Recipe for Romance

by Snyder, J. M.

  Preston looked past the librarian and surveyed the rest of the room. There were free-standing bookcases and displays that made it difficult to really see everything at once, and the tables interspersed throughout the library were all at a much lower level than he was used to, catering to a younger, shorter audience. But by the time he trailed behind Ms. Davis into the library, he’d spotted Abby. She sat by herself on a padded bench alongside one of the outer windows facing the playground, a stack of chapter books splayed out beside her. She still wore the sparkly dress he’d seen her in earlier that morning, and the sunlight twinkled on the hem. Her hair needed a good combing through, but her jacket was gone, and to be honest, he didn’t see anything wrong with her outfit. What the hell was this all about, anyway?

  Then she noticed their approach and glanced up. Seeing him, her whole face lit up, sparkling like her dress. She slipped off the bench and, in a loud, theatrical whisper, called out, “Daddy!”

  That’s when he noticed the pair of diaphanous fairy wings she wore on her back. Where the hell had she gotten those?

  * * * *

  Turned out the wings belonged to an old Halloween costume, one Abby had had for years. It was so old, in fact, Preston didn’t even remember it.

  “But you said!” Abby cried, forgetting all about using her quiet library voice, when he asked her gently to take off the wings. “You said I could wear them today! You said I could wear my wings!”

  Actually, Preston couldn’t remember specifically agreeing to anything of the sort. He remembered her saying she was wearing them, but he hadn’t seen the fairy wings on her back when she left the house. Had they been under her jacket? Or tucked inside her bookbag? He didn’t know, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, she’d set him up.

  “Honey, keep it down.”

  He glanced around, but they were the only ones in the library. Ms. Davis stood to one side, arms crossed, waiting for him to handle the situation, and the librarian hadn’t moved from behind the circulation desk, where she continued to stamp books and ignored them. Preston wondered how long she’d manage to stay silent when Abby went into full shit snit mode. It wouldn’t take much to set his daughter off in her current state, he knew, and at the first sign of tears, the librarian would most likely ask them to leave.

  Abby stomped one small foot in frustration. “Why can’t I wear them, Daddy? You said to wear something pretty—”

  “You’re always pretty.” Preston held up the shirt and jeans he’d brought along, as if they would be any consolation after the wings. Still, he had to try. “Look, I have your favorite shirt. If you change now, you can still get your picture taken with your class.”

  “I don’t want to wear that!” Her voice ratcheted up a full two octaves. Preston winced, sure the library’s windows would vibrate beneath such a high pitch. “I want to wear my wings! You said!”

  “Honey,” he started again.

  With an exasperated sigh, Ms. Davis muttered, “This is going nowhere.”

  Preston pinched the bridge of his nose, where the beginnings of a headache had blossomed. “Look,” he told the principal, “can I have a moment alone with my daughter? Please?”

  Ms. Davis made a show of checking her watch, a thin, gold bangle with an almost unreadable face. “The photographer is leaving in twenty minutes. Your daughter’s class was pushed back to the last spot for the group photo, so if you can’t get her calmed down and in the cafeteria by ten after eleven, she’s going to have to miss the picture altogether.”

  “I want to wear my wings,” Abby mumbled, head ducked.

  With a pointed look her way, Ms. Davis snapped, “Well, you can’t.” Then she turned on her heel and left the library.

  Preston sat on the bench beside the window and waited. Sometimes when Abby got herself all worked up, the best thing to do was let her calm down on her own. But from her hitching breath and flaring nostrils, he could see she wasn’t going to let this issue go any time soon. Reaching out, he touched the fairy wing closest to him; it was some sort of sheer fabric pulled taut over a wire frame, ephemeral beneath his fingers. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tess had made it at some point when she was home on leave. What year would that have been? The wings weren’t very large, but Abby had grown a lot in the past few years, and what might have once been proportionate on a five or six year old was dwarfed on her growing, eight-year-old body.

