I drag my gaze from Chloe and Thomas to the young pastor standing in front of me.
“Chloe’s very excited to be here, too,” I say. “It was nice of Thomas to invite her. She . . . she’s not used to going anywhere without me. Just to her daycare. I was wondering . . . thinking maybe I should stick around. At least for today,” I add quickly.
“Looks like she’s doing just fine.” He glances at them again, then back at me. “We hope we’re offering the opportunity for these young folks to have some independence, but I understand your concern. You’re welcome to stay. There’s coffee and juice.” He points to a table set up on the far side of the hall, near what looks like a kitchen door. “We usually do something here and then head to our destination.”
I nod. “And how do you get there?”
“We have a fifteen-passenger van. I drive. I don’t have any speeding tickets and the church ran a background check before they hired me, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
I chuckle with him. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a paranoid parent, it’s just . . .” I let my voice trail into silence, not sure how I should word my fears. It’s not that I think this nice young man—or any of the others here—would take advantage of my Chloe. Or abuse her. But it happens.
So I suppose I am a little paranoid. Having someone take advantage of Chloe’s innocence is my worst nightmare. But I muster through, pasting on my smiling mask and trying to seem agreeable.
“It’s fine.” He doesn’t seem offended. “I’m not a parent myself yet. Newlywed.” He shows me a shiny gold band on his left hand. “But I read the newspapers. Many parents aren’t as careful as they should be. People like Chloe are a special gift from God, and we all have to be good caretakers. All of us.”
The group begins to move toward two long tables that have been set up for an activity. Thomas leads Chloe by her hand.
“This morning we’re making a craft with pieces of broken tile.” The pastor checks his wristwatch. “We’ll leave here in about an hour to go bowling. We’ll have pizza there and be back here for pickup by two. Feel free to tag along. It looks like we’ve got room for you in the van.”
“Chloe would kill me,” I confess. “I’ll take my own car and follow you over. In the meantime, I’ll grab that cup of coffee.” I see Chloe waving at me . . . more like waving me off. She made it clear in the car ride over that she didn’t want me to stay.
“I’d better give them a hand. Let me know if you need anything.”
He walks away and I watch him go. He seems very nice. Very pleasant. And he didn’t overuse the words Jesus or God in the two minutes he stood here and talked to me. I hate the way some people feel as if they need to insert God or Christ’s presence into every sentence. “I’m feeling much better today, praise Jesus!” or “Thank God they have strawberry yogurt today!” As if, by using the words often enough, they’ll be able to impart their beliefs on the listener. On me, more specifically.
Ignoring Chloe, who’s now gesturing wildly for me to leave, I go to the table sporting the big stainless-steel coffeepot. I pour myself a cup and add plenty of milk. As I stir my coffee with one hand, I fish my cell phone out of my bag with the other. I’m hoping maybe I’ve missed a call from David.
There’s no missed call.
I thought David might call this morning because we had a date the previous night. Chloe stayed with Jin, and not only did I go to the movie, I stayed out long enough to have a glass of wine and share an appetizer with David. I had a good time. I thought he did. We kissed before I got out of his car. Actually . . . we made out a little. Thinking about it makes me smile again and then I look up, feeling guilty, afraid someone is looking at me and knows my secret.
I glance in Chloe’s direction. She’s taken a chair beside Thomas at the craft table. A young woman in pigtails is giving instructions on how to glue the mosaic tiles on a small, hinged cardboard box. Chloe’s still conversing with Thomas; it looks like she’s the one doing most of the talking. He’s mostly just bobbing his head up and down enthusiastically.
Carrying my cup of coffee, I go through the swinging doors, into the hallway to give Chloe a little space. Holding my phone in my hand, I debate whether or not I should call David. I mean, why not? Why should the man be expected to make all the advances in a relationship? Wasn’t that being sexist?
But what if he didn’t have a good time? What if he doesn’t think we really hit it off and he didn’t call me because he doesn’t want to go out again?
