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“I’m just visiting,” I said, covering for Kayla. “We’ve got to go now. Alex is treating us and Kayla’s friends to a luxury spa retreat this afternoon. We’d better get going.”
Donna looked green with envy about that, and we sashayed away. Kayla seemed to grow in confidence with every step away from them, and by the time we were by the elevators, she actually turned to me and smiled. “Where did that come from, about the spa?” there was a little spark in her eyes. “Did you see how jealous Donna looked?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t like what she said about Maddy.”
“Neither did I,” said Kayla, and then she held the elevator door button open for me while I pushed the stroller in. She smiled shyly at Mads. “You’re alright, aren’t you, monkey-face,” she said to her.
As we headed out to the parking lot, I thought to myself that maybe Kayla was alright too.
6
ALEX
I got back on with the renovation paperwork this morning in the kitchen, with steaming coffee in front of me. I only got another half hour done, though, before I looked up and stared out of the window for a while, focusing on my breathing as we did in mindset training. I loved the breathwork side of that and I tried to just slip in a few minutes of it whenever I could. I had felt completely in the right yesterday about Mary-Beth, and by the time I went to bed, I was glad we hadn’t run into one another in the communal spaces.
But this morning, after a good night’s rest, it only took me two minutes of staring at the treetops and doing the breathing to realize that I had behaved like an absolute dick. My sudden horror at myself propelled me out of the kitchen. I wasn’t going to get anything done until I straightened things out between us.
Kayla was on the living room sofa, eating Cheerios and watching an orangutan show on the TV.
“Hey, morning – where’s Mary-Beth?” I asked.
She shrugged. “She took the demon child to the park, I think.”
“What, the one on Jessop Street?”
She nodded without taking her eyes from the TV, and shoveled more cereal into her mouth.
“Don’t stalk the nanny, Dad, it’s weird,” she called after me, as I left the room. “And donate some of your massive fortune to the orangutans, because stupid fucking humans are destroying their natural habitat with fucking palm oil and it sucks.”
I sighed. “Don’t curse, young lady!” I yelled, as I hurried up the hall. I slipped some sneakers on from the vast collection in the secret shoe cupboard behind the wood paneling – now that was something that was finished, and that I loved. Then I was out the door.
Luckily for me, Mary-Beth was at the Jessop Street play park. I found her there, pushing Maddy on a swing while trying to type into her phone at the same time. She looked up and glared at me, and then continued to push her daughter, smiling at her and making funny faces.
“Now that’s a skill,” I said, trying to break the ice. “How you can look at Maddy with all the love in the world and then a second later look at me like you want to kill me in cold blood?”
She didn’t laugh, and I got the glare again. But then she said, “We learn it in mom school. It’s for when we have to deal with our beloved kids and arrogant assholes at the same time.”
I instinctively bristled at that, but I shut it down. She was right. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Really. About what I said in the kitchen – well, about what I didn’t say, more like. I didn’t mean that you’re not attractive, or anything like that. Or that you’re a golddigger or whatever.”
She did smile a little then. “I don’t know where all that shit I said came from,” she said, giving Maddy a big sunshiny smile and blowing a raspberry as she swung towards her.
The little girl squealed in delight and kicked her legs gleefully.
“Look, what happened happened,” she said then. “I get why it can’t happen again, and that’s fine with me. I’m sworn off anything until Maddy’s in school. It’s just easier that way.”
I must have looked a little crestfallen because she added, “Don’t take it personally. You’re smoking hot and it was really good. Although you are way too old for me.”
I smiled then, feeling better in my heart, and my ego reinflated. “Ha! I knew you really liked it. But, yeah, we’re on the same page. I can’t get involved in anything now, even though you’re one seriously sexy woman.”
She smiled at that. “Glad I’ve still got it, now I’m a mom.”
“And you’re far too young for me.”
“Yep.”
“And your dad would kill me.”
“Like, he would literally kill you,” she agreed, laughing. “With a blunt instrument.” But then she scowled and added, “Not that he has any right to pass judgment on my life.”
