This Time Around, page 22
“Got it,” Danica agreed, then looked at Allie. “Maybe a short?”
It took Allie a moment to realize she was supposed to make the decision. That a woman walking around with a kid was expected to be adult and authoritative instead of utterly fucking clueless about what size tea was appropriate for a ten-year-old girl. “Oh. Yes, I think that’s good. Thank you.”
“You want room at the top?” the server asked.
“Actually, I prefer a bit of steamed milk blended right into the Earl Grey.”
“I meant on her drink,” Danica said. “For ice. To cool it down so she doesn’t burn her mouth.”
“Right. Of course, yes.”
God, she was supposed to know stuff like this, wasn’t she?
She looked down at Paige, expecting to see judgment or disbelief that her father had let someone this ill-prepared be in charge of her well-being.
But the kid just smiled at her. “Want me to find a table?”
“That would be great.”
Allie paid for the drinks and took a few calming breaths. This would be okay. She could handle this. She’d grown up with competent, loving women guiding her through her own childhood. Her mother and grandmother used to take her out like this all the time. It’s not like she was an idiot. Just a little new at this, that’s all.
By the time she had the drinks, she’d managed to talk herself down. She had another quick flash of panic when she didn’t see Paige right away, but her heart rate slowed as she spotted the girl at a corner table.
Paige waved her over, then accepted the cardboard cup Allie handed her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure if you take cream or sugar or anything.” She pushed a few packets across the table, just in case.
“I’m not sure, either,” Paige said. “I’ve never had tea.”
Allie picked up her own cup and pried off the lid so she could blow on it. “My mom used to take me for tea all the time when I was your age. Well, maybe a little older. I always liked cream and sugar.”
Paige nodded as she used a little wooden stir stick to swirl about eighty pounds of sugar into her drink. “My mom’s dead.”
Allie winced. “I know. I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Paige gave her a small smile that nearly broke her heart. “May I try the cream, too?”
Allie handed her some and tried to think of a safer topic of conversation. Something that wouldn’t remind the kid she was motherless or in the care of a woman with dubious child-care credentials. Luckily, Paige picked up the slack.
“So you must like cats a lot, huh?”
Allie took a small sip of tea. “Actually, I’d never even had a cat until a couple weeks ago.”
“How come?”
“My parents wouldn’t let me when I was growing up. They said they were dirty and messy and ill-tempered. My grandma always loved them, though.”
“So she let you play with hers?”
“Yes.” Allie felt a twinge of wistfulness as she remembered running around the house dragging the silk tie from her grandmother’s robe with Stumpy scampering after it. “My grandma was the best. Funny and smart and sophisticated. A little nuts, but in a good way.”
“My grandma’s pretty great, too.”
Allie fished the tea bag out of her cup and set it on her napkin. “Your dad’s mom?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you see your other grandma much? Your mom’s mom?”
“No. Grandma Sarah’s in Florida.”
“And your Aunt Missy is in Chicago?”
“Yeah.”
The girl sounded distracted, and Allie looked up to see Paige staring at the mannequins across the mall aisle at Victoria’s Secret. Their shiny bosoms jutted out toward the window like pink satin torpedoes, and Paige gaped at them with an expression somewhere between mystified and fearful. Allie touched the girl’s arm.
“We’re not going there,” she reassured her. “The place we’re going is a little more discreet.”
“Discreet,” Paige repeated, her gaze fixed on a bra covered in gold sequins.
“I’m of the opinion that a woman’s bra shouldn’t set off metal detectors.”
“Good idea.” She looked up at Allie and smiled. “So you know my Grandma Louise?”
“I do. I used to go over to your dad’s house for dinner sometimes many, many years ago.”
“Back when you and my dad were boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“That’s right.”
Paige blew into her own mug of tea, though Allie could see flecks of mostly melted ice cubes drifting on top. “Did my grandma make corned beef for you?”
“She did. With carrots and cabbage and baby potatoes. It was amazing.”
