Wasn't sure whether to post this as a seperate one-shot at first, but then I decided it fit in with the theme of the others (except "Absolutely Inappropriate" - don't ask me why I posted it with the others, I honestly don't have a clue).
As usual, all feedback is appraciated!
"Uh oh…"
Mac whimpered as soon as he heard the screech of brakes. Without a second thought, the child bolted out of the TV room, scampered into the foyer and rocketed out the front door. Much to his dismay, his worst fears were confirmed as soon as he spotted the jet-black Ferrari parked in the driveway. Immediately he picked up the pace and made a beeline for the familiar redhead, currently clad in her favorite strapless black dress and having a bit of difficulty hastily climbing out of the driver's seat.
"You're back from your date already?" he yelped incredulously as he raced over. "Frankie, what happened-"
The instant she spotted the little boy, the solace-starved Frances "Frankie" Foster plummeted to her knees and wrapped him up in a tight hug the moment he was close enough. The second they made contact, Mac could easily feel her slender arms trembling noticeably as she held him close, and immediately he responded with a firm, reassuring embrace of his own.
"It's okay…" Mac automatically began to sputter a few clichéd reassurances, as her entire body seemed to quake a little. "It's all right, just one bad night…Frankie, you'll be fine…"
While she squeezed him tightly, the clearly shaken young woman simply stared off unblinkingly into empty space, and resembled a shell-shocked soldier with her haggard thousand-yard stare. As Mac struggled to comfort her, she wordlessly held her deeply concerned charge for a minute or two before whispering hoarsely,
"M-Mac?"
"Yeah?" he murmured.
"For future reference; internet dating sites are the devil." She hissed venomously, forcing the boy to involuntarily wince.
"Oh no…" Mac groaned as he glanced up into her eyes. "You mean…was Pat really that bad?"
Suddenly, she abruptly withdrew her hold, got into a clumsy sitting position, and rested her head against the car with a piteous groan, much to Mac's severe alarm.
"Huh? Wait, what's wrong?" the boy started to yelp worriedly. "What'd I say? What happened, what did he-"
"She." Frankie flatly corrected.
"….Huh?" The stunned Mac grunted in disbelief as he prayed desperately he had merely heard her wrong. "Don't you mean-"
"When you tell someone they're going on a date with someone named Frankie…they don't necessarily ask if it can possibly be a girl's nickname…" she confessed.
For a few horrendously awkward moments, the slack-jawed Mac couldn't help but stare incredulously at her in dumb shock, and for a good minute they were so silent the only sound that could be heard was the light chirp of a cricket nearby.
"Oh… no…." he finally squeaked hoarsely.
"Pal…did you know that Pat can be short for Patricia?" she asked softly. Instantly Mac went as frozen as a statue in his intense shock.
"N-n…n-n-n…n-no…." he managed to whisper while his eyes almost bugged complete out of his skull. Frankie gawked blankly into nothingness before burying her face in her knees with a heartbroken wail.
"That makes two of us!" she cried as she hugged her legs and began to rock back and forth a little like a trauma victim.
"How?" the child cried. "How did-"
"Neither one asked!" Frankie confessed unhappily. "We just assumed!"
"How do you just assume?" Mac protested. "How do you set up a date online and not know if-"
"Mac, don't rub it in! You think I like knowing two grown woman totally dropped the ball here tonight? Do you?"
At this point however, this child wasn't absolutely dumbstruck by what he had been told, Mac couldn't help but stand rooted where he stood, slack-jawed and paralyzed in mind-blowing astonishment. As soon as the distraught young woman began to moan miserably though, he managed to shake it off as he scuttled to her side.
"Oh wait, don't!" he begged as he patted her shoulder. "Frankie, c'mon, it'll be-"
The distinct shrill ring of a cell phone abruptly shattered the ridiculously depressing moment. Instinctively Frankie clumsily removed her purse, fished about, and answered the call with a barely audible whisper.
"H-hello?" she croaked huskily.
Needless to say, the poor eight-year-old at her side didn't know what to think when a humongous toothy grin swept across her face from ear to ear, as if she had never been close to bursting out sobbing just a minute before. There was no mistake; her genuine smile expressed nothing but the most profound glee as she began babbling ecstatically.
"Oh, hi Patty!" Frankie squealed as the dumbstruck Mac stared quietly. "Hmmm? Oh, don't worry, I made it back home just fine! Thank you so much for checking, that's so…hmmm? Uh-huh…uh-huh…hee hee! Yeah, I thought we were goners for a second there too, good thing they had a backdoor…hahaha! Seriously, don't fret…yeah, little shaken, but 'sides that, I'm okay….yeah, I was just talking to the little guy right now…oh, course you can meet him! We're still on for lunch tomorrow, right? Awesome! Just stop by my place at eleven-thirty see, and…Oh wait, you know the address, or do you...what? Haha! Yeah, the house is kinda hard to miss. Okay, talk to you tomorrow! Bye, Patty!"
