Read Daddy Issues by Kate Goldbeck Chapter 9 – watch, envious, as Nick opens his own door with his key.
“Come on in. Sorry about the boxes. We’re not completely unpacked yet.”
“This is my cousin Romily,” I say after we enter the gloriously cool apartment.
“Are you married?” Kira asks Romily as she sets down the pizza on the cluttered counter.
“No. I’ve been celibate for two and a half years.”
Kira furrows her brow for the first of what I assume will be a hundred times this evening. “What’s that?”
“Something you should ask your dad about,” I say quickly. “Romily works at Starbucks.”
“Only until school starts in the fall,” she says.
Kira’s eyes light up. She lets out a gasp. “I love Starbies.”
“I’m sure you do.” Romily turns to Nick. “Every time I see a pack of twelve-year-olds come into the store I want to burn my own hand in the warming oven.”
Kira seems to find this awe-inspiring rather than frightening.
“Romily is the person who opens the door first thing in the morning when it’s still dark out,” I say. “If she’s not there, no one gets coffee.”
“She works at Starbucks!” Kira exclaims to her dad.
“I’m the key holder,” Romily says gravely. “I have unlimited power.”
“Are you the key master?” Nick says in a voice that sounds like a growl. He seems to be waiting for one of us to nod in recognition. “Ghostbusters?” All three of us just stare at him blankly. “Bill Murray knocks at the door and Sigourney Weaver is all possessed and sexy and asks, ‘Are you the key master?’ ”
Kira makes a face. “Da-ad, don’t say that word.”
I think she means sexy, and I get it, because even at the age of almost twenty-seven, I feel weird when my mom brings up anything with sexual connotations.
“I’m the only one in this apartment who knows Ghostbusters?” Nick shakes his head. “I’ve never felt more ancient.”
“I’ve seen it,” I say. Then, because I’m afraid there might be follow-up, I add, “Maybe not all the way through. It’s one of my dad’s favorite movies.”
Judging by the look on his face, I’m not sure pointing out that he shares cultural touchpoints with my dad helped assuage the “ancient” bit.
While Kira tears into the cheese-only pizza, I look around Nick’s apartment: the exact layout of my mom’s place, except for the landscape of cardboard box mountains, anchored by a giant sofa that’s far too big for the space. Did the house he shared with his ex have an enormous den where this piece of furniture was the perfect scale for movie nights? Or do men instinctively purchase the largest sofas they can find, square footage be damned?
In my experience, anytime an uncoupled man needs to furnish a home, you will find some combination of the following:
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At least one black pleather couch or chair on cheap silver legs with nonexistent padding in the cushions.
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Heavy wood furniture sourced from Mom and Dad’s twenty-year-old castoffs, usually comically large dressers and dining tables. (Yes, I have no room to judge here, this is simply an observation.)
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If he has a porch or balcony, at least one camp chair, which he claims is “so comfortable.”
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A corner of the room devoted to analog music, including a record player and a few choice vinyl albums that probably only get played when someone else is in the apartment to see it. Occasionally this area will include hardback novels by Cormac McCarthy and David Foster Wallace, or Dune, and feature a knockoff Eames lounge chair and footstool.
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In dire cases, the bedroom will consist of either a futon or a mattress on the floor. Sometimes a crate of some sort will serve as a bedside table.
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A giant fucking TV. No matter how poorly equipped he is, there will always be at least one giant fucking TV.
Nick’s apartment doesn’t follow the basic pattern, aside from the TV. Maybe he has yet to unpack his music-credibility-establishing record player.
“Have you used this yet?” I hold up the Bundt pan that’s currently serving as a receptacle for Kira’s colored pencils.
“You know, it’s weird,” he says. “She put the pencils in there yesterday and they have yet to produce a Bundt cake.”
“Must be defective,” I say. “But it’s the perfect bowl for microwave popcorn.”
“We just eat popcorn out of the bag,” Kira replies. I had no idea she was listening. She’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, double-fisting slices of cheese pizza while Romily scrolls through streaming options on the giant TV.
“But it’s so much fancier to eat it out of a pan that looks like an ancient helmet,” I say. She ignores that.
Defeated by the selective hearing of a nine-year-old, I turn back to Nick. “I can quietly take it to the donation box and hide it under some old textbooks. My mom will never know.”
“No, I’ll keep it,” he says. “Someday maybe we’ll surprise you with a Bundt cake.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Kira calls, rising from the couch, pizza still in hand. “Don’t come in.”
We watch her march to the bathroom, shut the door, and turn the lock. If it’s anything like my mom’s bathroom, the quality craftsmanship left a sizable gap between the bottom of the door and the floor and there’s no such thing as total privacy in there.
