“Fantastic,” he says. “I don’t know what her problem is lately.”
“Do you need to go after her?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I’m sure she’s fine. She’s just pissed at the world right now, I think. Oh well. Hey,” he says, “things still messed up with your dad?”
“No,” I tell him. “And I’d really rather not talk about that.”
“All right,” he says.
For a few glorious seconds, I think that we’ve moved on and we’re going to spend the rest of the evening discussing other things, but Damian just can’t let go.
“I just wanted to let you know that I understand why you wouldn’t want to talk to him,” he s
ays. “But at the same time, that was what, like 10 years ago?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him.
“Did it go on after that?” he asks. “How old were you when it stopped?”
“Damian,” I warn him, “let it go.”
“I’m telling you that I understand,” he says. “Only that it might be time to revisit the idea of getting back in touch with him. It doesn’t even have to be on this trip or anything, you could just start calling each other every once in a while, you know, try to rebuild a foundation of trust and—”
“Damian,” I say in a very calm, quiet voice, very aware of the fact that after the phone call a few minutes before Damian arrived, people in the restaurant are starting to become much more aware of my presence, “for the love of God, take the hint and drop it. This is not something I want to talk about here and it’s not something I’m going to talk about here. Suffice it to say that my dad didn’t stop damaging the world when he stopped hurting us.”
“Okay,” Damian says. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with the idea of you and your father reconciling.”
I glance around and those that aren’t actually staring at me are being nudged by their dinner companions who are.
Exactly how something like this spread in a restaurant is beyond me, but there’s no mistaking that I’ve become the focus of the whole place. It’s so bad that even Damian starts to notice it.
“I guess we should have thought about whether or not we should do the dining in public thing right now while there’s so much press about us,” he says.
“That’s not it,” I tell him.
“What is it then?” he asks.
“Before you got here, I got a call,” I start. “It was Ben. He told me that he’d already spent the last money I sent him on a down payment for something and that he needed me to send him more. I told him that I was sick of being at his beck and call while he blackmails me, so I told him I wasn’t going to do it.”
“What’d he say?” Damian asks.
“What do you think he said?” I ask, and casually gesture toward the sea of faces that are looking between their phones and me.
“They’re out there?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him.
“When did this happen?” he asks.
“I told you,” I said, “not long before the two of you got here. I’m glad you were a little late, though,” I continue. “It gave me a chance to call the police on the motherfucker.”
“This is really happening, huh?” he asks.
“Yep,” I tell him and smack my lips. “Before you see the pictures,” I tell him, “there’s something I think I should prepare you for.”
“I don’t think there’s much of you I haven’t seen,” he says loudly enough for people at the surrounding tables to pick it up and jump into hushed conversations.
Apparently, he figures there’s enough going on already that the story of two actors bumping uglies isn’t going to be that big of a deal. I don’t think he’s right, but at this point, I just don’t even care anymore.