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As I step out onto Pierrepont Street for the second time in one day, my phone vibrates. I keep the thing on vibrate during the day at work, and then more often than not forget to turn it off. When I flip it over, I see the name Melinda Daniels. Mom. I click to decline the call and stride with purpose to the door. I’ve declined a lot of calls—she’s going to slip into hysterics soon, so I shoot off a quick text telling her I’ll call back tomorrow, then press the button for 8D.
In my office earlier today, I consulted mystical, magical Magic 8-Ball. Anna gives me crap for consulting the fates, but she lacks faith. I let the die roll through the dark waters after vigorous shakes. The answers I received, in order, were Signs Point to Yes, Reply Hazy, Try Again, and Outlook Good. Clear guidance to return to his apartment this evening.
The buzzer sounds, and I step into the marble foyer. I bounce from foot to foot in the elevator, humming the tune to a random Shin’s song called New Slang. The phrase life-changing pops in my head as the elevator doors open. Mason stands in the hall, to the side of the elevator, and a young girl peeks out from behind his legs. She’s barefoot and wearing a silk pajama dress designed to imitate Cinderella’s gown. Wet, brown hair grazes her shoulders, and she twists back and forth, one arm firmly wrapped around her daddy’s thigh.
I bend down to her height and hold out my hand. She stares at it. I’m a moron, trying to shake hands with a kid. I drop it and give her my biggest, warmest smile while looking into her doe-like brown eyes. “Hi. I’m Delilah. I love your gown. It’s beautiful.”
A glow spreads over her aura as she grins so big I can see dark gaps from the teeth she’s sacrificed to the tooth fairy.
“It’s Cinderella.”
“I love it.” I smile and shift forward onto my knees. “Are you Kara?”
She nods and peers down to the floor. Then, as if she’s come to a decision, she lifts her head and steps away from her daddy. “Wanna come inside? We made dinner.”
“You did? I’d love to come inside!” I’ve spent tons of time around kids. First, at summer camp, helping out with the younger girls. Then as a camp counselor, working with all the campers. Plus, my mom’s cousins live nearby, and they’re all younger than me. This should be easy, but this uber happy cheery voice of mine comes across a bit like I’m one of the lollipop kids from The Wizard of Oz.
As I push off my knees to rise, Mason offers his hand to help me up. His touch calms the fluttering inside. I’ve known him less than three days, yet a déjà vu sensation surrounds me, as if I’ve seen my hand in his a thousand times. It’s only the two of us in the hall. He holds the door cracked open, ensuring us both privacy and that we aren’t about to get locked out in the hall, and presses a soft kiss to my lips. A thrill courses through me.
His breath tickles my ear when he leans to share, “My mom’s here too. She was dropping Kara off, but she’ll be leaving soon.”
There’s a hint of concern in his tone. I get it. Meeting both his daughter and his mom in one day is a lot. But I can do this. He’s introducing me to his daughter as a friend, for crying out loud. It’s not like I’m dreaming of forever, but our new little thing rocks amazingly good vibes. I do my best to beam positivity up at him and let him know I’m more than okay and excited to meet the other woman in his life.
As I step through the door, a tall, attractive woman with dark hair and familiar emerald eyes, the exact color of Mason’s, loops the strap of a beaten-up leather handbag over her shoulder. She smiles at me and extends her hand. “Hi. I’m Cindy, Mason’s mom.”
She has a warm handshake, and every part of me joneses to pull her in for a hug. At first, I hesitate, then I jolt forward and wrap my arms around her. She laughs for a second, a bit surprised. I’m not. We southerners often embrace, but I’ve gathered not all New Yorkers are as into skin to skin contact greetings.
She recovers and pats my back. Then she addresses Mason. “So, what are your plans with Amber?” She’s frowning, and her arms are crossed. It’s as if I walked in in the middle of a conversation she has no intention of dropping. I step back to give them space. Kara’s on the sofa, oblivious to the conversation around her, watching a cartoon.
“I’ll let you know.” He sounds like he’s attempting to appease or comfort her.