  “Hey,” Preston said softly, tugging on the wing.

  Abby shrugged him off. “I want to wear them in my picture,” she muttered. “You said I could.”

  “I did not.” Preston hated when she got like this, fixated on something and unshakeable in her conviction of her version of the facts. “You said you were wearing them, and I didn’t tell you not to. But that isn’t the same thing as saying you could.”

  “I want to.” She stomped her foot again, so hard this time that her little stack of books slid off the bench onto the floor.

  Preston resisted the urge to lean down and pick them up. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you can’t. You heard what Ms. Davis said. If you want to be in the class picture, you can’t wear your wings.”

  Abby’s bright eyes filled with tears. “Why not?” she wailed.

  She wouldn’t be satisfied with any old answer, Preston knew. Some kids might be placated with responses like, Because I said so, but not Abby. Part of him was proud of the fact that she was so questioning and didn’t settle for half-assed replies. But sometimes her insatiable demand to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth could be…well, exhausting.

  “Abby, come here.” Preston held out his arms and she stepped into his embrace, leaning heavily against his legs as she pouted. Mindful of her wings, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he whispered, “Listen, baby, you can’t be the only one in your class with wings on in the school picture.”

  “Why not?” she wanted to know. At least the intimacy between them managed to lower the volume of her voice back down to library levels.

  He tweaked a strand of her hair, then tucked it behind her ear. “Well, how do you think that would make everyone else feel?”

  She went very still; he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. When she looked at him, tears still dampened her eyes, but the pout had been replaced with a frown of consternation. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think it would be fair if you were the only one with wings in your whole class?” Preston asked.

  If nothing else, Abby had a very well-defined sense of right and wrong. It wasn’t anything he could remember teaching her, and he was pretty sure Tess hadn’t, either, but Abby picked it up all the same. She didn’t hesitate to share whatever she had with anyone, be it food or toys or clothes. She believed everyone deserved equal treatment, equal portions, equal everything, and sometimes this led to discussions where Preston had to explain why there was more food on his plate than on hers, or why someone in the grocery store was buying more items than they were, or why sometimes she saw people standing on street corners with signs asking for change. “I have a dollar, Daddy,” Abby would say, digging in her bookbag as they idled at a street light, windows up, Preston struggling not to make eye contact with the homeless man begging for money in the median. “I don’t need all of it to buy a pack of gum. Maybe ask him if he wants to split it with me?”

  Ms. Davis could threaten Abby all she liked with not being in the class photo, but Preston knew the easiest way to get his daughter to take off the wings would be to point out that none of the other students would be able to wear any of their own. Sure enough, it worked. Abby clung to her pout with a stubbornness that was all Tess, but eventually she reached for the sparkly shirt resting on the bench beside her father. “This is my favorite.”

  “You look so pretty in it,” Preston told her. “Don’t you think Mommy will like a picture of you in it?”

  With a sardonic smirk, Abby said, “Daddy, I look pretty in everyth
ing.”

  * * * *

  Even though there was no one else in the library, Abby wouldn’t change where she might be seen. “By whom?” Preston shared an amused look with the librarian, who simply shrugged.

  But Abby was adamant. “You never know,” she said, gathering up the clothes he’d brought in both arms.

  “Can’t you take off the wings?” Preston argued. “The dress looks great by itself.”

  “You can’t wear a fairy dress without wings, Daddy,” Abby told him. “Everyone knows that.”

  As they headed out of the library, the librarian murmured under her breath, “Yeah, Daddy. Everyone knows that.”

  Preston shook his head and grinned. Out in the hallway, he caught up with Abby as she was about to duck into the girls’ bathroom. “You have to wait out here!” she told him, as if he might have tried to sneak inside. “I can do it myself.”

  “Hurry up and don’t dawdle.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “Your class is probably already in the auditorium.”

  “Cafeteria,” she corrected, her voice echoing off the tiled walls inside the bathroom.

