Castles

This is kind of a long one. If that's not your thing, this would be a good time to click the back button. I need to thank my team. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. My readers and editors are Hale1, Cagivagurl, Hooked1957 and Stev2244. I thank you all. Randi

*

I was enjoying my Tom Collins, idly channel surfing, when I heard the garage door and the rumble of her deuce. It practically shook the house. The door from the kitchen to the garage opened and I heard the clunk of her book bag as she put it on the table. Meyers was home. The refrigerator door opened and closed and I heard the sound of the top of one of those cans of that wretched sparkling water she loved so much pop.

She appeared in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, hip-shot. "Hey, dude, sup?" she asked.

"Hi, baby," I said. "Just chilling and winding down. It was a hell of a long day. You have a good one?"

"Yeah. I think I did well on my last final," she said.

"I'm sure you did," I said. "Doesn't matter. If you're happy, I am. I know you did your best. You always do."

"We'll see," she said. "Dad, graduation is next week."

"I know," I said. "Are you just reminding me, or was there something else you wanted to say."

"Something else," she said. She pushed herself off the door and came walking toward me. She took my breath away. She always had. The first time I held her, those huge grey-green eyes looking up into mine, her tiny little brown fingers clutching my big one, I was lost. She owned me, and I had never recovered.

When Stefanie, her mother and my wife, passed, she was three years old. It had been she and I against the world ever since. From the bubbly little girl in braids the first day of kindergarten to the stunning young woman she had become, without my noticing one day, she was my life, my heart.

She came and sat in my chair with me, her arm without the Le Croix around me, settling in as she always did, she relaxed with a sigh of contentment, her mass of curls soft against the side of my face and neck.

"Dad, I wanna go somewhere for a graduation trip," she said. "I want us to go, just you and me."

"Where were you thinking?" I asked.

"I dunno," she said. "I needa look at a map."

I got my iPad off the little table beside my chair and opened a Google map. "There you go," I said. "Are we talking a weekend, a week, longer?"

"Can you get away?" she asked. "I know you're finishing that big project."

"I can," I said. "You're right. It may take me a couple of weeks to close it out, but I won't have to look for anything else. We've already got the next year mapped out, but my boys can handle all the preliminary work."

She scrolled around the US for a minute, then looked at Europe. She sat her drink down and took my iPad, zooming in on Italy, opening a link and then another tab or two. "Hmm," she said. "Well, that sucks."

"What?" I asked.

"Bunch of racist mofos over there," she said. "You'd be fine, but not that safe for me."

"I'd take care of you," I said.

"I know, but Ion wanna be stared at all the time," she said.

"You're pretty nice to stare at," I told her. "Baby, people are going to stare at you everywhere you go. You're that spectacular. No one has ever seen anything like you before."

She laughed. "Yeah, right." She scrolled up to Germany and opened a link, then several more, reading the details.

I wasn't kidding about people staring at her. I watched her, marveling that this beauty could be my daughter. Of course, her mother had been something special, too, and she looked much like Stefanie had at her age. Meyers has a little lighter skin than her mother had, the influence of my genes, no doubt, and the combination of my blue and her mother's golden-brown eyes had produced that grey-green stunning combination in Meyers'. She was a creamy brown, long, slim-hipped and more muscular clone of Stefanie.

My reverie was interrupted. "Can we go here, Dad?" she asked.

"Here," turned out to be a place called Oberammergau. "Umm... I guess," I said. "I can't even pronounce that. What's there?"

"A castle!" she said. She was very excited and pulled up pictures. "It's near Munich, and just look!"

She scrolled through pictures of Neuschwanstein Castle, then another place called Linderhof Palace. That led to other links and we browsed German castles for the next half-hour.

"We could go to Munich, rent a car and go to all these dope places. Can we, Dad? Have you ever been to a castle?"

I laughed. "We can go there and do that, and no, I've never been to a castle. I have a princess, though."

"You know that doesn't mean what you think it means, right?" she said.

I was confused. "What?"

"Princess," she said. "It means you a piece of work, high-maintenance, used to getting your way, buy your clothes at the Limited, J. Crew or Banana Republic. Somebody you wanna bitch-slap."

