Zinny was a smart little thing and wily too. On their walk, she’d asked Cam if he would be sad if they didn’t go to the hockey game tonight and he’d admitted he would be disappointed.
Zinny had replied, “Good. I’m going to tell Koko that. She doesn’t like to make people sad.” He could practically see her little Machiavellian brain gears turning.
“Playing the guilt card?” he’d asked, but the kid had only looked at him blankly.
He chuckled. “Never mind. How old are you again?” She was such a tiny little thing.
“Six. I’m in first grade.”
“First grade. Wow. That’s when you learn to read, right?” Cam had never particularly enjoyed school. To him, school was somewhere he had to go before he could go to hockey practice.
She gave him a look. “Koko told you I already know how to read. Nana taught me. You’re not a very good listener.”
“I stand corrected,” he said with a laugh. She sure had spunk. “Do you like school?”
The brightness in her eyes dimmed. “No.”
That surprised him. The way he saw it, if you already knew everything, sure, you might get bored, but you’d never get caught without the answer by the teacher, would never get embarrassed for not knowing or not having listened.
“Why not?”
“No one will play with me.”
Ah, the other area of school life that could make a kid miserable. Cam had never had a problem making friends.
“How come? Do you cheat at four square?”
Her tiny forehead wrinkled up as she looked at him quizzically. “How do you cheat at four square?”
“Kids I used to play with, they’d insist the ball was in when it wasn’t, stuff like that.”
She frowned. “I don’t do that.”
“Good. Only jerks cheat. Are you mean?”
To his dismay, she suddenly looked like she was about to cry. Shit. All he needed was to bring Zinny back to Dakota, crying her eyes out.
Backpedal, man, for the love of God.
“The other kids are the one’s who are mean. They make fun of me.”
Cam looked the kid over. She didn’t have any weird physical characteristics, like pigeon toes or bug eyes, something other kids would glom onto. In fact, she was freakin’ adorable. She didn’t stutter or have a lisp. She seemed pretty normal, except that she seemed to be ahead of the pack as far as reading was concerned. That could be enough to ostracize her, especially if she lorded it over them.
“What do they make fun of you for?”
She looked up at him with watery eyes and his heart melted, even as it was still racing. Why had he even brought up the subject of school?
Her words were almost too soft for him to hear. “They say I’m dirty ’cause Koko’s the janitor. No one will play with me and I never get invited to any of the birthday parties. They…” Here was where she actually started crying in earnest. “They hold their noses when I walk by.”
What the fuck.
Cam had to press his lips together, hard, to keep from spewing out some words that Zinny didn’t need to hear.
They had reached his front yard, but instead of going inside, he gestured to her to come sit with him on the low wall dividing his property from that of his neighbor. The dogs kept busy sniffing spots on the grass.
“Let me tell you something, kiddo. Those kids are either stupid or jealous or both. Your Aunt Koko is amazing. She’s out there busting her butt every day to put food on the table. She’s a hero, as far as I’m concerned. And working hard is a virtue.”
“What does virtue mean?”
“Virtues are good qualities. Like kindness and generosity. But some people’s idea of what virtues are is messed up. Sometimes people think being rich makes you better than someone else. But you know what? I’d rather be nice and poor than mean and rich.”
She thought about that for a while and then nodded. “Me too.” Then she added, “But you’re nice and rich.”
He chuckled. “Thank you, Zinny. I wasn’t always rich. I used to be pretty poor. In fact, you might be interested to know I used to be a kind of janitor.”
Her big brown eyes got even bigger. “You were?”
Funny, Cam hadn’t thought about that in a long, long time.
“On trash day, I used to take my neighbors’ garbage cans in and out. My parents thought hockey was too expensive and told me that if I really wanted to play, I had to earn some of the money myself.”
At that point, he’d already tried and quit martial arts, baseball and soccer, so they had a valid point. Hockey required a lot of equipment. Eventually, they realized he was in love with the sport and was even pretty good at it, and took on payment of the fees themselves.
