4. Father Figure

Justin leaned in the doorway of Lindsay Campbell's office, wondering with amusement how long it would take for the blonde to notice his presence. Seeing how his tall frame took up much of the doorway, it seemed like he would be hard to miss, but Lindsay was staring intently at something on her computer screen and hadn't even seemed to hear his footsteps approaching. It wasn't until her boyfriend sneezed that she finally looked up and noticed him standing in her doorway.

“Hey!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? How long have you been standing there? Why didn't Elsa tell me you were here?”

“Not that long. And I wanted to surprise you, so I told Elsa not to call you,” Justin replied, referring to Lindsay's secretary. He stepped into the office and was standing next to Lindsay's desk within two long strides. “Can you get away to go to lunch with me?”

“Oh.” Lindsay's face fell slightly. With as much as Justin was out of town, she generally jumped at the chance to spend time with him, but she also didn't like to back out on her weekly lunches with Shira. “Well, I usually go to lunch with my best friend Shira on Fridays, but I guess I could reschedule...”

“She could come too,” Justin suggested. “I don't mind if she doesn't mind. I'd like to meet a friend of yours for once.”

“She has been dying to meet you.”

“Really ?” Justin grinned down at her. Normally Lindsay wasn't that much shorter than him – she was about 5'10” herself – but since she was sitting and he was standing, there was a considerable difference in height. “Been talking about what a stud I am, have you?”

“Of course.” Lindsay smirked at him as she stood up and grabbed her sweater off the back of her chair. It was getting into mid-December now and the air outside was beginning to cool down, but it still didn't require a coat like it would back where her parents lived on the east coast. “I'm supposed to meet her in about 10 minutes at this cafe down the street that we always go to. We'll surprise her.”

“Sounds good. Hey, I think you forgot something” Justin stopped Lindsay as she headed out the door.

“What?” She turned to look at him inquisitively, sure she had her wallet on her, and she didn't really need much else for lunch.

Justin just smiled and placed a short, sweet kiss on her lips. “Hi.”

“Oh. Yeah. Hi.”

* * *

It was strange how, even on her days off, Kali often found herself spending much of her time in the main house, rather than in her own little home that she shared with her daughter. This was partly due to the fact that their house was so tiny – two bedrooms, a tiny living room and kitchen, and a bathroom – but it also had a lot to do with the fact that Justin's home felt just as much like her home as those five rooms did. When she had first moved onto the property, she had been careful to maintain a professional relationship and only be in the house when she was working, but as time went on, it just became natural to go back and forth between the two houses whenever.

So it was no surprise that on Friday afternoon, when she didn't have to work, she could be found sitting on a long black leather couch in Justin's living room, sweatpant clad legs crossed underneath her, black hair piled on top of her head in an unrecognizable formation, and nose buried in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. She had originally just come into the house in search of her favorite sweater, but had spotted the magazine and got distracted. It wasn't until her daughter, who'd only had a half day of school, came padding into the living room that Kali even bothered to look up from the CD reviews she was reading.

“Hey, babe,” she greeted Miriam with a smile. “How was school?”

“Schooly,” Miriam grunted in response. She plopped down next to her mother on the couch, and folded her legs underneath herself in a position nearly identical to Kali's.

“Not a word, but okay.” Kali glanced back at the magazine only briefly before she was forced to return her gaze to her daughter's clearly unhappy face. “So...what's with the pouting, Grumpy McGloomypants.”

“I'm not pouting,” her daughter protested half heartedly.

“Okay. What's with the...slightly turned down corners of your mouth?”

“Funny,” Miriam commented sarcastically. The small smile on her face offset her attempt at sarcasm, though, and her mother simply nudged her affectionately.

“I know, right? Now, are you going to tell me what's going on with you, or am I going to have to resort to threats of grounding or whatever it is that normal mothers do in situations like this?”

“It's nothing,” Miriam repeated half heartedly, staring at her hands to avoid looking Kali in the eye. She wasn't very good at lying to her mother, an unfortunate side effect of their close relationship. Upon receiving a poke in the arm from said mother, she decided to go ahead and open up about what was bothering her. “It's really stupid, it's just there's this thing tonight at school that I kind of want to go to, but I can't.”

“Why can't you?” Kali asked the obvious question. “Also, define 'thing.'”

“It's really dumb. They're having this 'Father Figure' dance for the winter holidays, but obviously I don't have anyone to go with.”

“'Father Figure'? What does that even mean? Is that like a father-daughter dance?” Kali's brow furrowed in confusion and she flipped her magazine closed, tossing it back onto the glass coffee table, and shifting her position on the couch so that she was facing her daughter.