I laughed and flipped the tag sticking up out of the back of the loose striped top she was wearing. It said, "Banana Republic."

"Oh, my God!" She burst into laughter. "I am!"

I laughed with her. "Well, I've never wanted to slap you, but yeah. When I tell you you're my "princess," I mean you're the sweetest, kindest, smartest, funniest and most beautiful girl I know. You're amazingly loyal, the best friend anyone could ever have and everyone who spends any time with you never wants to be anywhere else. Yes, you're a little spoiled, but you never brag or whine when things don't go your way. I'm so proud of you, Meyers."

She turned to look at me, gave me an odd look, then tears pooled in those huge eyes. She buried her face in my shoulder and burrowed in. "I love you, Dad," she murmured. After a minute, she raised her head. "So we can go?"

I laughed. "Yes, baby, we can go."

She squealed, kissed me and jumped to her feet, pumping her fist. "Yeet! I gotta tell Shalene!"

She went in the kitchen and came back with her phone, Snapchat open and her thumbs flying. She was occupied with that for a while, and I watched tennis. When she was done with her conversation, she went and got her laptop.

"Can I book all the arrangements?" she asked.

"Yeah, but give me three weeks," I said. "You have a graduation to attend, too."

She set her laptop aside and came back to my chair. "Can we talk about that?"

"What? Graduation?" I asked.

"Yeah. Ion wanna go, Dad."

I was stunned. "Why? Walk across the stage, be there with your classmates, throw your cap, go to a party, do all those graduation things. What do you mean you don't want to do it?"

"I don't care about any of that," she said. "It's a huge waste of my time. There are like three people in my class who aren't assholes. I would never hang with any of them except those three if I didn't have to be in classes with them."

"I had no idea," I said. "They all seem to love you. I thought you loved everyone."

"Well, I don't," she said. "I'm nice to them, but that doesn't mean I like them. They're a bunch of mean little shits, Dad." She waved away my frown at her cursing. "Well, they are. They're cruel and hateful to everyone who has anything that makes them different. If you aren't one of the beautiful rich kids, if you're gay, not cute, shy, nerdy, heavy, anything different, they are just evil to you."

"Well, they're kids," I said. "Maybe they'll grow out of it."

"They can grow out of it without me," she said.

"What about getting your diploma?"

"Dad, you know they don't give you an actual diploma when you walk across the stage, right?" she said. "They mail it to you."

"I had no idea," I said. "I got mine."

"Well, that was like 100 years ago." She giggled.

"Hey!"

"Well, Ion wanna go," she said. "I want to have a party, but here. Me, Shalene, Rob and Riley. Can I?"

"Meyers, you're 19 years old. You don't need my permission to have a party. You know that."

"Yeah, but I wanna drink and smoke good kush," she said. "I need you here and sober so nothing happens."

She knew I didn't like her smoking weed, but I'd always insisted that if she was going to, it was going to be at home where I could make sure she was safe.

"Okay, let me know when and I'll refrain from being knee-walking drunk," I said.

She laughed. She knew I rarely got more than a little buzz.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "You're not going to look back and regret not going?"

"Positive," she said. "I'd rather hang with you and have the gang come over after. I don't want to listen to speeches, I'm not about to give one, and I don't want to sit there for hours."

I hadn't thought about her giving a speech. She was second in her class, grade wise, and I guessed that would be something the school would expect.

She got up and went back to her laptop. "I need a credit card," she said, "unless you want me to put it on mine." I gave her one and she went after it.

She didn't go to her graduation. I took her to her favorite soul-food restaurant, instead. She drove. That was always a terrifying experience. Not that she drove fast, she didn't. What she did was pin you back in your seat like you were being shot out of one of those power-launched roller coasters every time you stopped.

She had driven our truck and car from the time she got her license until she was 18, then she wheedled me into buying her a hunk of rust. It was a 1932 Ford Highboy Roadster, and it was a mess. Yeah, she was a hot rod junkie. I always had been, and she caught the fever when she was a tiny little thing, tagging around behind Dad at the shops, asking me endless questions, and diving in doing anything she was big enough to do.

It had taken her eight months of work to get it done, and she'd had lots of help, but it was Ford English coach vermillion perfection, cranked out over 600 horsepower and she loved smoking the tires.