But he kissed me. He wouldn’t have initiated the kissing if he hadn’t liked me a little . . . would he? The thought that he hadn’t liked the way I kiss lingers in the corner of my mind.
Or maybe it’s just the whole package he doesn’t like. Maybe he’s another one of these guys who secretly yearns to date someone young enough to be his daughter. Even with my extra weight, my figure isn’t bad, but no one’s going to take me for thirty.
I groan. I hate feeling this way. Like I’m in the eighth grade and have my first crush.
Maybe a text?
I look at the phone again. That would give him an out, wouldn’t it? If he didn’t like me, he could just text back something noncommittal.
I find a chair in the hallway and have a seat. I text David.
Had fun last night
Thanks
Talk to you soon?
I wonder if it’s too pushy. I send it before I chicken out. Then I check my e-mail. Several of my students have questions, want to turn an assignment in late, or want to complain about their grades. Before I know it, an hour has passed and the lambs are pouring into the hallway. Everyone is laughing and talking.
I feel a moment of panic when I don’t see Chloe. The pastor must recognize the look on my face because he holds the door open, pointing inside the hall. “She’s right there. She’s helping Thomas shut off all the lights.”
I peek inside. Sure enough, Chloe’s on the other side of the hall, watching as Thomas carefully flips one switch after another on a panel on the wall. The overhead lights go off one after the other. When they’re all off, Thomas turns to Chloe, towering over her.
“L . . . lights, off!” Thomas declares. Then he offers his hand.
My daughter takes this man’s hand and together they walk across the hall and out the double doors where I wait. The only acknowledgment I get from Chloe is a frown of displeasure at the sight of my continued presence, and then her gaze is on Thomas again.
“And you never heard from him all day?” Jin asks. She snatches up the bottle of wine on the coffee table between us. She’s on one couch, I’m on the other. It’s Saturday night. Another exciting Saturday night in the Richardses’ household.
The living room is so big that I ended up buying two couches. Brown leather. Even though the house is Victorian, I didn’t decorate it in Victorian style—too much lace and ornate froufrou to suit me. My style is more Pottery Barn meets T.J.Maxx. The leather couches were an expensive purchase, but I’m still tickled with them after five years.
Jin pours more wine into my glass. It’s a pinot noir. I don’t know a lot about wine; Randall was always that department head. He liked to talk about the bouquet and such. He always ordered my wine for me at a restaurant, or bought the bottles for home at the grocery store. He said I didn’t know what I liked. He always spent too much money on wine; it was nothing for him to spend fifty dollars on a single bottle. I don’t know whom he was trying to impress. Certainly not me. The waitress? The clerk at the store?
Now I buy my own wine and I choose it by the picture on the label. And I know what I like. I like this bottle of pinot. It has a picture of a wolf howling at the moon on it. It was twelve bucks.
I let Jin fill my glass. Chloe’s upstairs, already in bed, watching a movie on my iPad. I’m thinking about getting her an iPad for her birthday in March. There are some simple apps to download and it would be nice to make her movies so portable.
“Not a word from him,” I t
ell Jin. “He didn’t even answer my text.”
I can laugh now. I wasn’t laughing about it earlier when I called her to come over. Jin is between girlfriends; when she’s single, we often get together evenings to commiserate. Saturday nights have become our date night.
Jin pours herself more wine and grabs a cracker off a plate. Chloe had wanted fish sticks and macaroni and cheese for dinner. I hate fish sticks and my waistline hates macaroni and cheese. I made a fruit, cheese and cracker plate, to share with Jin.
“But he kissed you good-bye?” Jin tucks her cute little brown, bare feet beneath her. She is one of those women who always has a pedicure, and walks around barefoot just to shame the rest of us.
I’m wearing shearling slippers over dry, ugly winter feet. My feet aren’t as sexy as hers, but mine are warm. “Yes, he kissed me.” I take a sip of the wine, which is cool and soothing on my tongue. “And not just a peck on the cheek,” I tell my friend.
“With tongue?” she asks.
