“We’re supposed to grease the pan. Who has grease? Can you even buy grease?”
“It means, like, butter or oil, you idiot.”
“Shit. Can someone else crack the eggs? I think I just cut my finger on a shell.”
Jordan leaned against the doorway of the kitchen at the community centre, watching half a dozen of her kids try to make a cake. It was a sweet scene, except for the swearing. They’d insisted on making a cake from scratch, though none of them had ever done it before. But Constable Shreve deserved a real birthday cake, vanilla with chocolate icing. So Jordan had bought the ingredients and booked out the community kitchen after school. Word had gone out at the boxing gym that everyone was invited to help out. Rupert and five girls, including Madi, had shown up.
“Mix on high for two minutes,” Madi called out, peering at the recipe on her phone.
“Am I high? Is that how this recipe is going down?”
Jordan raised an eyebrow as the kids laughed. The girl who’d made the joke pretended to look apologetic but at least she seemed to get the message about the drug humour.
“Hand mixer is in the drawer to your right, Rupert,” Jordan called out.
A scuffle broke out getting the beaters into the hand mixer. They were mostly laughing, though a fair bit of their constant fight was for dominance. Jordan found the most exhausting thing about working with these kids was their unquenchable need for power, respect, and control. Even in a simple task like baking a birthday cake.
The door to the kitchen opened and Ali walked in. She was wearing dark jeans, a button-up shirt, and a blazer, and she had a beat-up but expensive leather bag slung over one shoulder. She was smiling but was obviously tired.
“Hey, JP.”
“Hey. What are you doing here?” Jordan indicated the mild chaos of the kitchen. “Coming to help bake?”
Ali gave a short laugh. “I wish. I’ve got to try and catch the last flight out to Toronto tonight. Central office is having a panic about an investor application…” Ali ran her hand distractedly through her hair and blew out a breath. “Blah, blah investment and corporate policy shit.”
“Sounds like a lot of fun,” Jordan said sympathetically. “Need a ride to the airport? I can try and find someone to supervise the crew.”
Ali waved away the offer. “No, but thanks. I’ve called a cab. I just wanted to tell you I was leaving this time. I’m not running away.”
Ali was nearly babbling, completely uncharacteristic. Jordan put a hand on Ali’s arm, just a light touch, the brush of her thumb over Ali’s bicep before she dropped her hand again.
“Hey, it’s fine. You don’t owe me your schedule. But thanks for letting me know.” Ali swallowed, like she wanted to say something else. Jordan waited but nothing else materialized. “You look beat.”
“I am. It’s been a long week. And I’ll be up most of tonight trying to get up to speed for the conference call tomorrow. But it’s just an overnight. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Jordan’s heart gave a sharp thud. Her instinct to protect and heal and comfort was so incredibly strong. She wanted to tell Ali she’d get her from the airport, to make her a meal, run her a bath, bring her a glass of wine. Girlfriend things. That was space taken up by a partner. Jordan didn’t occupy that space in Ali’s life. But Jesus, did she want to.
“Tell me you’re going somewhere lit.” Madi’s ball of ferocious energy broke the quiet tension between Ali and Jordan.
“Hey, half-pint,” Ali said, her eyes brightening. “I’m heading to Toronto, so I’m going to miss our workout tonight.”
“You are running scared. One tiny threat that I’m going to run you into the ground, and you take off.”
“Trust me, I’ll take one of your brutal workouts over a late-night flight, reports, and fighting corporations any day.”
Madi tilted her head to the side, observing Ali through hooded eyes.
“You mean that.”
“Yep.”
“You’re a freak.”
“You know it.”
Ali and Madi grinned at each other. They had their own language, these two. It made Jordan’s heart happy even as it made her the tiniest bit jealous. Jordan couldn’t help thinking she was the common denominator. Maybe she brought tension to all the relationships in her life. Her parents, Ali, even Rachel and Madi.
“Jordan?”
Ali was looking at her curiously. Madi seemed vaguely annoyed.
“Sorry, drifted.”
“I think you’re needed in the kitchen,” Ali said.
Jordan followed Ali’s gaze. Rupert was holding the mixer, dripping with cake batter, above his head while at least two girls jumped to get at it.
“Jesus,” Jordan muttered, pushing away from the door. She glanced back at Ali. “Good luck in Toronto. Text me if you want a lift from the airport tomorrow.”
Jordan didn’t get a chance to see Ali leave as she refereed the final steps and saw the three round cake tins safely into the preheated oven. Once the clean-up was done and the excitement over, most of the kids drifted out or sat on the counters on their phones, occasionally showing each other a funny meme or video before lapsing back into silence.
Jordan checked the time on the oven and pulled a textbook from her backpack, thinking she could catch up on her reading before tonight. They were scheduled for a short workout at the gym, and then Jordan and the kids had offered to look after Rachel’s two little ones while she went on a date with her husband. It meant a double amount of babysitting for Jordan. She was tired already.