Seeing this stunning girl, braids hanging down past her butt, her Oakleys on, a mile of gorgeous brown leg stepping out of that beast in her red dress drew some attention. She always drew that attention, and a white man with a black girl young enough to be his daughter drew some scowls. I guess it never occurred to them that she actually WAS my daughter. That's the way it was, and we were used to it.

We had a great meal and she stopped at the liquor store on the way home. She wanted margaritas for her party and I got triple sec. We had the tequila and I had stopped and bought limes at the grocery store that morning.

I made a pitcher, had it chilling in the fridge and salt-rimmed glasses on the bar. The other kids showed up and the house was rocking. I was in my bedroom out of the way, watching a documentary and drinking one of those margaritas.

I could smell the pungent kush, then some sort of incense. From the sound of things, they were playing board games. I finished my drink, got ready for bed, put a podcast on my phone, my earbuds in and drifted off.

I heard the ping and looked at my phone. It was 2:30 AM, and Meyers had snapped me. "The Uber picked them up. Everything was great. Love you, Dad."

I turned off my podcast, took out my earbuds, snapped her, "KK, love you," and went back to sleep.

*****

I got my latest project out the door on time and cleared a very nice profit. Meyers had set up the travel arrangements and we took a Lyft to the airport. By the time we got our luggage checked and made it through those assholes at TSA, I was already stressed. Airline travel always bugged the hell out of me.

Meyers didn't mind, at all. Everything was an adventure to her. She had her headphones and was listening to some of her awful music. I have to admit, not everything she listened to was awful. She liked classic rock as much as I did, but her tastes were far more... eclectic than mine. She liked hip-hop, metal and about anything but country. We shared a loathing for that.

We sat in the departure area and she leaned against me, holding my hand, her leg, encased in her strategically ripped jeans bouncing to her music. When they called us to board, I squeezed that leg and she took off her headphones. We boarded and we were off on our adventure.

*****

When we landed in Munich, we claimed our luggage and went to pick up our car. Neither of us spoke a word of German, and I thought we might have an issue, but nearly everyone seemed to speak some English. She had made all the arrangements and I wasn't shocked to see she had us a red Mercedes AMG-SL convertible. We got our luggage in, but she didn't want to drive.

"Noo, Dad," she said. "I wanna drive when we get on the Autobahn, but you can drive in towns."

"That reminds me of something I wanted to ask you," she said. "Would you mind if I call you Bennet while we're here?"

"Umm... I guess not," I said. "That's my name, but why?"

"Ion wanna say now," she said. "I'll tell you, but later, okay?"

That was weird, but she did weird quirky things all the time. "Deal," I said. "I'll call you Meyers." She laughed.

We got our hotel location on her phone and it wasn't long before we made it. It was quite impressive: the Mandarin, Munich. They had valet parking and a bellhop collected our bags and took them up. She had booked us connecting rooms, and there were terraces and a very nice view.

She settled in and told me to dress nice, but casual. It was 10AM when we arrived, and in half an hour, she was ready to take me wherever it was she had planned.

We were walking, she informed me, and it was no surprise that our first destination was the BMW museum. There were hundreds of exhibits: cars, motorcycles and even aircraft. It quickly became apparent we weren't going to see everything in one day, and she led me a merry dance, flitting from one exhibit to the next like a butterfly in a flower garden, her excitement written all over her and listening intently to the headphones they had provided us.

She wore me out. She always had. It was evening and my ass was dragging when she finally announced she was "starving," and we needed to go find something before she resorted to cannibalism.

She held my hand on the way back to the hotel and chattered up at me like a magpie. "Bennet, have you ever owned a motorcycle?"

"I had dirt bikes when I was a teenager," I said.

"How come you never let me have one?" she asked.

"Well, Meyers, I hate to tell you this, I know it's going to be a shock to you, but you aren't the most... careful person in the world," I mentioned. "You're constantly busted up with your scooters, skates and skateboarding. God knows what you would be like with a motorcycle. I would constantly be visiting you in the hospital."

"Nuh-uh," she objected. "I almost never wreck! I'm hella good on all of them. I can do sick tricks, you know that."

"I do," I said. "I also happen to know you hardly have an inch of your original skin from figuring out those tricks."

