With my first story, Late Back, I got some probably deserved flak about the first chapter being a bit short and lacking enough action. Chapters on LE, I now realise, need to be more self-contained – cliff-hanger endings are not that welcome. Somebody else said I published it too soon, and I think they also had a point. With this story I've tried to address both criticisms. Although it's a slow build, I hope there's enough action to keep people satisfied, but I also hope the ending leaves you wanting more. Chapter 2 in 7-10 days, I hope. Comments and votes welcome.
Chapter 1 – Maggie, Summer
My memory is that it started something like this: An early summer evening, not yet end of term. My daughter Charlie was studying in her room with two of her best friends, Maggie and Liz.
Well, that was the theory. From all the noise and giggling and music it sounded more like a party to me. I was in my small study at the other end of the hallway from her bedroom, trying to get my report done. The noise was beginning to irritate me and I wasn't in the best of moods to start with.
"Charlie!" I yelled. "Turn it down!"
No answer. Of course not. Teenagers' ears work differently.
I sighed, got up, paced down the hallway and rapped on the door.
Maggie opened it.
"Hey!" she said cheerfully.
"Hey," I said, less cheerfully. "Any chance you could turn it down a bit?"
"Yeah, totally," she said. "Sorry."
She smiled at me and I couldn't help smiling back. Maggie, at eighteen, was tall, dark-haired, busty, gorgeous and cute and funny and... well, a total heart-breaker. She'd also managed to stay, as far as I could tell, a pretty nice person. Maggie spent an awful lot of time in our house and, much like all teenagers, seemed to treat it as interchangeable with her own.
"You know," I said, "I'm pretty sure that there is research that says studying goes better in an environment of quiet and calm."
I peered past her into my daughter's room and winced.
"And also, tidiness. Tidy room, tidy minds."
"Dad! Stop moaning." This was Charlie, from her habitual position on the floor. "It's MY room."
There were a million comebacks to this, but my years of Dad training taught me that none of them would be fruitful.
"Hi CD!" This with a friendly wave from Liz, who was lounging on Charlie's bed with papers all around her. (They'd called me "CD" – Charlie's Dad – for years now.) Secretly, Liz was probably my favourite of Charlie's friends, though I liked them all. Liz was more petite, shyer, more studious. She was a slim blonde, very pretty though the other girls were always nagging her to make more of an effort with her looks, hair and clothes. She resisted them, and I admired her for that. Resisting my daughter's demands had never been something I'd found easy.
"We're going to be SUPER quiet," said Maggie. "Like little mice. Creeping around."
She beamed at me again. She knew I was a pushover. They all did.
"Fine," I said. "Shall I fix some cheese – or some food at least - for you mice later?"
"Yes, but no carbs," called Charlie. "It's a no carbs week."
Again, a million arguments – you're perfect, you shouldn't worry about what you eat, etc, etc – all flashed across my mind and were rejected.
"No carbs," I said. "Got it."
I turned to go.
"Actually," said Maggie, "As you're here - I need some help. With my chemistry project. It needs to be three thousand words and I just can't seem to find enough to say. Would you mind? Please?"
"Ah," I said doubtfully. "I'm actually rather busy myself."
Maggie gave me a forlorn look and pouted sadly.
"Fine – I'll have a quick skim of it."
Since chemistry and biology are a large part of my day job, I found her project really quite basic. If she'd asked me for help with interpreting Hamlet or analysing the causes of the Second World War, I'd have been stuck. But chemistry – no problem. I read through what she'd done, made a few small corrections, and then suggested a revised, slightly expanded structure that should ensure she sailed past the requisite word count.
Maggie listened attentively and intelligently. When I was done – it only took about ten minutes – she gave me a sudden, quick hug.
"You rock!" she said.
"That's what all the girls say," I agreed.
"Ha!" This from Charlie, scornfully, not even looking up from her work. Even Liz sniggered a little.
"Seriously," said Maggie. "You're like a cross between Einstein and... that guy who invented the light bulb."
"Edison," I said.
"Yeah, a cross between Edison and Einstein and..." She stopped again. "I need another E... Eastwood!"
"Clint Eastwood?"
"Yeah! Totally. You've got that craggy, hard eye stare thing going on... very... er, cool." Had she been going to say something else? Anyway, I hoped she was talking about prime, late thirties, early forties Clint. Not eighty-something Clint. But sometimes it's best not to ask.
"Well," I said. "Er, thank you."
Maggie smiled again. I went out, she shut the door behind me.
I noticed that at no point had the music been turned down and, if anything, it now seemed louder than ever. But I let it go, and I strode manfully down to the kitchen, giving the hallway mirror a steely, Eastwood-like stare as I went.
Pathetic? Vain? Guilty as charged.
**
"Dad!" This was the following night.
I sighed under my breath, saved my file, and pushed the door open so I could call back down the hallway.
"What?"
"Can you come and talk to Maggie?"
"Maggie? About what?"
"That dullsville project thing of hers."
I resisted the temptation to sigh again, got up, and went down the hallway. Her door was open and Charlie was lying on the floor with her phone to her ear.
"Here he is," she said to the phone. "Talk to you later."
She handed the phone to me. I wondered briefly why I had to be the one to walk down the corridor to get the phone, as opposed to Charlie coming to give it to me, but I suppose teenagers' legs, like their ears, only work when it suits them.
"Maggie," I said to the phone. "How can I help?"
"Hi! I'm sorry to bother you again, but I'm still struggling a bit with some bits of the project. Do you think you could just run through it for me again? Just five minutes?"
"Sure," I said. I settled myself down into Charlie's desk chair. I don't know why I'd got her a desk and a chair, all her work seemed to be done stretched out on the floor and the desk just used for dumping clothes on.
"Get out," said Charlie, waving a dismissive hand. "I'm trying to read this snoozefest of a Lit Crit book for my English essay and I don't want you jabbering away about molecules and photons and lasers and stuff."
Resisting the temptation to explain that photons and lasers belonged primarily in the world of physics and not chemistry, I got up again, went out, and shut the door behind me.
"I've been banished," I said. "Let me just go back to my own office."
"Ooh," said Maggie. "Just the two of us in your private lair." Her tone was amused and conspiratorial.
Back in my office I went through my suggestions again, looking up a few documents online as I did so. She asked if I could email the links to her.
"You've got my email address, right?"
"Er, no, actually, I don't think I have."
She gave it to me, and I emailed off the links. Something about having her email address excited me in a small way. I'd always been very circumspect around Maggie, it would be easy, too easy, to ogle her and lust after her and generally be inappropriate. I'd known her a long time, I knew her parents, and, as the parent of a teenage daughter myself, I tried to behave as I'd like other men to behave around Charlie.
"When I've done these changes, would you mind having another look?"
