by Laney Smith
“I hope you do.”
“Thank you. My day just got better.”
“Good. Don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“Good! Go away,” he teased.
“Bye, Ryan,” she laughed.
Ryan disconnected the call and returned his phone to his pocket. He glanced across the table at Nathan. Nathan smiled at him through the chocolate ring around his mouth, an ornery smirk on his face.
“What?” Ryan chuckled.
“Was that your girlfriend?”
“She’s just a friend.”
“She’s a girl, though.”
“So? You can be friends with girls, too.”
“Yeah, right! I bet she wants to kiss you.”
“What?” Ryan laughed as he tossed napkins at the boy. “Wipe your grimy face. Your mom is never going to let you run around with me, again. You’re a mess.”
For the next several hours, Ryan and Nathan visited a few sporting goods stores. By the time it was all said and done, Nathan had a new bat, baseballs, tennis balls, a new glove, a few new baseball caps, and a new pair of cleats. As they stood in the check-out line at the last store, Nathan gripped Ryan’s hand and peeked up from under the rim of his favorite new ball cap.
“Ryan, we can sell my baseball cards. You can keep all the money.”
Ryan drew his head back and looked at the
boy as though he were crazy. “Why would we do that?”
“I don’t want to take all of your money. You didn’t get a new baseball bat, or even a new hat.”
Ryan smiled. “You know what, Nate? That’s really nice of you, but I’m OK. Besides, I can make one phone call and have anything I want sitting on my doorstep. It’s called endorsements. So, don’t worry about me.”
“Well, if you need food, I can share my cereal with you.”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t need your food, buddy. I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry so much. Be a kid.”
“My mom always says, ‘No baseball crap!’ She tells me she can’t buy me baseball stuff because it costs too much and she has to buy other stuff.”
“Well, she’s right. Sometimes, you have to decide if you’re going to play or eat. If you spend all of your money on baseball stuff, what are you going to do when your stomach wants food? Even with salt, I don’t think baseball bats taste very good. They’re probably pretty crunchy and hard to chew.”
Nathan laughed. “Ryan, I wish you could spend the night at my house.”
“Then I would be in trouble with my mom. I told her I would take her to dinner tonight. If I’m not there to take her to dinner, she will worry.”
Nathan giggled and teased in a mocking tone, “Then your girlfriend would be mad, too.”
“Oo! I’m glad you reminded me about that,” Ryan said as he looked at his watch.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes as he noted the time. They made their way through the store with the items they wanted to purchase. As Ryan stood at the register, he fished his wallet out of his pocket and took out a credit card. The boy leaned his head over on Ryan’s arm.
“You smell like a shower,” Nathan offered.
As Ryan handed his card to the cashier, he looked down at Nathan. “What? What do you mean, I smell like a shower?”
The girl behind the counter handed Ryan his receipt. “Your son looks just like you. He’s cute.”
“Uh, he’s not . . .” Preferring to skip the explanations, Ryan smiled and nodded. “Thanks.”
As they walked out of the store, Nathan smiled at Ryan. “I think I kind of look like you, too. Well, when your face isn’t a mess.”
“First, I smell like a shower. Now, my face is a mess. You’re giving me a complex.”
“Before you go see your mom and your girlfriend, you should take all of that stuff off,” Nathan said as he pointed to Ryan’s face. “Girls don’t like fuzzy faces. I kind of think you look better without it, too.”
Ryan stopped walking and popped his head over at the boy, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “You want me to put your behind on the next city bus I see?”
Nathan giggled and shook his head. “You’re just kidding, huh, Ryan? You wouldn’t do that for real.”
Ryan started walking again, with a smile on his face. “Nah! I’d be sad without my buddy.”
“Will you get mad if I ask you a question?”
“No, I won’t get mad.”
“What if your girlfriend has a baby?”
Ryan’s eyes widened as he opened the trunk of his car to toss the packages inside. “Um . . .”
“Can we still be best friends?”
“She’s not my girlfriend, and I’ll be your best friend as long as you want me to be.”
“Ladies do have a baby, sometimes. Boys have to be the dad.”
“Uh . . . huh,” Ryan nervously responded.
“Sometimes, ladies eat too much until it fills their whole tummy. It makes them look kinda fat, but they’re not fat. They just have a lot of food from eating too much. The food stays in their tummy until it turns into a baby. Then, they have baby. Then, they’re not fat anymore unless they eat too much, again.”
“I see,” Ryan smirked. “So, how long does it take the food to turn into a baby?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s just about . . . maybe five days or something,” Nathan shrugged.
“Five days, huh?” Ryan chuckled. “I’m glad you told me all of this. There’s just a few problems with what you’ve said. Number one, we never, ever, ever tell a pregnant woman that she’s fat. Never! Number two, maybe it would be best if you didn’t tell any woman that she’s only been pregnant for five days. Both of those things might get us punched in the face.”
“One time, my mom said she ate too much. I told her she was going to have a baby,” Nathan giggled. “I think she wanted to punch me in the face, but she didn’t.”
Ryan laughed with the boy. “You better get in the car before you get us beat up.”