“She still makes that. It’s my favorite.” Paige took a big slurp of tea. “Did your mom make corned beef, too? When my dad came over for dinner, I mean.”
“My mom’s not much of a cook,” Allie said, crossing her fingers Paige wouldn’t keep going with this line of questioning. In all honesty, Priscilla Ross had never once invited Jack to dinner. “My grandma used to make really nice dinners, though,” she added. “At the bed-and-breakfast where all the cats are now. She’d make stuffed quail and coq au vin and all kinds of other pretentious-sounding foods.”
“What’s pretentious?”
Allie laughed. “My family. It’s kind of a fancy way of saying stuck up.”
“Pretentious,” Paige repeated. “A pretentious way of saying stuck up.”
“Exactly.”
Paige seemed to consider that for a while. “You don’t seem pretentious.”
“Thanks. I’ve had a long time to work on it.”
The girl went quiet again, and they both sipped at their tea in silence for a bit. Allie glanced at her watch. They still had ten minutes to kill.
“Did you know my mom?” Paige asked.
Allie choked on her tea. She caught herself quickly, hoping Paige wouldn’t notice. “No,” Allie said, coughing a little. “I never knew your mother.”
She sat there stupidly, trying to think of something to say. What did someone even say to a child who’d lost her mother? Surely a smarter, more experienced woman could come up with something. Allie was drawing a blank.
But she gave it her best shot. “Do you remember your mom at all?” she asked softly.
“I think so. Maybe a little. She was pretty, like you, but her hair was kinda curly and shorter. Also, she could do this funny thing with her elbows where they bent the wrong way.”
“You mean she was double-jointed?”
“Yeah,” Paige said. “Me, too. Look.”
The girl proceeded to demonstrate, flipping her arm back so it seemed to hinge the wrong way. Allie grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Nah, it doesn’t hurt.” Paige flipped her arm back the right way and grinned. “My dad says my mom could do it with her shoulders, too. I don’t remember that. I don’t really even remember her voice.”
Allie swallowed hard, utterly charmed and heartbroken for the girl all at once. “I’m sure she loved you very much.”
Paige nodded. Her expression was a little wistful, but not terribly sad. “Me, too.”
“I wish I’d met her.” Allie realized with a start that it was true. She would have liked to know the sort of woman Jack would marry, the kind he’d choose to raise a child with, even if that plan hadn’t turned out the way they expected.
She wanted to offer more, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. Maybe it was best to have conversations like this in small pieces, eking out little bits of history at a time.
Paige tipped her cup up, draining the last of her tea. Allie realized she hadn’t finished even half of her own drink, but they only had five minutes left until the appointment. She put the lid back on her tea and stood up. As she pushed in her chair, Paige stood up and did the same.
“You ready to do this?” Allie asked.
Paige nodded. “Yep.” She smiled again, wider this time, and Allie felt a faint tug in her belly. Some thread of connection that hadn’t been there thirty minutes ago.
“Let’s go.”
She led the way down the mall corridor and through the doors of Nordstrom. They rode the escalator up, talking more comfortably now than they had an hour ago. As Allie stepped up to the lingerie counter, Paige did likewise, standing on tiptoe so she could lean forward on her elbows.
Behind the counter, a woman in a starched white shirt and navy pencil skirt stood with her back to them, sorting through a pile of lacy push-up bras. Allie slid her keys from her purse and put them back again, hoping the small jingle would catch the woman’s attention.
Nothing.
She cleared her throat. Still nothing. She glanced at the little gold bell next to the cash register, but felt rude ringing it like she was summoning a butler.
“Hi, there,” she tried at last.
The woman spun around, flipping her glasses off her face and onto the counter in front of them. Paige stared at them.
“Sorry to startle you,” Allie said. “We have an appointment with Eleanor for a bra fitting.”
“Éléonore,” the woman corrected, snatching the spectacles off the counter and situating them on her nose once more. “Not Eleanor, Éléonore. It’s French.”
