2. Carson
Carson
This is not a normal Friday night for me. My evenings are more often spent watching Liv and Maddie or getting my nails painted to the tune of BTS and Taylor Swift. Penny has decided she wants to become proficient at nail art, and ever since her mom left us, she’s been forced to practice on me.
I usually give her free rein, since I wear gloves at work ninety percent of the time anyway.
Though, truthfully, I’m past caring about showing up at the office with daisies or butterflies painted on my thumbnails.
We’ll see how the new crew does with it, but my old hygienist back in Tennessee got a kick out of what color I’d be sporting each week.
I’m still heavily in the survival phase—treading that deep ocean water with Penny on my shoulders, my head barely breaking the surface. The last thing I care about is someone judging my eccentric nails. Anything that makes my child happy is a go these days.
When my buddy Todd reached out about meeting in Burlington to celebrate his birthday, I wanted to refuse.
I’ve only just returned to Vermont, my mom hardly has any time off between working as a nurse and her NP program to babysit, and a bar with a couple guys I knew in college doesn’t sound as nice as a hot pizza and painting my nine-year-old’s nails.
Or trying the new Dutch braid configuration she’s been wanting me to learn.
I’m that person now.
It’s also a little of the reason I can’t stop looking at Glasses.
I don’t know her name—I didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer it.
But she has the sweetest smile under those glasses, and there’s something so wholesome and slightly familiar about her I can’t stop my attention from drifting toward her all night.
Especially not when one of the sash-bearing guys on the dance floor took my seat before it even cooled. Glasses had scooted away, putting some distance between them, but he was all over her like a barnacle on Tamatoa.
Yeah, Penny’s latest movie obsession has been Moana, and I’m not too sad about it. The soundtrack just hits right.
“How’d the move go?” Todd asks when the guys head to the counter for another drink.
His sister, Laura, is looking at her phone, and I can see from this angle that her hair isn’t a natural red—more like cherry soda.
How did I mix her up with Glasses? It was such a dumb mistake, and definitely one I wouldn’t have made if I’d been getting a normal amount of sleep lately.
Maybe if I saw Todd more often than every other year, I’d be able to more immediately recognize his sister. But we’re the type of friends who catch up occasionally and send wedding invitations when it’s relevant.
At least, he’d been invited to my wedding.
“Carson? Has your move been that awful?”
Right. Adult conversation. “It’s been fine. Jen didn’t want Penny to leave the state, but I notified her through the proper channels and she never filed an objection, so here we are.”
There’s a beat of silence, that heavy, full moment that follows alluding to my divorce, when panic flashes in the other person’s eyes and they fall into one of the three camps: pity, curiosity, or the irresistible urge to make it about themselves.
How awful! My sister went through the exact same thing. Let me tell you what her ex did.
I almost prefer the ones who make it about themselves, because they talk so much I don’t usually have to say another thing.
I wish I was sitting with Glasses again. She doesn’t know about my divorce or daughter or the giant trash bag of trauma I drag around. Next to Glasses, I got to be a regular, charming guy. I miss that already.
Todd chooses pity. His face folds into something resembling condolence. “Man, I’m so sorry.”
“She’s the one losing out.” I reach for my empty glass and set it right back down.
Jen is the one missing out on a good relationship with our daughter, but it’s not only her loss.
Penny has to deal with the damage of having a mother who actively chooses the single life over parenting.
She has to face that abandonment, and no matter how many other strong female relationships she has, there will always be that component of not being chosen.
I could hit something, but I’m not violent.
No, instead I suppress everything and pretend I’m not barely holding it together.
Providing healthy female relationships is the only thing I can do, and my mom and sister have always filled those gaps as much as they were able.
Now that I’ve bought a failing dental practice in my hometown and moved back in with my mom, Penny has a woman around every day. It’s already an improvement.
Laura puts her phone down and sets her round eyes on me, jutting her lip out. This family is two for two on the pity train. “That’s heartbreaking. Your poor daughter.”
“We do all right,” I say, reaching for my empty glass again. What I really want now is to be driving home.
“Who’s that chick you were sitting with?” Todd asks, nodding his chin toward the bachelorette party table. He waggles his eyebrows. “Looked like you weren’t too hung up on Jen when we got here.”
