A few nights later, I’m out for dinner with Gloria and Xiu at a new Moroccan place that just opened in the west end. We’re on our second round of cocktails but haven’t ordered dinner yet. We’re too busy covering everything from my cousin Lena’s upcoming baby shower—which we’re all invited to, since Gloria and Xiu know Lena from the year we all did bootcamp together—to Gloria’s latest house sale, to Xiu’s update on her relationship with Jed. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” I say to her. “Can I offer you advice?”
“You know you can,” Xiu says, leaning forward.
“There’s that saying—and you know I’m not one to live my life by an inspo quote on Facebook, but I got this from John Lennon, so give me a sec,” I say before they can tease me. “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. What if you remind Jed that right now, he’s married to you. That’s his reality. And if you two aren’t having kids, you need to make the best decision for that plan, not the one he may have in the future.”
Xiu nods. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Gloria claps her hands together. “Excellent, well now that we have all that out of the way, can we finally get down to what we all want to discuss? The hot chef,” Gloria says, as my phone rings and Will’s name shows up on the screen. My heart skips a beat, and for a second, I wonder if he’s calling to see if I’m free.
“Hey,” I say, picking up.
“Hey.” He sounds panicked, rambling on about a last-minute request to cater an engagement party that was too good to pass up, which he therefore took, and now he needs to be out the door but the babysitter didn’t show up, his sister-in-law isn’t answering her phone and Addie’s best friend’s mother, Gillian, his go-to, is out of town. “It’ll only be a few hours,” he insists. “Please? I’m desperate.”
It takes me a second to even register what he’s asking of me. He wants me to watch Addie? Is he joking? We spend one afternoon together on the island and suddenly he’s put me into the babysitter rotation? No way.
“I’m out with friends,” I say, making sure not to apologize—normally my default.
“Oh, right, of course, is—is it important?”
I nearly hang up. It doesn’t matter if it’s important or not. It’s what I’m doing. And I know what he’s thinking, that of course I’m out with friends, because that’s what single people do. I’m annoyed, and, anyway, I’m also underqualified—I never even babysat as a kid, so why would I start now? And yet, I don’t hang up, because there’s this small part of me that’s flattered I came to mind.
“Are you still there?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he adds, his voice low and gravelly. “I promise.” And the thought of how he might make it up to me…
“You could even just tell me where you are and I’ll bring Addie to you,” Will is saying. “You don’t have to leave.”
“No!” I practically shout, then lower my voice as a woman at the table beside us turns and gives me a look. “I’ll meet you at my place in ten minutes.”
I hang up and gulp the rest of my wine as Gloria and Xiu look at me expectantly.
“Just, uh…something with my sister,” I say, and Gloria shakes her head.
“Nice try, Kit. Was that the guy?”
“There’s no guy.”
“There’s definitely a guy. I don’t know why you’re hiding it from us. We’re supposed to be your friends. Spill it.”
“Yeah, why are you being so weird?” Xiu’s brow is furrowed, as though she’s trying to figure out who exactly the guy is. I haven’t posted the pic of Will and me from the island, but once I do, she’s going to be onto me. I don’t want to lie to either of them, but the fact they’re not just my friends, but also child-free by choice, and part of my No Kidding group, makes it complicated. And because I know what they’ll say: Don’t get involved with someone who has kids. It’s easy. Break it off before it can begin. But I can’t think about that right now. I grab my purse and slap a twenty on the table before rushing out the door.
At my condo I find Will and Addie waiting for me in the lobby. Addie’s looking around, wide-eyed, like she’s in Disneyland. “I’ll make this up to you, I swear,” he whispers in my ear.
“You already said that,” I tell him, wondering what exactly he would’ve done if I’d refused to bail on my girls’ night.
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s all I can think about.” He clears his throat and then turns to Addie. “Be good for Kit, OK? No messing up her apartment. Love you, Kiddo.”
He hands me a bag and tells me that her pajamas and toothbrush are inside. “She can fall asleep, and I’ll come pick her up as soon as this thing’s done. Don’t let her get overtired,” he adds in a lowered voice, then kisses Addie and he’s out the door.