  Fortunately she really wanted to be in the class photo, because she was in and out in less than three minutes. Preston knew; he kept his phone out and watched the clock. When she came out, her hair was a tangle of wild, staticky strands sticking up all over her head and the back of her shirt had somehow been tucked into her panties, but he helped straighten her out. She produced her comb from amid the folds of her dress and let him smooth down her hair as they walked down the hall. By the time they reached the cafeteria, she looked as pretty as ever, even without the fairy wings.

  And they were just in time. Her classmates were already arranged on a small stand of bleachers on one end of the stage, a conspicuously empty spot on the upper level where one student was missing. As Abby and Preston entered the cafeteria, she saw her friends and dashed for the stage. “Wait for me!” she cried, sneakers squeaking on the polished wooden floor.

  Preston followed at a slower pace. By the time he reached the stairs leading up to the stage, Abby was already positioned in among her classmates, helped onto the upper level of the bleachers by a young photographer’s assistant who looked like a college intern. The assistant’s shoulder-length, obviously dyed auburn hair had probably started the day blown out and straight, but when she came to stand beside Preston on the opposite side of the stage, he could see the ends of her hair were frazzled now, beginning to stand up and curl, defying whatever product had been put on them earlier. Flashing him a quick smile, she said, “You must be Dad. You’re a miracle worker, you know that? I couldn’t get her to take those wings off for anything.”

  No, you wouldn’t have, he thought, but his only reply was a tight-lipped grin. He could only imagine what scene had unfolded when this stranger had asked his daughter to remove her wings. No matter how nicely the assistant had asked, there was no way Abby would’ve listened. Some of the resulting tantrum he knew she must’ve thrown would have been due to her stubborn nature, but some of it would’ve been because of the fact that, plain and simple, she didn’t know this woman. Abby could be funny about…well, life in general, the food she ate and the things she liked and the people she responded to, and Preston was never quite sure how she was going to react from one moment to the next.

  A good rule of thumb, though, something he’d learned over the years, was to expect anything. Abby tended not to respond well to women who asked her to do something nicely, the way he suspected the assistant had broached the subject of removing her wings. If Ms. Davis had stormed in to address the situation from the start with her brash mentality, before Abby ever managed to get all worked up over it, Preston thought Abby might have taken them off meekly without any argument whatsoever.

  But Abby would know she was no match for a woman like Ms. Davis. This assistant, though, with her slowly frizzling hair and harried eyes, she already looked like a pushover.

  From somewhere behind her, a man’s voice called out, “Everyone ready?”

  Two dozen kids answered in some fashion, “yes!” or “you bet!” or “cheese!” Each exclamation tried to drown out the ones around it. The assistant’s smile grew strained; she’d heard enough children today to last her a lifetime, or so it seemed. But the photographer’s laugh sounded warm and genuine, and Preston leaned forward to get a look at the guy, curious to see what kind of man could still laugh so infectiously after working with kids all morning long.

  At first glance, Preston had to admit he was a little disappointed. The photographer was nothing to write home about, as his mother used to say. An average man, not overly large or undersized, about Preston’s height. Red hair, almost a burnished shade of coppery brown, natural though, not dyed like his assistant’s—Preston could tell by the pale skin almost completely covered by faint, brown freckles. They peppered his forearms and biceps, or as much as Preston could see from the short-sleeved polo shirt he wore, and they dotted his throat and neck, as well.

  The man’s face seemed clear, though, with nothing but a smattering of darker spots across his nose, which gave him a boyishly cute appearance. Oh, and a really tiny one right on the edge of his lower lip, that almost looked like a piece of something he’d eaten and forgot to wipe away. Preston found himself staring at it, his own lip caught between his teeth. Was that only a freckle, he wondered? Or a mole of some sort? Would it be something he could feel if they kissed, a little bump against his lips, something he could run his tongue over? Or was the skin smooth? With his eyes closed, would he even know the dot was there at all?

