The Kings Of Cool

235

“I meant ‘sperm donor’ not as in ‘would you give me some sperm, please,’” O says, “but would you be the man who made a sperm deposit with, or rather with in, my mother that resulted in, well, me?”

Paul Patterson recovers his poise quickly and says, “Come in, please.”

He ushers O into a beautifully furnished living room that looks, well, old.

Old Newport Beach money.

Photos of sailboats on the wall. Wooden models of boats in glass cases.

“Do you sail?” O asks.

“I used to,” Patterson says. “Before I got… well, before I got too old.”

He is older than he was in her fantasy.

In her fantasy he was in his late forties maybe, handsome, of course, with just a streak of silver in the temples of his otherwise jet-black hair. In her fantasy he was athletic, he’d kept himself in shape, maybe he was a tennis player or a surfer or an iron-man triathlete.

The real man is in his early sixties.

His hair is wispy, a weird kind of yellow and white.

And he looks frail. His skin is translucent, like thin paper.

Her father is dying.

“Please sit down,” he says, pointing to an upholstered, wing-backed chair.

She sits and feels uncomfortable.

Small.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks. “Iced tea or some lemonade?”

O loses it totally blows.

All that pent-up emotional lava just freaking explodes.