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David Young did not like the boys his daughter dated, didn't like the boys she chose to hang out with. It wasn't necessarily that they were bad kids, or they did bad things. Sometimes, they just rubbed him the wrong way, sometimes he just didn't like the way they spoke to her. To him. To their own parents. Even the good kids, the nice kids. He didn't often like them either.
His right as a father, as her father. The father of a smart girl, a bright girl. She was like him, she likes math and buildings. She was like her mother, liking music and dance. The best of both of them, and he wanted the best for her. It'd be the same for his youngest, when she was old enough to start liking boys. When she stopped looking at them like lepers.
John, however. John Baum he liked. He was smart, in a scary smart kind of way. Good at things that Allison couldn't quite get a handle on. Nice to her. Good with her. But quiet. Quiet in a way that worried him, quiet in a way that concerned him. Until he met John's mother. Then he got it. Sort of.
She rubbed him the wrong way. In the way that made him think of all the boys he didn't like, in a way that made him think of stories he'd see in the papers, kids that Claire would tell him about after school. On the weekends. He didn't get it, no. But he got it. And he didn't like it.
Not at all.
So David went out of his way to to like John Baum, to make him feel included in his family. Talked to him, maybe talked to him too much. Showed him things. Plans. Blueprints. Buildings. Maybe he was overcompensating for the lack of others, but he wasn't sure that he cared. There was something wrong in that kid's homelife.
He didn't know what it was, but he wanted to fix it. And today...he was going to talk to John. Not about anything specific. Just talk. Just listen.
John was never sure what to make of Allison's parents. They were nice, which had been it's own confusing as hell sort of thing to get over. Then again, so was Allison, and John had spent the first month and a half of his time at Palmdale High trying to figure out why the hell one of the prettiest girls in class kept talking to him.
Over a year later and he still wasn't sure why.
Either way, Allison was his friend. They worked on homework and he helped her with computers while she helped him turn his bizarre math into something the teachers wouldn't fail him on, just for not being able to show his work. It was...cool. Nice, normal, what have you. A sharp contrast to everything else going on in his life, especially since his mother seemed to be getting worse.
He was always really nice around her parents. Well, they were nice to him so it seemed like it was only fair. He was also careful because the last thing he wanted was for any of them to realize just how weird he was. How weird his mother was. The secrets they were keeping. John didn't want his one friend to be the reason why everything fell apart.
Sometimes it was a really difficult balance to keep. Sometimes he wasn't sure he could.
This afternoon found him knocking on the Young's front door. He never came in until he was invited, never forgot to knock. Never stopped her parents from talking to him by asking something inane like "Is Allison here?". They weren't stupid. Why else was he there?
Besides...sometimes he didn't mind it. Sometimes.
So he'd invite John in, of course. Offer him a drink, something to eat. A snack. Dinner, if it was late enough. The kid often looked like all he ever ate was food from the diner his mom worked at. He'd never admit it when asked, but half of David's time during John's visits was spent trying to get John to stay longer. Stay away from his home longer.
Today, however, he let him in and gestured towards the living room with his head. "Allison's late. Rescheduled dance class. Shouldn't be more than an hour, hour and a half tops. Get you a drink?"
Yeah. David Young was nice. But he wasn't a stupid man.
"Oh, all right. Coke, if you have it?" The less discussed about what John actually manages to eat, the better. (Hint: diner food is where it's at, even though he's half convinced his mother is the most God-awful cook in southern California). "Thank you." John will sit. He doesn't fidget around Allison's parents. He doesn't fidget around anyone; fidgeting brings attention to himself. Strange, uncertain body language does the same. He counts the windows instead.
John had David's attention the moment he started hanging around his daughter, fidgeting or no. Uncertain body language or not. "I do have coke." Of course he has coke. He has two kids. Half the fridge is probably coke. A quick jaunt to the kitchen, and he'll return with two bottles of it, and a couple of glasses of ice.
"School going okay?" He doesn't pretend that he doesn't notice Allison helping him with his math. He just doesn't understand exactly what she's helping him with, since the kid is clearly smart.
"So far, yes." Like it isn't? John will nod his thanks for the soda, and the glass, look for a coaster and use it. Because he's noticed everyone else in the living room uses coasters. "There's a programming project we're working on. Due in two weeks or so." Which is why he's here!
Nod, nod, nod. "She doing okay with that?" He also doesn't pretend that he doesn't notice that his daughter isn't that great at computers. Point of fact, he thinks that it's strange, considering how good she is at math. There was, in fact, a time when he considered that maybe she was pretending at not knowing computers that well.
