I was up making pancakes when Cassidy walked through the door. She dropped her bag by the couch and sat down at one of the kitchen table chairs.
“Hey, mom. How was your night?” I set a plate of pancakes fully loaded in butter and syrup down in front of my daughter.
“It was fun. How was yours?” Cassidy shrugged
“It was ok.”
“What’s wrong honey? Didn’t you have fun with your friends?”
When I became friends with Courtney, Kelly, and Sasha we had ended up raising our daughters together. Cassidy, Alex, Jessica, and Emily had become friends and stayed friends over time.
“I guess,” Cassidy said with a shrug. “They’re just different from me. They’re beautiful with these tiny bodies and little clothes. I know I’m nowhere close to being overweight, but I’m not thin like they are, and I tend to wear baggy stuff. I guess I just feel out of place with them anymore.” Cassidy said while stuffing her mouth with pancakes. I sat down next to my daughter and looked at her.
“Honey unlike them, you’re not a stick. You’re curvy young women. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen and there is no reason why you should feel like you don’t belong. You’re growing older. So it’s normal for you to like or want to do different things and that’s okay.” Cassidy took after me with her red hair and light skin tone. She had an hourglass figure and was an average height.
“Mom, you’re my mother and you’re supposed to say things like that to me but I know you’re right. I know I’m beautiful, but I also know I’m different from them. I like food and reading and school. When they like makeup, boys and low-calorie foods that have no taste.” I got up from the table and ruffled my daughter’s hair.
“Honey I wanted to talk to you about something.” Cassidy took a big bite out of her pancakes before saying
"Yeah, mom, what’s up?“ I handed her a napkin.
"Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s gross.” I sat down again and said, “How do you feel about me dating?” Cassidy swallowed.
“Mom that’s great! You haven’t dated since before I was born!”
I shook my head, I couldn’t believe my daughter knows how long it’s been since I had been on a date.
“Mom if you want to start dating, does that mean I can too?” Cassidy asked while looking down at her empty plate using her fork to play in the syrup.
“Is that the reason you never go on a date with a boy? Because I don’t?”
“No that’s not it.”
“Then why haven’t you started dating?”
“I don’t know. No one ever asked me and I never really knew how to talk about it.“ I smiled at her.
"Then yes you can start dating too.” Cassidy took her plate to the sink before turning around and looking at me.
“Mom if we’re really going to do this than we should do a complete makeover. New clothes, a new look, everything.” she watched as I thought the idea.
“That sounds like a great idea. When would you like to go?” Cassidy thought it over.
“How about today?”
“Today should be fine, I have to go to work for a couple of hours, but when I get done I’ll pick you up and we can go.” Cassidy smiled and ran off to her room leaving me to clean up the kitchen. After I finished cleaning up I headed to my room to change for work. It was surprisingly warm for October. So the weather was still nice, I pulled on a gray shirt with pink sleeves and a pair of clean jeans and pink converse shoes. Grabbing my work bag and keys, I stopped in Cassidy’s room to say goodbye. She was dressed in a baggy hello kitty tank top and light blue leggings. She wore a large teddy bear necklace that hung low against her shirt. She sat on her bed packing her purse full of skittles and suckers.
“Where are you off to?” Cassidy looked up from what she was doing.
"I’m going to go to the movies with Emily. She wants to see a scary movie and I said I would go with her. There’s a two o’clock showing, so I should be home by the time you get home from work.“
"Okay, have fun and bring me home some popcorn.” I handed Cassidy a twenty and gave her a kiss on the cheek before heading out the door.
I always go to work on Saturdays to catch up on paperwork. That way I don’t have so much to do during the week. I work as an executive assistant for my best friend Keven Sanders. He is a good boss and a really good friend who owns his own construction business. I don’t just sit around the office and take calls for him all day, I also go to the building sights and design some of the houses he builds.
