Page 74 of The Fed Sex Man

I started the car. “He was. The older I get, the more I realize I’m going to look just like him in a few years. He was thirty-nine when he died. If you saw a picture of him, you’d think we were twins.”

“Do you have one?”

I searched through my phone, retrieving one of the many pictures I’d converted from photographs to .jpeg files.

“Look at this one.” I handed her the phone. “It’s when we got the car.”

The photo was of my father and I standing beside his car, right after we bought it. She studied it for some time, alternating glances between the phone and me.

The corners of her mouth curled up as she handed me the phone. “You were a really cute kid. He was a very handsome man. He looks just like you. Or, you look just like him. Whichever way you want to look at it.”

I looked at the picture, and then at my reflection in the rearview mirror. I hadn’t made the comparison in some time, but she was right. I looked just like my father.

I set the phone aside and backed out of the driveway. “It’s crazy how much we look alike.”

“You’re his doppelganger.”

Her saying the word caused me to recall her likeness to Miss Garber. Although those similarities were what originally drew me to her, I now saw them as nothing but coincidental.

Jo was attractive in many ways other than her looks. She was kind, caring, and had a softness that surrounded her. I found an odd sense of comfort being in her presence, especially after we spoke of losing my father. The accident had been an off-limits subject since my father’s funeral, even to Shawn. My admitting to Jo about losing my father opened a door of recovery for me that had been shut since the day he was buried.

In short, I’d become grateful to have someone like Jo in my life.

“Doppelganger.” I chuckled. “I told you. We look like twins.”

“Do you have any of his mannerisms or characteristics?”

I smiled a prideful grin. “He picked up things with his toes. Socks, little toys I’d leave on the floor, that kind of stuff. I do the same thing. He had a little Nerf ball he’d throw at the TV, when someone did or said something he thought was dumb. I do that, too. I find myself saying, ‘What in the everlasting fuck’ more often than I probably should. That was his go-to phrase. I shave like him too. Sideburns first, every time.”

She seemed to savor what little I’d revealed, choosing to simply smile slightly in lieu of speaking.

I fixed my eyes on the road ahead and began reciting my father’s words of wisdom. “An unmade bed is the sign of a cluttered mind. When you’re wrong, admit it loud enough that everyone can hear. When you’re right, brag silently. Nobody likes a tattletale. Be conscious of the weight of your tongue, use it sparingly and wisely. Don’t ask questions if the answer is obvious, it’ll only make you appear foolish. Never leave a tip that’s less than five dollars; if you can’t afford to, you should be eating at home. Routines are recipe for good health; make them and stick to them. Treat your car the same way you treat your woman; with respect and kindness.”

I barely choked out the words of the last phrase. He’d reminded me of it on many occasions, as we were cleaning his cars or changing the oil.

I was a walking contradiction. It hit me like a speeding freight train. I lived my life in my father’s footsteps, making every effort to be the man he was. To make him proud.

Yet.

I’d spent my adult life treating women like sexual objects, not people. I gave the cashier at HEB more respect than the women I’d allowed into my life. I swallowed a mouthful of shame, and then looked at Jo.

“What…what do we have?” I asked. “What is this?”

Her face contorted. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“I’m going to your parent’s house to have Sunday dinner. We obviously like each other enough to orchestrate something like this. Are we dating?”

Her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Well, we haven’t discussed it. Do you want to? Be exclusive, or whatever?”

My father’s policy was to love one woman and love her with all your heart. My mother’s inability to adhere to the same rule was what caused the collapse of their relationship, and of my subsequent life. If I was going to mirror one of my parents, my mother certainly wouldn’t be that person.

Yet.

I had become the woman I’d spent a lifetime resenting.

“I’ve got no plans to be with any other woman,” I assured her. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m satisfied completely…” She wagged the tip of her index finger between us. “With you. With this.”