I Know Why the Caged Date Sings

Submitted by TheGripester:

The weirdest date I ever went on was in the early 1980s.  An older co-worker of mine, Laurie, invited me for dinner to meet her family.  She said that I’d really get along with her husband Robert, who had similar interests. Also, her 15-year-old daughter, Jenna, was a budding artist.

Laurie lived in a funky little house under some trees set back from the shore. When I knocked on the door, Robert, who I’d never met, opened it and looked at me. “Yes?” he asked, giving me a reproachful, why-are-you-bothering-me look.

I told him my name. Long silence, no reaction. Finally I said, “Laurie invited me over for dinner.”

His faced changed into a sour expression. “Laurie!” he barked over his shoulder, “Your friend is here!”

During dinner, Laurie tried to work her daughter into the conversation, but whenever Jenna was asked a question, she would would blush and look away, or mutter something inaudible and stare into her plate. Once, I asked her "Which high school do you go to?"

The sullen Robert cut in, "She’s home-schooled," and shot me a hostile, possessive look.

Laurie then told the story of how she and Robert met. Robert had rescued Laurie in the 1960s from a very cloistered life as the teenage daughter of a college professor, and they had run off together to San Francisco. Jenna had been born a year later during the Summer of Love.

At the end of the meal, Laurie suggested that Jenna show me some of her artwork. I followed Jenna to the back of the house, where she had a little workspace dedicated to her paintings.

The paintings were beautiful, but tragic and dark. One pictured a rabbit caught in a snare, another a prisoner in a cell.  It was easy to tell that Jenna was the prisoner in the cell, the rabbit in the trap.

Then it hit me: Jenna and I were about the same ages that Laurie and Robert had been when they ran off together. This whole "friendly dinner" was a setup by Laurie to fix up her lonely, isolated daughter with some older guy.

I got the hell out of there. Something very unhealthy was going on in that family, but there was nothing I could do. And no way would I ever go out with a 15-year-old.

When I met Jenna a few years later, and she seemed very happy and moderately successful as a local painter. Her paintings were a lot more positive - I hope that means that she got out of there, too.