The Dating Charade

by Melissa Ferguson

  “Well, you have a few options here, Jett.” Rachel set her coffee cup down. “You can continue as an informal kinship caregiver, taking care of the children until she returns to take the children back. Or . . .” She went through several other options, including gaining temporary legal custody, finding other relatives, or assuming temporary guardianship in the case his sister was prosecuted on charges of neglect and possession. He shook his head after each one, including the last, which was turning the children over to the State.

  Rachel clasped her hands together and leaned forward in her chair. “Well, that’s all I’ve got here, and you don’t seem pleased with any of them. So tell me, what do you think is the best option for yourself and these kids?”

  “I want—” He pressed his thumbs together, watching through the open door as another case worker walked by. What did he want? He’d realized five minutes into their conversation that his situation might not be the norm, that people didn’t usually come to DCS telling them about a child in their care. DCS usually called relatives trying to drop off nieces and nephews, not the other way around.

  From what he could tell, the easiest path for him was to be an informal caregiver—to welcome life as a single uncle of three little kids, to feed them and clothe them and send them off to school and help them with homework and coach their Little League games until the day Trina popped back in their lives and tossed them into the back of her duct-taped car.

  He couldn’t imagine living with that uncertainty.

  But there was one thing Jett knew. “I want them to have everything my sister and I didn’t have, and should’ve. We’ve lived firsthand through a childhood example of how it shouldn’t have been. It haunts me to imagine Dakota or Drew, now TJ, going through that too. But . . .” It pained him to be so honest, so selfish. “I just don’t want that to mean giving up my life. I was prepared to be the fun uncle who dropped by. I wasn’t prepared for this.”

  Rachel’s look turned, a steady dose of empathy breaking through the face that had heretofore shown nothing but routine and protocol. “You said you have an aunt in South Carolina.”

  Jett nodded, this conversation making him feel that all-too-familiar sense of suffocation.

  “Talk to her. There’s nothing selfish in placing your niece and nephews in the care of a loving relative, especially if you feel you are unfit for the financial and emotional strain of taking on three children. Perhaps she can be the kind of caregiver these children need. And, worst-case scenario, if she can’t take them in, I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble finding a foster placement. Plenty of foster parents out there would jump at the chance to give children this young the bright start they deserve. Just this morning I met with a single woman who dropped everything in her life to take on three emergency placements—one a fourteen-year-old.”

  “Does she want three more?” he said, smiling lightly at the joke, then shaking his head.

  Foster care for his own kin. The very words were painful. No doubt compounded by the days of disrupted sleep, he felt overly emotional, raw. He was coming face-to-face at last with the realities of his situation, and after an hour with a professional the answer was as clear as muddy water. Could he talk with his aunt and uncle, the mildly close relatives he saw every holiday, whom he made a point to visit about every six months? His aunt had her own realty business, her own grown children, even a couple of grandchildren. They already had a full-time life set up just as they wanted.

  But then, so had he, hadn’t he? Or rather, he was at the brink of having the life he’d always wanted—settling into a great job in his old town, starting a relationship with Cassie. Whereas his aunt and uncle had already lived a long and full life and were now enjoying the fruits of their labor, he was just on the cusp of his. To have it soiled, quite literally, by his niece and nephews—cute as they might be—wasn’t fair.

  Then again, none of this was fair. Not to the kids. Not to him. Not to Trina.

  Not to anyone.

  Foster care wasn’t an option. Letting Dakota and Drew and TJ walk into the arms of someone outside his bloodline wasn’t an option. If it came to that, he would just do what he needed to do.

  His aunt, however, was another story. He’d call her today, and maybe, just maybe, reclaim his life.

  He stood. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Rachel.”

  “Thank you for seeking me out.” Standing, she followed him out. “I’ll e-mail you some of the information about our programs. And if or when your sister returns, please have her contact the office. It would be far better for her to come to us than for us to have to find her. In the meantime, if I come across something of benefit to you, I’ll be in touch.”

  13

  Cassie

  “Move over, laddies, you’re blocking this old lady’s view.”