  Suddenly he became aware someone was watching him. Preston’s gaze flickered up. The photographer stared back, his eyes startling and clear, golden honey in color like polished amber. When his thin lips curved into a grin, Preston noticed the dark freckle disappear into a dimple. “Are you ready?” the guy asked, the hint of laughter still in his voice.

  “Who, me?” Preston croaked. Clearing his throat, he tried to shake his head and nod at the same time. His whole face seemed to ignite in a slow blaze of embarrassment that started at the base of his neck and flushed to the root of his hair. “No, yeah, sorry.”

  He ducked back behind the assistant, as if she might be able to hide him. God, had he really thought the man was average? Because every nerve of Preston’s body was suddenly on fire. He’d never met a hotter guy in his entire life.

  Chapter 5

  Because the rest of Abby’s classmates had had their pictures taken earlier in the morning, they jumped down after the group shot and hurried offstage, eager to take their place in the lunch line forming along one wall of the cafeteria. Abby stayed behind, though, hurrying across the stage to take Preston’s hand in both of hers. “Don’t leave yet, Daddy,” she told him, leaning back so she could balance on her heels and tug on his fingers, trusting him to hold her. “Stay and eat lunch with me!”

  “I have to get back to work, sweetie.” Preston wondered how he would ever be able to face his boss again after what he’d seen in the back office, though. Or Maureen! The woman hadn’t even blinked, damn. He shook his head, trying to get the image to go away.

  Abby twined his arm around her like a dancer. “Then at least stay until I get my picture taken. Hey! Where are my wings?”

  Real fear tinged her voice and she pulled away, frantic all of a sudden. Preston caught her arm before she could race off. “Don’t worry,” he told her, “I got them, they’re safe. I’ll take them back with me so nothing happens to them.”

  “Whew!” She wiped her forehead with an exaggerated gesture. He had to bite his lip not to laugh. Leaning against him again, she buried her face against his stomach and sighed. “I don’t know why I can’t wear them for my own picture. The other kids might get upset because they don’t have their own wings in the class photo, but why would they care what I’m wearing in the one with just me? None of them are going to be in it, too.”

  Preston wasn’t sure exac
tly what to say, but luckily he didn’t have to answer, because at that moment, the photographer’s assistant came up beside them. Through a weary smile, she asked, “All set?”

  Abby nodded, hiding her face in Preston’s shirt. But when the assistant held out a hand to take Abby’s, his daughter ignored it. “Come on, honey,” she cajoled, the strain of the day evident in her voice.

  Another long moment passed. Abby obviously wasn’t going to give in any time soon. With a sympathetic shrug, Preston took his daughter’s hand and told her, “Come on, Abadaba. They’re ready for your close-up.”

  “Abadaba,” the assistant said with a nervous grin. “That’s cute.”

  Abby gave her a withering glare. “Don’t call me that. My name is Abigail Louise.”

  The assistant looked at Preston, shocked. “I’m sorry, I was…I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her. “We’ve had a rough morning.”

  The woman sighed. “Tell me about it.”

  With Abby in tow, he followed her to another part of the stage, where curtains hid a backdrop, a chair, an expensive-looking camera on a tripod, and two large, bright studio lights, also on tripods. When Abby saw the lights, she giggled. “Those lamps have umbrellas on them,” she said. “It makes them look funny.”

  “It makes them work better,” a man said behind them.

  Preston turned and found himself face to face with the handsome photographer from the class photo shoot. Up close, those amber eyes looked like faceted topazes, reflecting the light as effectively as the umbrellas that had made Abby laugh. And Preston could see the man’s face wasn’t only freckled across the nose; no, the entire skin was covered in a fine dusting of tiny spots, each a tiny sun-kissed speckle barely a shade darker than the lighter skin beneath it. From a distance they almost blended in together to form one even tone, and only the larger, browner dots stood out. Like the smattering across the bridge between those jewel-like eyes, and that single, fascinating smidge on the lower lip…