Touch(29)

“I maybe met a guy. I don’t know.”



Dottie stopped chewing mid-mouthful. Besties were a common topic of conversation. Boyfriends were not. Maybe Dottie’s optimism for her daughter didn’t extend to matters of the heart. Manny had never thought of that.



Through her half-chewed hunk of grinder, Dottie asked, “You did? What do you mean? Where?”



It was Manny’s way to answer the questions that were asked of her. “Yeah. I mean that I know him a little bit, and we had a date. It was nice. I’ve met him a couple of times. The band did a wedding in his family, and then I ended up giving him a massage, and then I saw him at a bar in the Cove, and then he asked me out.” She grinned. “He took me for hot wieners and we sat on the beach in the dark and talked.” She knew to stop there. Manny was baldly honest, but she also knew that parents weren’t thrilled to know their children’s sexual histories. Dottie probably didn’t want to know about the rest of the night.



Or maybe she did. “Is that all?”



Manny was starting to feel anxious and defensive. It confused her. So she fell back on her training. Clarify. “Dottie, I don’t know why you’re asking, and it feels weird. Do you want me to tell you everything about the date?”



“Okay, babe. Easy. Okay. I’m asking because I love you, and because men sometimes take advantage of women. You’re very small, and you know you don’t act like other girls. I’m trying to understand whether this man wanted to hurt you.”



“I don’t think so. He was very nice. The whole night, he was nice. He knows about me, and I think he doesn’t care.”



“How does he know about you? Did you tell him?”



“No. Dimi did. But then, last night, I filled in some details.”



“Wait.” Dottie took a breath, and then she took a drink of her juice. “How is Dimi involved?”



Conversations got away from Manny all the time. Should she have foreseen that telling her mother about Luca would have landed her here, having to tell her about her latest freakout? Well, she hadn’t. “There was a little thing. I had some beers at a bar, and a guy—not Luca—grabbed me. I raged out, but Luca was there, and he got us out of it. I guess Dimi told him about Ukraine so he wouldn’t think I’m a psycho.” She laughed. “I don’t know why he thinks that makes it better, but he does.”



“Did anybody get hurt when you raged out?” Dottie was speaking slowly and carefully, and Manny knew she was choosing her words, trying to stay calm and not trigger her.



“I cut the guy who grabbed me, but that’s not going anywhere. It’s over.”



Dottie took a breath and blew it out. “Okay. I think I need to talk to Dimi about this—do you mind?”



Her brother would know which details to fill in and which to leave out. “No. I have a question about Luca, though. Something happened, and I don’t know what it means.”



“Luca is the man who took you on a date?”



“Yes. This morning, I saw him surfing with a girl, and they kissed. I think I was jealous. I am jealous. But I shouldn’t be, right? That’s a wrong thing to feel, since we only had one date.” Again, she laughed a little. “This is why I don’t date. I don’t understand any of it.” She felt stupid and childish that, at almost twenty-nine years old, she didn’t understand. But in her reality, she was much younger. In some ways, she hadn’t started to learn the world until she was sixteen—not even thirteen years ago. So she had the emotional maturity of a middle-schooler.



That probably meant that she should definitely not be thinking about anything like romance, especially not with a normal, not-crazy, thirty-four-year-old man.



“Manny. Did you have sex with this Luca last night?”



She nodded. There was nothing else she could do. When Dottie closed her eyes, she added, “But he was nice, Dottie. Really nice. He let me do all the touching, and it was good. I really liked it. Most guys I’ve had sex with weren’t as nice as he was.”



Now Dottie laughed. “Okay, okay. This is making me feel a little weird. I need to go a little bit slower. I’m glad he was nice. The answer to your question is pretty confusing, but I’ll try. You like this man, and you had…a good time with him. You want to see him again?” Manny nodded, and Dottie smiled and put her hand on the table, next to Manny’s.



“It’s absolutely normal to feel jealous when you see him kissing somebody else the next morning. But—and here’s the confusing thing—that doesn’t mean he did anything wrong. Unless he told you he’d see only you, and especially after only one date, then he can see anyone he wants, whenever he wants.” Dottie took another drink of juice. “He sounds like maybe he sees a lot of girls, though, babe, if the very next morning he was making out with somebody else. That worries me for you.”