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“Oh. Yeah.” He looked both ways again, then turned onto the street.
“The first one is easy. You believed in me. When people believe in me, I like to live up to their expectations. As for why all the parts, you were right about two of those men not believing that a woman could beat them in poker. When people don’t believe in me, I like to smash their expectations.”
“Do you have a lot of practice at that? Smashing expectations?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her shrug. Then she finally answered. “Yes.”
No I guess from Marsie. She didn’t deal in guesses.
Then she surprised him by continuing to explain. Much like guessing, she didn’t often explain. “Sometimes, I do both at the same time. And disappoint, too. My dad, for instance. He expected me to be good at math, so I am. He expected me to be soft, so I try never to be. And he expected me to be something more than a researcher at a firm. So there he is, pleased and disappointed at the same time. Mostly disappointed.”
Jason was about to say, he’s crazy, because the man was. Marsie was one of the smartest people he knew. One of the smartest people in a building of smart people. But he also understood. “My parents are disappointed in me. They wanted me to be something other than blue collar, like they are. But I never wanted to do anything that didn’t involve me working with my hands and fixing things. So it was either be a carpenter or a mechanic. I guess I could have become a general contractor, but managing the building is more stable and I get control over a building for years, past completion and through several visions. I’ve enjoyed that.”
“Are they pleased, too?”
“Sure. Ultimately I’m a good guy. I’m not married yet and they want grandkids, but I have a full-time job that gives me benefits and puts money into my 401(k).” He laughed. “It’s basically everything they wanted for me to have with a white-collar job, without the fancy education. Or the salary they imagined came with it.”
“I’m not sure either of my parents are pleased. My dad thinks I lean too socialist in my choice of research. My mom thinks I’m too capitalist.” She laughed too, only hers was not as lighthearted as his had been. “Though, even with my mom’s freewheeling tendencies, she always expected me to have a job with benefits.”
He risked a quick glance at Marsie, who looked thoughtful. “She wasn’t as rebellious as she’d liked to think. An organic farm in the middle of nowhere was an acceptable option for her, but not for me.”
They were getting close to her house. He didn’t want to let her go. In the dark confines of his car, a little money in her hand and beer in her belly, Marsie was showing him a whole new side of herself. One that he knew had to exist, but hadn’t seen for himself. She was vulnerable and soft, and it only made her stronger.
And she made him want to be better. She’d always made him want to be better, since they shared that first cup of coffee, but he only now realized how much of an impact on his entire life she could have.
If she was strong, there was no way he could be weak.
“Would you have wanted to be a rebel?” He tried to picture Marsie rebelling. Maybe a goth look with heavy black makeup and black boots that went up to her knees and stomped everything in their path.
He couldn’t. Not the Marsie that was sitting in his truck next to him. She seemed too perfect as she was to ever be anything else.
“Not really. I don’t know that I ever considered being anything other than what I thought my parents wanted for me. Strange how I think they are both disappointed in different ways.”
“Are parents ever not disappointed by their children in one way or another?”
“I don’t know. I hope not to be. And not because I don’t think my children will be disappointing, but because I’d like to think I’ll let them be the person they want to be, rather than the person I want them to be.”
“Yeah. I imagine that I’ll fail at that. I mean, I’m not sure it’s possible not to think about all the things your kids might be in the future, and the person they actually become was never a part of that list.”