“Hey, JMac.”
Jordan smiled as Madi jumped up onto the counter beside her.
“That’s a new one.”
“I’m trying it out. Do you like it?”
Jordan shrugged. “It’s not bad.”
Madi thumped her heels lightly against the painted pine cabinets.
“I heard you’re part of some sort of task force or committee or something. With the cops.”
Street information wasn’t always accurate, but it was fast.
“I am.”
Madi’s feet thumped a little faster.
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yes. I want to help if I can.” Jordan caught Madi as she rolled her eyes. “What was that for?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, then.”
They sat in silence. Jordan wished she knew what bridge she needed to cross with Madi to make things better between them.
Madi suddenly stopped thumping the cabinets with her feet.
“It’s just, you’re not a fucking superhero, you know? No cape or anything.”
“I know that,” Jordan said, trying and failing not to feel the sting of Madi’s words.
“I don’t think you do.”
Jordan said nothing. When Madi was in one of these moods, it was best to let her spin it out without providing any fuel for her fire. Jordan steeled herself for the onslaught. She didn’t have long to wait.
“You should have been a fucking firefighter or something. Running into burning buildings and rescuing babies and comforting sobbing moms. I bet you’d go home feeling like a million bucks every goddamn day.”
A few of the kids looked up as Madi raised her voice. When they looked to Jordan for direction, Jordan gave a quick shake of her head. They went back to their phones, used to the occasional explosion and apparently trusting Jordan to handle it.
“So, this task force or whatever. You get that you’re not rescuing anyone, right? But you can’t fucking help it, can you? Doesn’t matter three guys tried to take you and Ali out. That they told you explicitly to back down and shut up. Doesn’t matter you could just sit back and let someone else deal with it. No, you’re right there on your fucking high horse.”
Madi jumped down off the counter and stood in front of Jordan. She was shaking with a barely checked rage. Jordan wished she could ease the stress for Madi, but she couldn’t. Not as the target.
“Did you ever think, just for one second, that you’re not a part of this?” Madi hissed the question, her voice lowered but seething. “You’re not on the street, you were never on the street. This has nothing to do with you. So just leave it the fuck alone.”
Madi left then, grabbing her backpack off the counter and stalking out of the kitchen. Jordan wanted to call her back and sort this out, but she would preserve Madi’s dignity and her clear need to end this conversation on her own terms. The kids all looked up from their phones as the door to the kitchen closed. They looked at Jordan with curiosity and embarrassment.
“It’s all good,” Jordan said with a calmness she didn’t really feel. “We’ll work it out when we’re ready.”
Sometimes it was exhausting being a model of good self-regulation.
The kids all stole glances at each other.
“What is it, guys?” Jordan said.
“She’s kinda right,” Rupert said.
One of the girls hissed at him to shut up. Jordan felt sick. She wasn’t sure she had the energy for this.
“What do you mean?”
Rupert looked uncertainly at the girls in the room and shrugged.
“Rupert didn’t mean anything,” one of the girls said, without looking up from her phone. “Just sometimes Madi has a point about things. But don’t tell her that. She already walks around like she knows what’s best for everyone.”
The timer on the stove beeped loudly, and the kids all jumped off the counters and crowded around, fighting over oven mitts and someone yelling about finding the recipe since Madi had it on her phone. Jordan let the fight with Madi and the strange fallout with the other teens fade into the background. She’d have to figure it out, but right now a birthday cake needed attending to.
* * *
Madi didn’t show for the workout, the babysitting, or the presentation of the cake to Rachel. Jordan was disappointed but not surprised.
Rachel’s two kids were adorable and fun, loving the attention of the handful of teens who stayed after the workout to babysit. It was good for Jordan’s heart to see her tough, bruised, and sometimes raging kids sitting on the floor calling out for baby Gracie to pull herself up to a shaky stand and toddle her way across the floor. Hannah, three years old and a dynamic bundle of energy like her mom, ran excited laps around the gym, commanding the teenagers running with her to gallop like a horse or snort like a pig, then collapsing into a giggling heap before starting all over again.
Cay and Jordan kept an eye on all the kids, large and small. They passed out pizza when it arrived and helped one of the guys in his attempt to feed Gracie her oatmeal and sweet potato mixture while on the move. Jordan brought the energy down a few notches with a Disney movie on her laptop, as Ariel sang about hopes and dreams. The teens hummed the tune and Hannah swayed in time to the music.
“They’re magical, sometimes, these kids,” Cay said as she gathered greasy paper plates.
“The littles or the bigs?”
“Rachel’s two are sweeties, but I meant ours. These big tough guys show all their heart around the little kids.”
“It is pretty great.”
“We should do this more often,” Cay mused. “Maybe make some community connections, offer it up as a resource or a support. That way we could tap into some of that funding…”
Jordan laughed. “You never quit, do you?”
