Did She Say Yes?

Did She Say Yes?

“So, you say she was surprised?” Albert asks Stephen.

Albert sips wine and spills wine—someone's kid, not his, is crawling under his chair and accidentally hurts his head.

“I am sorry,” Albert says to the mother, who is right there, ready to comfort and attack at the same time. “I didn't do anything.”

The lady, without a word, takes the kid away.

“Fathers are not welcome here,” Albert says.

Then Albert looks around to make sure that his son, his Peter, is safely playing in the corner by the toy kitchen.

Albert and Stephen are sitting in a café, designed specifically for families with kids. A decent selection of snacks and wines is accompanied by a spacious kids' zone, stuffed with fairies and monsters, just like someone's nightmare.

“Why we are here?” asks Albert.

“Yes,” Stephen replies.

“What is this 'yes' for?”

“For—yes, she was surprised,” Daniel says.

Unlike his companion, Stephen doesn't drink. He eats instead, dipping a French fry into mayonnaise.

“Oh, was she?” Albert asks.

“Do you want to go one more round with this?”

Stephen is big. And not just in Albert's eyes. Stephen is almost of a green-painted cupboard size, the one that is behind him. Only Stephen doesn't smile, and cupboard has a senseless cartoonish smile on it.

“Do you think kids appreciate that the cupboard is smiling at them?” Albert asks.

“Kids are not stupid, you know,” Stephen says, showing a bunch of meat in his mouth. “Look at my Betti.”

Stephen nods in the direction of the bookshelf, where a small girl is playing.

Albert notices that he forgot to take off his name tag from work.

“Now everyone here knows my name,” he laughs stupidly. “Not only in the bank, but in the café, too, everyone knows my name.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Stephen asks in a comforting tone.

He's just finished his meal, and his plate is as clean, as if it was never full.

Having put the tag away, Albert says:

“Why she was surprised? I mean, it's rather natural, that after you date someone for a while, especially someone with a kid, not a particularly young someone, you propose.”

“That's how it works for me, too,” Stephen says.

Three spoons of sugar drown in a tiny coffee cup.

“No offense, Marta was quite fed up with her previous marriage. It took her time to recover, to reconsider, to give it another shot.”

“Good to hear she has recovered,” Albert says.

His son, his Peter, shows up in tears. Someone took his toy, he says. Someone punched him, he says.

Albert immediately jumps up:

“Who hurt you? Point to the little bastard!”

“No wonder you don't feel welcome here,” Stephen says.

Then he turns to Peter.

“We will find you another toy and I will talk to the boy's parents, okay?”

It's okay for Peter. He actually doesn't mind a piece of cake, the one in a chocolate frosting.

“Do you think the kids will get along?” Albert asks, while Peter is uncoating his cake.

“They already get along,” Stephen exclaims. “It's not like me and Marta have just met. Betti, come here! Betti!”

Betti comes over. She's bigger than Peter, or looks so with a book in her hand.

“Do you want a piece of cake, sweetie?” Stephen asks. “The same as your friend Peter is having?”

Betti eagerly agrees.

“You see?”

This “you see?” is for Albert.

“They do get along. Just a week before I brought them both to Marta's and she gave them nice, trendy haircuts.”

“And what does this say to us?” Albert says and pats Peter's hair.

“I mean – do not worry, man. Your son is in good hands.”

The last day when Albert was at work was Thursday. Now it's Saturday. Stephen's and Marta's small ceremony, just for family, is on the next Saturday. How come he is wearing the same shirt from two days ago and didn't bother to wash it, or at least, remove the name tag? Was he too busy to look in the mirror?

That's what Albert thinks about. And when he is done with thinking, he stands up and punches Stephen in the face.

After they were kicked out of the café, and after their both kids stopped crying, Albert and Stephen made peace on a playground. Betti and Peter did not, though—while the girl was hiding inside the wooden house, the boy was sitting on the roof, trying to destroy the house with a stick and a plastic shovel.

“I get your point, I really do,” Stephen says.

He covers his cheek with his hand, but more out of politeness.

“I understand you are upset.”

“Only I am not,” Albert interrupts.

“...Just I wish you did it when the kids were not around. Now both of us will get a reprimand from Marta.”

“Yeah,” Albert sniffs, “this is something she is good at.”

Stephen shakes his hand.

“She's kind to me. She never screams, never tells me what to do. No shit like that. I am pretty happy with Marta. I honestly don't understand why you guys broke up.”

They stop talking and blankly look at Peter pouring sand on Betti's new haircut.

“I don't see the difference,” Albert finally says.

“What?”

“What did she do with their hair? I don't see much difference between their old haircuts and new haircuts.”

Stephen quietly belches and says:

“As long as she doesn't dye my Betti's curls, I am fine with anything.”

Both laugh. Their laugh makes Peter climb off the house and hide inside of it. Then Peter gives Betti a cookie from his pocket. A bit of cookie, more precisely. Betti accepts.

Albert and Stephen stand in the center of the playground—Albert in a stale shirt, Stephen with mayonnaise in his beard.

Stephen approaches the bench, but the second before he sits down, Albert shouts:

“It's freshly painted! There should be a sign!”

“I don't see the sign,” Stephen says.

“Well, go ahead and check.”

“Thanks for warning me,” Stephen says. “But I don't understand: if something is freshly painted, there always should be a sign.”

Instead of sitting on the bench, they walk around, intently and sullenly, like walking is the only thing they are supposed to do.

“You know that we are the same age?” Albert says. “Once I am old, you will be old, too.”

“I am sure it will be fun.”

Stephen looks at his watch. Albert looks around—the sun is slowly setting.

“I'd have a beer now,” Stephen says. “Yes, I will go home and have a beer. I will take Betti back to her mother, then I go home and have a beer... All alone in a flat. Nice. Wait, am I taking Peter with me?”

Albert reaches for his jacket in the backpack and then he remembers he has neither a jacket, nor a backpack with him.

Shivering slightly from the cold, Albert says:

“No, you are not taking Peter. He stays at my place tonight. Marta is working until late.”

Peter approaches and squeezes between the two men.

“I wanna go home,” he says to one of them, or to both, or to himself.

“We live in a strange world, right?” Stephen says.

“You are robotics engineer,” Albert replies. “Peter loves robots.”

“I do!” Peter confirms. “And Mommy does too.”

Stephen's phone rings. It's Marta. Marta asks about the kids. Marta says she will finish late—it's Friday, and summer is on its way, people want to look nice, the pub is overbooked, people wait in line. Marta says that if Stephen wants to grab a bite at a 24-hour diner, he will have to stay up until midnight.

Stephen manages to utter: “Love you, baby,” before Marta hangs up.

Then he says: “Peter, kid, bring Betti here, please. Time to go home.”

Peter obeys.

While the boy is away, Stephen yawns and asks:

“Tell me why you guys broke up. You have a six-year old son, you are an okay guy, she is an okay girl... Why?”

Albert replies after a pause:

“We just didn't enjoy being together. The weekends were a disaster. And you? Why did you separate with your ex?”

“I met Marta.”

“That's romantic,” Albert says.

“I am not sure this is the right word for it,” Stephen replies.

Albert and Peter each go their own way, and Stephen and Betti take the opposite directions.

“So, are we a family now?” Stephen asks before they leave.

“We are so not,” says Albert.