  Several youths in dark-gray and green plaid jackets stood huddled in front of the row of elderly women and men. It was five to seven and it looked like everyone in town had come trooping through traffic and frigid temperatures for the show. Which wasn’t surprising, as the Christmas parade was one of the local highlights of the year.

  One of the boys cocked a brow at Donna Gene then slowly started to move. They weren’t moving fast enough, evidently, because she—seated in a lawn chair—picked up her umbrella from the ground and began prodding them.

  “Okay, Ms. Donna Gene. That’s good, I think they’re moving along.” Cassie grasped the tip of the umbrella and lowered the weapon.

  With their combined powers, Girls Haven Leadership Club had managed to secure an excellent block for the event, and with twelve lawn chairs and wheelchairs in place for their elderly patrons, the girls had grabbed their plastic bags and dispersed among them. Most of the Leadership Club service projects were thought up by the girls themselves, demonstrating creative planning, budgeting, leadership, and logistics, but this one—gathering a list of shut-ins from Cassie’s church and chauffeuring them to the most beloved community event of the year—was hers.

  Cassie felt the tug on her collar and looked down to the honorary teen-club member in her arms. Kennedy, who had picked out her own winter wear, was a Pepto-Bismol commercial in her thick pink coat, pink snow pants, pink boots, pink mittens, and pink hat. One arm wrapped around her empty pink basket. “Where’s the candy?”

  “It’s coming soon. See?” Cassie pointed to the two high school girls bouncing in their short-skirted dance uniforms, each holding up one side of the Gatlinburg Christmas parade sign. “They’ll be throwing candy any minute.”

  “Here, sugar. Take one of these to hold you over.” Donna Gene put her hand out, holding up a peppermint.

  Cassie hesitated, having experienced the condition of Donna Gene’s home when they helped the woman and her elderly friend out to the van this evening. Still, Kennedy’s face blossomed at the sight of it, and there was no going back now.

  “That’s very kind. Can you say thank you, Kennedy?”

  Kennedy, with great difficulty from her bulging coat and mittens, took the candy between both mittens. “Thank you.” She opened her mouth wide as Cassie tore open the wrapper and popped the mint in for her.

  Trumpets and drums sounded together, and Donna Gene smiled and turned her face to the oncoming band. “It’s no problem. I must’ve had that swimming in the bottom of my purse for years. Oh, look.” Her plump hand dug into what appeared to be a black snakeskin purse straight from the 1950s. “I found another.”

  Cassie alternated Kennedy, who was already sucking away at her mint, to the other hip. “Oh no, no. This is just enough. Thank you.”

  Everybody watched in anticipation as flutists marched past and groups of ten-year-old ballerinas danced heartily across the road. Clowns in white-and-red faces passed candy out to eagerly awaiting hands and bags. Antique cars and waving homecoming queens. Floats, whether of the duct-tape-and-stringed-lights-on-a-truck-bed variety or robust themes of the Grinch sponsored by a large electric company, played jingles loudl
y through speakers.

  With a pound of peppermints, Tootsie Rolls, bubblegum, and church flyers with attached candy canes in their baskets, Kennedy and Deidre hung on to a street lamp and leaned out with their baskets as far as they could as kids from the YMCA passed. A girl not much older than Deidre poured a handful of Hershey’s Kisses in both baskets.

  Then, finally, her new favorite vehicle came into view, and for once it wasn’t sounding the sirens. “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” played loudly through the crowd, the electric guitar echoing cheerfully back from brick buildings. String-lit garland draped across ladders the width of the fire engines, and firemen dressed in bunker gear waved heartily to the crowds.

  Cassie’s heart momentarily paused as Jett—with arm hanging out of the front passenger seat—spotted her. Lifting his Santa hat off his head, he waved it and winked at her. She felt her cheeks heat as she waved back.

  Both Donna Gene and her elderly neighbor turned in their chairs.

  “Why, do you know that man, Patsy?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, I’d say he was sweet on you.” Mrs. Kolak crossed her frail arms across the blanket on her lap, and it was hard to tell just then if that was a compliment or criticism.

  Cassie tugged on the red scarf wound around her throat. “My name’s Cassie. And yes, Ms. Donna Gene, I’ve just started seeing him, actually.”

