Alicia shivered at the thought.
She reached over and turned off her bedside light, remembering what she’d told Jake, that he needed to have a little faith in Dani. And that’s what she and Jake were both going to have to do. Jake needed to have faith that Dani would eventually learn to love him as much as he loved her. And she needed to have faith that if she and Jake did stay together after the custody situation was settled, Dani would eventually learn to love her, too.
Alicia rolled over, determined to go to sleep.
But hours later she was still wide awake, worrying about what Dani would tell the social worker when push came to shove.
Chapter 23
On Tuesday morning, Jake made a final survey through the house. The best he could tell, everything was in order. The social worker, Ms. Brown, was scheduled to arrive at ten that morning. According to his watch, he had five minutes left to pull himself together.
Jake hadn’t been this nervous since . . .
Since . . .
Hell! Who was he kidding? He’d never been this nervous. He’d dressed up at first, and even put on a tie. Then he’d decided that would look like he was trying to impress the woman, so he’d changed into a casual golf shirt, a pair of shorts, and tennis shoes.
He just hoped the nightmare he’d had last night didn’t turn out to be true. In his dream Danielle’s punk-Goth look was back, and she’d leaned over and spit right in Ms. Brown’s eye. The weird dream? A combination of his worst fears and his own personal opinion of social services, he supposed.
Still, Jake glanced toward the stairs. He hadn’t seen Danielle since breakfast. Was she looking for her nose ring and putting streaks back in her hair right now?
Jake sighed, walked across the foyer, and looked around the living room again. Then he walked back to the foyer and peered out the glass storm door, checking the driveway.
No sign of Ms. Pit Bull yet.
When he turned around to walk back into the living room again, he glanced down the hallway and saw Kiwi, sniffing along the baseboard. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Jake shouted and hurried forward to scoop him up.
The housebreaking issue?
They were still working on that.
With his luck, Kiwi would trot into the living room, hump up, and take a big dump on the toe of one of Ms. Brown’s shoes. Jake headed outside, Kiwi under his arm, carrying the dog to the far side of the yard, his designated place to poo.
“Don’t take all day,” he told the dog, and placed the little scoundrel on the grass.
Kiwi placed his nose to the ground, sniffed several times, moved on, sniffed again.
“What’s the problem?” Jake complained. “You can hike your leg in the house in a heartbeat. But you can’t find a suitable place outside?”
He shook his head when Kiwi stopped long enough to sniff, move on, sniff again. Finally, Kiwi hiked his leg. The second he put his leg down, Jake grabbed him up and started back to the porch. He reached the porch at the same time the white Volvo pulled into his driveway.
It was also the same moment Jake felt something wet along his right side. He held Kiwi away from him, staring down at his light blue golf shirt: a large wet splotch the size of a grapefruit was now covering the right side of his shirt.
“Dog piss!” Jake said, glaring down at Kiwi. The only thing that saved Kiwi’s life was Jake imagining “strangled a small dog right in front of me” written in big letters on Ms. Brown’s evaluation sheet.
She finally got out of the car and started up the walk, looking exactly as Jake remembered. Stout. Gray hair. Early sixties. Her navy-blue dress was shapeless, her thick support hose shiny, and her orthopedic shoes required a doctor’s prescription. Her reading glasses were attached to a chain around her neck and perched on the end of her nose. A clipboard was tucked under her left arm, a briefcase clutched in her right hand.
“Ms. Brown,” Jake said, emphasizing the Ms. “It’s nice to see you again.” He positioned Kiwi over the wet spot as she got closer, and flashed the woman his best smile.
She came to a stop on the sidewalk, but she made no effort to climb the two concrete steps leading up to the porch. Jake remained standing on the porch stoop, looking down at her. “Please. Come in,” he told her.
She stared at Jake over the top of her reading glasses, then at Kiwi, then back at Jake again. “What is that? A rodent of some sort?”