When you walk in you see the waiting room. The walls are painted a light blue, two large tan couches sat across from each other, a glass coffee table dividing them. Photos of some of the houses Keven built hung on the walls. My desk sat off in the corner of the room; there are two doors in the office, one off to the right that led to Keven’s office and one off to the left that leads to a small restroom. I sat my things down on my desk and headed into Keven’s office to get all the paperwork I have to do. Coffee in one hand and a stack of manila folders in the other and I was ready to go. I was an hour in and a fourth of the way done with my stack of papers when I heard Keven’s truck pull up. The darn thing was so loud you could hear it coming down the street. I pulled out another cup and fixed his coffee the way he liked it. A spoonful of sugar and some french vanilla creamer. He walked in the door and I handed him his coffee.
“Hey Danny, have I ever told you that you work too hard?” I smiled at him and laughed.
“Every day for the past sixteen years.” Keven sipped his coffee and gave her a hug.
“How was your weekend?” he asked taking a seat in front of my desk. I shrugged.
“It’s been fine. What about yours?”
He grinned. “Went out with some buddies of mine last night and had a good time.”
“Any one I know?” I asked.
“No, they’re old friends from high school. They’re deciding whether they want to move out this way and came up for a visit. Two of them are on their way here now. The other one has some work thing to do but we’re meeting up with him later.”
We talked for a while about work and Cassidy. Keven has been in her life since she was a baby. I had been taking college classes and was running late to one while pushing a crying baby around in a stroller and trying to dig through my backpack when it fell open and all my stuff came tumbling out. Keven had seen the whole thing and headed over to help. I ended up missing the class and going out with him for coffee instead. We had hit it off pretty well and had become good friends. He told me about his plans to open his own company. So after a couple of months, I switched my major, got a three room apartment with him and that was that. He helped me with Cassidy and we worked together on school work. When we graduated he moved down to Columbus to start up his business with a friend from high school. I would send him sketches of houses and he would pay me for them. Which made it easy for me to raise Cassidy. He came up and spent every holiday with us and after a few years when his company was doing well he moved back to be close to us. That’s when I had started working in the office.
Two men pulled into the parking lot and came into the office. Guessing they were the friends Keven had told me about; I poured them each a cup of coffee and handed it to them as they walked in.
“See guys, didn’t I tell you she was the best,” Keven said from his office as they walked in. I blushed and held out my hand to the two new guys. “Danelle this is David Anderson and Thomas Michelson,” Keven said introducing the two men. My eyes widened at the last name.
“Oh, your Kevin’s partner. You run the office in Columbus.” Thomas smiled at me.
“Nice to know that I’ve been talked about. It’s a shame we haven’t met before this, but this is the first time I’ve been able to get time off to come visit.”
“Oh, how long will you two be staying?”
“We’re not sure. We’re waiting for our friend to get out of a meeting.“ David said.
"We’re meeting up with him later. There really isn’t anything for the good Doctor to do in a construction office.” Thomas said.
"What is it that you do David?“ I asked confused on why he was there.
The man clutched his chest as if he was in pain.
"I’m wounded, Kevin. She knows about Thomas over there, but not about me?” He took my hand in his and brought it to his lips of a light kiss.
“I’m a lawyer, mostly based out of Texas. Keven and I go way back and he’s trying to talk me into expanding out this way so I can work with him.”
I nodded. “Well, I hope everything works out.”
Keven smiled at me. “We won’t be staying very long. I only wanted to show them the plans for Salem’s lot.”
I smiled and went back to work.
I left work around 3 pm hoping to relax for a little bit before my shopping trip with Cassidy. My house is a small three bedroom, windows cover the front of the house with a large porch that comes down to a small circular deck. There is about a yard of grass before you hit the sand and open water. I walked up the steps to the front door and went into the living room. I set my work bag on the small glass kitchen table. The rooms were small but I’ve always felt that the scenery made up for it. I laid down on the old black leather couch in the living room, picking up a book to read.
“Mom wake up! Hello! Mom!” I woke up to Cassidy tapping my shoulder. I wiped the drool from my mouth and sat up.
“What time is it?”
Cassidy dropped down next to me on the couch.
“It’s five, I told you when I would be home.” She laughed at me. I put my arm around her shoulders.
“I guess you did. Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, I’m just waiting on you.”
“All right I just need to grab my purse and we’ll be off.“
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