Truthfully, Mindy Cooper made Tyler a little nervous. Make that very nervous. She was so...pushy. So know it all. So very much like his own mother. But Mindy wanted to marry him and if he didn't come up with a good reason not to marry her, he knew that she wasn't going to give up easily.
Sitting in his room back at Schuyler Manor, Tyler pulled out a piece of paper, drew a vertical line down the middle of it and neatly wrote across the top REASONS WHY I SHOULD AND SHOULDN'T MARRY MINDY. His father had taught him to always figure out the pros and cons of any business deal and Tyler couldn't seem to escape the feeling that marrying Mindy would be more or less the biggest business deal of his life.
He stared at the paper for a long time before finally writing on the "should" side: "Mindy is very pretty."
She was pretty. She was smart, too. And ambitious. Way more ambitious than he was but that wasn't too surprising. Just about everyone Tyler met was more ambitious than he was. When one is born into a wealthy family, one seldom harbored much ambition beyond getting a fantastic tan on one's next vacation to the Virgin Islands.
Stymied to come up with more reasons why he should marry Mindy, Tyler moved to the "shouldn't" side" "I'm too young. I might meet someone better. Mindy picks her teeth when she thinks no one is looking. My mother hates Mindy. Mindy hates my mother. Suppose she wants to raise any children we might have as Democrats?"
Disgusted with himself, Tyler wadded up the paper and threw it away. He probably should marry Mindy just to prove to himself and everyone else in the world that he wasn't a wimp who was incapable of doing anything other than sit around and write stupid lists to himself.
But what would Mom say?
Tyler didn't want to go there. His mother would have a fit if he married Mindy Cooper. Not that Mom had been the best role model in the world, but Tyler knew for a fact that Mavis Schuyler lived by the maxim: Do what I say, not what I do. She might even disinherit him.
His stomach turned at the thought. If Mom disinherited him, what would he do for money? Would he have to work? At a job? No way! Graduate school was hard enough. Tyler couldn't imagine having to be some place for 40 hours a week and being expected to produce something.
"Tyler?" Mavis opened his bedroom door without knocking. His mother didn't believe in knocking. "What are you doing?"
"Homework," Tyler replied.
"Well, finish up and come downstairs. I'm having someone over for drinks and I'd like you to meet him."
"Why?" Tyler asked suspiciously. His mother had just gotten rid of that cop. Surely she hadn't found some other creep to bring home.
"Because I want you to," Mavis replied somewhat mysteriously. "Now hurry. He'll be here in a few minutes."
Tyler rolled his eyes. His mother was too old to keep on picking men up and he was too old to keep on meeting them. Maybe he should marry Mindy. It would be one way to get out of his mother's house. "Who is it?" he asked before his mother left.
"His name is Vlad. I think he might be Tiffany's real father."
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