Page 74 of Pregnant By the Playboy

I know what she means. I come from a well-known family in the Chinese community, yet it’s hard for me to really feel like part of the community when I speak none of the languages. I don’t speak Mandarin, either.

I sort of wish I could speak something. But I’m third generation on my mom’s side, fifth on my father’s. I wasn’t interested when I was younger, and I really am bad at languages. French was always my worst subject in school.

I’m not ashamed of my Chinese background, though, and it’s not like I tried to reject everything Asian and hang out with only white people.

“Will you teach your baby Cantonese?” Bev asks Marissa.

“I haven’t thought about it yet.”

“I would like to speak to them in Cantonese. We will see each other lots and they will learn to at least understand it. But you tell me what you would like. You are the mother.”

Yeah, her mom is definitely different from mine.

“Back to you two,” Bev says. “Marissa said you proposed?”

Oh, she mentioned that to her mom?

“Yes,” I say, “and that offer still stands.”

Marissa glances at me but says nothing.

“So, Vince,” Larry says, “I hear you ran a tech company. What do you do now?”

I reach for the scallops. “A little of this, a little of that.”

As in, I plan dates for Marissa and see my family and listen to my friends’ shock when I tell them I want to settle down.

I was feeling particularly useless this morning. While Marissa was sleeping, I went to GoFundMe and donated a bunch of money to families struggling with medical bills and rent money, thinking of what Marissa had told me about her life growing up. How much difference money I might call “pocket change” could make to someone.

“A man should have a purpose in life,” Larry says.

“I agree.”

I’m not sure whether Larry is the sort of old-fashioned guy who’d consider family a reasonable purpose in life for a woman, but not for a man.

“If you do not get married,” Bev says, setting down her chopsticks, “please do not make problems for Marissa when it comes to child support. I don’t know how it all works, but you and your family could tie stuff up in courts with your money and connections, and we are nobody.”

“There will be no issues. You have my word.”

We eat in silence for a minute, and I’m feeling out of my depth. Meeting the mother of the woman who’s having my baby and has yet to accept my proposal is a situation I’ve never been in before. I’m usually good at keeping the conversation going, but I don’t have practice at getting people to see I could be a loving and responsible family man.

I don’t seem to have done too bad of a job, however, because after we have almond cookies for dessert, Bev says she has something to show me and gestures for me to follow her to the basement.

“These are baby toys,” she says, pulling out a box from one of the shelves. “From when Marissa was little. I don’t know if she will want to use them, but you can give this to her.”

“Why don’t you do it?” I ask.

“Ah, I want to encourage her to develop tender feelings for you.”

Well, perhaps she likes to interfere as much as my mother after all.

“I see the way she is looking at you,” Bev says. “She told me before that she does not love you, but maybe she is changing her mind.”

I try not to grin at those words.

“And I don’t know, but you seem okay.”

“Thank you for the high praise.”