“Did you get made fun of?” Zinny asked.
“As a matter of fact, I did. Some kid teased me all the time about it. He spread grape jelly on the handles of the trash can so they’d be covered in ants.”
“That’s super mean.”
The kid had been a goalie in Cam’s league and Cam—not a defenseman at that time— and scored three goals on him in one game and skidded snow into his face every chance he got. It had been pretty satisfying as revenge went, but he didn’t think Zinny had the four square skills to cream her opponents.
Although if it came down to it, he might be down to do some coaching. Sure, he’d have to review the rules and recruit a couple other people to help, but he was certain he could devise some strategies that would frustrate her little pint-sized tormentors.
Even so, he said, “Here’s the thing with bullies. They do it because they want to get a rise out of you.” She looked confused again so he said, “They want to see your reaction. They want to make you cry or yell or even go tell the teacher. That’s how they have fun, and the way to make sure they don’t have any fun at all is to not react. Just pretend what they’re saying or doing doesn’t affect you. Like this. Talk to me like they talk to you and see what I do.”
She gave him a dubious glance.
“Go on. Pretend I’m you.”
Cam had gone into this thinking it was going to be easy, but it wasn’t. Zinny started by saying, “You’re disgusting and gross,” and he almost cracked right then, shocked that someone would say that to this sweet little girl, but he maintained his composure, calling Zeus to him and caressing his huge head.
“No one wants to play with you.”
“Do you live in a garbage can? You smell like garbage.”
“I bet your mom gets your food from the garbage.”
“I bet you eat garbage for dinner.”
By the time Zinny ran out of gas, he was sick inside that she’d gone through this.
How could anyone say such fucked up shit to this adorable little girl? Cam thought back on his childhood. Had anyone said stuff like that to him? He honestly couldn’t remember. Didn’t really matter though. What mattered was kids were saying this to Zinny right now. Sure, the kid had a knack for calling people out on stuff, like his crappy printing or inability to complete jigsaw puzzles, but that was just being direct. Telling her she smelled like trash and ate trash for dinner was fucking bullying. He wanted to punch something to dissipate the rage, but he also wanted to hug her.
Unsure how that would go over or if that was even advisable, he turned to her and said, “I know that was hard for you, but you did very well, Zinny. Did you see what I did?”
“You didn’t do anything,” she said, panting a little and obviously still upset.
“That’s right. I ignored you. And you ran out of steam. You got bored, didn’t you?”
After thinking about it a moment, she nodded, calmer now.
“And that’s what will happen to the bullies at school if you ignore them. Here’s what I think you should do. Bring a book with you out on to the playground and sit and read it. That will give you something to focus on while they’re trying to get under your skin. Just like I sat here and petted the dogs.”
It would also rub their ugly little shitbird faces in the fact that she could read and they couldn’t. He wasn’t going to point out that second part. He didn’t want to foster a mean streak in her, even if it did satisfy his own personal sense of justice.
Dakota was wiping down his gym equipment upstairs, when Cam texted her that they’d returned from the walk and were going to be in the backyard. She went to the window to watch them and realized she’d been so focused on the interior, she’d never looked at his backyard. From his bedroom window, she could see a large lawn area. Closer to the house was a spacious covered patio. Through the wooden slats she could see a huge barbecue and luxurious seating area. For just a moment, she imagined what it might be like to host a party here, directing people to the wet bar, enjoying the ocean breeze and the warm, if capricious, San Francisco sun. She could almost hear the laughter as they played in the pool.
Shit. The pool.
Having only been able to see a corner of it, she hurried down the stairs, her heart in her throat because Zinny couldn’t swim. She told herself to be calm and that Cam was with her. She was getting all worked up for nothing.
But Cam wasn’t a dad. He wasn’t used to keeping an eye on a child. He might come in to go to the bathroom. He might decide he’d had enough with the babysitting and just leave her outside. The yard was fenced, after all. But the pool wasn’t.
