Bemused, Theo retreated to Sergei’s car. Serg hadn’t told him much about his ex. Certainly not about the vicious spark in her big blue eyes, though he could have guessed from the way her daughter used those same eyes to tell the world how little she thought of it. Kid cracked him up; she was so suspicious all the time but full of belly laughs and chatter in the right circumstances. Just try to take her stuffed elephant away, though, and she summoned the furies. Theo suspected the mama could access her own underworld vengeance deity to protect little Hannah. He grinned. He’d been maybe an inch shy of the line past which she would have completely laid into him. It stirred an impish desire to edge closer. To see her all full of righteous indignation. Talk about passion.
Serg hadn’t mentioned the passion.
“Fool,” he mumbled to himself, glancing back at her old sedan. As if Serg would have said, “Re, take my kid back to her mom, and by the way, she’s hot. Whatever you fantasize is the tip of the iceberg.”
He was in nonsense land, thinking about Sergei’s ex and sex. Not compatible thoughts. He had to work with Serg, day in and day out and plenty of long nights in between. He’d only hired him a matter of months ago, but he’d got on with Sergei Matsouka from the outset. The Greek-American network threw Serg’s resume his way the minute he made noises about needing a new restaurant manager. The man was gregarious, open, full of ideas. He had a good attitude most of the time. Seemed foolish to test that attitude by making moves on the man’s ex.
He started the car, picked a playlist off his phone. Sang along as he backed to a free gas pump. He likely could make it back to Elixir without filling the tank, but Sergei had passed over a couple of twenties along with his kid when he roped Theo into dropping back Hannah.
Twisting to insert the nozzle, he noticed Rachel hadn’t yet left. He propped his forearms atop Sergei’s roof and gave in to the temptation to watch as she sorted through the bags on her passenger seat. When she turned to pass something to Hannah, she spotted him. He gave the best shrug possible given his posture. Didn’t hide his interested grin. She shook her head once and cranked her car’s engine. He stopped singing. He wasn’t as tuneful as Orpheus, but it hardly mattered. Rachel Groff was not his Eurydice. More like the three-headed Cerberus ready to attack anyone threatening her realm. And Theo didn’t need to seek out any more scars in his life.
Sergei sent back dirty laundry. As if his mom wasn’t still washing all of his own clothes. Rachel balled up Hannah’s overalls and t-shirts and lobbed them at the hamper. No used diapers this time. What a victory. In fact, she found a drugstore bag with a torn-open package of diapers smushed at the bottom of the bag, under the sandals and storybooks. She passed the shoes to her girl to return to the cubbies by their front door, and carried the bag to the changing table.
The crinkle of paper sent a jolt through her. The sound had smacked at her gut too many times. Washing Sergei’s jeans, hanging his jackets, pretending she needed to find something in his glove box because after the second or third or thirtieth time, it turned into a sick game. He ‘forgot’ to throw out incriminating receipts. She accumulated them, trying to read a web of certainty from their evidence. Blaming her dyslexia for her failure, calling on friends for backup. And when she brandished a fan of smoothed-out receipts, line items circled, asking what and who and why the brunch with two coffees, the boutique, the gas from a station eighteen miles away, he sneered. He reminded her how important he was. How it was just like her to be so pathetic. How he shouldn’t even expect her to understand all he had to put up with from her.
Too many times.
Doing her best to not read it, Rachel ran the receipt along the edge of the changing table to press out the wrinkles, snapped a picture, opened a text box.
Rachel: Stop me if I don’t need to read this.
Gillian: You already know the answer to that.
Serena: Is this related to Sergei?
Gillian: And YOU know the answer to that, too.
Natalie: That unmitigated ass!
Rachel let the first few replies flow up her screen so she could no longer see the photo she’d taken.
Gillian: We all know he’s the mold on a pebble picked out from beneath a horse’s rear shoe, but that’s no reason for R to be looking at his receipts again.
Natalie: Fine, sure, but why do you have it, Rachel?
She explained about the diapers, and her case looked weak. Before anyone replied, she threw in Sergei’s springing Theo on her with no warning. A second later, Gillian phoned, incredulous.
“He what?”
Rachel double-checked Hannah was still turning all their pairs of shoes into a train. “I mean, Theo’s the owner—not the brewer, the other one—so Sergei knows him. Hannah seemed to like him.”
“Do not make excuses for that man. He can’t hand your daughter off to any random lackey. She’s two!”
“I’m not saying he can. I’m ... okay, maybe I am. And I don’t agree with what he did.” She dialed back her defensive tone, partially for Gillian, partially so Hannah’s ears wouldn’t prick up. “I don’t. I do not. I laid into the guy, but you’re going to help me write a no-wiggle-room letter to Sergei.”
“And his lawyer.”
“And both our lawyers. Anyway, what’s on the receipt?”
Gillian’s silence stretched. Could be she was talking herself into accepting Rachel’s promise of delayed wrath. Could be she was zooming in on the picture to decipher it.
Could be there was something gross Gill wasn’t sure how to interpret.
The phone vibrated and she pulled it away to check the incoming text from Natalie: “Condoms, Lucky Charms, and something from Revlon.”
“Wait,” she asked Gill. “Does that mean he bought someone else mascara, or that he sent someone else to buy diapers?”
“Who cares? What impact does either scenario have on your life?”
She sat with the question. Not an hour before, she’d been high-fiving herself for putting unsuspecting Theo in his place. Or, if not his own place, any place far from Hannah. Taking her pluck as proof she had her boots on the correct feet, as Aunt Johnston would say.
And a maybe-not-even-Sergei’s receipt kicked her straight back into her swirl of anxiety.
The hypothetical condom and makeup use no longer impacted her. Gillian was right; Rachel told her so.
“Good.” Gill’s smile brightened her voice. “Put the receipt in the trash.”
“Recycling,” she corrected, heading into her kitchen.
“Trash. We are being symbolic here. That thing is toxic, and it’s not going to infect your apartment. Straight into the dumpster.”
“We’re not wearing shoes.”
Hannah slotted her feet into Rachel’s sandals. Time to change the subject before her daughter used her exploding vocabulary to parrot Rachel’s attitude. She had enough trouble shutting down her inner voice, and didn’t need an external chorus.
But as she crumpled up the receipt to shove it deep into the garbage, it crinkled again. So before she asked Gillian how her grading was going, she said, “And if he’s been feeding her sugary cereals again, I’m going to spill spaghetti sauce all over that ugly dress his mom sent and make sure she’s wearing it for his next weekend.”