I steal a cold, limp fry from Todd’s plate and pop it in my mouth. “Don’t know her.”
“That’s what I want to see.” Todd grins, leaning back like he deserves the credit for any success I might have. “There’s no faster way to get over your ex than to get un—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Laura snaps. “It won’t make you look good. Besides, the last thing Carson wants right now is a meaningless hook up.”
My gaze drifts toward Glasses again, and I catch her laughing at something the bride is saying.
She’s beautiful, her eyes glittering behind simple black frames.
She has a spray of freckles over her nose and cheekbones that I wouldn’t mind tracing, and her brown eyes felt full and warm.
Plus, why does she feel so familiar? Beautiful women don’t take over my brain like this.
I’m a dad and a new business owner and have too much going on to think about romantic relationships.
I’m not an unresponsive ogre. I just have other things on my mind.
Besides, the next woman I introduce to Penny is going to be the last. I can’t provide my child with any other reason to feel abandoned.
But there’s something about Glasses that keeps pulling me back.
I don’t want to marry the woman, but I wouldn’t mind talking with her more.
I could ask her things like why is she wearing a sash labeling her the Picture Book Princess and would she think I’m a bad person if I want to lead her away from the crowd and find out how soft her lips are?
Woah. Okay. I haven’t felt that for a woman in a long time.
I’m not drinking tonight since I have to drive back to Autumn Ridge and be a dad in an hour, but I sniff my glass anyway. My mind isn’t just running away from me; it’s sprinting full speed ahead.
“Sometimes you need a meaningless hook up,” Todd says. He’s fresh out of a relationship, so I think I can see where his bitterness is coming from, but we’re very different when it comes to how we grieve.
Glasses is standing beside a friend at her table now, and I get the weirdest sense of loss thinking she’ll leave without letting me speak to her again. She looks like she’s about to head out, and I’m moving at once, desperate to talk to her one last time.
Just talk.
“I need a refill.” I slide out of the booth and angle toward the bar, intercepting Glasses on my way.
My steps are too quick and we nearly collide, so I cup her elbow in a shameless excuse to touch her. When her brown eyes look up at me, I have zero regrets.
“Sorry,” I say anyway. “I’m getting in your way all over the place tonight.”
Her smile reveals straight white teeth and slightly squinty eyes. “Careful, or I might think you’re trying to run into me.”
“Caught. I definitely just did that.”
She laughs, somewhat disbelieving.
“Carson,” I tell her, putting my hand out to shake.
She eyes my hand, then slides her eyes up to my face. “Emma.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
She shakes my hand. I don’t let go, instead tightening my fingers on hers. Pink bleeds into her cheeks, making her look charming. With her extra tall heels, she’s not that much shorter than me, and her legs look amazing.
She’s not pulling away, and I’m soaking in her brown eyes.
It’s probably a combination of the fact that this woman doesn’t know anything about my tragic last few years and she’s got the market cornered on sweetness.
In every way possible, Emma is the opposite of Jen.
Add that she can’t pity me or be curious, because she doesn’t know my wife left me or my daughter is relying on me to be the sole parent when I don’t feel qualified, and I’ve found the perfect woman.
“Can I get you a drink?” I offer.
“I’m not drinking tonight.” She points at her friends. “Designated driver, remember?”
“But you’re leaving them?” I click my tongue.
“I was heading to the bathroom.”
Well, I overshot that. “I can get you a Shirley Temple.”
She laughs. “I haven’t had one of those in years. They’re actually pretty good.”
“I know. My daught—” I cough, but she’s caught me.
“Your daughter loves them?” she guesses, no weight or heaviness to her words.
“She’s partial to the cherries.”
“So am I.”
Why did that send a bolt of heat through me? I squeeze her fingers, then release her hand. “One Shirley Temple, coming right up.”
Emma’s laugh is musical while she slips away from me. Too forward? Maybe. But I can’t seem to care. I want to ask what she’s reading and how she knows the bride and why she didn’t pull away when I held her hand.
Instead, I watch her walk away before I order our drinks. When Emma meets me at the end of the bar again, I slide over a tall clear glass full of pinkish-red soda and floating cherries.