I feel my cheeks grow warm. I’m embarrassed to be fifty years old and having this conversation. But it’s also a little fun. And freeing. “With tongue,” I dare.
“And?” she asks.
“And?” I say.
She throws half a cracker at me. “Was it good?”
I catch it and pop it in my mouth. “Yeah.” I think about it for a minute. “It was . . . nice.”
“Nice? Just nice?” She groans and sits back on the couch, pulling a quilt over her skinny legs. “Be glad he didn’t call.”
“But I like him.”
“If he’s a bad kisser, you’ve got no future.” Jin gives a wave and takes a drink from her glass.
“I didn’t say he was bad.” I’m still a little embarrassed to be talking about such a thing, even just with Jin. I even feel a little guilty to be kissing and telling. I like David. He is nice.
But Jin isn’t buying it. She’s frowning. “Did he get you all hot and bothered?”
When I don’t answer, she shakes her head. “You deserve better, Ally.”
I glance at the fire in the fireplace. It’s a beautiful fireplace, framed in oak, with a marble mantle. Jin has a matching one in her living room. The two rooms, before we split the house in half, had been twin parlors.
I wish I had romantic reasons to light a fire.
For years after Randall left, after I kicked him out on his tweed ass, I wasn’t interested in finding another partner. I wasn’t even interested in dating. My every waking hour revolved around Chloe and my job at the university. In my ex’s department. But things have gotten easier as Chloe has gotten older, and the fact of the matter is . . . I’m lonely.
I glance at Jin and smile. “Like you have room to talk. What about Mandolin? That crazy musician you were dating who named herself after an instrument?”
“She wasn’t crazy,” Jin defended. “She had . . . issues.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t we all? But she was crazy. The way she always lined up your shoes in your closet while you were sleeping?”
“And don’t forget the condiments.” Jin pointed and laughed before taking another sip of wine.
“In descending alphabetical order in your refrigerator door.” I point back at her. “And that’s not crazy?”
Jin shrugs. “So she had a little OCD. I certainly do. Don’t all women our age?”
I give her a look. “But she only ate certain color foods on certain days. Come on.”
Jin laughs. “I should have known better. I should have walked away the minute she told me her name.”
I laugh with her. “Okay. What about the one who called you after every date to tell you why she didn’t like you? Then she’d invite you out again.”
“Jasmine,” Jin recalled. “Jasmine was a great kisser.”
“But she didn’t like you and she told you so on a regular basis.”
Jin shook her head, laughing. “I think we’re going to need another bottle of wine.”
I grab a cracker and a piece of cheese. “Admit it. Abby was the most normal woman you ever dated.”
“Abby. Abigail. My little Adams.”
It was a personal joke between them . . .
Jin sighs and gazes at the fire.
Jin and Abby had been together fifteen years when they split. Abby is Huan’s other mother. She’s an attorney. She lives in Baltimore now. They’d broken up for all the reasons that heterosexual couples do after that long of a relationship. Jin felt neglected. Abby felt Jin didn’t appreciate the financial security she offered the family in exchange for her long hours at the office. Their parenting styles were different. What it came down to was that their relationship had lost its spark; they were bored with each other. The breakup had been amiable, and though Huan lived with Jin, he saw Abby all the time.
I study Jin’s face for a moment. She seems sad at my mention of Abby. Wistful. I sometimes think that the two of them still aren’t done. I think Jin still loves her, though Jin would be the last one to admit it.
“So, have you talked to her recently?”
“Who?” Jin’s still in a far-off place.
“You know who. Abby.”
“As a matter of fact, I have. Yesterday.”
I wait.
“We’re still friends.” Jin takes a defensive tone. “I called her about our life insurance policies. There was some kind of option on them. You know me, I don’t understand that kind of stuff.” She looks into her glass of wine. “So we talked.”
“About more than just life insurance policies?” I smile slyly when I say it.
“We were talking about you and David. Not about me.” She shrugs. “I say that if he doesn’t call you, it’s his loss.”