Nick leans toward me. “Just to be clear, I don’t go in there. I think she picked it up at school. They’re all obsessed with privacy.”
“It’s a challenging age,” I whisper, “in terms of bathroom etiquette.”
“She asked me if periods ‘hurt’ the other day.”
“And what did you say? I would love a man’s perspective on menstrual cramps.”
“The blood part is confusing to her,” he says. “She kept asking, if you’re bleeding, doesn’t it hurt? I can’t argue with that logic.”
“I went through a phase where I was obsessed with blood,” Romily remarks. “It’s a very natural curiosity.”
With that topic definitively ended, Nick offers me a slice of his pepperoni and mushroom pizza.
“I haven’t unpacked the plates yet,” he says, tearing off a piece of paper towel from a roll sitting on the counter. “But I do have some drinks in the fridge.”
I’ve grown used to living in a place with a consistently stocked fridge and pantry, so I’m a little shocked when I open Nick’s refrigerator and find Gatorade, some sparkling water, a filtered water pitcher, and a half-empty two-liter bottle of Cherry Coke. In the door there’s an overflowing container of individually sized condiments: packets of hot sauce in three different levels of hotness from Taco Bell, those little mustards and soy sauces from the Chinese takeout place nearby, tiny containers of barbecue and honey mustard sauces.
“How long have you been building this collection?” I ask.
“I haven’t been to the store in a couple days,” he says. “And why would I throw away perfectly good condiments?”
“You’re very resourceful.”
We hear the toilet lid slam. Instead of a flush, there’s Kira’s muffled but chipper voice. “Hey guys! It’s Kira…”
“What’s she doing in there?” I whisper.
“Hope you’re all having a great day!” she says. “Things are pretty good here…”
Nick and I stay very quiet, both bending our heads toward the bathroom in the way that you do when eavesdropping.
“Sounds like she’s hosting a Twitch stream,” Romily says at a normal volume.
Nick and I stay huddled for a few more seconds, listening to her talk about her day at school in that particular cadence that people do in social media videos. She’s already mastered a fakey animated lilt to her voice.
“She doesn’t even have a phone,” Nick says, keeping his voice down. “She pretends to film vlogs on her game controller, which doesn’t even have a camera. At least, I don’t think it does. Maybe she’s practicing? I don’t really understand it.”
“It’s probably like a form of journaling,” I suggest. “It doesn’t matter if anyone’s watching it.”
“It makes me glad I grew up in a world without tablets. My kid wants total privacy from me, but she begs to use my phone so she can send all her innermost thoughts out to the internet. Kids used to have diaries with actual locks on them.”
“Yeah, get off my lawn!” I say, raising my fist like an old man yelling at a cloud. To my surprise, I make him laugh again.
“Yes, we’ve already established that I’m ancient. Almost forty. I belong in a community for active seniors.”
“Then you moved to the right apartment complex.”
“You’re right.” He doesn’t exactly laugh this time, but he’s sort of grinning at me in a way I find…flattering. Like I’m worthy of his full attention. For a second, I forget where I am. I don’t even notice the bathroom door open.
“I’m named after Major Kira Nerys,” Kira says as she rejoins us.
“Who?” Romily asks.
“Guess,” Kira says.
“A…historical military figure?” I say, because I don’t see Romily participating in a guessing game.
“She’s a fictional military figure,” Nick says. “From the Bajoran resistance.”
Rom and I stare blankly.
“She’s a character from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”
Romily nods in recognition. “Levar Burton is literally the only man on Earth I respect.”
“No, he was on Next Generation.”
“You named your daughter after a Star Trek character?” I ask. I hear the slight note of judgment in my tone.
“It’s a pretty name in any context. At some point we’ll watch the show together and she’ll feel proud to be named after a Bajoran freedom fighter. Deep Space Nine isn’t as popular, but after the third season, it gets so good. The character arcs are outstanding. Even characters that start off as these comical archetypes get very intense—”
“Da-ad.” I get the sense Kira has heard him wax poetic on this topic before. “I’m still hungry.”
“You still have half a pizza,” he says. “Not that you should be eating the entire thing.”
“Can I have something else?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know!” Kira opens the fridge, looks inside forlornly, and shuts it again. Then she points at a phone number on an index card affixed to the fridge door with a magnet. The name Nora is scribbled on it. “This is my mom’s number.”
“Oh.” I scramble for the right reply to that. “Cool. It has lots of fours” is what I come up with.
“That’s me as Aragorn,” Nick says, nodding at a piece of artwork pinned to the fridge with a magnet. “From Lord of the Rings.” It’s a pretty decent marker drawing of a man with a giant head and beard and a comparatively tiny body.
“Super impressive,” I say very seriously. “With very accurate facial hair.” I turn to Kira. “You must be really proud that your dad is such a good artist and drew an amazing self-portrait.”