  The wrinkles on her forehead shoved up as she lifted her brows and looked at Cassie as if it was the first time she was really seeing her. “Why, that’s a fine piece of man right there, I daresay.”

  “Anybody would be lucky to have ’im,” added Mrs. Kolak tartly, facing straight as an arrow ahead while a group of accordion players passed.

  “Don’t mind Edie,” Donna Gene said, patting her neighbor’s lap. “She’s just mad the boys don’t trip over themselves to light her cigarette anymore.”

  “They used to too,” Mrs. Kolak muttered.

  Donna Gene pushed her bags off an empty lawn chair. “Anyway, indulge us. Tell us all about you two.”

  Both women seemed to have forgotten completely about the parade. Instead, they watched her as though she were now the man riding the oversized unicycle.

  With traces of warmth still on her cheeks, Cassie glanced at the retreating fire engine well down the block. In her line of work, this type of nosiness was standard. In fact, she kind of preferred it.

  Day and night she had been focused on the kids’ needs, trying desperately to tiptoe around potentially disruptive conversation topics, trying to make them feel happy and at ease. It was exhausting work, physically and mentally. Frankly, besides sitting down with Jett himself, there was nothing she’d rather do at that moment than talk about him—even if it was with two odd ladies. Not to mention, being a friend to a shut-in was the point of the Leadership Club’s outing tonight. If she had to talk about him, she had to talk about him.

  Cassie glanced around to her charges: the fourteen teens seated beside their companions, Deidre and Kennedy circling the lamppost. She sat down.

  Donna Gene, looking pleased, patted her knee.

  “Well,” Cassie began awkwardly, crossing her boots at the ankles, “his name is Jett. He’s twenty-nine—a little younger than me, I admit—and works with the fire department.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Edie chirped. She sprayed hand sanitizer in front of her face.

  “Of course he’s a fireman, she means. He was sitting in the truck.” Donna Gene laughed and gave Edie a hearty, slightly startling slap on her frail shoulder. “Anyways. What else?”

  “Why do you think you deserve him?” Edie added.

  Cassie laughed. “Well, given I deserted him on the first date and almost deserted him on the second, I’d say I don’t deserve him, really.”

  “Oh?” Evidently this was more what Edie wanted to hear. With perked ears she leaned forward while Cassie, with their prodding, went into full details of their meeting, of his relentless pursuing, and where they finally were today.

  “And what about those two?” Donna Gene pointed her umbrella at the girls jumping at the finale of the parade, Santa aboard his luminescent sleigh, perched atop a float carried by Billy’s Tow Services. “They yours?”

  Cassie hesitated. It was the first time anyone had asked. “They’re . . . with me. Yes.”

  “And how’s he taken to them?”

  “There’s three of them, actually,” Cassie said. “And he doesn’t know.”

  “Tell him after the wedding.” Edie was nodding, the sequins of the belt buckle around her wool hat jostling. “I did the same thing, and I was married forty-two years.”

  “The same thing? What do you mean the same thing—”

  “Take it from Edie.” Donna Gene waggled her finger. “As Dr. Bob says, we must learn from the experienced, or we’ll never find our way. She was happily married—”

  “Married. I never said it was happily.” Edie sprayed the air again.

  “And her marriage lasted half a century—”

  “Forty-two years. Not a day longer.”

  “And you do want to marry him, Patsy, don’t you?” Donna Gene unwrapped a Tootsie Roll. “Now I haven’t talked official with Edie yet, but on her behalf and mine, I’d like to offer our little patch of earth for the ceremony. It’s not much, what we have up there, but there’s a nice good space in the woods that would make for a marvelous backdrop with the snow.”

  If Donna Gene wasn’t gripping Cassie’s hand, she would’ve stumbled out of her chair. “Whoa, now. I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here.”

  “You thinkin’ spring?” Donna Gene replied. “Well, you’ll have to hide the children that much longer, but if that’s what you want to do, I suppose you could keep them in the basement—”

  “That’s what I always did.” Edie primly popped a mint in her mouth.

  “And just eyeballing it here, I’d say you’re a size 6? Or 8?”