Cay looked abashed, then grinned. “Nope, and neither do you.”
Jordan thought about these words, hurled at her as an accusation earlier. Cay looked at her curiously.
“Want to tell me what’s bugging you? I’m noticing your shadow isn’t here tonight.”
Jordan flattened a few more empty pizza boxes for the recycling before answering.
“Madi’s mad at me for joining the task force.”
Cay tilted her head to the side. “Worried about you?”
“No, that’s not it. Or not entirely. She…”
Jordan didn’t really want to share what Madi had said. It shamed her.
“Say it, my friend. Whatever it is, it’s poison. Might as well get it out.”
Jordan sighed. “She accused me of acting like a superhero all the time. Told me I didn’t belong and to stay out of it.”
“I have a couple thoughts, if you’d like to hear them,” Cay said.
“I would.”
“First, I think you’re wrong. I think Madi is showing her worry for you.” Jordan made a sound of protest, but Cay held up her hand. “Let me finish. Did you not hear her speak the other night? At her poetry performance.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Tell me what message you heard.”
Jordan shifted uncomfortably. Suddenly she felt like she’d missed something important. “That she’s feeling unprepared for being an adult, and she’s angry at the system for not being able to protect her. And for kicking her out. But I’m not kicking her out. I wouldn’t.”
“I know that, Jordan. And most of the time Madi does, too. But that’s not the part of her poem that I’m thinking about. Remember when she said, ‘I feel the weight of their caseload with an empathy I cannot admit I have’? Or something to that effect. She worries about you. She worries she’s a burden. She worries you take on too much. She worries not enough people are worrying about you.”
“Oh.”
Jordan wasn’t sure what else to say. She watched one of the kids wipe pizza sauce off Hannah’s face as she sang along with the dancing lobster on the screen.
Cay sighed. “Jordan McAddie, you live your life for everyone else, which is noble as shit. But don’t think for a second we aren’t aware you’re not living for yourself.”
Jordan closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotions that welled up in her chest. She felt seen and exposed, as if she’d been hiding this part of her, not knowing all along she was utterly transparent to those who loved her.
“I don’t want people to worry about me,” Jordan managed to say.
“It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?”
Jordan let out a long breath. “Yes. Jesus, yes.”
“Well, get used to it,” Cay said bluntly, smiling when Jordan gave a short laugh. “Madi had to get used to it. Hell, most of the kids who come through your program have to get used to it. I think you are up for the challenge.”
“Thanks. I needed a little perspective.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Cay said and winked. “Also cake.”
When Rachel and Adam arrived ten minutes later, pizza had been consumed and the movie abandoned in favour of rolling around on the floor in a made-up game that seemed to have no rules. Rachel gave a huge smile as the girls squealed and ran into her outstretched arms, nearly knocking her over as she laughed.
The teens hung back shyly, either unsure how to interact with Rachel when she wasn’t in uniform or workout wear, or unsure where they fit in the sweet family scene. With a quiet prompt from Jordan, they ran to the back room to get the cake and candles while Jordan tried to fill in the necessary details of the girls’ night. Moments later, the front lights went out with a clang as someone tripped the breaker and the three-layer chocolate cake was brought out with a sparkler in the middle as the teens sang a raucous happy birthday.
Rachel’s eyes teared up as the teens approached, and Jordan allowed herself to feel the happiness of this moment. For her kids, for Rachel, and even for herself.
Laughter filled the gym as Hannah blew and blew on the sparkler with no effect. Then they all cheered when it finally sputtered out on its own, and the three-year-old raised her arms in victory. The cake was sliced and passed around on small paper plates. Rachel pretended to hesitate before she took her first bite.
“Who made the cake?” she said suspiciously.
“We did,” the teens said around mouthfuls of chocolate icing.
“But Jordan supervised,” Rupert added.
“Well, okay, then,” Rachel said, her eyes dancing as she took a giant bite of cake. “I trust you with the lives of my kids but maybe not so much in the kitchen.”
Rachel’s comment was met with stunned silence.
“Really?” one of the girls said.
Rachel offered her next bite of cake to baby Gracie, who opened her mouth to receive it like a chubby baby bird.
“Other than Adam’s parents, you guys are the only ones who have ever babysat these two. So, yes.”
“That’s crazy cool,” someone said.
Jordan couldn’t have summarized the sentiment any better.
The party wrapped up quickly after Hannah’s good mood turned to tears when Rachel refused her third slice of birthday cake. Adam whisked her away as Rachel, with baby Gracie falling asleep in her arms, hugged each of the kids.
“Happy birthday, Rach,” Jordan said when it was her turn for a hug.
“You’re the best,” Rachel said into Jordan’s ear. “Now go get some sleep.”
When the kids scattered and the gym was cleaned up, Jordan sent one final text to Madi before following Rachel’s advice.