“Right,” Allie said, glancing down as Paige took a step closer and gave Allie a skeptical look. “We have a four-thirty appointment with Éléonore.”
“I am Éléonore,” she announced the way someone might declare herself to be the Queen of England. “And you are?”
“Allie. Allison Ross. And this is Paige Carpenter. We have an appointment to be measured for a—”
“Brassiere?”
She pronounced it with a heavy French accent, even though the rest of her speech—save her name—was perfectly American. It took Allie a moment to figure out what she was saying.
“A brassiere,” Allie repeated. “Right. We need proper measurements for a brassiere.”
She felt ridiculous pronouncing it in her own fake French accent, but Éléonore seemed satisfied with the request. She eyed Allie up and down and made a little tsk-tsk noise. “Yes, I can see you need a little help.”
Allie frowned and resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest. “The fitting isn’t for me. It’s for my—for—for Paige here.”
Paige gave a small giggle and stepped on Allie’s toe. Allie fought to keep a straight face as Éléonore shifted her attention to Paige. She peered at the girl over the top of her glasses, frowning.
“I see,” said Éléonore. “How old are you, Paige?”
“Ten,” Paige replied, glancing at Allie. “I’m ten, but I’ll be eleven in June.”
“Hmmm,” Éléonore replied, now eyeing Paige. “And I suppose this is your first brassiere?”
Paige glanced at Allie, then back at Éléonore. “Um, I think so?”
“I’m going to be taking a lot of measurements today,” Éléonore continued. “I trust you are comfortable with this?”
“Well, sure,” Paige replied. “Are your hands cold?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My friend, Emma, said when she went to get her bra, the lady had really cold hands. So I was just wondering if your hands were warm or cold.”
“Here,” Allie offered, thrusting her paper mug of tea into Éléonore’s hands before the woman could object. “This might help.”
Éléonore scowled, but didn’t set the mug down, so Allie considered it a win. The woman looked back at Paige, still assessing.
“A good brassiere is like a fine Bordeaux,” Éléonore said. “It’s well-structured, elegant, and supremely smooth.”
Allie gritted her teeth, wondering if she should have just taken Paige to Victoria’s Secret. At least there they had some cute things, and they wouldn’t be subjected to the palpable disdain of Éléonore. The woman seemed to be going out of her way to use words Paige couldn’t possibly know, and that pissed Allie off.
But Paige just smiled and tossed her braid over her shoulder. “A good Bordeaux has notes of chocolate cupcake and Colgate toothpaste,” she announced. “Do you have any bras with those things?”
Allie snort-laughed in a most unladylike fashion, causing Éléonore to swing her gaze back to her.
“Will you be joining us in the dressing room for the fitting?” Éléonore asked.
“Oh, um—I guess that’s up to Paige.”
“Yes,” Paige said, reaching out for Allie’s hand. “She’ll be joining us.”
“I see,” Éléonore said. “You do understand that bra fitting is an art and not a science?”
“I like art and science both,” Paige replied. “But writing is my best subject.”
“Just like your dad,” Allie said, squeezing the girl’s hand at the memory of Jack, bleary eyed and rumpled, as he slaved over essays for college scholarships. “He used to love writing essays in high school. Everyone else hated them, but your dad—”
“And how does your mother feel about things like padding, push-up, and underwire?”
Allie blinked and glanced at Paige. Paige looked back at her, seemingly at a loss for words for the first time since Allie met her. The girl gave a tiny shrug, so Allie looked back at Éléonore. “My mother is in prison, but she strongly favors all of those things,” she replied.
“And my mother is dead,” Paige supplied. “So I don’t think she cares.”
Allie squeezed the girl’s hand and leveled a look at Éléonore. “Why don’t we just go with whatever Paige would like to have on her body?”