“No,” Jake said. “He’s a dog. A Chinese crested hairless, to be exact.” He wanted to add, “With a pedigree that far surpasses your own,” but he didn’t.
“I don’t like rodents or dogs,” she said. “I’m a cat person myself.”
What a shocker, Jake thought.
She placed her briefcase on the sidewalk, took a pen from the top of her clipboard, and scribbled something on the top sheet of paper clipped to the board. What? A black mark against him already for having a dog that looked like a rodent? Jake wasn’t sure.
“I’ll put the dog in the laundry room as soon as we go inside,” Jake told her, hoping he could also find a can of air freshener in the laundry room. If she didn’t like dogs, he doubted the smell of dog pee would impress her, either.
She looked Kiwi over again, then finally gave in and walked up onto the porch. Jake opened the door for her. She nodded curtly as she walked past, her expression as inviting as the faint mustache above her upper lip.
Jake directed her to the right and into the living room. “Make yourself comfortable,” he told her. “I’ll take care of the dog and ask my daughter to come downstairs.”
She seated herself on a chair by the window, and placed her briefcase on the floor beside her chair. “I’ll want to talk to you both together at first,” she said as she bent over and started thumbing through her briefcase. She looked back up at him. “Then, I’d like to talk to your daughter alone.”
“Of course,” Jake said, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
He headed to the laundry room with Kiwi just as Danielle started down the stairs. Jake breathed a sigh of relief when he looked up and saw her. No streaks. No black lips. No nose ring. Just his beautiful daughter, her hair brushed and shiny, and looking fresh and clean in white Capri pants and a simple green shirt.
Jake motioned for Danielle to follow him. When she followed him into the laundry room off the kitchen, Jake closed the door behind them, then bent over and placed Kiwi on the floor.
“What happened to your shirt?” she asked when he stood back up.
“Don’t ask,” Jake said. He grabbed a can of air freshener from the shelf over the dryer and held it up. “Think this is strong enough to disguise the smell of dog pee?”
“Ewwwww,” she said.
Jake closed his eyes and sprayed himself.
Danielle said, “And you wanted me present to witness this because?”
Jake said, “I wanted you present to tell you not to be intimidated by the social worker.”
Danielle rolled her eyes. “You must have me confused with your other daughter,” she said.
This time, Jake mocked her and rolled his eyes.
She shook her head and reached for the door handle.
“Danielle,” Jake said as she opened the door. “I want you to answer anything the social worker asks you truthfully, whether it’s in my favor or not. That’s why the woman’s here. She doesn’t care what I want. And she doesn’t care what your grandmother wants. She’s here to find out what you want.”
She looked at him funny for a second, then walked out of the laundry room. Jake pushed Kiwi back inside, closed the laundry-room door, and followed after her.
When Dani walked into the living room, Jake walked up beside her and introduced her to the social worker. Dani had expected someone younger, and friendly.
Ms. Brown was neither.
She looked over the top of her glasses at the big wet spot on Jake’s shirt, frowned, and wrote something on the paper on her clipboard. Jake hurried across the room and sat down on the sofa, crossi
ng his arms to cover up the spot.
Dani was actually glad he was already sitting down when she politely asked Ms. Brown if she could offer her anything to drink. Jake looked so shocked Dani almost burst out laughing.
Ms. Brown declined her offer, and Jake looked even more shocked when Dani walked over and sat down on the sofa right beside him. If their guest noticed the shocked look on his face, however, she didn’t let on.
“I just have a few questions for both of you,” she said, looking at them over the top of her glasses again. “Let’s start with you, Danielle. How are things going living with your father so far?”
“Good,” Dani said.
Jake’s head snapped in her direction. “They are?”
Dani sent him her don’t-embarrass-me glare.
He looked back at Ms. Brown and said, “I mean, yes. They are. You’d be surprised at how well things are going. I know I’m surprised things are going so well.”
