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“Maude and Arthur aren’t,” I point out.
Mia huffs, relenting. “True.”
“Are you free tonight?” I ask. “We could do a girls’ night.”
“No,” Mia tells me. “After my next client, I’m picking Bailey up from her sleepover. Tonight, I’m taking her to the museum. They have spooky night tours every Saturday in October. It doesn’t cost anything, so…”
“Okay.” I hug her tight, wanting to help but not knowing how. Mia squeezes me back, then walks me to the door just in time to open it for her next client. She greets the customer, then waves me away, and I head next door to see Sebastian’s progress with the stair tread.
Worry gnaws at me for Mia, but all I can do is be there for support if she needs me. At least now, she has us to lean on. I just hope she realizes it.
14
MIA
Life is funny.Small moments—a failed date, for example—feel big and stressful and overwhelming. But then, routine takes over. As a single mother and owner of my own business, routine has been my mistress for a long, long time.
Sundays, Bailey and I do chores in the morning, grocery shopping around noon, and we have a home movie night in the evening. Once my kid is in bed, I usually have to prep myself for the week by checking my schedule at the barbershop to make sure everything is in order. From there, the whirlwind starts. School drop-offs, work, pick-ups, after-school activities, dinners, playdates, chores (and more chores), homework, dinner, clean-up, sleep, and on and on. Mondays and Wednesdays are basketball. Tuesdays, Bailey goes to a free after-school program at the local community center. Thursdays, we have an evening at home. Weekends seem to fill up with cleaning and cooking and errands and activities without any conscious input from me. Then, through it all, there are phone calls to my parents and my sister, dentist appointments, doctor’s appointments, school projects, PTA meetings, and a million other little things to keep on top of.
I blink, and a week has gone by. If I stop paying attention for a while, suddenly it’s been two years. Or ten. Time has no meaning anymore.
So, when three weeks pass after my disastrous date with Desmond without me even noticing, it’s not very surprising. Maybe it’s a sign that I wasn’t meant to date in the first place. When would I have the time? Shouldn’t I focus on my life with my daughter, on my business?
With extra hours at the shop over the past few weeks, I’ve scraped enough to get by this month, which is a small miracle. If I’d been busy flirting with a mystery man or getting kissed in parking lots, I might not have been able to make ends meet. It requires all my focus and energy just to keep my head above water.
In a way, the date was a good reminder that my priority has to be my daughter and my business. Nothing else matters. And having Bailey as a priority means making sure my daughter is fed, clothed, healthy—and happy.
One thing that Bailey loves is Halloween, and our decorations have gotten progressively more elaborate over the years. I can’t help it; seeing the joy on her face is worth the effort.
I place a plastic skeleton in one of the chairs in the barbershop, positioning him just so, then tangle fake spiderwebs over his body to hold it in place. Stepping back, I plant my hands on my hips. “There. Sir Bones is nice and comfy.”
Bailey giggles, then tugs me over to the front of the chest-high reception desk. “Look what I did!”
My daughter used cottony spiderwebs, plastic spiders, and orange lights to create a spooky front to the desk, on full display to anyone who walks in.
I grin, kissing my daughter’s head. “It looks amazing, Bailey.”
“Yeah,” she agrees.
In one of those strange moments of awareness, it hits me that it’s the middle of October. Before I know it, another month will be over, and what will I have done? My best claim to fame is that I’ve succeeded in avoiding my landlord almost entirely. Sometimes I hear noises coming from the apartment behind the barbershop, but I mostly manage to ignore them. Once, when I heard footsteps approaching the dividing door, I ran out of the barbershop and hid around the corner like a lunatic. I was huddled behind a pile of garbage when Dorothy, one of the older ladies that runs the hotel, spotted me. I had to pretend I’d accidentally thrown my phone in the trash and was out looking for it.
Not my proudest moment.
I just don’t want to see Desmond’s face. I don’t want to hear his voice. If I spend any more time one-on-one with him, I’ll end up assaulting him. Either that or I’ll kiss him again, which is even worse.
So, I’ve been focusing on my daughter and on my work and trying to put the idea of male companionship out of my mind completely. I don’t have time for it, anyway.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yeah, honey?”
“Can I go trick-or-treating with Toby and Katie this year? They live in the neighborhood with the big houses, and Toby told me he got full-sized chocolate bars at six different houses last year.”
I snort. “No problem. Have you figured out your costume? It’s two weeks to Halloween.” I dump the mints in my reception desk’s candy bowl into an empty drawer and replace them with suitably spooky-themed goodies instead.
“Yeah. I want to be an electrical outlet,” my daughter answers.
I pause, hands on the candy bowl, and glance at my daughter. She’s busy tugging at one end of the desk’s spiderweb that won’t stay put. “Excuse me? An electrical outlet?”