I glance at my phone lying on the coffee table in front of me. The only text I’ve gotten today is an advertisement from my cell phone carrier. My only call was a wrong number.
“You think I should text him again . . . in case he didn’t get it?”
“No.” Jin empties the last of the wine into her glass. “I think you need to get us another.” She shakes the bottle at me.
I’m just getting up when my phone rings. My house phone. I look at Jin.
She raises her eyebrows.
I frown. “It’s not him.”
“It might be him.”
I snatch the phone off the end table. I have caller ID, but it doesn’t work on this phone. I need to replace it. “It’s not him,” I say. “It’s not him because he only has my cell number.” I hit the TALK button. It’s probably a wrong number. “Hello?”
“C . . . Can I . . . I talk . . . talk to K . . . Koey?” a male voice booms.
6
Mom knocks on my bedroom door and comes in. “The phone is for you,” she says. She doesn’t sound happy. I don’t like it when Mom isn’t happy. It makes me sad.
I’m in my bed in my pj’s. They’re warm and snuggly and they have flowers on them. Blue. Me and my kitty are watching Aladdin on Mom’s iPad. I like Aladdin. “Prince Ali turned out to be Ali Ababwa.” I can sing the words.
I look at her, surprise on my face because I’m surprised. No one calls me on the phone. “Who’s talking on the phone?” I say. I try to make the movie stop singing. Mom showed me how to make them be quiet. I touch the button, but they keep singing.
“I think it’s Thomas,” my mom whispers. I don’t know why she’s whispering. Is it a secret?
But when she says his name I feel funny in my belly. But a good funny. Not like when I eat too much candy and I have to throw up. I like his name. I say it over and over again when I’m by myself. Thomas. Thomas. I whisper it now. “Thomas.”
Mom walks over to my bed. Kitty Spots jumps off my bed and runs away. I call her that because she has spots on her fur. She runs out the door. Mom holds the phone out to me. I take it, but I don’t talk to Thomas. I want Mom to leave. I want to talk to Thomas by myself. I don’t want to share him.
“I’m gonna talk to Thomas,” I tell my mom. “You leave.”
<
br /> She looks sad for a minute, but she makes Aladdin stop singing and then she goes out of my room. But she doesn’t close my door.
“Thomas.” I say his name to him on the phone.
“K . . . Koey,” Thomas says. He says my name wrong, but it doesn’t make me mad. I like Thomas. A lot. I love him. Me and him, we’re going to get married. He told me.
“This is . . . is T . . . Thomas,” Thomas says on the phone.
I laugh. “I know,” I tell him. I don’t know why I laugh again, but I do. “You called me.”
I get out of my bed. Mom’s in the hallway. I look at her. She’s a nosy head. I close the door.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say on the phone to Thomas. I guess he doesn’t know what to say either, because he doesn’t talk. He just says “K . . . Koey,” again.
Then I hear his mom talk. Then Thomas talks.
“We . . . w . . . went bowling, you . . . you a . . . and me,” he says. He has a hard time saying words, but it’s okay. I don’t laugh. It’s not funny when you can’t say something. A boy laughed at Thomas at the bowling alley when he tried to get us a soda, but Pastor Cliff talked to him quiet and the boy didn’t laugh anymore.
“We went bowling,” I tell Thomas. I remember when we went bowling and I say, “It was fun. We roll the ball. It’s really heavy. Pow!” I pretend I’m rolling the bowling ball in my bedroom. That’s silly because I’m wearing my pj’s. I don’t go to the bowling alley in my pj’s! Thomas makes me feel silly. Good silly.
I didn’t like bowling before. My dad took me. He read his newspaper and told me to bowl by myself. My dad doesn’t like me very much. That makes me sad, but I don’t tell Mom because she will be sad. Dad takes me to dinner at Chick Filly. I love Chick Filly, except when he gets me the salad so I don’t get fat. I don’t like the salad. I like the chicken nuggets and the French fries and lemonade. And milk shake.
“K . . . Koey,” Thomas says.
Just Like Other Daughters Page 6