“The question was for Danielle, Mr. Sims,” Ms. Brown reminded him, then looked down at the clipboard on her lap and wrote something else on the piece of paper clipped to the board.
Jake looked back at Dani and whispered, “You really think things are going well?”
Dani punched him with her elbow.
Ms. Brown looked back up and said, “According to my records you’ve already enrolled Danielle in school for the upcoming year. Is that correct, Mr. Sims?”
“Yes,” Jake said.
Dani said, “And I’ve already met the lady I’ll be carpooling with to and from school. She has two sons and a daughter. The daughter is my age. She’s going to show me around my new middle school.”
Ms. Brown didn’t reprimand her for answering the question the way she’d reprimanded Jake. She just nodded, and looked down at the clipboard again, making more notes.
She looked back up and said, “My records also indicate that you’re taking time off from your career while Danielle is adjusting to her new living arrangements. When exactly do you intend to resume,” she paused, cleared her throat, and said in a rather snooty voice, “your underwear modeling career?”
Dani looked at Jake herself for that answer.
Jake said, “I didn’t renew my modeling contract, Ms. Brown, so you might want to make that notation in your records. I’m negotiating with a new sponsor at the moment who is considering making me a spokesperson for a campaign against performance-enhancing drug use among young athletes.”
“Any travel involved?” she was quick to ask.
“Possibly,” Jake said. “But limited travel. Most of my involvement will be televised commercials.”
“And what arrangements have you made for Danielle when you travel, Mr. Sims?”
Dani broke in again and said, “I’ll be staying with our neighbor, Alicia Greene, across the street.”
Jake looked over at her, but he didn’t dispute what she’d just said. Ms. Brown made a few more notations, then slid her pen into the slot at the top of her clipboard.
“Well,” she said, looking up at them again, “I think I have everything I need for now.”
Jake said, “I can go into the kitchen while you talk with Danielle in private.”
“No, it doesn’t appear that’s going to be necessary this visit since Danielle seems quite happy with her new living arrangements. Unless,” she added, “Danielle happens to have anything she’d like to discuss with me in private. Do you, Danielle?”
Dani shook her head. “No. Nothing I can think of at the moment. But thank you for asking.”
Satisfied, the woman collected her things and stood up. “Then I guess I’ll see you both in September at our next scheduled evaluation visit.”
Jake got up from the sofa and walked Ms. Brown to the door. The second the woman walked outside on the porch, Dani saw her chance and sprinted for the stairs. She’d promised to call her grandmother the minute the social worker left. And Natta didn’t like being disappointed.
Her grandmother would be up by now. Natta was always up early during the week, setting an example by always arriving early at the agency. At the moment, she’d be sitting at the long dining-room table in her big formal dining room, sipping her herbal tea from a fine china cup that supposedly was from a set of china that was once owned by Napoleon’s wife, Josephine. No one else was allowed to touch the cup, EVER.
According to Natta, the cup was priceless.
She’d asked Natta once, if the cup was priceless then why did she risk breaking it by using it every day? Natta had smiled at her and said, “Because I’m Ranatta Harper and because I can.”
Dani also knew Natta’s once-a-model-herself face would be lathered with her favorite green Swedish moisturizing mask while she sipped her tea and ate the one slice of toast she allowed herself every morning for breakfast. She’d be barking out orders to the current maid of the week, making sure Raoul had her correct itinerary for the day, and reminding both of them she could replace them in an instant.
Why Raoul had stayed with her grandmother for twenty years, Dani couldn’t imagine. Her poor grandfather Harper hadn’t been that strong. He’d died of a heart attack when Carla was only a baby—probably a big relief after putting up with Natta. But he’d left behind his money, leaving Natta a rich widow, and Dani had heard her grandmother say a million times that she’d never marry again.
Natta also didn’t like bad news first thing in the morning, so newspapers were taboo, and radios and televisions weren’t allowed to be turned on in the house until after she left for the agency. According to Natta, bad news first thing in the morning always ruined her entire day.