“This is going to be so fun,” Addie says on the elevator ride up, but there’s this pit in my stomach. Is it going to be fun? I’m not prepared to have a child in my tidy, white apartment. I open the door and Addie pushes through, running over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, leaning up against them, her hands on the glass. She breathes on the glass, then draws a heart and turns around. “This place is so cool. Is that candy?” she says, eyeing the dish on the coffee table. “This is exactly how I want my apartment to look when I’m older. Well, maybe not exactly. I would have more twinkle lights. I have a Pinterest board for inspo.” The lid to the candy jar clanks as she slams it on the glass coffee table. I wince. I move her shoes and bag to the corner of the apartment from the middle of the floor where she dropped them.
“Want to make cheese quesadillas for dinner?” Addie asks, her mouth full of jujubes. She’s already lifting the lid on the jar again, but this time, the lid slips and shatters as it hits the coffee table, sending shards of glass skittering across the hardwood floor.
She yelps and my initial reaction is annoyance. I sigh—loudly, then realize I should be making sure she’s OK.
“I’m so sorry, Kit,” she says, and I force a tight smile and tell her it’s OK. “Come and sit here so you don’t step on any glass,” I say, pulling out a bar stool. She tiptoes over and bounds, a little too forcefully for my liking, onto the stool, but I grab the back of it before it teeters over.
“Whoa, careful,” I say, still feeling annoyed.
“Do you have any more candy in your cupboards?” she asks. “I guess we can’t eat those ones now.”
“No,” I say tersely, then retrieve the broom from the space beside the stacked washer and dryer.
“When I sleep at Millie’s, Gillian always lets us make our own cheese quesadillas.” She’s rambling. I get the glass cleaned up and I’m about to tell her that I’m not Gillian when I think better of it. But why am I so irritated at the mention of Gillian, a woman I’ve never even met?
“I really hadn’t given it any thought, but I can tell you we’re definitely not making cheese quesadillas. Let’s order in. Do you like pizza?”
“Pizza?!” She claps her hands together. “Yes! Dad never lets us order pizza. He always makes it himself and puts broccoli on it. Pizza isn’t supposed to have broccoli.”
“I actually like broccoli on my pizza,” I say. “With feta and sun-dried tomatoes. It’s so good.”
Her face falls.
“It’s fine. We’ll just order two pizzas. You get what you like and I’ll get what I like.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? Our own pizzas?”
I laugh. “Yeah. Then we have leftovers and I don’t have to order in tomorrow. See? You’re doing me a favor. So what would you like on yours?” I grab my phone.
“Cheese. And tomato sauce.”
“Cheese and tomato sauce it is,” I say, punching in the number for my go-to pizza place on the corner. “Alright,” I say, once I’ve placed the order. “Nail time. Come with me.” I motion for her to come into the kitchen. I pull open the drawer where I keep the nail polish.
“Aren’t you supposed to have spoons and stuff in here?”
I shrug. “Says who?” And Addie smiles.
“Are these the piggy ones?” she says, looking at the small bottles in my drawer.
“Piggy ones?”
“The nail polish that doesn’t have any chemicals. You know, cuz I’m a kid.”
Nail polish without chemicals? Then how on earth does it stay on your nails? I sigh.
“Aunt Margot only lets me use that kind. The rest is really bad for you. Cancer, you know.”
And I feel bad for being irritated, because she has a point, and I do know. I used to be so afraid of getting cancer when I was a kid. Because of Mom. I was convinced that everything would give me cancer—even though now, I can see that it was irrational, because it wasn’t anything Mom did, or didn’t do, in particular that caused her cancer.
The worst for me was fruit. Dad would have to wash each piece of fruit—with soap—before I could be forced to put it in my mouth. I’d done a project on pesticides at school and I was sure that the pesticides went much deeper than the skin and that the entire fruit was contaminated regardless of how hard he scrubbed an apple. Some nights I would lie in bed and wonder if a twinge here, a tickle there was the cancer growing inside of me. I’d poke around my body, looking for lumps or bumps or anything that felt like it could be a tumor. Finally, when I was fifteen or so, I got over it, but sometimes I still hold my breath before taking my first bite of any fruit. And now I’ve gone the other way—choosing to believe that while nearly everything could give you cancer, I’m not going to live my life wondering whether it’ll be red Smarties or nail polish. But I’m thirty-three. Addie’s eight.