That time, for some reason or another, has long passed. She's just not good at them.
She isn't, and John also considered the same thing. Until he watched her try to turn the math into programming language. That's the disconnect, although he has no idea why it's that way. "It's a process, but I don't think it's going to be overwhelmingly difficult." They'll do it in steps. As long as John thinks someone can ask her about the project and she can explain it in basic terms, they're doing good.
Which isn't to say he doesn't run over it every time she changes something. "Okay, though."
She's detail-oriented, David often thinks, and when she can't make the details fit she gets lost. When they don't fit, like with dance and music and math. "Good. Good. How're things at the diner?" It's a round about, sneakish way of asking 'how's your mom?'. He's not proud of it, but he suspects a more direct question would get a shut-down.
John glances at Mr. Young over the lip of his glass. It's not a very long glance, but the kind that establishes that John is aware of what that question is about. Just so everyone's on the same page. "Hectic," is his answer when he sets the glass back down. Which applies to both the diner and his mother's mental state, so John doesn't feel like he's lying. Except by omission. "Things should calm down soon."
Another nod. Hectic isn't great. Hectic worries him, worries Claire. He's never talked with Allison about John's mother, isn't about to start now. But he wonders what she'd see, what details would pop out, if he asked her. "Maybe we'll stop by Sunday, if it's not too hectic."
They stop by the diner every sunday. Hectic or no. Because he worries. Because Claire worries. Because Allison doesn't. "She tell you about her party?" Allison's birthday is more than a little way's off. But it never hurts to butt in a little. Does it?
"I don't know if I'll be there, but. If I am, I'll say hi." He won't be, though he'll think about it. Being around other people while being around Sarah is getting complicated. Difficult. "She did, yeah."
Define hurt? Something goes across John's face anyway, a small internal struggle before he replies with "I don't think I'm going to be able to make it, unfortunately."
John not being there makes it easier to watch Sarah, though. Makes it easier to try to figure her out, to try and figure out exactly what's wrong with her, what she's doing to her kid. Why John's so quiet.
David Young does not like Sarah Baum. And he wants to know why.
"She'll be disappointed," and that was true. If he knew his daughter, she'd already made it clear how disappointed she was. "But she'll get over it." And that was probably true too. "We're getting her a mountain bike." A blue one.
That would be because Sarah Baum is incurably insane. And there are days when her son believes everything she says and there are days, like today, when he thinks he'd build the machines himself if it meant he could live out the rest of his life like a normal person. However, he's spent so much of his life hiding in one way or another that hiding this part of his life isn't as hard as it should be. Sometimes.
"She's already...upset." Fishing for the word, there. John's never sure what to do when he manages to upset Allison, but it's not like he could explain. 'My mother says the machines are coming, so we're leaving the week before your birthday, I'm sorry' just wouldn't work. "A mountain bike?" Small smile. "I think she'll like that." Not that her dad needs his input on what to buy for his own daughter, but. Stranger things have been asked of him. "I'm sorry that I'll miss it."
The fact that his daughter is not only disappointed, but apparently is upset is a little concerning. So he frowns, just the slightest bit. "Well, I'm sure she'll tell you all about it." She tends to talk about as much as he does. Like father, like daughter. He's seen how talkative she is around John, has no doubt that she will in fact tell him all about it.
John nods. Recounts the windows, quickly. "Yeah, you're probably right." Small laugh, again, but it's off. He's not going to be around for her to tell, he thinks. The way things are going. The way his mother is planning. So which is the better idea: make a clean, direct break and never tell her anything, or put everything she knows at risk with even the smallest bit of information?
He already knows which postcard he wants to send her, so perhaps it's not even a real debate. But there is more of that drawn-in quietness, now, in John's entire demeanor as he tries to lock that disappointment, worry, and fear away. No one his age should be that good at it.
Nobody John's age should be that good at half the things he can do, but that's probably evident. "If you like her, you should make sure she knows it." It's...odd advice to give a boy who hangs out with his daughter, he knows this. But it's the advice he's giving the boy who hangs out with the daughter who will apparently be upset by the lack of his prescence at her birthday.
In July, when he's bleeding out on the grass in Griffith Park with the sounds of his wife and daughters screaming around him, he'll wonder if he made a mistake in trusting John, believing in John. But then he'll see him taking care of her, holding her and know that he didn't.
"Let me show you something I've been working on." It's not really a question, John. Out come the blueprints. For a hotel, with a fountain in the middle. Isn't that...special.
