The Meaning of Charlie Armanio

XVIII

           

TIERI SENT ME FLOWERS. A wild combination of red, gold and purple flowers tied together with a green ribbon. It was the first I had heard of him in about a month, and I didn't know what to make of this assortment as I held the stems in my hand.

"Who are the flowers from?" My father asked, seated on the couch in front of the television, with his feet against the coffee table. "James?"

I blush and don't make eye contact. He's smacking his lips together making tacky French kissing sounds, as he rubs his criss-crossed arms behind his back – so it looks like he's making out with someone. "Stop, it's not even like that."

"Sure it's not," he snickers and turns back to his show. "So, who are they from," he asks, as I find a vase and pace the flowers in them.

"You won't believe it if I told you," I say, sitting next to him on the large couch in the suite. At his raised eyebrows, I answer, "Tieri."

"Tieri as in Charlie's father?"

"Yep," I pop the 'p' at the end, even though we both only know one Tieri.

"With no card?"

With the card stashed carelessly in the pockets of my blue jeans, I reply. "With no card."

"That's odd, don't you think?" His eyes are glued to the television screen; he's too interested in the show to notice the lies spewing out of my mouth.

"It's Tieri," I shrug, watching him as he watches the telly, "it's not really odd to me."

He rolls his eyes, and is about to speak, but ends up deciding against it since minutes later, we're still in silence watching the show.

"Can I go out today?" I ask, hours later, perched on the island table, dangling my feet as I watch him flip a pancake. Earlier, while watching an episode of Come Dine With Me, and seeing a contestant, Mel – I think her name went – unsuccessfully flip her pancakes, he had told me – with all seriousness – that Poppy was attracted to the pancake flippers, and when I giggled, yeah, no kidding.

He rolls his eyes. "You're always going out somewhere." The sentence escapes smoothly and if it hadn't been for how he was avoiding my eyes, I would've thought he was just joking with the matter. "Monday after school, Tuesday after school, Wednesday after school," he lists off. He places the pancake on the stack he had been piling up for thirty minutes now, and turns away from me to pour more mix in the pan. "You're just always out," he clears his throat.

Now, you know how I felt.

It's not meant to be uttered, he's not meant to hear those harsh words that rehash the past that we had done a good job of – I don't know – leaving unhashed. But he does, and upon the last syllable leaving my lips, the pancake he was flipping, that had completed its stunt in the air, misses the pan by a long shot. His eyes are on me, identical brown eyes filled with worry and fear locked within one gaze.

His filled with fear that I will shut him out again and turn him away, fear that he was so cruel as to make his daughter feel like this for years without knowing. His filled with even more fear, fear that I would leave, fear that his last chance to reconcile with me was waster – damned to hell – because he uttered his feelings.

His filled with worry, worrying so much that his brows had furrowed and his lips turned downwards. His warm, coffee brown eyes captured so much by worry that they showed more emotion than waves upon waved of troublesome sea, whose vigour was confined – so it crashes and crashes against its captor.  His eyes were swimming in anger and it takes little time for billions of angry lines to spread across his forehead.