So Much for Expectations

This is a follow-up to We Had Our Time (Romance, 7/10/22).

Having high expectations was a sure-fire path to disappointment. Chad Houston knew that and therefore he tried to keep his expectations in check. He had just had a wonderful time in Florida with an amazing girl from suburban Philadelphia, a one Whitney Chaney who was over twenty years his junior but who nevertheless appeared as enamored with him as he was with her. Would this turn out to be just a late summer fling or something deeper and longer? He hoped for the latter, yet was realistic enough to know that what had happened in West Palm and Orlando was likely to stay there.

Upon his return to Maryland, he went about his post-retirement life--exercising, riding his bike, playing his guitar, checking out romantic prospects on Our Time and Match. As he had told Whitney, he hadn't had much luck with those dating sites. Still, it didn't hurt to keep looking. He was retired, he had the time. But he was also an incurable romantic and wanted to resume with Whitney in the "real world" what he had shared with her on vacation. Her 'miss you' texts were a hopeful sign that they'd get together when she returned. He wondered if they could work out the logistics of doing that. She lived with her parents, which meant that she'd need to come to Baltimore for overnights. Not unless he booked a hotel in Philly or her parents were so liberal that they'd allow her middle-aged boyfriend to stay with them. Which also begged the question: How would Mr. and Mrs. Chaney feel about their twenty-two-year-old daughter dating a man in his late forties? Not good, he imagined.

Whitney didn't think her parents would jump for joy either. She didn't tell them Chad's age right away. Just that she had met this "wonderful guy who plays guitar and is in great shape." The truth came out when they asked what he did.

"He's a bicycle mechanic?" Emily Chaney, her mom, asked incredulously.

"Yeah, he's retired from state government," Whitney said. "He once did that part-time, now does it full time."

After Whitney revealed his age, her mom said, "Of all the boys your age and you picked a man old enough to be your dad. I don't get it."

As far as Whitney was concerned, there wasn't much to get. Chad's age had never been an issue with her. He was just this guy who pleased her on several levels, who happened to be in his late forties. And maybe that was a good thing because he had the wisdom to put things in perspective for her. A recent college graduate, she wasn't sure which direction to go in. At one time, she wanted to go into law. Now she wasn't so sure. Perhaps law school but perhaps pharmacy school as one of her friends was doing. But that would require her to take prerequisite courses like chemistry and physics in order to even apply. She didn't take any of the hard sciences in her four years at Penn State. She felt stifled by a lack of direction. But Chad had soothed her angst. 'Don't worry so much, things will work out for you,' he had said.

She couldn't wait to see him again. She missed him, every part of him. His wisdom, his guitar playing, his jacked body and his warm, passionate kisses while he made love to her. She was more than willing to drive to Baltimore and stay at his place. But before she could do that, there was a catch. A big catch. Emily and her dad Miles wanted to meet him first. "I'm not exactly comfortable with a guy of my generation dating my daughter," Miles had said. "And if he had a daughter, I'd bet he'd feel the same way."

She might be an adult but she still lived under her parents' roof. She called Chad to tell him. "Look, I know that having to meet my parents under these circumstances is a bummer," she said. "Nobody likes to be scrutinized, and you shouldn't have to be. But it's the only way I can see you."

She fully expected him to say, forget it. Instead, she heard this: "Whitney, you're worth the scrutiny. So let's make plans."

Chad empathized with Whitney's parents. Therefore, he was willing to be scrutinized--if that was the proper word. Beyond that, he didn't know how things would go. Should he get a hotel room or would this be just a day trip? Would he pass their scrutiny at all? He felt a little like the proverbial Dirty Old Man. It's not the way he felt in Florida because neither Whitney or her friends, Jasmine and Sarah, made him feel that way. Initially, her friends might have poked some good-natured fun at the age disparity between himself and Whitney, but it didn't last long. Ultimately, his age didn't matter. Yet now it did because he had to "present" himself before people around his age in order to get their approval for dating their considerably younger daughter. Just having to do that made him conscious of the age difference. A bemused friend's 'rockin' the cradle' remark didn't help either. Regardless, he was determined to see what might happen between himself and this young girl with whom he had become so smitten.

