The Worst Romance Novel Ever Written (48 page)

While Angel and Marion went upstairs, Gloria and Paul put on coats and stepped outside onto the porch.

“
She is an amazing child,” Paul said. “It is as if she understands my every word.”

“
She does,” Gloria said. “She’s extremely gifted.”

“
Yes, she is.” Paul seemed to hug himself.

Narcissistic fool.
“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to visit Angel every day, Paul.” Gloria heard a window opening with a little squeak.
I hope they can hear everything. What am I saying? Mama can hear through brick walls. Superman should have her hearing.

“
I will visit her every day, Gloria,” Paul said. “She is my daughter. A father should see his daughter every day he can.”

“
You’re not her father, Paul,” Gloria said.

Paul whirled around. “I’m not?”

Geez, I have to give him a lesson in semantics.
“You are her
daddy,
not her father, and they’re not the same thing. A father sticks around.”

“
Ah,” Paul said, “but does not a father also know he is going to be a father before the child is born?”

Gloria sighed, her breath a plume of vapor. “We’ll get to that in a minute, okay?”
I have to get good and worked up first.
“You will see her when it suits our schedule, not yours.”

Paul stuck out his chin. “And if I disagree with your schedule?”

“
You really don’t have a choice,” Gloria said. “Mama and I have raised Angel for five years without you. You can’t expect to come in here and play daddy all of a sudden.”

“
I would not … play the daddy.”

“
You’ve just said you’re leaving in May, vanishing again for the summer. What’s to stop you from vanishing for five more years, or ten more years? Are you going to show up at her high school graduation and expect her to be happy to see you? Did you see Angel’s face when you told her about your grant? It’s as if you just gave her the best present on earth and ripped it out of her hands.”

Paul sighed. “But we will still see each other on the Internet every day. We will stay in touch. I will call her and write to her—”

“
Like you promised
me
five years ago?” Gloria interrupted.
Sorry, Angel. Your daddy here often says things he doesn’t mean. I hope you’re listening.

“
But it was one night,” Paul said. “I said things I did not mean.”

Bingo.

Paul paced the porch. “It was the excitement of it all. I was leaving for Caral the very next day. I did not expect to be with you. Caral would be my first real fieldwork. It was what I had been prepared for, what I had dreamed of doing since I was a boy. I was in no position to make promises to a person I had just met in a bar.”

Gloria stuck a finger in Paul’s chest. “If you make a promise to that child that you do not keep, I will hunt you down, skin you alive, and bury you inside a pyramid for someone to find in five thousand years. And I will find you. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a longhaired Frenchman digging up rancid anchovies in Peru.”

Paul stepped away from Gloria’s finger. “I will keep my promise to Angel. I will help to raise her to be a great woman.”

“
You can’t help to raise a daughter who is
here
when you are in the jungles of South America, can you? It isn’t fair to her, and as for her being a great woman, she’s already well on her way to greatness without you.”

“
You would have me not go?” Paul huffed.

Well, yeah. Duh.
“You have to make sacrifices when you’re a parent, Paul. I’ve already made plenty.”

Paul shook his head rapidly and sat in Marion’s chair. “Yesterday, I am a single man hoping to see a girl I once knew, maybe go out to dinner, maybe become friends, maybe more. Today, I am a father, not a daddy as you say, a father hoping to see my daughter as much as I can. You cannot expect me to … digest all this in one night.”

“
I not only expect you to digest it,” Gloria said, “but I expect you to eat it up and ask for seconds. We’re talking about a little person you helped make, Paul. I don’t care if you’re confused.”

Paul threw back his head. “You are crazy. I am surprised Angel is not crazy like you.”

I’m crazy enough to skin you alive if you hurt my daughter in any way.
Gloria nodded. “You obviously have no interest in me, right?”

“
I do not think of you,” Paul said. “I did not think of you for five years, and I only think of my daughter now.”

“
Whom I raised pretty well, thank you very much,” Gloria said. “Angel is an exceptional child, and she was raised by an exceptional mother. And don’t go thinking you had anything to do with it. Angel is brilliant thanks to me and her grandma. What have you ever done for her? Huh? Did you teach her how to read? Did you supply her with books? Did you take her to the science museum even once? Have you nurtured her in any way, Paul?”

“
I will catch up. Yes. I will catch up quickly. She is in a private school, yes?”

“
No.” Gloria sighed. “I can’t afford that, but Angel will be brilliant no matter where she goes to school. She has many gifts.”

Paul jumped to his feet. “See? That is where I come in. I can afford to send her to the best schools. I only want what is best for her.”

Oh really?
“I want what’s best for Angel, too, but I don’t know if shipping her off to some private school will be what she needs. She’s only five. Maybe when she’s older.”

Paul puffed out his chest. “I was in private school when I was her age. And look at me now. I am a doctor, a professor, and have my name on major archeological findings. I have made my way in the world because of my private school education.”

So why’d you go to UVA?
Gloria thought.
They must have been hard up to get a prick like you. I’ll bet you put forks in electrical sockets for fun.

