Dad hit his “midlife crisis” early. But I suppose he had a reason. Mom developed leukemia when I was five and died three months later. That’s when Dad started hanging out with strippers.
I never thought he’d marry one, though. But he did. When I was seven, a busty 20-year-old who went by “Cinnamon” was suddenly my new stepmom.
To her credit, Cinnamon took well to her new responsibilities. While Dad was working long hours and making money he didn’t have time to spend, Cinnamon transitioned nicely from stripper to housewife. She quit her job at the Bottomless Pit and focused on vacuuming, laundry, food shopping, cooking, and making sure she kept Dad happy in bed. I wouldn’t say she went full Stepford wife, but she was definitely a credit to the household. And she made sure she knew what was happening with me. “You doing all right, David?” “How’s your homework coming, David?” And as I got into high school, “Need help figuring out the girls, David?”
I managed to graduate without having too many issues along the way. Ended up dating three girls – one for 4 months while I was a sophomore, one for 2 months while I was a junior, and one for five weeks while I was a senior (that one ended badly: I caught her making out with a guy on the basketball team, called her a few very nasty things, and told the guy if he really wanted to have a cheating skank as his girlfriend, he was welcome to her, but that if she cheated on me with him, nothing was going to stop her from cheating on him – once a cheater, always a cheater.) I was on the track team as a pole vaulter for all four years.
I made plans to take a “gap year” before starting college. Quite frankly, I needed the down time. My high school was one of those where you had to work hard academically to succeed – they didn’t just shove you on through. My dad had bought me a new car (not a fancy one: a Kia Optima, to be precise) for my 18th birthday, and I spent June and July volunteering at various animal shelters around the area on weekdays and chilling with my friends on weekends. Nothing fancy: we’d go to someone’s house and eat dinner and watch movies, or we’d have a picnic in the park and bring things to grill, or we’d sit around and play video games. (I didn’t hang out with people whose idea of a fun time was to get drunk off their asses and pass out. I never quite understood how giving yourself a hangover was supposed to be an awesome thing.)
And then in August, for whatever reason, the company my dad was an executive at decided to try and expand into Russia. They sent a negotiating team over there, of which my dad was one. I never found out exactly what went wrong, but the team was shipped back to the United States air freight – in very small boxes.
I’d never seen Cinnamon so distraught. Every day for a week she would sit on the couch next to me and bawl for hours. Money wasn’t the issue (Dad had a massive life insurance policy he’d purchased on his own, plus the company had taken one out on him, and neither Cinnamon or I would ever have to work again.) I cried with her for the first three days before my tears were expended. We both really loved and missed him.