And so, on the last Saturday of September 2018, he got into his Malibu and drove up to Devon, a suburb fifteen to twenty miles outside of Philadelphia. It looked to be a nice place to raise a family, (he had checked it out online), with a good public-school system and varied housing, from upscale to middle-middle class. The Chaneys lived in a single, late 1940s-era, two-story brick house that sat on close to an acre of land, surrounded by old trees. The Chaneys had added an addition, a den with bay windows. On top, they had built a deck bordered by a white wood railing. A brick walkway began at the front door, then wound its way to the right side of the house and ended in back.

He was nervous when he pulled in front, the same sort of nervousness he felt years ago before meeting a blind date. He was self-conscious about looking "presentable." No jeans this time. Instead, he wore casual slacks and a powder-blue, long-sleeve button-down shirt. He checked himself in the visor mirror, primping his hair. His guitar sat in its case on the backseat. Have guitar will travel. It proved to be a valuable asset in Florida. Perhaps it would be here as well.

He didn't have to wait but a few seconds after ringing the doorbell. Whitney opened the door right away, as if she had been looking through the window, waiting for him to arrive. She greeted him with a huge smile, wearing jeans and a loose-fitting blouse. He also noticed she was barefoot. She hugged him in the doorway and whispered, "I missed you."

"I missed you, too, Whitney. And that's an understatement."

Moments after Chad entered the living room, Miles and Emily Chaney emerged from the kitchen to greet him. Chad's initial impression: this was a good-looking couple who had lived a good, healthy life. Emily's hair was the same shade of brown as Whitney's and styled in a manner befitting a woman who got her ideas from chic fashion magazines. Miles, like Chad, had all his hair, brown with flecks of gray. His face and prominent chin bore a two or three-day growth of stubble--by design it looked to Chad. 'Stubble cool,' he called it. Both looked good in their casual weekend duds, trim and fit. No doubt, these were people who took care of themselves.

Emily offered Chad a drink. "We also have wine if you'd like."

"No thanks, I'm good," Chad said, even though he wasn't so good. He could have used a little alcohol, and perhaps Emily sensed it also. What he wanted most was to get this thing over with as soon as possible.

Because it was such a nice day, Miles suggested that they talk outside on the deck. Chad thought he had the right idea because being outside, amid the sounds of chirping birds and the warmth of hazy, early autumn sunshine, made him feel more relaxed, as opposed to the potentially stuffy atmosphere of being indoors.

Emily, in tight white slacks and wearing black flats, crossed her slim legs. There was no talking about the nice weather beforehand; she got right down to business. "So, Whitney already told me some things about you. You're divorced and retired from government service. You play the guitar and exercise a lot."

Chad nodded and raised his right arm. "Guilty as charged," he said, a comment designed to get a chuckle. But no one did.

Miles, who'd been eyeing Chad warily, said, "Chad, we normally don't, well, interview Whitney's potential boyfriends. It's only because you're a generation older that we're doing this."

"I understand," Chad said. "If I had a daughter, I'd feel the same way."

Miles brushed aside Chad's empathy. "Do you always go after young girls like Whitney?"

"Hold on there, dad," Whitney cut in. "Chad didn't hit on me, if that's what you're implying. I was the one who approached HIM at the Marriott pool."

"She began splashing me," Chad said. "I was reading a book."

Emily laughed. "Yeah, I can see you doing that, Whitney."

Miles, his left leg half-crossed over his right knee, stroked his chin, as if searching for what to say next. "So how did you go from reading a book to whatever happened next?"

Whitney spoke up again. "Dad, come on. As I've told you and mom, it was a chance meeting at the pool. We talked, we had dinner, we went to the beach, we...well, we had fun. In other words, we hit it off. I missed him terribly when I thought he was returning to Maryland. But then, Jasmine and Sarah..." She paused to blink back tears. "Sorry, I get emotional when I think of this part. But then Jasmine, unbeknownst to me, called Chad and arranged for him to come to Orlando and surprise me." She reached for his hand. "I wasn't sure if I'd ever see him again."

Chad, seeing her tears flow, slid his hand up and down her arm to comfort her. He wanted to do a lot more. But under the circumstances... Then he said: "This whole thing took me totally by surprise. If someone had told me that I'd meet a young girl on vacation, a girl young enough to be my daughter, and that she'd have even the slightest interest in me, I'd have told them they were nuts."

