“How old are you?” Seth questioned her as they all stared at her, waiting for the answer. She had worn jeans and a red sweater and sneakers, and looked Pennie’s age at most.
“I’m twenty-seven,” she said, smiling at them, but none of them smiled back.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Mark asked her, and Pennie answered for her before Olivia could.
“Yes, our father. That’s why she came to meet us. He didn’t invite anyone else from ‘work,’ did he?” She had a point, and Paul didn’t deny it again. It was obvious that they fully understood the purpose of the meeting. They weren’t children to that degree, and he still didn’t know what Eileen had said. “We’re not stupid, or five years old, Dad. We get it,” Pennie said, and both boys nodded in agreement and continued to stare at Olivia. She was a beautiful girl. So far, her twenties had made no mark on her. “I think it was a rotten thing to do to Mom to have her here,” Pennie continued. “It makes it look to her like we’re part of whatever you’re doing here, and we’re not. You should have asked us how we felt about it. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.” Olivia wanted to crawl under the table, but she thought Pennie was right. She shot Paul a look. He was mortified by Pennie’s comments and didn’t know how to respond.
“Are we supposed to keep it a secret from Mom?” Mark asked innocently. It was a valid question.
“Of course not. We don’t keep secrets.”
“You do,” Pennie said under her breath, and pushed her almost untouched dessert away. The boys had devoured theirs. Nothing affected their appetites.
“So can we tell Mom we saw her or not?” Seth questioned his father.
“Not,” Mark answered for him. “She’ll just cry about it, and she’ll be mad at us.”
“You can do whatever you like,” Paul said clearly. The meeting had gotten out of hand, but he wasn’t going to ask them to hide anything from their mother.
“I’m sorry this has been awkward,” Olivia finally spoke up. “I know this must be hard for all of you. Your dad just left home a week ago, and now you’re meeting new friends in his other life without you. I’m happy I got to meet you, but I didn’t want to upset anyone. I just thought it would be fun. I’ve heard so much about you from your dad.” She said it warmly and with a sympathetic expression. The boys thought she was nice, but Pennie didn’t warm up for a second. She was furious with her father for the traitorous position he had put them in with their mother, without their knowledge or consent. He had dragged them into his new life, and his romance, and it was obvious to everyone that Olivia was his girlfriend. In other circumstances, far down the road, if the situation with their mother were clear, they might have liked her, but not this way. He had crammed her down their throats, and ambushed them.
As soon as Olivia had spoken to them, she stood up with a warm smile and looked around the table. “Well, I just wanted to come by for a few minutes, I’ve got to leave now. Have a great time today.” She gave a little wave, which included Paul, didn’t kiss him goodbye, disappeared into the crowd in the restaurant, and was gone as suddenly as she had arrived. There was silence at the table as all three of his children stared at Paul, waiting for some explanation to justify what he’d done. But there was no making it all right for them, and he knew that now. He had made the introduction to Olivia badly and prematurely. He had been foolish and naïve to think they would enjoy meeting her just because he loved her.
“How could you, Dad?” Pennie said, with eyes full of fury. “What can we say to Mom? That we had lunch with you and your girlfriend?”
“You didn’t have lunch with her, she dropped by.” It was a lame excuse and he knew it.
“It was all planned and you never told us, or asked us if we wanted to meet her. You made us betray Mom, and dragged us into whatever you have going on with her. It’s obvious what you’re doing. And you look old enough to be her father.” He had salt-and-pepper hair, and lines in his face, and Olivia looked like a child next to him, but that was beside the point. There was only a fourteen-year difference between them, not thirty.
“I think we have to tell Mom,” Seth said honorably. He was the deep thinker among them. Mark was more happy-go-lucky.
“I don’t see why. It’s just going to make her sad. I liked her. She’s really hot-looking. She’s nice, Dad,” Mark said kindly.
“You were rude to her,” Paul accused Pennie.
“What do you expect, Dad? For us to welcome her with open arms, a week after you moved out?” His daughter was more sensible than he had been, and smarter. Olivia would have been too, if he’d listened to her.
“Are you going to marry her?” Seth asked, shocked. It had just occurred to him that that might have been the purpose of the meeting.
“Of course not,” Paul said rapidly. “We’re friends, we’ve gone out a few times. I like her. I’m not marrying anyone. I’m married to your mother.”
“But you’re dating her?” Seth pursued it, and Paul didn’t answer. He felt cornered and he was not going to make it any worse than it already was. He could imagine how Olivia was feeling. The whole mission and its purpose had been aborted. He had wanted them to make friends, way too early.
He signaled for the check and paid it, and they left the restaurant. Seth spoke up as soon as they reached the street.
“Can we go home now? I have a lot of homework to do for Monday.”
“Yeah, me too,” Mark added. The meeting with Olivia had been too emotionally charged for all of them, even Paul. Pennie looked like she was ready to run back to Greenwich.
“I’ll look up the train schedule when we get back to the apartment. I’m sure there’s one before six o’clock, if that’s what you want to do.” He wasn’t going to force them to stay, on top of everything else. He sensed that he had some fence-mending to do with Olivia, after the awkward meeting.
They took a cab back to his apartment and none of them said a word. Paul sat staring out the window, wondering how he could have misjudged the situation so badly. It had ruined the weekend for all of them, and was a harbinger of things to come. There were opposing teams now and they were on their mother’s. They saw her as the victim now that they knew he had a girlfriend.
It was two-thirty when they got back to the apartment, and there was a three-forty-eight train. They could easily be on it. Pennie called their mother and she said she’d pick them up. They were packed in five minutes, and in a cab on the way to Grand Central Station ten minutes later. Paul saw them off and the boys waved at him when they left him. Pennie didn’t. She thanked him politely for the weekend, but she didn’t respond when he hugged her. He had crossed an important line for her, and she wasn’t ready to forgive him for it. And he’d been on thin ice with her before that.