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She’d vetoed me asking anything about it when she’d gotten into the car at twelve-thirty. But now she said, “It was okay, and I did like doing the actual art. We did acrylics on canvas, a still life, with these cool old bottles and things. We can bring them home when they’re dry. I’m going to tell Dad it was terrible, though. Otherwise, he’ll make me go again and I was the only one under about, like, ninety years old there.”
I remembered back to when I thought it was a win if I got more than a grunt from her. We’d come a long way since then.
“Can’t you just tell him I’m happy in my room, or doing the apartments with you?”
I shook my head. “If you have something to tell Alex, you have to tell him yourself,” I told her. “But I can be there and support you, of course.”
I had a hunch and took a risk. “Is there someone you’d like to invite over?” I asked her. “Or to go out somewhere with, like me and Clare going to walk by the canal? A friend?”
I hadn’t expected her to start crying. Bless her. I shuffled across the wooden floorboards towards her and put my arm round her. She let me, and soon she was sobbing onto my T-shirt, and she let me hold her close. I let her cry for a while, getting it all out. And then when she’d calmed down a little, I said, “Kayla, sweetheart, talk to me.”
I didn’t know if she’d open up, but she did. “I don’t have any friends,” she sniffled. “Well, I did. Macy, that girl you saw in the mall, in the group, the one who was nice to Maddy. We’ve been besties since the first grade, when we got really into painting macaroni necklaces. But now she hangs out with Paulina, that girl who was mean about Maddy.” She scowled and so did I. “And her friends. The boys in that group are okay, but the girls are really mean to me. Paulina doesn’t like me and I think she told them all not to hang out with me. Me and Macy still had cello together a couple times a week and that was good. She still talked to me then even though she didn’t at school anymore, but she’s given it up now and it’s just me.”
I bristled inside about this awful Paulina girl – that was straight-out bullying. But I wasn’t too impressed with Macy either. She just abandoned her best friend to go and hang out with another group, and only spoke to her when they weren’t watching? That sucked. In fact, that seemed worse than straight-out meanness. But I didn’t say all that. Instead, I said, “That sounds awful for you. Friendships are really hard at your age. Everyone’s changing so much, and they want to fit in so badly…” I took a risk. “Sometimes people aren’t as kind as they should be.”
“You mean Macy,” said Kayla, wiping her eyes.
I nodded. “But… to be fair, she’s probably still finding her feet too. Have you tried talking to her?”
“I did at the beginning,” said Kayla. “But she just brushed me off and said I’m being too sensitive. So, I stopped trying.”
“Maybe it’s worth one more go,” I suggested. “If you were really good friends, it’s worth a shot, right? How about you invite her over, or arrange to do something cool you know she’d like?”
She nodded. “Maybe I’ll just ask her to come and hang out,” she said. “She could meet Maddy, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “She loved the Madster at the mall.”
I gave her a big squeeze and rubbed her arm. “It’ll work out,” I told her.
She smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “But – can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” For one awful moment I thought she was going to ask me directly about me and her dad. I cursed myself inwardly – we should have said something right away…
But no. she just said, “Why are you sandpapering my arm?”
I realized I still had the sheet in my hand. We both laughed then. We got back to work, and after a while she gave me a shy smile from under her curtain of hair and said, “I’m glad you and Maddy are here.”
“I’m glad we’re here too,” I told her, feeling a glow in my heart. I allowed myself to consider a new future. Here, with Alex and Kayla. Maybe here wasn’t just a stopgap, with a hot fling thrown in for fun. Maybe here was exactly where me and Maddy belonged.
16
ALEX
The plane had touched down on time from Colorado, and I drove straight to the workout facility for my training session. Like I said, to me those twice-weekly meets were mandatory, not voluntary. I couldn’t wait to get myself moving again after two days of standing around feeling like an idiot, caked in makeup and posing halfway up a mountain in sunglasses so expensive that the cost of one pair probably would have saved twenty orangutans (as Kayla had often told me).
No, I’m kidding – obviously the trip was great, and I felt very privileged to have such a high-end sponsor. The company prided itself on treating its employees well and did its part for several well-respected charities too. But I was happy to be home, back in Buffalo – way more happy than usual. I knew that was to do with getting along with Kayla better, and with the renovations really taking shape under Mary-Beth’s watchful eye. She’d been working out color schemes and finishing touches for all the apartments and overseeing the painters and decorators.
Here, alone in my car, I had some time to think. Kayla had been helping her apparently, which all sounded great. They’d saved me a fortune on an expensive interior designer… Hmm, maybe as she and Kayla had worked so hard, I would give the money I’d saved straight to Kayla’s favorite wildlife conservation charity – show her I really cared and was proud of her.
Yes, I decided, I’d do that. I’d tell her tonight. Luckily, she’d still be home at the apartment when I arrived back – so I’d get to see her before she went back to her mom’s. It was a little frustrating how the timing of me being away had lost me the last couple days with her. But before that we’d spent a lot of time together, as Clarissa had been away on a business trip herself.
Instead of laying around in bed until eleven with me moaning at her to get up, Kayla had been up early each day, helping Mary-Beth with Maddy. Then they’d headed down to the apartments to see how the work was coming along. They’d been back to the paint shop to order supplies a couple times too and she loved it there. She’d even opened up to me one evening, with Mary-Beth’s encouragement, as we sat at the kitchen table, about Macy turning on her.
Of course, I’d wanted to go and have a word with that disloyal shallow girl’s parents immediately, but Mary-Beth and Kayla had calmed me down. Macy was coming over to hang out when Kayla returned from Clarissa’s, and we’d see how things went from there. Any more signs of bullying from that Paulina girl, though, and I’d be down at the school. I’d be speaking to the principal, whether Mary-Beth and Kayla told me again that that would just make things worse or not. I wasn’t having my little girl treated like that, no way.
Traffic was bad and I got to the workout facility a little late. As I changed quickly in the empty locker room, my thoughts turned to Mary-Beth again. Later that evening, when Kayla had gone back to her mom’s place, there would just be me, Maddy (hopefully sound asleep!) and Mary-Beth… Hmmm…
My thoughts threatened to start running away with me, so I refocused and told myself to get my head in the game. Pre-season wasn’t far off now, and we had a lot to do this year. A lot. I had a lot to do. If the Bills were going to rise from the ashes and have their best season yet, I had to rise too – and lead them to the Super Bowl. Yeah, dammit, yeah! I psyched myself up a little, a taster of how pumped I get before a game. I felt the athlete me, the alpha me, the warrior me. I felt strong and powerful. Things going well with Mary-Beth and Kayla and the renovations just made me feel even stronger, and like I had a great platform to rise from.