~TWELVE~
At ten to five, Ryan’s phone rang. He recognized the area code as a local number. The double zeroes at the end gave away that it was a business number. He answered the call, knowing whose voice he would hear.
“Hello?”
“Is Nathan OK?” Corlay’s panicked voice begged.
Ryan scoffed. “He’s great.”
“Where are the pictures you promised?”
“Sorry. We got busy. I spaced it.”
“Oh! That really builds confidence. I don’t get breaks anytime I want, Ryan! I kept checking my phone. There was nothing from you.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
“Y-Yes! Yes, I do.”
Ryan handed his phone to Nathan. He listened to the boy’s responses. He could tell that Corlay was reading Nathan the riot act, when she wasn’t asking him twenty questions. When Nathan noticed Ryan looking at him, the boy made a mocking face and his hand turned into a hand puppet, implying his mother was talking too much. Ryan passed him a look of disapproval. After a few minutes, Nathan said goodbye to his mother and promised to put Ryan back on the phone.
“Yes ma’am?” Ryan sweetly sang into the phone.
“I want him home no later than five-thirty.”
“OK. When are you going to be there?”
“Five-fifteen, five-thirty,” she answered.
“Do you have dinner planned?”
“I have no interest in dating you, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”
Ryan chuckled. “Uh, I’ll make a note of that. I was just thinking that we have a little time before you want him back. If it would help for us to stop and pick something up, we could do that before I bring him back.”
“Why are you doing all of this?”
Ryan shook his head and pursed his lips. “I have no idea.”
“Don’t you have better things to do?”
“No. Pathetic, right?”
Corlay was silent. Eventually, sh
e sighed heavily. “I can’t pay you back until Thursday.”
“I’m not worried about that. What would you like us to bring?”
“Something simple. Something cheap. Something . . . Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“What’s simple? What does that mean?”
“Maybe a box of corn dogs or a frozen pizza.”
“You want corn dogs?” Ryan asked with disgust in his tone.
“I’ve only slept seven hours in the past three days. Don’t make me feel guilty for being too tired, please.”
“Corn dogs?” he asked for confirmation.
“Tell me why you’re inserting yourself like this. What do you get out of this? Why? You’re watching my son. You’re trying to butt in to our mealtime. What damn difference does it make to you?”
“I’m just as curious about that as you are. I don’t have an answer for you. I can’t explain any of this. Just let me do it. Let me butt in. I want to do it.”
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’re going to get Nathan to where he counts on you and then you’re going to get bored with this. I’m afraid I’m going to let you butt in and then when you’ve had enough, I’m going to be worse off than I am right now.”
“Corn dogs? You really want corn dogs?”
Corlay laughed. “Unless it’s against your religion, or something.”
“Oh, it is,” Ryan asserted. “Nathan is making dinner for you tonight. Trust us?”
Corlay bit her lip, smiling as she held the phone to her head. “I’m really afraid of that.”
“Just watch. We have a lot to do. We’ll see you around five-thirty.”
“Ryan?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded graciously, slowly blinking as he slightly ducked his head. “See you soon.”
He tossed his phone into the console and looked over at Nathan. Nathan smiled, squirming to sit up taller in his seat as he clasped his hands.
“What are we going to do?” he asked with excitement in his voice.
Ryan smiled. “We’re going to do something nice for your mom.”
“Is my mom your girlfriend?”
“No. She’s your mom. You have to do nice things for your mom.”
“I hope she likes it. If she eats a lot, it will turn into a baby. Then you could be the dad.”
Ryan laughed as he turned into a parking space for a local florist. “I hope you don’t feel a need to mention that to her. It’s a good thing your theory is just a little off.”
“What?” Nathan asked in confusion.
“Nothing. Let’s go in here and find her some pretty weeds,” Ryan chuckled. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“I wish my mom was your girlfriend. You’re really nice to do this for her.”
“I’m not doing this,” Ryan corrected. “You are.”
Almost two hundred dollars later, Nathan carried a vase of deep purple long stemmed roses out of the florist shop. Ryan told the child to pick whatever he wanted to take to his mother, so he did. The arrangement was almost bigger than the little boy carrying them.
“Do you need some help?” Ryan asked.
Nathan grunted. “I can’t really see very good.”
Unable to hide his laughter at the cute vision before him, Ryan took mercy on the child and held the flowers until Nathan got in the car. Then, he placed them between the boy’s feet on the floorboard.
“Keep them from falling over, OK?”
Ryan walked around the car and got in. Then, he set off to find dinner. He looked over at Nathan.
“What does your mom like to eat?”
“Radishes,” Nathan confidently answered.
“Well . . . OK. What else?”
“Just radishes.”
Ryan bobbed his head. “OK. Well, what about chicken?”
“Nope! Just radishes.”
“We can get some radishes. Surely, she’s going to want something else, though.”
Ryan drove to the grocery store. He and Nathan walked through the vegetable section. Ryan found radishes and shook his head as he started rifling through them, looking for the nicest ones. He held a bunch up, showing them to Nathan.
“What about these radishes?”
Nathan scrunched his face, pointing his finger at the bushel. “Um, that’s not radishes.”