If that’s the case, he misses his mark. Her lips are tucked in so tightly, little lines run above and below her lips.
“Okay.” She doesn’t sound okay with whatever they’re talking about.
It’s a private conversation, and, yes, I am listening in. Who is Amber?
When she steps back, she pats my upper arm and offers, “It’s nice to meet you, Delilah.” Then she adds, “Hope you all have a nice dinner.”
Mason’s deep voice resonates from behind me. “Mom, you don’t have to leave. You can stay and eat with us.”
“Oh, no. I’ve got to get home and unpack. Get ready for the rest of the week. Returning on a Monday has me feeling behind schedule.” She walks in front of the sofa, bends down to Kara’s height, and holds her arms out. “Give Ama a hug.”
Kara falls forward into her arms and wraps her grandmother in a super tight squeeze. Then she sits back on the sofa, attention glued to the television. “Love you, Ama.” I smirk, thinking to myself that what she’s not saying is, Get out of the way so I can see my cartoon.
Cindy drops a kiss to the top of her head then makes her way to the door. She waves farewell to me as she offers a polite, “Hope to see you again.”
Mason gives her a hug then opens the door for her. She flattens her palm on Mason’s chest and says in a low voice she might think I can’t hear, “Please, think of Kara.”
Mason mumbles something before kissing her on the forehead and closing the door behind her.
Kara pounces on the sofa like a kangaroo. The screen on the TV is still. Her show must have ended. “Daddy! Let’s see if it’s ready.” Then to me, she announces with glee, “We’re having spaghetti and meatballs. My pick.”
I grin. “Perfect.”
From behind me, I hear Mason add, “I hope you don’t mind.”
I wave him off as I grab Kara’s hand and bounce with her into the kitchen to assist with dinner preparations.
The three of us set the table and carry the food from the kitchen as if we’re repeating a daily activity, like a seamless team. Kara counts out three napkins and three forks and directs me to the heavy plates she’s not allowed to carry because they are so big. As she and I set the table, Mason enters with a steaming mountain of pasta covered with red marinara sauce and meatballs.
Kara sprints to the kitchen and comes back with the breadbasket. She beams up at me. “Garlic bread.” Her eyes light up as if she’s offering the best food on the planet.
As Kara rattles on about the sandcastles she saw at the beach and the live sand dollar she’d saved by returning it to the ocean, Mason’s eyes catch mine. Sometimes he winks, sometimes he reaches out and plays with my fingers. At times, his fingers wander up and down my thigh. Our legs touch the entire dinner. He’s not particularly great at the stealth business, but Kara’s oblivious, so it doesn’t really matter.
A mixture of happiness and peacefulness swirl through me. Borderline bliss. The table doesn’t have decorations. No candles or flowers. My table growing up would have been adorned with both. The napkins would have been cloth. We would have had a lot more utensils on the table. But every little thing, from the frayed rectangular placemats to the freshly scrubbed chubby cheeks beaming back at me from across the table, smack me as perfect. If anything, my mind reels and goes a tad fuzzy from the perfection of it all. It’s a moment in time when I find myself taking a mental photo so I’ll never forget it. I want to bottle this emotion and place it on my memory shelf to never be forgotten.
“Do you wanna color?” Kara asks me at the end of dinner. When I tell her I’d love to, she squeals and runs to get crayons and a coloring book and crawls into my lap. She rips out a page for me to color my own picture, but within minutes, she and I are both working on her black and white image of the prince bending to slip the glass slipper onto Cinderella’s dainty foot. Kara informs me she will do the princess, but she really doesn’t like coloring in the prince, so, “You wanna do him?”
I am diligently coloring in black boots when Kara wails, “I messed it up.” She’s one of those kids. It’s gotta be perfect. I lift a blank piece of construction paper from the table and sketch the outline of her princess.
She looks at me with awe. “You can do that?”
Such a cutie pie. “Yep. Want me to teach you how?”
She nods vigorously.
“I’ll hunt down some learning to draw books. They make them for different levels. How does that sound? I’ll find a good one, and we’ll do it together.”