“You know what?” I say. “I have some nail decals. Let’s use those instead.”
Addie nods with enthusiasm. A few minutes later we’re set up at the bar and I’ve laid out sheets of stars and moons and butterfly decals and she seems happy. And I can’t help but remember the first time Izzy did my nails after Mom died. She was babysitting me, trying to make things fun. When she finished, I cried. “What’s wrong?” Izzy had asked. And for some reason I couldn’t tell her that her painting my nails made me miss Mom, because she was the only one who’d ever painted my nails for me until that moment.
I refocus on Addie, who’s telling me about gymnastics and school as I apply the decals.
“So who’s Gillian again?” I ask, trying to act nonchalant.
“Millie’s mom. Millie’s my best friend. I told you about her. How her parents are divorced…”
“Ahh, right,” I say, remembering our conversation on the ferry. “So your dad and her are just…friends? Because you two are friends? Is your dad friends with Millie’s dad too?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. We mostly only hang out when Millie’s with her mom.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, focusing on the star between my forefinger and thumb. Once I apply it Addie fans her hands to admire them.
“Can we take a picture with your phone?”
“Sure,” I say, handing her my phone.
“Do you have Snapchat?” she asks. “I want to send a pic to Millie.”
“No. I think I’m way too old for Snapchat,” I laugh. “I don’t understand it.”
“But it’s so fun. And if you don’t use it you’ll just seem even older,” she says like she’s the wise woman of social media. “Like my dad. He doesn’t have any apps on his phone. Except the weather. He’s really into the weather. He’s always telling me the temperature, as if I care. Here, I’ll show you how to use Snapchat.” She disappears for a second and returns with an iPad in a Hello Kitty case. A second later she’s snapping photos of herself.
“You just can’t tell my dad about this.”
“He doesn’t know you have Snapchat on there?”
“Or Instagram. Or TikTok. He’s so overprotective about that kind of stuff.” She rolls her eyes.
Although I can’t help but feel flattered that she’s letting me in on her secret, I’m pretty sure I’m breaking some sort of parenting code. Am I her friend—or Will’s? Can I be both? And this—this headspace that parenting takes up—is just another reason I want no part in the club.
“Here, let’s take a pic with our nails.” She tilts her head to mine and snaps the pic.
“Alright, ready to watch a movie?” I suggest, getting two sodas out of the fridge as the pizza arrives.
“Yeah!” She bounds over to the couch, suddenly an eight-year-old again.
“Uh-uh,” I say, “we are definitely not sitting on my white couch with pizza and pop.”
She stares at me. “Well then, where are we going to sit?”
“The floor.” I disappear into the bedroom and return with an armful of pillows and blankets and arrange them on the floor, then bring over the food and drinks. It’s raining lightly outside, the drops pattering softly on the windows. “It’s the perfect night for a movie,” I say as we settle in. Halfway through the movie, Addie snuggles into me. I pause, noticing that there’s dried pizza sauce on the blanket she’s been using, then remind myself that I can wash the blanket and should be glad it’s not on my white couch. And what’s more important—this little girl or a blanket? And so, slowly, and a bit uncomfortably, I put my arm around her. I feel wooden, like I’m doing it all wrong, and I expect her to pull away at my touch, but she snuggles in even closer. And it feels nice. Really nice. I relax. Even though I love my friends and my sister, it’s not like I would ever snuggle up to them during a movie. And with any guy, there’s always that undertone of sexual tension. It’s never purely platonic.
But as a clap of thunder shocks us both, Addie bolts upright. The rain falls hard against the window and then there’s more thunder, lightning too. I pull her down close and keep my arm around her. “It’s OK. It’s just weather, right?” I joke, but she’s twisted herself around to look out the massive windows.
“I’m scared,” she says, her eyes wide with genuine fear. “Can we go in your bedroom?”
“I’ve been through millions of these,” I say with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood. Am I really going to let her sleep in my bed? There’s pizza sauce on her face.
“Please?” She looks so scared, and I break.
“Come on.”