As she dashed to the sliding glass door and opened it, she heard Zinny’s delighted laughter. Thank God. She made her way past the outdoor refrigerator and barbecue toward the pool. Zinny was frolicking with the dogs, laughing and scampering around. Cam was watching them, his hands on his hips.
“Cam,” Dakota called out.
He turned and waved just as Zinny grabbed hold of Zeus’s collar as the dog bounded by. Dakota gasped. Zinny was pulled off balance and stumbled a few steps before letting go of the dog, wind-milling her arms and falling, of course, right into the pool.
All it took was one second. Dakota’s face switched from worry to alarm as she looked beyond him. Cam turned back just in time to see Zeus pull Zinny off her feet so that she tumbled right into the pool. From the horrified expression on Dakota’s face, Cam instantly realized Zinny didn’t know how to swim. Without hesitation, he took a couple of running steps and dove in fully clothed. In moments, he’d scooped her up in his arms, found purchase on the floor of the pool. Thank the Lord she’d fallen into the shallow end. Dakota reached out as Cam hoisted her onto the deck where she coughed up some water.
“Zinny! Oh my God, Zinny, honey. Are you all right?” Dakota’s voice shook.
Zinny coughed some more as Dakota pushed the wet hair off her face.
Dakota ignored him. “What were you doing so close to the edge of the pool? You could have drowned.”
“Don’t be mad. I’m sorry, Koko. I’m sorry,” Zinny cried and Dakota closed her eyes as she pulled her niece into her arms.
“It’s okay, baby. You’re safe. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
Cam got out of the pool and went inside to get towels. It wasn’t until he was making the return trip that he noticed his sopping wet footprints. Dakota was going to lay into him even harder when she saw the puddles he’d made.
By the time he got back to them, both had calmed down. His own heart had been racing too. He knew CPR, but would have been scared shitless if he’d had to perform it on this tiny girl. He could easily break all her ribs with just one compression.
“God, I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea she wasn’t pool safe.”
Dakota gave him a tight smile. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t know. I should have told you. It’s all my fault. I forgot you had a pool. The minute we got here, I should have made it clear that Zinny was not to go near it. At the very least, I should have checked to make sure it had a gate around it, not that you should be expected to have a gate. You don’t have kids. God, I am so stupid!”
“Hey,” Cam said, “it was an accident. No harm done, right, Zin?” But he personally thought the kid needed swimming lessons, ASAP. True, there weren’t as many swimming pools in this part of California, but it wasn’t like they were in Nebraska or some other landlocked state. The San Francisco Bay was only a few minutes away, and on the other side of the peninsula was the Pacific Ocean.
But this wasn’t the time to bring that up, not while Dakota’s nerves were still frayed. Hell, he himself felt like he’d just escaped a freeway collision.
“My clothes are all wet,” Zinny complained. “And I’m cold.”
“Mine too,” Cam said. “We can put them in the dryer.”
“But I won’t have anything to wear.”
“You can wear one of my shirts, if you want. Or just stay wrapped up in the towel.”
Zinny sniffed. “Koko, that was scary.”
“I know, honey. I was scared too, but thanks to Cam, you’re all right. Thank you, Cam. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
He shook his head. “I should have been more vigilant.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” Dakota said. “Like you said, it was an accident.”
Their gazes met. He noticed her eyes were moss green and unlike the other times, she didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup. He found he liked them better this way. He felt like he was seeing the real Dakota and didn’t want to break eye contact.
“You know what would make me not scared anymore?” Zinny said, interrupting the moment.
“What, honey?” Dakota asked.
“Going to the hockey game.”
Cam managed to hold back his snort of laughter. That Zinny…she saw an opportunity and grabbed it. He admired that about her.
“Of course, honey. Anything you want,” Dakota said, hugging Zinny tightly again.