Emily nodded, sympathetically, it appeared, while Miles, wearing a tight-lipped frown, still looked none too pleased. He looked like the kind of guy who had as near a perfect life as one could have, with minimal adversity, with things usually going his way. Yet now he was confronted with a situation that to him seemed way off kilter, that skirted the edge of what he considered normal, that was potentially threatening to his beloved princess and therefore threatening to him. At least that's the way Chad read things.

Chad continued: "Look, if seeing Whitney will cause her problems at home, then I won't see her. She's an adult, of course, but she still lives under your roof. Let me just say that I'm very fond of her. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. She's quite special."

Whitney, wiping the last of her tears, turned and kissed him on the cheek. "And so are you, Chad Houston."

Miles shook his head while unbuttoning the next to top button of his yellow, long-sleeve shirt that he had neatly tucked into his khaki shorts. Then, drawing a look of resignation mixed with incredulity, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Chad, I've always said that if Whitney's happy, then I'm happy. That's not to say that I'm comfortable with this thing. Far from it. You seem like a decent guy, just one too old for my daughter. But that's her choice. And no, this won't cause problems for her at home. She's got other issues, like either going to law school, maybe pharmacy school or getting a job until she decides what she wants to do."

Chad nodded, remembering their walk on the beach where Whitney revealed that she was uncertain of her future. "Yeah, we talked about that in Florida."

"And Chad told me not to worry about it," Whitney said. "That in time, I'd find myself. What he said made sense. Since our talk, I haven't been so anxious about what I'm going to do for the rest of my life." She formed air quotes around 'rest of my life.'

"Do you know what you're going to do for the rest of the DAY?" Emily asked. "I'm sure that Chad didn't come all this way just to meet us and then drive back to Baltimore." She looked at Chad as if asking him also.

He shrugged. "I'll leave that to Whitney. After all, it's her town."

Whitney had had her legs tucked in on her chair the whole time. Finally, she stretched them out, along with her bare feet. Then she said: "Well, I had planned to take him to lunch at Jimmy's Place. The food's good, Chad, I think you'll like it."

"Works for me," Chad said. "I'm getting hungry."

"Just put your shoes on, Whitney," Miles added.

Whitney stood up and yawned while stretching the full length of her five-foot-six-inch body. "So, mom and dad, meeting adjourned?"

"Meeting adjourned," Miles said.

*****

"I bet you're glad that's over," Whitney said, while directing Chad to the restaurant.

He shrugged. "It wasn't so bad. It's not like they gave me the third degree or anything. Your parents seem nice enough. They seem to trust you. And now me, I guess."

"Yeah, I guess they do. My younger brother Ronald. Well, he's another story. He's away at college, his freshman year. A stud, he fancies himself. Got a girl pregnant in high school. The girl had an abortion, much to my parents' and Ron's relief. Dad told him that if it happened again while he was still in school and the girl didn't abort, he'd need to drop out of school and go to work."

Well, maybe the Chaneys didn't have such a perfect life after all, Chad thought. He then asked Whitney if she wanted kids someday.

"Maybe someday," she said. "Let me get through graduate school first. That is, if I can ever make up my mind what I want to do with my professional life."

Minutes later, Chad pulled into the parking lot of Jimmy's. It looked like a big greenhouse, a boxy building with glass walls--he could even see plants that surrounded the interior. After unbuckling her seatbelt, Whitney said, "You know, we haven't kissed since you got here."

The meeting with Whitney's parents had so diverted Chad's focus that he hadn't thought of that. Until now. "Well then, we've got to make up for lost time."

In-car make-outs was something he did from his teens to early twenties. Doing this with Whitney Chaney brought make memories, fond memories of Whitney Lyons, the one he dated for two years. During his recent Florida vacation, the same vacation where he met the younger Whitney, he surprised Whitney Lyons with a visit to her home in West Palm Beach. He had yet to tell this Whitney, the one he now held and kissed, about that visit. He saw no need to. He didn't know how she'd take it. Most girls, he figured, after becoming intimate with a guy, wouldn't like it knowing that said guy had paid a visit to his old girlfriend. It was no big deal to him, but this pretty girl he now held might think otherwise.