“I drew it,” she says indignantly. “But a long time ago when I was little. I can draw a lot better now.” She turns to Romily and issues a command: “Both of you come in my room, okay? I wanna show you my OCs.”
I’m so accustomed to passive-aggressive requests from my mother that I’m shocked into submission by Kira’s directness.
Romily and I dutifully follow her as Nick reminds her to say please when asking grown-ups to do something.
She responds by telling him he’s not allowed to come in.
Kira swings her bedroom door open, and it hits me that she lives in this apartment’s version of my room. It’s the office—with its identical beige carpeting and mirrored-door closet, but the walls have already been reskinned with posters and framed pictures. Nick must have unpacked her room first. She’s going through a transitional phase—the hallmarks of tween interests fighting with childhood toys for real estate. Every surface is covered by a stuffed animal, naked Barbie, discarded piece of jewelry, oversized hoodie. I see a few tubes of tinted lip balm that I assume is her first entrée into makeup.
Kira directs us to sit on the floor across from her.
“I’m gonna show you my characters.” She has her dad’s dark, expressive eyes but with light auburn hair and a heart-shaped face. I wonder if her mom is a redhead.
She produces a thick drawing pad from under one of the floor piles. Flipping to the first page, she starts talking at us: “This is Lucas. He has purple in his hair and his power is reading minds. He’s kind of quiet, but he’s also nice. He’s Lana’s boyfriend, but when he tells her bad stuff about his life, she doesn’t listen to him or give him back anything positive, so he’s sad about that.”
I blink at a page almost soaked through with marker ink, featuring a very large head on top of a pair of tiny shoulders. “Lucas” has anime-style eyes and does indeed look like a sad boi with purple in his hair. Fourteen-year-old me would’ve gotten along well with nine-year-old Kira.
“Who’s Lana?” Romily asks.
Kira stares at us like it’s utterly ridiculous that we don’t know who Lana is.
She lets out a huge sigh and flips a few more pages so she can explain the backstory of why Lana doesn’t give Lucas the attention he craves. I notice that all her characters have various combinations of fluffy fox tails or horns or wolfy ears.
“Oh,” I say. “Are they furries?”
Kira glances up at me. “What are furries?”
Romily and I look at each other, silently asking, Do you want to field this one?
“Well,” I say, being careful with my words. “Some people are…really, really interested in animal characters. Some of them dress up in animal costumes.”
“Whoa, really?” Kira says, sitting up straighter. “They dress up?”
Romily nods. “Yes, but only about twenty-five percent of all furries own partial fur suits. The most common item is a tail—”
“I want a tail!”
“—according to the International Anthropomorphic Research Project.”
“Why do you know that?” I ask. While I’m no stranger to obscure internet research rabbit holes, Romily’s ability to retain statistical data on niche topics is unmatched.
“That’s so cool,” Kira says before breaking into a shout. “Da–ad!”
Nick cracks her door open and pokes his head in. “Everything okay?”
“Dad.” Kira stands up. “Do you know about furries? Can I get a tail?”
“A furry?” He looks at me, eyebrows raised, but not particularly alarmed.
“It’s a fetish for only ten percent of the fandom,” Romily says.
I shrug helplessly at Nick. All I can picture is Kira typing Am I a furry? into her tablet’s search engine.
“Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll do a little more research so we can talk about it, okay?”
Kira looks back down at her drawings and adds thoughtfully, “Actually, some of my characters have feathers or scales, which isn’t the same as fur, so maybe I need to be my own thing.”
“Then there’s your answer,” Nick says, shooting me the tiniest little relieved grin as Kira gives him a hug around the waist.
It’s such a precious father-daughter image that I don’t even clock her ulterior motive:
“Can I have des-sert now?” Kira asks in that very specific singsongy whine that kids seem to think helps them get their way.
“Did you fill out your reading journal? Mom’s taking you to the library tomorrow.”
“I know what I’m gonna write,” she says without answering the question.
“Then you better get it done now if you want ice cream. That’s the deal.”
“What kind of ice cream?” Romily asks, following Nick out of the room.
I pick up one of Kira’s drawings, tracing over the heavy black marker outlines with my index finger.
“Are you on Discord?” she asks.
“Aren’t you a little young to be on messaging apps?”
I get an indignant sound in response. “All my friends are. My dad lets me use his phone.” She reaches up onto her bed to grab a tablet with the handle and the purple case. “Here. Put your name in.”
Kira hands me the tablet, open to the Add Friend screen on Discord. I consider it. This would definitely be a talking point in a Dateline investigation should, God forbid, something happen to any of us. On the other hand, I guess this means a kid likes me enough to start a chat with me. Win?
I type in my username.
