Both girls shouted their excitement at getting to eat pizza with my best friend.
Driving down an alleyway two blocks from where we previously parked, I found another spot in front of Angelo’s and maneuvered the oversized SUV with ease. I came here a few times in the past when I visited Andrew over our summer breaks during college.
Growing up, my parents spent most of their time in their lab, experimenting with chemicals and test tubes, instead of trying to create a home and memories with me. You’d think having a son graduate as his high school valedictorian and win a full scholarship to Wellington University, a top-notch Ivy League school, would have been enough for them.
Not to my parents. They couldn’t even muster up an appearance at either graduation.
But there had been two weeks every summer Andrew’s family flew me out to Sunny Brook Farms. I lived for those weeks. The early-morning wake-ups and manual labor that Andrew and I had to “suffer through” during my stay didn’t even bother me. I actually looked forward to it all.
His parents treated me like I was one of their own. And in those two weeks, I felt more loved and cared for than I had in the years growing up in California with my parents. Too bad those summers ended when we graduated—though Andrew and I stayed in touch as much as two friends living across the country could.
I hadn’t been back in Ashfield in about a year, which had been a fluke to begin with. I was looking for land in Eastern Tennessee for my robotics project, when my mom called to say my twin girls unexpectedly arrived at their home. Most grandparents would have been frantic, but I was met with indifference.
“It is a huge inconvenience,” my mother had scolded. And when I couldn’t get a hold of my ex-wife, I agreed.
I planned on driving to Nashville to catch the next flight to California, but Mother Nature had other plans and grounded everything for the following twelve hours because of a severe lightning storm. I’d pulled off the highway when I could no longer read any of the green signs due to wind and rain, and as luck would have it, I ended up at a bar in Ashfield and prepared to drown my sorrows.
“Daddy!” Molly squealed, and I shook my head to clear away the fuzzy memory.
“I’m coming. You can both unhook yourself.”
Exiting the vehicle, I moved to the passenger side and opened the back door. The two most important people in the world—and it seemed the only things I ever got right—stared at me with matching grins.
“All right, let’s go see your favorite person,” I told them as I lifted Molly from the car and placed her safely beside me, then did the same with Eloise.
“Can I bring my book, Daddy?” Hopefulness swirled in her eyes.
“We don’t want to get pizza fingers all over the pages. And I know Uncle Andrew is excited to see you. It’s been a long time since he came out to California. Maybe we can read it when we get to the house?”
“Okay, Daddy,” she said sweetly and handed me the book to place back inside the car. Eloise was the one who never argued with me or threw a tantrum when she didn’t get her way. She left all of that up to Molly. But I worried that meekness had something to do with her holding onto the grief of her mother leaving after having primary custody for the first three years of their life. I’d only had them over the last year, and they spent a lot of that with their nanny and tutor. I worried she was afraid I’d leave if she wasn’t the perfect child.
Both girls clutched my hands as we crossed the street, and as we entered the lively restaurant, they tucked their small faces against my pant legs. With wide eyes, I glanced around until I found a booth in the back corner, where my best friend sat with a lazy smile.
In a hushed voice, I told the girls I spied Andrew, and they looked up in unison. Before their next breath, both of them released their hold on me and dashed between the tables. Andrew kneeled with his arms open wide, waiting for the twins as they rushed toward him.
Eyes followed me as I strolled through the restaurant, and I did my best to ignore them. But the gangly teen from my past felt self-conscious, and I wanted to force my chin to my chest to avoid the stares.
“You look different from the last time they saw you,” I mumbled to myself, trying to rid the fear of embarrassment.
I traded the skinny limbs for twenty pounds of muscle, and my jeans and T-shirts for structured suits. After my last robotics patent sold for two-point-five billion dollars to an international investor, I restructured my business and gave myself a makeover of sorts. My new public relations team said I needed to dress like the billionaire I now was.
Finally, I reached the table, and my friend greeted me warmly. Andrew clasped my hand, then wrapped his free arm around my shoulders, and I did the same.
“It’s good to see you, man.”
Stepping back, I smiled at the man who felt like a brother to me.
“You too,” he said as he squeezed my bicep. “That’s a lot of muscle you’ve put on there in the last few months.”
“Well, some people stress-eat. Apparently, I stress-exercise.”
We both chuckled as we took our seats in the booth.
“Well, it looks good on you. The hair too. I haven’t seen you with short hair since freshman year at Wellington.”
Instinctively, I run my hand across my head, wishing it was my longer, wavy locks but coming up short.
“It was time for a change, I guess.” Nervously, I adjusted my larger frame in the seat. I still didn’t feel comfortable with the changes I’d undergone, but the PR team was firm with their branding decision. They insisted I needed to look more like a hot-shot engineer and less like a farmer.