“
Angel will see that being around other gifted children will only increase her knowledge and improve upon her gifts.” He smiled. “Yes. My Angel will go only to the best schools from now on.”

“
She will go where I say she goes,” Gloria said. “And there will be no discussion about it.”

“
But you will ruin her future!” Paul cried. “You must—”

“
I will raise her as I see best, and that’s all there is to it.” Gloria smiled. “Humor me a minute, okay? If Angel didn’t exist, what exactly were your intentions for your visit this evening? Hypothetically speaking.”

“
I do not live in your hypothetical world,” Paul said. “Angel does exist, and I would have no intentions for you anyway. You are a woman who was irresponsible and got pregnant by a stranger she just met. No. I have no intentions for you.”

I could knock him out with a single uppercut to that arrogant chin of his.
“You think I’m an irresponsible woman.”

“
I do.”

Lord Jesus, I haven’t thrown a punch in a long time. Is this a test?
“And you haven’t been irresponsible in any way.”

“
I have not.”

Gloria shrugged. “You didn’t have unprotected sex with a strange woman?”

Paul started to answer and stopped. “What we had was a momentary lack of judgment on my part. If I had known what kind of woman you were, I never would have spoken to you that night.”

Gloria heard Marion hissing “I’m gonna kill him!” and smiled. “Did you have even the slightest feelings for me when we made Angel that night?”

“
Of course not,” Paul said. “You were certainly not the first.”

Maybe a shot to the stomach after the uppercut. Nah. He’d probably puke pizza on the porch. “So I was just one of your many conquests, huh? I was just another … excavation.”

Paul looked away, spewing a string of French. “You are a crude woman, not fit to be raising Angel.”

Gloria laughed. “Well, at least I’m not a two-faced, lying, arrogant prick who says he’ll do something and then doesn’t do it.”

Paul blinked.

“
At least I’m not a pompous ass who thinks he knows what’s best for the daughter he just met today!”
Whoo. I am getting worked up now.
“You know, Paul, I want you to leave right now.”
Mainly so I don’t punch you out, you puke, and my mama kills you while you’re retching.

“
I wish to spend more time with my daughter this evening,” Paul said. “We are working on a puzzle.”

“
She doesn’t need your help to do a puzzle, Paul.”
Not tonight, anyway. I may need him monetarily in the future, so I can’t burn this bridge entirely.
“Look, I’m a little angry with you right now, okay? Maybe once I cool off, we can discuss this again.”

“
How can you be angry?” Paul asked. “I should be the one who is angry. I have missed my daughter growing up. You did not try to find me!”

And here I was cooling off. Didn’t they teach him logic in private school? You don’t raise your voice to an angry, somewhat spiritual, no drama hot mama.
“You said you would keep in touch five years ago. ‘I will keep in touch,’ you said. Do you remember saying that?”

“
It is only a phrase.”

So is “death by grandmother.”
“Did you keep in touch? No. I gave you my address at school and my address here. You said you would write to me. ‘I will write to you,’ you said. Did you write to me? No. I would have told you about Angel if I knew where you were. But honestly, would you have left all that excitement, fame, and glory, settled down, and helped me to raise a child?”

“
I cannot answer that because it did not happen that way.”

I hope Mama uses dull knives. I don’t want this man to die a fast death.
“Let me put it another way. If you knew five years ago that you had a child in the United States, would you have come back to the United States to help raise her?”

“
Again, I cannot answer.” He stared at Gloria. “I have a feeling just now that you have trapped me.”

No. A fast death will suffice. God, send a lightning bolt! Give him leprosy … something!

“
I have read about this,” Paul said. “I have read that lonely American women trap foreign men with babies.”

Maybe I’ll just kill him and Mama can clean up the mess. It will be good therapy for us both.
“Paul, Angel is your daughter. Your name is on her birth certificate. Legally, you are her birth father, and also legally, I can have your wages taken to pay back child support to the tune of about twenty thousand dollars.”

Paul frowned. “You see. It is a trap. It is all about money with you Americans.”

“
It’s about freaking obligation!” Gloria shouted.

“
So coarse.” Paul smiled. “But I am not a U. S. citizen.”

“
What does that have to do with anything?” Gloria asked.

“
Your government does not have an agreement with my government for child support,” Paul said. “I have checked. You can get nothing from me.”

Gloria blinked. “How many children do you have? Or do you even know?”

Paul looked away. “It is none of your business.”

There are more children with his big teeth and bad eyesight out there?
“What, do you have children in France, Peru, and Egypt, too?”

“
As I said if you had been listening,” Paul said, still looking away, “it is none of your business.”

At least Angel isn’t an only child, but wow! I hope they never let him into Asia or Australia. Then Paul would have kids on every continent.
Gloria stood in front of Paul. “I can get something from you.”

“
No, you can’t.”

Good thing I researched all this legal stuff five years ago.
“You’re right and you’re wrong, Paul. True, the U. S. doesn’t have any agreements with France for back child support. But you know what? The state of Virginia does, and since you work for a university in the state of Virginia, and you live in the state of Virginia now, I can get your money, you filthy French freak!”