“Well, they're trying to be PC or something. They know we don't all have dads, so they say 'father figure' so that kids can bring stepdads or brothers or uncles or whatever too. It's, like, uber lame, but everyone else is going and I...” her voice trailed off and she continued staring at her hands, trying to avoid saying the obvious – not only did she not know her father, but she didn't have anyone to replace him. No stepfather, no uncles, no brothers, no grandfathers that she knew. Nothing.

“Ah.” Kali's voice was considerably softer when she responded. It had been a long time since Miriam had mentioned or asked about her father, but Kali had a feeling her daughter had been thinking about him a lot recently, ever since she'd heard about the dance. She slid an arm around her daughter's shoulder, resting her head on the smaller one below her. “I'm sorry, babe.”

“It doesn't matter,” Miriam lied with a shrug.

* * *

“So, you're the famous Justin I've been hearing so much about,” Shira greeted her best friend's boyfriend, with an enormous grin as the three of them sat down to lunch. “I was beginning to think you didn't exist.”

“Oh, no, I'm definitely just a figment of Lindsay's imagination,” Justin joked in response. He was suddenly feeling very nervous. It had been a while since he'd done the “meeting the girlfriend's best friend for the first time” thing and it included a lot more pressure than he remembered. Almost as much so as meeting the parents, since experience had taught him that the opinion of the best friend could make or break the relationship.

“Well, then she has a very good imagination.” Shira gave Lindsay the patented best friend, “he's cute, nice work,” nudge.

“Thank you very much,” Lindsay responded with a conservative smile, opening the menu.

“So, uh...Shira, what do you do?” Justin inquired politely. Lindsay had mentioned her friend a number of times in passing, but she'd never gone into much detail.

“Oh, I'm in divorce law,” she informed him. “I'd ask what you do, but I do own a television. Not that Lindsay ever bothered to tell me.”

“Sorry,” Lindsay apologized, laughing at her friend's playful glare. “I did tell you he was in music.”

“That's really all you need to know,” Justin agreed. “The rest really isn't that important. I'm just a guy who loves music.”

“So humble. What about your family?” It occurred to Shira that this was turning into a bit of an interrogation on her part, but she couldn't help it – it was so rare that Lindsay stayed with a guy long enough for her to actual meet it, and she was curious.

“Uh, they're my family,” he laughed. “My mom and I are really close, I have two little brothers who are great, I'm really close with my grandparents. I don't know, I don't get to see them nearly enough.”

“I totally know what you mean,” Shira told him. “My family doesn't live in California either, and I feel like I hardly ever see them. Of course, they're psycho, so I don't always mind, but I wouldn't mind seeing my sisters once in a while. Lindsay's the same too.”

Lindsay just nodded in agreement, not really feeling like she could relate. Sure, her family was on the east coast, but she didn't really miss them. She could afford to see them whenever she wanted, but mostly she was too busy to even think about it. All she ever really thought about was work.

“Yeah, I don't know. It just sucks sometimes, not having your mom around all the time. I mean, she's around a lot, and it's gotten better since Kali and Miri moved in, since they're practically like my family now too, but still...”

Justin didn't really notice it, as talking about his family was something that was finally relaxing him, but both women sat up a little straighter, tensing a bit when he mentioned Kalani and Miriam Colobong.

* * *

Sometimes people ask me when and how Justin went from being simply my mother's employer to really being like a member of our family, and surprisingly enough I can pinpoint the exact moment when I felt like it had happened. It was the first Christmas after Mom and I had moved into his guest house. We'd only been living there a few months, and things were kind of weird at first. Mom didn't want me spending time in the main house, even though I always did when we didn't live there, and she tried to insist that I treat Justin with more “respect.” Which, essentially, meant she didn't want me treating him like a friend. It didn't work. Justin simply wasn't the kind of employer who wanted us to keep our distance and treat him like he was the king and we his servants. When he was at home, he would always ask us to eat with him, and he still hung out with me sometimes after school when I needed help with fractions and stuff like that. It was just the way things were, and eventually my mom realized that and began to let her guard down.

So, anyway, this Christmas, Justin was of course out of town with his family in Tennessee, and since Mom and I didn't have any family in LA, we were spending Christmas just the two of us. I didn't mind it at all. We'd been doing it since I was 6, and it was just the way things were. In Watts we would sometimes go to our neighbors' house for dinner or something, which was fun, but I was used to it just being Mom and me. I always kind of liked it, really. It was fun with just us and our little traditions. Cinnamon rolls and Christmas carols in the morning, Spam musubi as part of the Christmas dinner, things like that.

Christmas morning came, and Mom and I were opening presents, when we came across a pair of gifts that neither of us recognized. They were wrapped in shiny green wrapping paper with white bows, and looked as if they'd been professionally done.

