.”
“I figured,” she responded not at all surprised that her father is not going to be in the car to greet her. At least she can have another drink on the way down. “I’ll watch for him to pull up, see you soon.”
So Nadrea wandered to the front parlor to watch the street, sitting at the piano that was originally her grandmothers she played Billy Joel songs, not her usual choice but as she played “Uptown Girl” pausing to gulp her drink between verse and chorus she can’t think of anything better to drink and play along with. Ronald pulled up as expected and with a giant swig and a mild shiver as a chill runs down her spine she takes to the all too mundane but all too necessary task of setting the alarm and down the old stone stairs she went.
Pulling up at the hotel, daddy wasn’t ready and a second drink was poured, her 5th in little over an hour, she was buzzing mildly, in comparison to how she often feels but that’s ok she will be three sheets to the wind before their second course and expects Daddy to be the same. When her father, Walter, arrived in the lobby you can see that he was conversing with anyone who spoke English and perhaps a few that didn’t. A man who spent his life analyzing numbers, but who loved human interaction, perhaps because his days were spent staring at papers full of numbers. When they finally arrive outside, he looked thin, his hair was too short and his face was drawn showing the very ridges of his skull. Two jokes for the Bell Captain, a nudge to the bell boy, a wide skeleton smile and to the car he went.
No sooner than he closed the door Nadrea asked “Are you sick?” Nadrea was showing a genuine concern rarely seen from her, concern for her father or concern for her own mortality no one can really been able to tell, Nadrea herself included.
“Only in my mind, Nod.” Daddy answered playfully.
“Nice to hear. So why are you so thin?” She asked trying to make light of her concern. “Took up the triathlon thing, running, swimming, and biking.”
“Oh, OK, aren’t you a little old for that?”
“Nope, nor am I too old for the hair cut!”
“If you’re an aging gay man that is the perfect hair cut, are you hiding a young latin in your room?”
Laughing daddy replied “Younger than you, but not too young Cialis isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Besides I’m into blondes with implants, you know that.”
Not catching on to the gay man reference was typical. Walter was a ladies man whether the ladies realized it or not was always a different issue. She thought to herself he was harmless and silly, sure it takes half a bottle of Vodka to feel this way, but he was just a guy who was despite all of her mother’s best efforts and commercial success, just a large extremely wealthy obsessive kid.
The car wound through the streets, Nadrea in her skirt and sweater and Daddy in his jeans. She knew dinner would be casual, perhaps very casual, because it was after all sports season for one team or another. So she wasn’t surprised when the ESPN Zone was where they were let off. Ronald would valet at a Hyatt two blocks away and join them. There was a certain sense of irony about your driver using a valet to park the car, but he was as much a part of the family as she was. Ronald has been her father’s driver for years. They are seated among a myriad of booths in front of a throng of televisions showing baseball and football and golf. It is early on a Sunday, so there was plenty of time to watch and drink. Daddy had a beer, Nadrea an Appletini, although she imagined it will be horrible at such a place, and Ronald a diet soda, one of them had to be sober enough to get them back and it wasn’t going to be Nadrea. It was drinks and munchies, sports talk and pleasantries. She was buzzed and Daddy was genuinely happy to spend a few fleeting hours with her. He doesn’t ask what she is doing, not because he doesn’t care, but out of fear of prying into a life that he has funded but not interfered with. She wondered why he never asked questions about her work or her friends or her life in general. She took the lack of inquiry as a lack of interest. Daddy was after all, socially awkward and mathematically brilliant, his social skills or lack there of could easily have been remedied by a simple obscene joke or story. She was not socially awkward and just couldn’t relate, in that way she was her mother. After dinner Daddy was three beers in and Nadrea’s heart was pumping a substance closer to gasoline than blood filled with oxygen. The conversation bounced from his obsession with cars to her latest diversions, her work, his social commitments and mothers crazy and slightly overzealous schedule. Nadrea was swaggering on her heels, the legs of a drunken sailor who has just come ashore for the first time in far too long. As they finish and wonder toward the car it became obvious that the night is still young by the fading twilight but will soon be over at least for daddy and Ronald. The three block walk doesn’t help her sober up at all, since it was a brief walk in the warm evening air. Just three blocks away she knows of a great club and wants them all to go. But daddy politely declined and Ronald has not the slightest interest in any such thing. Grabbing her phone she called her usual circle of friends, the only one who shows even a flicker of interest was Donna. They see her to the door and are on their way to the other part of town for a quiet and eventless evening.
Previous Chapter The Husker Takes a Walk
Copyright 2008 Michael Malflic
