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“How?”
“By hurting them. You hurt a kid by punching them. Smacking them in the face, or smacking their mom around in front of them. Or you hurt a kid by telling them they’re stupid, ugly, and worthless. You hurt a kid by forgetting to feed them, not caring if they eat, not sending them to school because you don’t give a fuck. All those things hurt kids.”
“Of course.”
“You don’t hurt a kid by loving them and trying to teach them how to eat, and how to act in the world so they’ll have friends and be good people. You don’t hurt a kid by asking them to accept love from another person who loves them, or taking time for yourself to do something that’s important. I bet you never missed a birthday, princess. I bet you never forgot your daughter for a day, no matter where you were in the world.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“So if she’s mad at you, you tell yourself, she’s nineteen. She’s got things to learn. Don’t tell yourself it’s because you suck.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, you did.” He lifted both hands to his ears, folding them forward with his fingers. “I’ve got ears.”
“You look very silly doing that.”
“Yeah? How about if I do this?” He pulled his forehead away from hers, then crossed his eyes, widened his lips into a grimace, and stuck out his tongue between his teeth.
Rosemary laughed. Kal’s smile broke through, the grin that took over his whole face. “See, that works on Patricia, too. Nobody can resist my charms.”
“To think they called you Doctor Doom.”
“Right? And me so charming and everything.”
“You have a highly inflated sense of your own charm.”
“You seemed to like my charm okay on the airplane. And back in Lukla, you liked my charm twice. Oh, and at your ex-husband’s apartment? Just last night, I seem to remember you finding me more than charming.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
Kal leaned forward to kiss her, and Rosemary kissed him back. She wound her arms around his neck. His hands found the curve of her waist. They fit perfectly—so perfectly, Rosemary didn’t want to give them up.
She wondered for the first time if she really had to.
—
As the afternoon lengthened, they wandered through the rest of the zoo and some of Flushing Meadows, Kal pointing out buildings leftover from the World’s Fair, some of them rehabbed into museums, others left to rust.
She seemed to like the giant globe of the Unisphere surrounded by its geyser fountains.
When Rosemary started to limp from her shoes hurting, they sat on a park bench and people-watched a while, talking about nothing. It should have been boring, but it wasn’t.
That was Rosemary. She should have bored him. Or at least, she shouldn’t have been his type. She was seven years older, born and raised across an ocean of time zones. Every significant experience in her life had been different from his.
But she didn’t bore him. Not even close.
“Let me see your feet,” Kal said.
“I’m not going to show you my feet.”
“C’mon, let me see them. I’m going to work my foot rub magic on you.”
“Kal, I have climber feet. I haven’t had a pedicure in a thousand years, and until I do, you’re not going anywhere near my feet. Also, fo
ot rub magic only works on hormonal teenagers.”
He reached across her body, grabbed her ankle, and pulled hard enough that she lost her balance and had to reposition herself to keep from tipping over. Her feet ended up in his lap. Kal slid off her shoe.