Dani smiled mischievously.
Poor Natta. She was going to have a really bad day.
Chapter 24
What the . . . ?” Jake turned around when he heard Danielle’s bedroom door slam.
Now what? Jake wondered.
She’d acted like a perfect angel during the visit with the social worker, even throwing in the Martha Stewart “Can I offer you anything to drink?” act. Now it was back to slamming doors and locking herself in her bedroom?
Jake just didn’t get it.
Ovaries, he decided.
That was his only explanation for Danielle’s mood swings.
A loud scratching noise reminded him that Danielle wasn’t the only one behind closed doors. Jake walked to the laundry room and freed Kiwi who happily trotted into the hallway. When he walked back to the foyer, Danielle appeared at the top of the stairs.
She walked down the stairs holding something behind her back. When she stopped in front of him, she held out her hand.
Jake stared at the cell phone.
“You aren’t supposed to know I have this,” she said. “This is Ranatta’s way of getting around her Sunday only phone call. I want you to have it.”
She pushed it in his direction.
Jake pushed it back.
“Keep it,” Jake said. “You can call Ranatta anytime you want, Danielle. You never asked to call her. If you had, I would have told you could call your grandmother whenever you wanted.”
She said, “I’m supposed to call her as soon as the social worker leaves.”
“Then call her,” Jake said.
“No,” she said, pushing the cell phone into his hand. “I want you to call her and tell her I’ve decided I want to stay here with you. Tell her she can play by the rules and call me every Sunday.”
“Be the bad guy, you mean?” Jake said.
“According to Ranatta, you’ve always been the bad guy,” Danielle reminded him.
Jake said, “Do you want to stay with me, Danielle?”
“For now,” she said. “At least until I have a chance to see what I really want.”
“A chance is all I’m asking for,” Jake said. “You give me a chance to make up for the past, and I’ll make you a promise. If you decide you want to go back to LA later, I won’t try to stop you.”
“Then call Ranatta,” she said. “Please?”
Jake didn’t get the chance to call.
The phone suddenly came to life in his hand.
“Talk to her for me, Jake,” Danielle said, her hands clasped together in a plea. “Please.”
Jake opened the phone and put it to his ear.
“Speak up, Danielle!” Ranatta snapped. “I can’t hear you.”
“This is Jake, Ranatta.”
He heard her gasp.
“What are you doing answering Danielle’s phone?”
Jake said, “You mean the phone I’m not supposed to know about?”
“Put Danielle on the phone this instant!”
“No,” Jake said flatly. “If you want to talk to Danielle, you can call her on Sunday. The same way you allowed me to call her only on Sundays for the last thirteen years.”
“Why you bastard!” she yelled. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
“I’m Danielle’s father,” Jake said. “You seem to keep forgetting that. We had a nice visit with the social worker this morning, and Danielle has decided she wants to stay with me and give herself the chance to see if living with me is what she really wants. I hope you’ll respect her decision without trying to make her feel guilty about it.”
“This isn’t over, Jake Sims!” she screamed through the phone. “Do you hear me? I’ll make sure you regret the day you were born. You are not going to get away with trying to turn my own granddaughter against me!”
The line went dead.
Jake closed the phone and handed it back to Danielle.
“You can still call her back,” he said. “I’m sure you could hear her screaming through the phone. She was pretty upset.”
“I don’t want to call her back,” Danielle said. “She’ll just yell at me, too.” She slipped the phone into her pants pocket.
To ease her mind, Jake said, “I’m sure Ranatta will calm down by the time she calls you on Sunday.”
Danielle shook her head. “Natta won’t call me on Sunday,” she said with certainty. “Ranatta Harper never backs down from anything.”
“Then that’s Ranatta’s loss,” Jake said, but he feared Danielle was right. Ranatta hadn’t backed down when she’d disowned Carla. Carla had been the one who called Ranatta begging to come home.
Dinner First, Me Later? Page 18