Mason clears the table and cleans the kitchen while she and I color between the lines. When he finishes, he steps up behind the sofa, a dish towel between his hands, and announces, “Squirt, it’s time.”
“Noooooo,” Kara wails, squirming in my lap and leaning back into me as if I can save her from Daddy’s rules.
Such a cute little stinker. Every kid pushes off bath and bedtime. Or at least, I did.
He grins, and the amount of love shining through when he looks at his daughter brings on a wave of emotion. He looks at Kara the same way my dad used to look at me. His steps alter, and he lumbers over, monster style, until he scoops a squealing, giggly girl off my lap and twirls her through the air, spinning around and throwing her up in the air. Peals of laughter fill the room along with squeals of “Daddy!”
He carries her to her bedroom, throwing her in the air every step or two. How in the world is that child going to go to sleep after being thrown around like a ball? As they disappear into her bedroom, I lean back in my chair and pick up my phone. A text from Mom flashes on the screen.
Melinda: Did you meet someone?
I roll my eyes. I’ve been living in Manhattan for four years now. All four of those years, I’ve been hounded by the question, “Did you meet someone?” Her entire prayer group prays I will not fall in love in New York and will return home soon. I rub my finger over the rounded corner of my phone. My finger hovers over my mail icon, and I tap it.
The email from one of my dad’s business partners sits below a new email from Anthropologie. I swipe to remove the junk then open the business email. I reread it. He wants to schedule a meeting. He would prefer an in-person meeting, but if not, he’d like to schedule a conference call. I stare at the to and cc fields for the tenth time. My father is not included.
Mason’s head pops out from the doorway. “Your presence is requested, if you don’t mind.”
I drop the phone on the coffee table and jump up. “Absolutely.”
Mason lies down on one side of the narrow bed, and I snuggle next to Kara on the other side. A stack of books sits on the end of the bed. Mason reads through them all, animating his voice to match characters. Kara giggles for each and every female voice and monster voice. By the time he’s flipping through a well-worn copy of Goodnight Moon, Kara’s eyelids are half closed, and Mason’s voice has lowered to a barely audible level. By the time he’s breathing the words, “goodnight moon,” she’s off in dreamland.
He bends over her, places a kiss on her forehead, then her cheek, and tucks the covers in all around her. Everything about Kara’s bedtime routine reminds me of mine growing up, and I’m filled with a desire to call my parents to tell them how much I love them. I have no business dodging Mom’s calls.
Mason wraps his hand around mine, glancing over his shoulder one more time to take in his sleeping daughter, then flicks off the light as he pulls the door closed.
When we reach the sofa, he lifts me onto his lap. He brushes my hair off my shoulder before bringing me in for a long, slow, kiss. He tastes like garlic and mint. He squeezes my ass, and I kiss his neck.
He fingers my hair then gently rubs his thumb across the edge of my lower lip. “How was that?”
“Good.” I curl up onto the sofa beside him. “You are so sweet with your daughter.” I rub the stubble on his jaw and stroke his hair. “She’s wonderful.”
He smiles. “She is. She likes you.”
“I like her.”
“It’s not too much for you?” His forehead wrinkles as he asks the question.
“What?”
“All this. Family life. We don’t bore you?” His hold on my hips tightens.
“Not at all. I guess I might have a thing for older men.” He pinches my thigh, and I squirm. “No. Art is my shindig. And I have fun with kids. I’ve always enjoyed spending time with them. That’s probably why I was a camp counselor for so many summers. This is good. I had fun tonight.”
“Yeah, but she can be exhausting. When she’s awake, she’s non-stop.”
“Unless she’s watching a show.” I place a soft kiss on his knuckle. His hands are weirdly fucking hot. Those long fingers.
He sighs, and guilt flashes across his face. “I try to keep the electronics to a minimum.”
“You’re a good dad.”
Mason dimmed the lights when we re-entered the den after putting Kara down, and the reflection glows on the posters of puppies, kittens, and horses intermixed with Kara’s artwork. The walls are an unfettered declaration of his love for Kara. A weight presses on my chest, a stark contrast to the lightness and almost giddiness of the last couple of days.
