Page 105 of The New Place

It doesn’t, and Baxter spreads another thorough scatter across his jacket when Ned picks him up.

“We’ll be in touch soon,” the same receptionist says as Baxter leans against his knees.

When? Ned doesn’t ask, because why not drop a few hundred dollars on a dog just to still not have any answers?

“Could I talk with Claire?” he asks instead. She’ll make him feel better, at least. Hopefully talk him out of more internet searches he shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

“She ended up leaving early.”

“Is she alright?”

“Just not feeling well.”

“Huh. The both of you,” Ned says to Baxter.

Maybe Ned can join the club and catch some awful cold and sit out dinner tonight. But he feels fine, minus the jangling nerves in his stomach, as he drives to Peggy’s school.

Peggy has green and purple marker all over her hand, and her pigtails are slipping from their hairbands. When he tries to straighten them, she shakes her head, making the mess worse.

“Remember,” he says. “We’re going to a fancy dinner tonight.”

“Okay,” she says solemnly from her perch in her booster seat.

“All of our best manners.”

“Yes,” she says and nods.

“Napkin in your lap.”

“I’ll have crayons.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t think this type of restaurant will have crayons for you.”

Her little forehead furrows. “Yes they will.”

“Hon—”

“They will.”

Okay. He lets out a breath. She’ll be distracted anyway by the time they sit down. This will be fine. Right?

He doesn’t fucking know. She didn’t come with instructions. Baxter didn’t either, or Abbot, or anything else in life. Though he’s pretty sure if Peggy had, giant block letters would warn: Appear as put together as possible in front of Dr. Charles Henry Abbot. This is the first time Peggy’s meeting him, and the first time in over a year that Ned’s seeing his⁠—

His what? His ostensible future father-in-law?

It’s not like he knocked it out of the park the first time they met. Round two might go better if his daughter wasn’t covered in marker and wearing a stained cape, but fuck it. Ned can only do so much.

And she won’t take it off. Not when he gets her out of the car, and not standing on the sidewalk with her hands clutched around the knot, the ragged hem of the fabric hanging below the bottom of her coat.

“Please,” Ned says, squatting in front of her. “It’s a nice restaurant. Nobody wears capes to a nice restaurant.”

“But I’m wearing it right now.”

A car pulls up. Ned tenses, but a couple emerges, high heels on the salted sidewalk, the man in a coat that reaches his knees and shined shoes as he holds the door for his date.

“It would be really fun to wear it,” he agrees. “But right now we need to put it in the car.”

“No.”