In any event, it was time to forget about years past and focus on the present. "Your hot kisses make me wish we were back in Florida," he said.

"Oh Chad, I missed you so much," she said, her voice soft and whispery. "Missed that time on the beach, with you rubbing sunscreen all over my body and then making love back in the hotel. But I don't want to leave what we had back in Florida. I hope we can carry on up here."

Of course, carrying on was the reason he drove all this way to see her. And so far, things were going great. He had passed the litmus test with her parents. And now he was sitting in this restaurant, munching on a club sandwich of sliced turkey, a side order of chips, washed down with a tall glass of iced tea. But where would they go from here?

He was about to ask when he got a text. The number looked familiar but he couldn't quite place it. Then he saw the name: Whitney Lyons!

HI. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW THAT I'LL SOON BE COMING TO MARYLAND TO VISIT RELATIVES. MAYBE WE COULD MEET UP? LET ME KNOW.

Without answering, Chad tucked his phone back into his pants. "Oh boy," he whispered.

"it's nothing bad, I hope," Whitney said.

"Um, no, not really." The text confused him. Hadn't Whitney Lyons told him it was better for bygones to be bygones?

Whitney kept her eyes glued to him while sipping her iced tea. "Not really? Chad, you look a little flustered. Should I ask who sent you that text?"

Should he tell her? He wasn't going to. But maybe now he should. Sometimes disclosure was called for. It was a form of trust. "Remember when I said that you remind me of another Whitney that I dated years ago?"

"Yes. Ohmygod, don't tell me that was her."

"That was her."

Whitney shook her head and laughed. "And she's trying to reach you after all this time? How would she even know how to get in touch with you?"

He then revealed that he had paid her a surprise visit when he was in West Palm. "I did it on a whim after I met you and before I returned to see you in Orlando. We caught up on each other's lives, sitting in her backyard. I told her about meeting you. Honestly, I thought I'd never hear from her again."

Whitney was no longer laughing. Nor did she smile. She looked incredulous. "So why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it was important."

After a few moments of tense silence, Whitney said, "You know, Chad, I had a feeling when you first told me about her that you missed her. I mean, you did research on her, knew she was divorced. And you even kept a picture in your wallet of you two on a beach in California. Who does that but someone who misses an old flame? But I'm curious. What were you hoping to achieve by going over to her house?"

Chad was beginning to regret his disclosure. He felt cornered, more tense than he felt in front of her parents. "Nothing, really. It was just something to do on my last day in Florida. Of course, that was before Jasmine called me. I felt down in the dumps after you left for Orlando. Missed you like crazy. As for Whitney, I had no expectations. In fact, I didn't even know she still lived there. For all I knew, Steve, her ex, got the house. It was an adventure, just something to do. Like I said, I told her about you, told her that it was more than just a brief hookup over vacation, that we made plans to see each other when you returned to Philly."

"So what is she texting you about?" Whitney sighed and shook her head. "Forget I asked that. It's none of my business. I have no right to tell you who you can or cannot see."

One disclosure deserves another, Chad, thought, thinking the conversation had reached a point of no return. "No, I think you deserve to know. She told me she's coming to Maryland to visit relatives and suggested that we meet up. When I left her house, we agreed to keep in touch but by email or phone. I didn't expect--or want--anything more. She even asked me to update her on how things were going with you. But getting together again? Truthfully, I'm not sure where she's coming from."

Whitney nodded while looking down, twirling her fork into her coleslaw. Then, looking up, she said, "Chad, we hardly know each other. Sure, we've been intimate, but we really don't know each other that well. But here's the thing. I like you an awful lot and want things to progress between us. I just want you to know that."

Think before you leap, the old proverb goes. But when Chad saw Whitney on the verge of tears, he didn't think. Instead, he acted impulsively in a way he never did before. He stood up, leaned across the table, stuck his hands under her arms and lifted her up. Then, in full view of other diners, he came around to her side and wrapped his arms around her. "And I like you an awful lot, as well, Whitney Chaney." He kissed her.

In hushed tones, Whitney said, "I want you to make love to me so bad right now, I can't stand it."

"I'd like nothing better than to do that," he said, grinning self-consciously at the diners in proximity grinning at them. "But where? I'm sure your house isn't a suitable venue."