“Gus, you have got to ease up,” I scolded him gently. “You’re not one of the youngsters anymore.”
“I love you, Sweetness,” he said looking up at me a grim smile forming under his bushy mustache. “But even I have my limits, and talking about my age is one of them.”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly bowing my head as he returned to his task. “I’m just saying that there are other things you could be doing.”
“Like what, child?” he asked as he moved down the tub to another spot. His bald head shone in the fluorescent light as sweat dripped down into the tub and mingled with the suds. Suddenly he looked up and said, “What on earth are you doing here this late at night, Payton Gale?”
“I needed to talk to you,” I said, moving over to one of the tape tables and hopping up on it so that I could sit and swing my feet freely. “I’ve got a problem, Gus.”
“What else is new, child?” he laughed as he bent back down and resumed scrubbing. “What is it now? Boy troubles?”
“C’mon, you know me better than that,” I said, swinging my feet hard enough to kick off one of my pumps and send it sailing across the room. It hit the whirlpool tub next to the one Gus was working on, and without looking up, he sighed.
“You been drinking, Sweetness?”
“A little,” I
admitted as I slipped the other shoe off and let it drop to the floor. “But I’ve got a good reason.”
“Lay it on me,” he said as he turned on the hot water and prepared to hose down the tub. Playfully, he waved the hose in my direction and said, “But if I don’t like what I hear, you’re going to pay the price for your bad behavior.”
“Gus! It’s not my fault!” I shouted as he faked shooting a stream of water at me.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” he smiled as he turned the hose on the tub and began rinsing it.
“My mother is a bitch,” I blurted out.
“PAYTON GALE HALAS LASKY!” Gus roared as he threw the rag he was using down with such force that the metal rang from the impact. “I’ll have none of that kind of language in this training room! You’ll not speak so disrespectfully of your mother. Girl, you are lucky I don’t haul you over my knee and tan your hide!”
“But Gus, you don’t know what she did!” I cried in protest.
“I don’t care what she did; she’s your mother,” he said in an ominous tone that let me know I was dangerously close to crossing a line. I took a deep breath and mentally backed up.
“Gus, she gave me a month to find a man and get to work on getting married,” I said in a tone that was only slightly whiney. “She said that if I don’t do what she wants, she’s going to take away my money, my apartment, and disinherit me.”
“I see,” he said calmly.
“It’s absolutely unreasonable!” I shouted. “Anyone can see that! She has no right to do this! We aren’t living in the 17th century, for God’s sake! This is America and I have rights!”
“Is that so?” he smiled as he listened intently for a moment before turning the sprayer in the whirlpool on and giving the tub one more rinse.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged as he shut off the water and put the nozzle back in its holder, ready for the next person who used the pool. He stood up, ran a hand over his brown, bald head, and then drew a deep breath.
“What?” I repeated impatiently kicking my legs back and forth feeling a bit childish. “You cannot possibly agree with her!”
“Well, Sweetness, I’m thinking about this from all angles,” Gus said as he grabbed a clean towel from a stack next to the whirlpools and dried his hands. “You’re young, and you’ve been raised with all the advantages of someone whose parents love and cherish her. Right now, you’re mad because you’re being expected to do something that you don’t want to do and that interferes with your plans; am I right?”
“But, Gus, she’s telling me I have to get married!” I shouted. “This isn’t some third-world country where people sell their children off into marriages in exchange for property or something!”
“Oh, child, please stop with the dramatics,” he said shooting me a side eye that quickly silenced me. “What your mother is doing is trying to impart the seriousness of the situation and force you to make a choice.”
“But she’s left me with no choices!”
“Oh, yes she has,” he said smiling knowingly. “You just don’t like the outcome of the choice you want to make. You want it all, Sweetness, and you’re mad because, after a lifetime of having it all, now you have to put your money where your mouth is.”
“How is this a choice?” I pouted. “If I do what I want to do, I lose everything.”