"You are such a liar," she said.

I pushed up her sleeve over one smooth brown shoulder and there was the big scrape she'd acquired the week before on her scooter. "Tell me about this," I said.

"I can't believe... you... it's just a little scrape!"

"Keep telling yourself that," I said.

She burst out laughing. "Okay, I occasionally, very occasionally, wreck. I don't do dangerous shit that would kill me if I didn't hit it, though. I would be a very safe motorcycle rider."

"I don't believe you," I said.

She cocked her head to one side the way she always did when she was thinking about something. "I would make you promises," she said.

I knew right then that she was serious. She was nearly obsessive about keeping her promises. She'd always been like that. If she promised, she'd rather die than break that promise. "We'll talk about it," I said.

She squealed. She knew she'd won. "Sick nasty, Bennet. I'll figure out how to make you comfortable."

"We'll see," I said.

We showered, changed and she came walking in, ready to go. I took one look and my jaw dropped. "My God, baby, you are... spectacular." I could hardly get the words out.

She had on a dull yellow dress that was at least a foot above her knees, exposing all those muscular dancer's legs, heels that had straps up around her calves, her shoulders bare and there were acres of creamy brown skin exposed.

"Thank you, sir," she said. She did a little twirl for me, and her ass was barely covered by that dress. What an ass it was, too. She spent ungodly amounts of time in the gym, and it showed.

"Where are we going to eat?" I asked.

"Right here," she said, leading me to the elevators. "They have this place on the roof called the Mahjong Roof Garden. I have us reservations!"

I had to laugh. She was so excited by everything. She was in love with life, and she swept me, and everyone else around her, along for the ride. The restaurant turned out to be very, very good, and the view and atmosphere were top of the line. I dreaded seeing the bill for all this, but we were making once in a lifetime memories. I was going to let her run with the ball.

After we ate, she took me down to the lobby and we strolled around for a few minutes before she got an alert on her phone. Outside, a taxi was waiting, and she told the driver to take us to the Harry Klein club.

She had tickets, and we got in. They were having some sort of festival, and the place was packed. It was EDM, and as soon as we had one drink, Meyers was pulling me out on the floor. Dancing with her was an experience. She had been taking dance classes since she was like seven, and there was nothing she didn't know. I had been dragged along for plenty of them, and had picked up enough not to be embarrassed.

She wouldn't let that happen, in any case. She wove me into her web of motion, and she was pretty much on fire. She had changed her shoes into some comfortable flats, and when she went into her shuffle-dance routines, the floor cleared around us and we had a crowd.

There was a guy there whose wife seemed to match her energy, and they were bouncing around like rubber balls. He and I stood off to the side a bit and watched. He beckoned to me, we went off to a little side room where we could watch through the glass, the music wasn't so deafening and he said something incomprehensible to me in German.

"Sorry, I don't speak German," I said. "Do you speak any English?"

He did. "Most people speak some English," he said. "Are you from the US?"

"Yeah, that's my daughter," I nodded my head toward Meyers. "She graduated from high school and this is where she wanted to come for her graduation trip."

He nodded. "She is very beautiful."

"Thanks," I said. "Looks like your wife is a match for her. "I'm Bennet, she's Meyers."

He looked confused. "I thought you said she's your daughter."

It was my turn to be confused. He saw I didn't have a clue, and said, "You have different last names."

I laughed. "Oh, sorry, those are our first names." I shrugged. "My parents were weird, and so was her mother."

He smiled. "I'm Stephan, and my wife is Susanne."

The girls came over for a break, and I asked them if they wanted to get a drink and hang. They seemed to be in favor, so we found a table and talked while we had a drink. Meyers' legs were bouncing the whole time, and we had no sooner finished our drinks than she asked Susanne if she could dance with Stephan.

He tried to protest, claiming he wasn't any good at dancing and was just there for the music, but she wouldn't hear it and he was soon led forth, casting imploring glances back over his shoulder at his wife and me, while we laughed hysterically. He was a good guy.

I asked Susanne to dance, and she was as fun as Meyers. We hung out together until about midnight, when Meyers announced that we had an early morning before going to the palace.

Our taxi was waiting, and we got in. She slid over against me and I put my arm around her, pulling her close.