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“Shit,” I mutter to myself.
That’s Clayton Matthews for you. Gets so lost in thought about what to do about a particular female that he completely loses track of said female.
A quick search around the house finds that Stevie actually left. I had only agreed in a dazed thoughtlessness, without actually meaning it. But she clearly didn’t know that.
Rushing outside finds her climbing into a cab without looking back. I call out to her just as the door slams shut.
The next morning, I awake agitated.
Whatever room I go in, in my house, I’m like a polar bear in a cage. I can’t seem to sit still; instead, I’m checking my phone obsessively to see if she’s responded to any of my messages, then trying to call her again. Really, it shouldn’t matter. I just want to see her so I can officially dismiss her and apologize, right?
Winston doesn’t help things.
“Where’s Stevie?” He asks every time he gets bored of an activity, whether it’s Lego or his mini dinosaurs, which usually rounds out to be thirty minutes or so.
“She’s not working today,” is all I have the heart to tell him.
As much as this sucks, it’s for the best. There’s no way I want to get into that kind of situation with my son’s nanny. Not only is it a conflict of interest, it’s just plain morally wrong.
By lunch time, I’m just about ready to walk through a hole in the wall. Thankfully, my mom is willing to watch Winston while I meet my old friend Philip for lunch to figure out things.
At lunch, Philip’s dressed in his usual debonair attire, a full pinstriped suit, with a slightly amused smile.
There’s usually a whole swathe of reasons why his smile carries that playful tilt. Today, it’s because of what bad father of the century, yours truly, is telling him.
“So what do I do?” I finally ask after I’ve given him a five-minute rundown of just how much I fucked up with Stevie last night.
Philip tilts his head one way and then another. He picks up his water glass and swishes around the ice cubes before emptying a quarter of it in his mouth. He sets it down and delivers me a piercing stare.
“Seriously? You fuck her.”
Midway through sipping my drink, I practically spit it out in shock. Philip cracks up while I heave to regain my breath.
“Damn, you should’ve seen your face, man!”
When I recover enough to deliver him a scathing glare, he spread his hands on the table.
“Come on, you had to know I was kidding.”
I only deepen my glare. Really, I should’ve known that Philip and his joking ways were fucking with me, but a part of me did hope that there is some way I could rationalize seeing Stevie again and seeing where things took us.
“What I have to ask is, why are you even asking me?” Philip says, eyeing me curiously, like a cat, “You obviously have to fire the woman.”
“Winston gets along with her so well,” I say wistfully, flicking a hopeful glance his way, “and then—”
He smiles knowingly, although he’s playing innocent.
“And then?”
“Can I see her again?”
Phillip’s blond brows lower in a severely somber expression. “Seriously?”
“What!” I protest, slurping down the rest of my water in one hasty gulp. “I don’t know. There’s just something about her…”
“Something about her, which is that you haven’t fucked her,” He points out diplomatically.
I sigh, my gaze settling on a stone angel on the wall. It’s grinning its fat cherubic cheeks mockingly at me.
“So that’s it then.”
“There, there,” Philip says, delivering me a reassuring pat with his big hairy hand. “I’ll take you out clubbing next weekend. You can get another new nanny at home with Winston then. Just get an old fat one.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, not even hearing what he said.
Right now, I’m trying to figure out exactly how to word the dismissal I’m going to have to give to Stevie and how to get her to come over in the first place.
That night, on about the seventh call, Stevie picks up.
“Yeah?”
That is not the voice of a woman who’s going to agree with what you want, a knowing voice indicates helpfully.
Ignoring it, I ask “could you come over? I just want to talk.”
“You can’t just do this over the phone?” She comes back coolly.
“I’d rather not.”
Silence, then, “That’s unfortunate then.”
My frown deepens. Why does Stevie have to be so fucking difficult right now?
“Listen,” I tell her, “you have two choices. One, you come over and we talk things out and I leave you alone. Or two, you keep avoiding me and ignoring my calls and I don’t stop until you block my phone number and…”
Silence.
“I never mentioned how I win out in business, did I?” I say.
More silence. A silence of utter disinterest?
“For my toy idea, I basically harassed all the toy stores until they took a few as samples to show to kids and see how they’d do. But I think harassing might be too weak a word actually. I literally called the head of every store in Ontario and then the US too. Each of them probably got an average of six calls at least before, finally, one agreed just to get me off his back.”