Éléonore looked alarmed for a moment. Then she sniffed and spun on her heel. As she marched toward the dressing room, Allie leaned down to whisper to Paige. “Are you okay? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”
“I’m fine,” Paige answered. “I want a bra.”
“I know, but that woman—”
“Éléonore?” The girl pronounced the name with a dramatic flair, rolling her eyes as she said it.
“Éléonore,” Allie repeated as the woman turned the corner into the dressing rooms. “She’s a little intense.”
“I can handle intense.”
“I can see that,” Allie said, more impressed with this kid than she’d been with anyone she’d ever met.
Paige glanced toward the dressing rooms, then back at Allie. “What’s a brassiere?” she whispered.
“It’s a bra for snobby people.”
“Can we tell her I just want a plain old bra?”
“Definitely,” Allie said, putting her arm around the girl as they started toward the dressing room. “And for the record, I don’t think you need padding or push-up or any of that stuff.”
“Okay. But maybe not just plain? Maybe one with stripes or lace or something.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. Only instead of stripes, we’ll have to call them rayures. And instead of lace, we have to say dentelle.”
“Dentelle,” Paige repeated, trying it out. She reached up and plugged her nose, then tried again. “Dentelle,” she tried again, sounding a lot more authentic than Allie had after four years of college French.
“Perfect,” Allie said, and guided her young charge toward the dressing room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jack felt his pulse kick up at the sound of familiar female voices outside the front door. Even though he’d seen Allie two hours ago, even though she’d texted to say they’d finished shopping, something inside him stirred with excitement at the thought of seeing her again.
Was it really less than two weeks ago that he’d sent that first email and spent the whole week filled with a different sort of anxiousness? The urge to show her up, to rub her nose in how well he’d turned out.
Now he just wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her and—
“. . . And that lining on the inside helps conceal your nipples if it’s cold out,” Allie was saying as she pushed open the door. “So that’s helpful for modesty.”
Jack grimaced. Hearing Allie discuss nipples might have been a turn-on if she weren’t talking to his preteen daughter.
“Hey, Daddy!”
“Hey, kiddo!” He held out his arms and she rushed forward so he could swoop her into a bear hug. Would she ever stop being this affectionate with the people she loved? He hoped not, but he’d gone through a definite “don’t touch me” phase in middle school. Of course, that had more to do with his dickhead father walking out than with any real aversion to affection. He’d sure as hell gotten used to affection when he started dating Allie.
In the doorway, Allie stood smiling at him with her arms weighted down by shopping bags. She held something that looked like a bakery box in one hand. Seeing his gaze on it, she stepped closer and held it out. “Snickerdoodles,” she said. “Paige said they’re still your favorite.”
There was something almost unbearably sweet about Allie remembering his favorite dessert and his daughter knowing it now, and Jack felt a wobbly lump in his throat. It almost made up for the sour feeling he’d had in his gut when he’d seen Wade back at Allie’s place a few hours ago. He knew it was shitty, but something bugged him about coming face-to-face with a guy Allie had slept with, loved, planned a future with at one point in the not-so-distant past.
Jack knew he needed to get over himself, so he reached out to take the box from her. “Thank you. I suppose I have to save these until after dinner, huh?”
“Life’s short,” Allie said. “Eat dessert first.”
“Good idea!” Paige reached for the box, but Jack swooped it up and out of her grasp.
“No way,” he said. “That rule doesn’t apply to growing girls.”
“No fair.” She pretended to pout, but Jack could see she really didn’t care. “Where’s Grandma?” she asked.
“She’s upstairs playing with my new app that lets her race her friends to see who runs out of toilet paper first.”
“Excellent,” Paige said, scooping up the shopping bags Allie had set at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m going to show her my new bras.”
She scampered up the stairs, leaving Jack simultaneously relieved and wistful that his little girl no longer had an interest in showing him her purchases. He got it, and truth be told, he would have been uncomfortable seeing a bunch of bras his kid planned to wear. Still, it felt strange being on the edge of this precipice into Paige’s adulthood.