Mason pulls me close and tilts my head up for a kiss. As the kiss deepens, my need for release grows, but then a colored Winnie the Pooh taped on the wall behind Mason’s head enters my peripheral vision. I break the kiss.
In a whisper, I ask, “Should we be doing this? She’s right there.” I point where I can see the visible gap below her door, meaning there’s a space where nothing blocks noises from in here, or from his bedroom, for that matter. I glance at my watch. It’s after nine p.m. I’ve got at least a thirty-minute cab ride to get home.
He caresses my hip and thigh. “You can stay the night, but if you think it’s too soon, I get it.”
“It’s just, don’t you think that’s a lot for her? She just met me today. Aren’t there guidelines we should follow? How would you explain a friend sleeping over?” Kids have friends sleep over. But would she see it the same way? And I told him my life was complicated, but I haven’t fully downloaded. This whole thing between us, it might feel good for right now, but it’s not going to go anywhere.
A low chuckle rises from his chest. “Are you asking what the parenting rulebook says? As opposed to the Magic 8-Ball?”
That comment deserves a tickle. I grab for him, and we laugh.
When he has me in check, he continues. “There are about a million parenting books on the shelves, and they all say different things. I stopped reading them somewhere around year two or three when I realized no one recommends the same nap schedule, but they are all quite firm in their beliefs.”
His fingers play in my hair as he stares off somewhere over my shoulder. I relax into him and revel in the tingling sensation dancing along my scalp as he toys with my hair. He seems to have a thing for my hair.
A long, loud exhale flows out of Mason. It sounds like he’s thought things through, and he doesn’t like his conclusion. “As much as I want you to stay, it might be confusing to her in the morning. I’ve never dated anyone since...well, since Amber.”
I lift my eyebrows. Amber. Yes, I had wanted to ask about her, but we’d been entertaining Kara for hours.
He answers my unspoken question. “Kara’s mom. Amber is Kara’s mom. Dating. It’s new. For me. For Kara. Let me do some research on this. Figure out what those books say to do.”
“So, when you said your life is really complicated, were you talking about Amber?”
“Yeah. She’s recently returned to New York.”
“Don’t feel pressure from me. You take care of you and Kara.”
He kisses me then rests his forehead on mine. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For caring. For coloring. For being fun.” His thumb rubs over my knuckles as he holds my hand. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”
I can’t suppress the grin on my face. I run my nails over his scalp then shift over him to straddle his lap. In the dim light, the green in his eyes darkens to a mossy brown. “I do date a lot.”
He frowns.
“I mean, I go on a lot of dinner dates. A lot of nothing. Get to know you, like a speed date but longer. It’s usually over by date three. I’ve lived in Manhattan for four years, and I don’t think I’ve made it past date three the entire time I’ve been here. You’re the first guy I’ve dated that I do want to see again. You’re the first guy I’ve cared enough about to make a voodoo doll for.”
The corners of his lips round up ever so slightly. Not a smile, not quite a smirk. But no longer a frown. “Aren’t voodoo dolls a bad thing?
“Oh, yeah. Almost always. So, take heed.” I tap his nose with my index finger. “One wrong move, mister, and you’ve got a black magic mistress spinning her wares.”
He smiles then squeezes my hand. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. At all.” He traces the outside curves of my breast and adds, with a low, guttural sigh, “I’m the one who should be worried.”
My chest tightens and constricts my ability to breathe. Once again, he kisses me, and the clamp on my chest lightens. If emotions were color, then at this moment, every shade of blue, yellow, and red would be swirling through, with bright specks of white thrown in as a safety to keep it all from blending too dark. He stills my hips and slides me toward his knees, away from his crotch. “Let me walk you out. If you stay longer, I’m not going to be able to stop myself.”
I leap at the chance to break away from these intense emotions and climb off him. “I’ll head out now.”
“Let me slip on my shoes.”