As the profoundly uplifted young woman deftly put her phone back away, the tremendously puzzled Mac continued to gawk wordlessly as he strove like mad to make an ounce of sense of her abrupt transformation from heartbroken soul to chatty bundle of glee. As the stunned boy practically resembled a small statue, the caretaker finally took note of his pained bewilderment and gasped loudly.
"Oh, pal!" she yelped as she began to stroke his head gently. "What's wrong? Kiddo, you okay? Mac? Why-"
"Was that…w-was that, Pat?" the boy whimpered. The second she pinpointed the root of his shock, the young woman immediately lit up with a brilliant scarlet blush that nearly matched her hair.
"Mac, wait!" she cried. "Wait, wait, hold on, it's not what it looks like! Nuh-uh! It's…um…well, yeah, it was her, see, and…she…well, she just wanted to check up on me after-"
"I...I-I thought the date was a disaster…" Mac stammered, to which Frankie's scarlet glow nearly doubled in intensity.
"Well…yeah, the whole "find a boyfriend tonight" part of the plan completely fell apart…" she agreed in a low murmur. "I was expecting to meet a nice guy whose full name I assumed was Patrick, and Patty… she thought Frankie was… see, she didn't plan on me being-"
"I know." he grumbled, not exactly willing to hear the facts of the ludicrously horrible mix-up again.
"Sorry, pal…" she quickly apologized before continuing on with her ridiculous tale. "But…the thing was that…see, although Cupid's Arrow dot com didn't give either of us the whole story about each other, its compatibility test was right on target, and…we actually really hit it off with each other…"
At this point she managed a wan smile as she ruffled the perplexed little boy's hair. "I showed her the picture of you I had on me …trust me, she's real a sweetheart, she's really excited about meeting you-"
"Wait, wait, wait….you actually had a good time tonight?" The painfully bewildered Mac mumbled incredulously.
Frankie shrugged and giggled weakly. "Actually…yeah, a really great time with each other, to be honest, and-"
"But…b-but…but why were you so upset when you got home?" the eight-year-old cried.
"Wait, what?" she inquired calmly, perplexing Mac to no end.
"What do you mean? Are you joking? Frankie, you were almost crying just now! Why in the world-"
At this point she began to blush so badly she glowed bright crimson from head to toe as realization dawned upon her.
"Oh…ohhhhhh…" she murmured before struggling to explain. "Oh, no, I see, I see…yeah, I mean, it was kinda a shock with the mix-up and all, and…well, that's no small matter, so I figured you deserved to know what happened right when I got back, but…but that's not why I was shaken up, see, and…"
"Something tells me I don't want to hear this." he whispered hoarsely.
"...Um…thing is, what really had me rattled was that…see, the trouble actually came halfway through dinner when we realized we didn't have enough to pay for the meal."
"Huh?"
"Um…it's custom for the boy to pay on a date…" the thoroughly embarrassed caretaker explained as she fidgeted with a hoop earring. "And…we didn't expect to find out our respective dates weren't…well, male, and-"
"You ran out without paying, didn't you?" Mac inquired with a grimace. Frankie groaned and made a face.
"The manager didn't get his position for nothing, I'll give him that much…he cut us off at the front door, so we had to make a quick exit through the kitchen…that was sort of traumatic to be honest. Patty almost got nailed by a saucepan on the way out…and the head chef kind of…chased us a few blocks…"
Mac gawked at her incredulously like she had four heads.
"Please say 'April Fool's' when you're done." he beseeched unashamedly. Much to his dismay however, she continued in the same unmistakably dead-honest fashion.
"…I think it was only a bread knife he was holding but…yeah, it was pretty scary, actually…wait, was I that upset about the mix-up?" she asked herself and mulled over the answer for a few seconds. "Wait…no, no, definitely the knife-welding cook…
Finished, she patted his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry about earlier, I just got a little confused about what really went wrong and…pal, it's been a long night for me…"
"Oh…uh…n-no problem…" the stunned Mac muttered, as if everything actually made perfect sense now. Frankie flashed another faint grin.
"On the bright side, I made a new friend." She reminded him optimistically with a weak smile.
"Yeah…yeah, I guess…" the still extraordinarily-befuddled child agreed half-heartedly as he sat down on the driveway and leaned up against the car with her. For a few minutes, the duo quietly reflected over the peculiar happenings of that night in a dead silence as Frankie absentmindedly tousled the eight-year-old's hair.
"Frankie?" he finally spoke up meekly.
"Yeah, pal?"
"Why doesn't life make sense?" he inquired unhappily in a low whimper
Frankie shrugged as she wrapped the horribly bemused child in a tight hug. "Don't worry, there's definitely someone for me out there…I just need to stop confusing genders and names, that's all."
"Uh…Okay…" he reluctantly accepted her most peculiar conclusion, and for a few seconds more they lapsed back into awkward silence.
"Mac?" she suddenly asked apprehensively. "You think you could you do me one little favor? Please?"
"Don't worry, I know the drill." Mac assured her calmly with a grin, to which she couldn't help but smile a little in return as she tightened her squeeze.
"Yeah…but still, just to make sure; remember, if someone from someplace called 'The Golden Lotus' calls, as far as he knows, you've never heard of me.."
The End