Ryan looked at the vegetables in his hand. “These are radishes.”
“Nuh-uh, silly. Those are plants.”
“Buddy, radishes are plants.”
“No, they’re not. Rad-i-shes,” he said, sounding out every syllable.
“What the hell are you talking about? Does she like the white ones? Horse radishes?”
“Nope. The real radishes.”
“Nathan! For the love of God! These are real radishes.”
“You don’t get them at the grocery store.”
“OK. Where do you get them?”
Nathan shrugged.
“What do they look like?”
“They’re red and they have a lot of stuff, but not a lot, just a little bit.”
“Are you serious? What are you talking about? These are not radishes?” Ryan asked, shaking the vegetables at the child.
“No. You know, radishes,” the boy said in frustration.
“Nathan, I’m going to pull my hair out. I don’t know what you’re talking about. These are radishes. Radishes are vegetables . . . plants.”
“No, Ryan. Rad-i-shes.”
Ryan sighed, shaking his head. He muttered to himself, “What the hell is this kid talking about?”
Ryan put the bunch of radishes down. Stupefied, he strolled through the store, trying to figure out what Nathan was referring to. Finally, they walked down the frozen food aisle. After a few steps, Nathan got excited, pointing and jumping up and down.
“Ryan! There’s radishes. She likes those radishes. See? They’re red and they have a lot, but not too much of a lot.”
“Buddy, those aren’t radishes. That’s ravioli. Your mom likes ravioli?”
“This is her favorite.”
“Uh . . . OK. Rad-i-shes. Rav-i-olis. Exactly the same, only entirely different,” he said as he stared in the freezer door. “You’re sure? That’s her favorite kind of radishes?”
“Yes. She gets that kind right there,” Nathan said, pointing to a specific box.
“Four cheese and pesto? All right. Now, we’re on to something. Let’s go.”
Ryan and Nathan went to a local Italian restaurant. They didn’t have four cheese and pesto ravioli, but they did have three cheese in a white wine sauce. Ryan opted for the white wine sauce and marinara on the side, just in case. Nathan ordered macaroni and cheese with bacon and bread crumbs. There were also two salads and an order of cheesy bread that came with the dinners.
Feeling good about his attempt to teach Nathan how to be a hunter and gatherer, Ryan started making tracks toward Nathan’s house. He wanted to teach his little friend how to set it up so when his mom came home, she could sit down and eat without worrying about cooking or preparing anything. As he drove, he replayed Corlay’s question in his mind.
“Tell me why you’re inserting yourself like this. What do you get out of this?”
Ryan looked over at the passenger seat. The little boy seated beside him strained, stretching his body upward to see out the window. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but the little boy in the seat beside him had given him reason and purpose. Everything he did for that kid in the seat beside him kept him from feeling adrift in the sea of life. That little boy had become his anchor.
When Ryan’s car pulled up in front of Nathan’s house, the two hurried to gather their purchases from the day and cart them all inside. With Nathan’s help, Ryan found everything he needed to set the table and put the food on the plates. He looked at the clock. Five forty-five.
“We’re late. Lucky for us, your mom’s a little late, too.”
The guys waited for ten minut
es. Corlay still hadn’t come home. Ryan took his phone out and called the number that Corlay had called him from earlier. It went to an automated answering service.
“How do you call your mom when she’s at work?”
Nathan took the phone from Ryan’s hand. He punched a few buttons and the phone rang. Finally, a woman’s voice answered.
“Corlay Brock, how can help you?”
“Hey! It’s Ryan. You said five-thirty, right?”
Corlay sighed into the phone. “It was supposed to be five-thirty. But, my boss is an asshole. It might be a couple of hours, yet.”
Ryan looked at the perfectly set table. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“He’ll be fine by himself until I get there.”
“No, you don’t understand. Tell your boss you have to leave.”
“I’m not a professional baseball player. We can’t all just make our money in one big lump. If I piss him off, I can kiss my raise goodbye. I can kiss my job goodbye. Are you going to make my house payment? Are you going to pay my bills?”
Ryan turned away from Nathan. “Your son has dinner waiting for you.”
“I can’t help that, Ryan. I have to do my job.”
“I really, really hope you’re kidding.”
“No. I’m really not. I don’t need to feel any worse than I already do.”
“You wanted pictures, right? Which one of these five billion numbers is your cell phone?”
“I’ll let you off the hook. I was looking for pictures, earlier. It’s a little late now.”
“Which one of these numbers?” he snapped.
“The one ending in five-three-nine-three.”
“Alright. I’ll send you pictures.”
Ryan hung up and opened the camera on his phone. He snapped a few pictures of the dinner table. Then, he sent them to Corlay’s cell phone. He was angry and he was hoping it would make her feel horrible. He couldn’t comprehend what job could take her away from her son. He couldn’t understand what job would require so much and provide such a modest living.
He sat down at the table with Nathan. “Hey, buddy. Go ahead and eat your mac and cheese.”
“I’m waiting for Mom.”
“I know. She needs a ghostie, this time. Her boss is making her work longer than she thought. She wants you to eat while it’s still hot,” Ryan said, nodding his head.