  They were talking dresses now? And harboring children in basements? Cassie stood abruptly, the conversation sixty miles beyond the point of control. “Oh look, there went Santa. Parade’s over. Girls! Deidre! Kennedy!” Cassie beckoned them over, and with baskets overflowing, they readily jumped to her side. She then called to the teen leaders, “Haven teens, let’s assist all our new friends to the bus.”

  Cassie tried her best to delegate any tasks related to the two women to the teens, and between gathering thirty people and packing them into the borrowed church bus, she had just about succeeded in avoiding Donna Gene and Edie the rest of the evening. They dropped every man and woman off one at a time, Donna Gene and Edie seated in the row farthest back. Star and Bailey sat in the row ahead of them like angelic guards at the entrance of Eden.

  But as Cassie turned the steering wheel onto Rattlesnake Hollow, she heard the squirt of sanitizer behind her and felt the distinct smell of disinfectant tickle her nose. She looked into the wide, overhead mirror and jumped at the sudden figures seated behind her. So much for them being elderly.

  Edie readjusted her vintage hat.

  “Now, where were we?” With hovering pen, Donna Gene lay the crumpled back of a receipt across the top of the bus seat as though it were a doctor’s legal pad. “You’ll need flowers, of course. You can’t have a good wedding without flowers.”

  Cassie checked the mirror for the back seats. Were her teens alive?

  “And we’ll need a cake.” Donna Gene pointed her pen in her partner’s direction. “Edie, I trust you can take care of that. She’s a wonderful cook. Watches Cake or Steak regular, don’t you?”

  Edie lifted her chin. “Fondant or funfetti?”

  “Ladies, thank you so much for wanting to coordinate my—” (unscheduled and absurdly forecasted) “—wedding. But I’ve only been seeing Jett two and a half weeks. Barely two and a half weeks. And that’s counting a date that lasted all of five minutes.”

  Edie sniffed. “I had Frank at the altar in twelve hours.”

  �
�And yours is . . . quite the example. But I’m going to need more time. Who knows what he’ll think after I tell the man who hates kids that I just added three? He’ll probably run for the hills.”

  Donna Gene watched Cassie closely, then patted her shoulder. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it anymore. You just leave it up to us. We’ll see that everything gets sorted out.”

  Leave it up to them?

  “No, really, that’s not necessary,” Cassie started to say, but when she looked in the mirror, the seat behind her was empty, only the scent of alcohol disinfectant lingering in the air. Inching her chin down, Cassie saw both women securely back in the farthest row, looking as though they’d never moved a muscle.

  14

  Jett

  He was going to church 40 percent for all the appropriate reasons, 60 percent for the free babysitting. And no, at this point of sleep deprivation and sanity loss, he didn’t feel bad about it.

  Sunny tucked his slightly rumpled button-up into his jeans. “You sure you don’t want to come with Sarah and me?”

  “Yes.”

  Kneeling in his grey slacks, Jett crammed Drew’s wiggling toes into socks and then pushed his feet into lime-green sandals. Everything in his life felt like it had to be done quickly. Quickly he pushed feet into socks or else Drew would wiggle himself out of his grip and be running down the hall yelling like a wild monkey. Quickly Jett had to throw cereal into a bowl or else the twins fell into hysterics of hunger. Quickly he had to mix formula. Quickly he had to pick up Dakota when she fell down. Quickly he had to grab Drew before he squeezed through the porch bars and fell two stories.

  It was incredible how he could watch his roommate talking, walking, dressing at a snail’s pace with a snail’s attitude all while he himself was running with a blood pressure of 170 over 90. Work was a break. These days, knocking down a door in a burning building of 1,100-degree heat was a day at the beach.

  Grabbing Drew by the underarms and lifting him to stand, Jett held a firm grip and reviewed the trio beside the door. Dakota had a lopsided ponytail, a pink sweater, and a lollipop she’d been licking passively the past twenty-four hours. Drew had a Cheerio on his cheek, a Thomas the Train T-shirt on, and socks peeking through sandals. TJ was in his car seat, a large stain on the same fuzzy sleeper he’d worn to bed. Time to roll.