Waltz of Her Life

"Sure, hon." When he followed her toward the kitchen, Linda grabbed him by his tie, surprising him, leading him toward the patio deck, where she knew they would be out of earshot.

Once the door closed safely behind him (and they stood out in the cold, steam coming from their breath), she started in on him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He shrugged, casually. "Helping my little girl get ahead. Showing her how much I love her. Lin, I'm a little surprised. I thought you'd be glad! She'll have her own computer. She won't pester you so much to use yours."

"Well, I expected her to earn it! Didn't she tell you about the deal we made?"

"Yes, she did. But hon, let's be realistic. It would have been next Christmas by the time she saved up enough money. In the meantime, I got her exactly what she was looking for at a killer deal."

"How much, Stephen?"

"They were phasing them out. The guy at the store said Apple's bringing in a whole new line of laptops."

"How much, Stephen?"

He swallowed, a momentary look of anxiety crossing his face before he straightened up and faced her, trying to sound confident. "Eight hundred."

"Eight hundred! Eight hundred!" Linda spun around, suddenly feeling very hot despite the freezing temperatures outside. "That's it. We're taking it out of her allowance."

"Well then what's she going to use for spending money when she goes to the mall with her friends? Lin, can we talk about this later? Hayley's in there waiting for me to come back and help set up her new computer.

"Fine," she said, and they went back inside, where it was warm. Rather than get herself aggravated by watching them set up the computer (and feeling like a fifth wheel anyway), she went to the kitchen to get to work on reheating supper. As she passed Matthew she stopped.

He was still on the floor, playing his games, and had probably missed all of the commotion going on in the dining room. "Your sister just got a new computer," she said.

"Good," Matthew said, as he blasted away another creature on the screen.

"Good?" Linda repeated.

Matthew looked back over his shoulder for a moment, to acknowledge her. "Then she's not going to hog the Playstation and the Nintendo so much."

Linda waved a hand at him as she turned and continued on to the kitchen. "Really, I wish you kids would spend more time in the three dimensional world." But Matthew hadn't heard her.