There is no reaction to Mr. Young's suggestion. No stammering, or blushing, or darting eyes. No sudden response of 'oh but it's not like that'. John thinks that if he likes her, he should get the hell away from her. But he doesn't really want to, which is problematic. Worrisome. This, he'll come to think later, is why so much of the four years that follows is his fault. He should've stayed away when he realized how bad things were getting.
His reaction to the blueprints is to fold his arms and lean forward. He's always interested in the buildings themselves, the ins, outs, hidden places. Like everything else, his interest is muted by something. John doesn't exactly broadcast that he's interested in how the buildings are arranged. It looks like polite interest.
David will take polite interest. It's something. A reaction that doesn't worry him. It's not a lack of behavior. Polite interest is still interest. "Anything going on at school?" Another way of gauging what's up with John. Another way to poke.
David Young is not subtle.
Another Look. Sure, he's subtle. So was the Spanish Inquisition. "Other than the massive overhaul to ensure that most of the class graduates, not much." John and school rarely don't get along, with the exception of the aforementioned math teachers.
"Planning on going to graduation?" Some kids don't, David knows this. He didn't, and Allison has been making noises about skipping as well.
John shakes his head. "Pomp and circumstance really isn't my thing." Not to mention the complete and utter wreck it would be to have his photo taken on graduation. As it is, John's managed to keep himself from having to take a photo for school IDs since he started at Palmdale High.
Thank God for paper temporaries, eh John?
"Yeah, neither was I. Claire and I, we skipped and went..." oh, pause THAT train of conversation there, David. "Well. Nevermind." He flips over the blueprints, and look. Another set. For a ballet school. Cute.
Oh, the eyebrows. Went where, one wonders? Though John's not going to wonder aloud.
He'll tilt his head at the ballet school, though. "Do you think Allison is going to want to go into the same business, after college?" It's entirely possible that John hasn't asked her anything about her future plans in the last four months; because Allison will, in turn, ask him about his own.
Well, you'll never know if you don't ask. Maybe not even then.
He's surprised that John hasn't asked her, honestly, if he hasn't. David shakes his head. "No, she doesn't like the drawing. All the angles and dealing with vendors." Because, of course, he has asked. Of course he has. "She's been talking about engineering a lot lately. Robotics. Flexibility."
Make of that what you will, John.
Wow. Wow. That got a reaction out of John, didn't it? Some bizarre mix of horror and apprehension and amusement. What the hell? Of course Allison would go into robotics. "She'd be good at that. Attention to detail, and everything." Don't mind John, he's just drinking his soda and waiting for the world to end.
So. That's an interesting reaction, isn't it? He makes a note of that for later. "Yeah. She loves the details. You all right?"
"I'll...be fine, yeah." Another laugh. "Sorry." More soda! Less talking!
"Why are you sorry?" John, are you lucky enough that Allison comes home right now? Maybe you are!
"Mm." Oh hey it's the door. "Hi, Allison." No he totally didn't just shut down that conversation, what are you talking about Mister Young? Gosh.
Of course you didn't. David will just leave the two of you be. And go into the kitchen to ponder all of those reactions. Maybe later, he'll drive down to the diner and stare at Sarah Baum for a few minutes.
Allison, however, will sit down and peer at one of her father's blueprints. "The angles are off. Hi, John."
"How was your ballet thing?" Asks the boy with his Coke whose pulse is current going 50 miles per hour. Because she knows him, or maybe because her father managed to shake him utterly out of left field, John does not look at calm as he sounds.
"Good. Very educational." What, woman?
Because she knows him, the parts that he lets her know, she gives him a weird look. "What's wrong with you?"
"What was it, exactly?" And John shakes his head, just a little. Whatever is wrong with him, he's not going to talk about it in the living room with her father in the kitchen. "I'm fine."
She shrugs. "Videos of our last few classes, so we could see where we need work." She smiles at him, shaking her head. "You're lying. But okay, don't tell me."
"Oh." That makes sense. John, however, is too keen on being called a liar. At least not by Allison. "It's not like that, really. I'll be fine."
She shrugs, clearly not believing him and not wanting to push. "Sorry I forgot to tell you about it." And that you had to deal with her father.
Now it's John's turn to shrug. "It isn't the biggest deal ever, really." He kind of likes talking to her dad, anyway. "Ready to get started?"
Allison would not believe that if he told her. She grins, apparently ready. "Yeah. Great. Okay."
No one would. No one believes John when he says he likes things. "All right." Work! Time to get down to it.