“What's this?” I asked Mom as I pulled mine towards me. It was too big for me to actually pick up, which as a child was something that I always found extremely exciting

“Not sure.” She shrugged, a small frown forming on her face. She picked up the package with her name on it, and I saw the confusion leave her face around the same time it left my own. “'To Kali, From Justin.' What the hell did he do?”

I wasn't really paying attention to her much anymore, though, as I ripped my own package open. I let out a little shriek of excitement as I recognized the karaoke machine I had told Justin I wanted a few weeks earlier. I knew my mom would never get it for me, but I really, really wanted it and I had told him that. I never expected him to get it for me. “Oh my gosh! Mom, what did you get, what did you get?”

“Just some CDs we were talking about the other day,” she responded, not looking up from the stack of four or five CDs she held in her hand. I knelt over her to look and noticed the smile on her face. It was a small one, but it had a quality I hadn't seen in a while. She looked happy, and, I don't know, content. It was nice.

“What's this?” I inquired, picking up another part of her present that she hadn't mentioned.

“Earplugs. I'm guessing because he knows you will be singing all the time and driving me crazy now that you have that thing.”

“I know, isn't it great!” I exclaimed and jumped up and back over to my shiny new karaoke machine. I was about to open the box when the phone rang.

“You're closest,” Mom informed me. It was a rule in our house that whoever was closest to the phone had to answer it, so I reached over and did just that.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Miri, Merry Christmas!” a cheerful male voice greeted me on the other end.

“Justin! Oh my gosh, thank you so much for the present, I love it, it's just what I wanted, thank you so much!” I always had a tendency to talk too fast, and every now and then my mother would have to translate for me since she was the only one who could understand what I was saying. Justin seemed to get the gist, though.

“You're welcome. Can I talk to your mom?” he responded with a laugh.

“Sure!” I handed the phone off to my mother. “Justin.”

“Hey, boss man,” Mom greeted him, the small smile that had been on her face previously widening. “Yeah, they're great. Yeah, she loves it. Thank you. Merry Christmas.”

* * *

It was a good two hours before Justin finally returned home from his lunch date with Lindsay. He had gone to surprise her because he was leaving the next day for a three week promotional trip and wouldn't be back until well after the first of the year. It hadn't turned out quite as he'd hoped – Shira was nice and all, but he felt like he had spent the entire time talking about himself, which he got enough of in his job – so he'd convinced her to go out with him that evening for dinner. That, he was sure, would be a far more enjoyable experience.

“Hello!” he called as he entered the house, fully expecting the girls to be in the house somewhere watching TV or just hanging out. They usually were, since they knew he didn't mind and even sort of liked it when they were there. There was no response, but he heard voices coming from the living room, so he headed that way.

“Well, you know, you could always ask Justin,” Kali was saying.

“No,” Miriam's voice responded. “He wouldn't want to go to something like this.”

“You never know unless you ask. You may as well ask him.”

“May as well ask me what?” Justin interrupted, entering the room to find the two Colobong girls sitting on his black leather couch, legs crossed underneath themselves identically.

“Nothing,” Miriam responded.

“Miri,” Kali reprimanded her gently.

“Mom,” her daughter mimicked.

“Could one of you just tell me what the hell you're even talking about?” Justin requested, joining them on the couch.

Kali looked at Miriam expectantly, and Miriam just shook her head, so Kali rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Justin. “Miriam's school is having a 'Father Figure' dance where all the girls are bringing their dads or stepdads or uncles or whatever, and she wants to go but she doesn't have anyone.”

“Except for me,” Justin finished. His heart went out to Miriam. He knew it had to be hard not to have her dad around, even though she almost never mentioned it to him. “I'll absolutely go. When is it?”

“Tonight from 7-10,” Miriam informed him, perking up visibly.

“Oh.” Justin grimaced, remembering that he already had plans with Lindsay.

“You can't go, can you?” Miriam's face fell again, and Justin immediately felt guilty, like the dad who always tells his kid he'll show up for something and never comes.

“No, I can reschedule my other thing. I will be there. Definitely.”

“Really?” She jumped up off the couch in excitement now, all pretense that she didn't really care about this event fading away.

“Really,” Justin confirmed, bracing himself for the 13-year-old body that now came flying at him to give him a hug.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou.”

“You're welcome.” He couldn't help chuckling at her enthusiasm.

“I have to go figure out what I'm gonna wear!"

“Okay.”

Miriam ran off to her room, leaving Justin and Kali alone together in the living room. Justin glanced over at Kali, who was just sitting staring at him with a smile on her face. He laughed.

“What?”

Kali leaned over, looped her arms around his neck and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thanks.”