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After giving Naomi’s bootie-covered foot a little squeeze, Carine drove away.
Heidi returned to her omelet, saying nothing to her fan club waiting at the table. She picked up her fork and resumed her eating.
I suppose cold eggs really aren’t that bad. I wonder why I always thought that?
“Are you going to say something, Tim?” Valerie asked.
“I reckon I should,” Tim said.
Heidi raised her chin and made good eye contact with him.
Not one word passed through his lips.
“I didn’t think so.” Heidi took a bite from the corner of a buttered toast triangle. She wasn’t usually a fan of the oil-infused spreadable stuff. She could convince herself that anything was delicious if she was in the right mood.
“You know she’ll eventually let something slip to me, right?” Valerie said.
“About what?” Heidi asked. “Her driver’s license? I don’t think it’s really that interesting of a story.”
“No, about whatever’s got your claws sharpened so prettily.”
Heidi scoffed. “If her social engagements are so interesting that she feels the need to recount them to her friends, I can’t see any reason why she shouldn’t.”
“You can’t, huh?” Valerie took a long sip of cocoa, watching Heidi over the rim of her mug. “You’re a walking red flag. You know that, right? I’ve heard stories about you, and not from Tim or Clay.”
“I hope they put a smile on your face. Can I take the baby to work today?”
“No. I’m going to take her home and talk myself into making another attempt at cutting her tiny little nails. And I don’t think I smiled when I heard them. Pretty sure I winced.”
Wincing seemed an appropriate reaction for people unpacking their darkened-room experiences with Heidi. The uninitiated always expected her to be a giggles-and-tickles kind of dominatrix. Their brains imploded when they learned she was far more likely to make them bark than whisper nasty things sweetly into their ears.
“I’m a consummate professional,” Heidi stated.
“Lucky for me, I’m married to my own professional and will never feel the need to test that assertion.”
Tim scoffed. “I’m not stopping you.”
Heidi raised an eyebrow at him. He really knew how to let the snakes out of the can when he felt like it.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I don’t like sharing. I’d only be proving a point.”
“Which would be what?” Valerie asked. “That the two of you should have never been allowed to hunt for prey in the same territory?”
“Well, I would have never stumbled onto you if we hadn’t been. Would I have, pretty girl?”
“Nuh-uh. Don’t start that ‘pretty girl’ nonsense with me. I’m a postpartum disaster who holds her breath when she’s sitting down to pee, and you’re to blame for that.”
“Only half to blame. You were there when she was conceived, and I happened to be in you.”
Heidi chuckled and pushed back the remnants of her omelet. She suspected the mighty pool of grease she’d consumed with it could give her brain the ability to persist through the end of a grueling day.
“You two need to clean up your acts immediately.” Valerie lifted Naomi from Heidi’s arm and sniffed in the general vicinity of her diaper. Satisfied that nothing was amiss, she snuggled the child beneath her shirt to nurse. “Naomi’s first word is going to end up being too filthy to write in her baby book.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Tim said. “We’ll be pious angels until she comes of age, and you’ve given our geriatric asses the permission to resume our former personalities.”
“I’ll remember that sass when you want to spoon tonight.”
“Don’t be like that.”
Valerie narrowed her eyes. “Well, why don’t you make me stop, then?”
Heidi chuckled with amusement and carried her mug to the coffee station for a refill.
One day, she might explain to them her thought process in choosing to interact with Carine. Just as likely, she wouldn’t. Possibly, there would be no point. Heidi had good reason to believe that Carine would do the same as all the others had. She’d get her fill of Heidi and then flit away in search of someone she could show off in public and get moon-eyed making wedding planning Pinterest boards for.
Things always came to an end, and Heidi was used to that.
But while the tryst lasted, Heidi would pull out all the stops. If Carine was expecting a watered-down version of Heidi, the error of her ways would be evident soon enough.
She’d have good reason to call Heidi a witch then.