We move into my bedroom and I tuck her into the sheets, trying not to think about how weird this is—having a kid in my bed. I flip on the fan in the corner and it nearly drowns out the rain. She’s pulled the covers to her chin, and still looks freaked out.
Don’t let her get overtired, I hear Will saying.
“How about I read to you?” I suggest and go to the closet, where I keep the kids’ books. I scan the spines, then pull out a book of fairy tales and climb into bed beside her.
“Do you like fairy tales?” I say, hoping it doesn’t seem too infantile.
She nods. “Sure.”
I run my finger down the table of contents then turn to page 41 and begin to read “Hansel and Gretel.” Although I’ve probably read the story a dozen or more times in my life, it’s never dawned on me that the whole premise of the story is that a widower has married a woman who wants to get rid of his children.
“You know what? Let’s read a different story.” I flip to “Cinderella,” because who doesn’t love a good underdog story? But it’s only once I’ve begun reading that I’m reminded the story is less about the heroine defying expectations than it is about her being poorly treated by her evil stepmother. Why am I so rattled by tales of stepmothers? It doesn’t even have to do with me, I tell myself. This has to do with Addie. Whoever Will ends up with one day will not want to be competing with these vivid images of evil stepmothers.
But another loud crack of thunder makes even me jump, and I turn to see Addie gripping the covers. She starts to cry. “I want to go home,” she says, sounding panicked. “I want my dad. Can you call my dad? Please.” Her eyes are wide. I try to comfort her but she shimmies away from me, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest.
I’m not sure what to do. If Will’s in the middle of the event he can’t exactly leave, and while I could take her home, I don’t have a key. “Come on, let’s just try another book,” I say, but my heart isn’t in it. What if Addie tells Will that I wouldn’t let her call her own father when she was frightened? Perhaps if I’d ever been a babysitter, I’d know what to do. I could reference some sort of manual that explains exactly what to do in this situation. But I never was. And I don’t want to be one now, either.
I grab my phone and call Will. If he answers, he can talk, if he doesn’t then he can’t. It goes straight through to voice mail. I try once more.
“Aunt Margot,” Addie says. “Call Aunt Margot. She’ll come get me.”
“OK, sure. Do you know her number?”
I consider letting Addie call herself but I decide to take charge of the situation.
“Margot,” I say when she answers. “This is Kit Kidding.” I explain the situation so it sounds like I’ve got it all under control—even though, of course, I don’t, not at all.
“It’s nearly ten o’clock. What on earth is she doing awake?” she tsk tsks into the phone.
I pass the phone over to Addie, feeling like a failure.
“It’s so scary here,” she whimpers into the phone. “We’re so high up, like on the fiftieth floor, and the thunder is so loud.”
“Thirty-ninth,” I correct her.
“I want to go home,” she says, practically in tears. I look out the window. The storm is passing. The thunder is far away, the lightning infrequent.
I want Margot to say no, that because it’s late she should just stay put, but Addie’s nodding and then she passes the phone back to me. I reluctantly tell Margot where I live.
Twenty minutes later an impossibly tall blond woman with very pale skin who looks absolutely nothing like Will is standing at my door, peering down at me, and it dawns on me that perhaps she’s not Will’s sister, but his sister-in-law. His wife’s sister. While she stares at me, her Husky-blue eyes cold, I can’t help wondering if Will’s wife looked like her. I’m suddenly very aware of my wrinkled pajamas and hair pulled up in a topknot. Addie rushes over to her, and Margot wraps her long, lean arms around her, runs her slender fingers through her hair. “Oh Sweetie, I’m here.” She finally acknowledges me. “Who are you? I just don’t understand how Will let this happen…” She peers around my apartment, as though I’m a kidnapper, holding Addie ransom.
“Will and I are friends,” I mumble, but she’s not listening. She’s steering Addie out of the apartment, taking her backpack and holding her hand, shaking her head. I watch them walk down the hall and wait for them to disappear into the elevator before closing the door, trying to shut the entire night out of my mind. But even as I sit in bed, sipping a glass of wine, telling myself that it doesn’t matter, that I had nothing to prove and that Addie’s leaving was for the best anyway, so that Will never asks me to babysit again, I can’t help feeling like I’ve let Addie down, and somehow, let myself down, too.