“That’s screwed up,” I respond, still waiting for the conversational turn.
“I’ve been distant with you since Chris showed up,” Mason says. “In some ways we’ve been moving forward, but in others… All my life, I’ve just gotten so used to ignoring my past and trying to minimize it when it shows up passed out on my couch in the middle of the night. The problem with that is that I really like you, Ash,” he says. “I’d love to see where things with you can go, and I just want to let you know that I’m not going to try to hide my past by pulling away from you anymore. That’s not fair, and I’m sorry.”
“Hmm,” I respond. “Thanks. To be honest with you, I was expecting a very different kind of conversation.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“Well, you sent the relationship killer text
,” I answer. “Next time you use that phrase, I expect you to be breaking up with me, because that false alarm crap isn’t going to work for me.”
“Okay, okay,” he laughs. “Next time, I’ll put it differently.”
“So?” I ask.
“So what?” he returns.
“You said you were going to stop trying to hide your past,” I say. “So, what have you been hiding that I should know about?”
“What do you wanna know?” he asks. “From here on, I’m an open book. I want to make this work.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “When did Chris start with the whole con man business?”
“I’ve tried to figure that out,” he says. “I really can’t remember a time when he wasn’t pulling some kind of confidence game. When it started out, it was hardly ever about money; I think he did it as a survival instinct. There was a certain way to talk to mom, and if you couldn’t figure out what to say in any situation with her beforehand, chances were, things were going to go bad.”
“Where was your father?” I ask. This is the most he’s ever told me about his family. He’s never even mentioned his mother before.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think my mom knew, or if she did, she didn’t want him around. I never really met the guy.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Not much anyone can do about it,” he says. “That’s just the way it is. I hope you can forgive me for being so distant when we’ve been trying to get closer.”
“I wish I could be mad at you,” I tell him, “but I can’t. I haven’t really gone into my past, either. I’ve been telling myself it doesn’t really matter, that where I come from isn’t who I am, but I can’t sit here and judge you when I’m doing the same thing.”
“Okay,” he says. “What have you got?”
“Do you know that rich couple, they’re always in the news,” I tell him.
“There are a lot of rich couples in the news on a pretty constant basis,” he says.
“Chuck Butcher and May Weese,” I say.
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “They’re the kind of people who are rich because they’re rich, right? What about them?”
“Well,” I say, fidgeting with my hands, “I don’t call them Chuck Butcher and May Weese.”
Mason turns his head a little to one side and peers at me, asking, “Why not?”
“I call them dad and mom,” I tell him. “Well, they prefer ‘father’ and ‘mother,’ but you know what I mean.”
“So when you see all those commercials about the one percent that’s destroying the world and everything in, on, and around it, they’re talking about your parents?” he asks.
My mouth comes open and I take in a breath, not sure how to begin to respond to a question like that.
“I’m not…” I stammer. “That’s not…”
“Whoa,” he says, putting his palms up toward me, “I was just messing with you. So, you’re a rich girl, huh?”