“What? No way. Stay here with Kara.”
We have fun in the hall while awaiting the elevator. Nibbling and kissing, restrained because we’re both aware one of the other apartment doors could open at any moment. And the elevator is coming. When it arrives within minutes, I’m out of breath, warm and giddy.
The elevator door closes, and on my own, my insides sink as the elevator descends. I’m hazy with where we left things. We were skirting the idea of more. Of dating. And dating is probably asinine. It’s a nonsensical option. I smash my head against the wall of the elevator as my emotions swirl and my vexing conscience flares to life.
******
Nestled into the back of the yellow cab, I stare at my dark phone screen. Have I met someone?
Yes, Mom. I have. Holy Mother, Mary, and Angels, I have. And oh, sugar magnolia, am I confused.
I press my mom’s name in my contact list, and within the first ring, she answers. “Delilah, where have you been? It’s been days.” There’s a pause, and before I can get any words out, she repeats her texted question. “Have you met someone?”
I hear my dad’s stern warning in the background. “Melinda.”
I exhale, and a damn breaks and words gush uncontrolled out of my mouth like a river after a hurricane. “Yes, I’ve met someone.” There’s a faint gasp but I plow on, an unfettered, overflowing flood of information. “His name’s Mason. He’s a vet. Mom, he’s amazing. He has a little girl. She’s four years old. You’d adore her. She has art all over her walls. Like, in a way you would never have allowed. Unless it was in your art studio. And even then, it’s over the top. Art everywhere. She loves all the princesses, but her favorite one is the one with red hair and a bow and arrow. She also says she likes Princess and the Frog, more now because I’m from New Orleans. How cute is that? She’s just the cutest little sweetheart with chubby cheeks and hands. And, Mom, he’s the kindest guy. He’s raising this beautiful little girl, all on his own, while running his own veterinary clinic. His motto in life is to be kind to all things. I mean, have you ever? He’s good. He’s just...he’s really...he has the most beautiful eyes. Like, such a unique color you’ll want to paint them, but you probably won’t be able to get the color right.”
A memory of him over me in bed, taking me in, thrusting deep inside streams through my head, and I stop talking as heat warms my cheeks. I cross my legs and stare out at the blur of the city lights as the cab whizzes through the streets.
My mother’s voice brings me back. “Delilah, how did you meet him?” She sounds markedly reserved. It’s the same tone I hear her use when she needs to commandeer the garden club ladies.
A vision of Chewie dry heaving plays through my mental video, making me wince. “Well, that’s a bit of a story. You see, I was dog sitting for Anna, and Chewie had some issues.” I pause. “And Mason is her vet. He saved Chewie’s life.” My tone lifts at this last point. For constellation’s sake, he’s a hero. It hits me then that the last time I tried to talk up a guy to Mom was when I was in high school and I tried to convince her to let me date Luke Nollen after he’d been written up in the paper the week before for drinking underage.
“Dear, he has a child.”
“Yes, I know, Mom. And you’ll love her. She’s adorable.”
“I’m sure she is. But, honey, a different dating etiquette is required for single parents. You can’t lightly date someone when you have a child. And you will be moving home soon.”
“Yes, Mom, I am eventually going to move home. But I have time.” For crying out loud, twenty-six is the new sixteen. There’s no rush. I will move. One day. I’m not being that bad, am I?
“Delilah, we agreed. No serious relationships. Your time in New York is meant for you to spread your wings. And it’s been four years. We agreed on three. Don’t you miss your home? Your family?” The unspoken phrase I hear is, Don’t you miss me?
“Oh, Mom. I promise, I will come home. As planned. This isn’t a serious relationship.” The automatic denial flows out while, inside, nausea rises.
“He has a child.”
I squirm like a kid who asked for king cake instead of dinner and is at the receiving end of the smackdown glare. “But, Mom, when you meet them, you’re gonna love them. Really.”
“There is no reason for me to meet someone you’re not going to marry, Delilah. And a child. You need to end this. End it before it starts. Listen to me on this. For all your sakes, end this before it starts.”