29. Cliff
Chapter 29
Cliff
I slap down a bag of canned food on the folding table outside Brittany’s elementary school.
“You’re a thief,” I joke. “You swindle me out of cans every year.”
Brittany’s elementary school principal—and my former kindergarten teacher—shakes her head with a smile. “Hi, Cliff.”
“Hi, Debra.”
Debra scribbles on her clipboard, then peers up at me through lashes. She smiles sweetly, chewing on her bottom lip.
I narrow my eyes suspiciously, the twitch of a smile at the edge of my lips. “What?”
“Well, you see, my cousin, she’s got a thing for bakers and …”
Every fiber in me recoils.
“Deb …”
This is the fifth person to pitch their loved one to me today, and it’s only noon. George and Lisa parked outside the bakery with Polaroids of their cute granddaughter. Sandra rushed over after with a handful of photos tucked beside flowers. Divorce proceedings almost feel like a cakewalk compared to hearing, Oh, my aunt’s best friend’s daughter is single …
I force a smile at Debra. The last thing I want is for my neighbors to think I’m ungrateful for their matchmaking, even if it makes me want to stab my eyes out.
“I’m not dating, Deb.”
Her face falls. “What? But Lars said he saw you with Michelle’s sister.”
The knife twists.
“It was a one time thing.”
I cringe, thinking about how much we brought up Michelle, but Sara wanted to know everything about our relationship, and talking about Michelle felt comfortable. I don’t know how to date, but the thought of Michelle relaxed me.
The smile on Sara’s face grew wider and wider further into the night until she finally touched me on the arm and said, “You’ve got to tell her.”
All I could respond was, “It wouldn’t work.”
If I’d been asked a few weeks ago whether I should date Michelle, I would have said it didn’t matter. That we were friends and I was going to enjoy every moment with her while I could. But after my date with Sara, things shifted in me, like a craggy, yawning hole opened up in my heart.
I don’t want to go on more dates. I want Michelle. Not as a friend. Not as a fling. I want her. But I know who I am, and I know what our situation is. Michelle loves her life in Seattle. She wants nothing more than to go back. Life after divorce isn’t easy, and any sense of normalcy is so vital. I want her to heal. I would be a selfish man to steal that from her. The last thing I want is to take what’s not mine to begin with.
I clear my throat, coming back to the here and now with another bag of canned food in the crook of my arm and a pastry box in my other.
“Doughnut?” I set it on the table and unfold the top. “Take as many as you want.”
Her eyes light up. “Thanks,” she says, taking out a lemon-filled doughnut.
I figured out Debra’s doughnut preference a long time ago. A sweet, bright lemon-filled doughnut to match her kind, elementary-school-teacher interior. Some people are easy to guess. Michelle, on the other hand …
“If you change your mind, my other cousin is a dentist and really pretty.”
I huff out a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind, Deb.”
“Boy, you’ve got a lot on your hands lately, huh? You know Luke has a crush on Brittany, right?”
“Luke? The boy who pushed my daughter Luke?”
“Yep. Two little wrestling-loving lovebirds.”
“Good grief,” I sarcastically murmur to myself. “Not in my house.”
I recently got accustomed to Josh. Now, I’ve gotta worry about Luke? How did the whole Burke clan go from having zero relationship issues to being saddled with every single one?
Debra sets the pastry aside on a spare sheet of paper, licks the glaze from her thumb, then slides over a piece of paper.
“Hand turkey?” she offers.
“Can’t the school come up with any other crafts to send home?”
Her face turns to unamused stone. “My other cousin?—”
I snatch the paper turkey and wave it in the air. “It’s perfect. Thanks for the turkey.”
She waves. “Have a happy Thanksgiving, Cliff.”
I pick up my doughnut box, slap some random kid’s hand turkey on the top, and stroll toward the high school and the second food drive of the day.
It’s cold. It’s overcast. And the fall leaves have mostly disintegrated into a piecemeal mess beside gutters and cracks of the sidewalk. Thanksgiving is only a few days away, but the weather and I aren’t exactly in the turkey-and-cranberry-sauce spirit this year.
My girls are leaving for New York in three days, and then they’ll be gone for three more. I’ve never spent this holiday without them. We have traditions. How am I supposed to run down the hallway the morning of Thanksgiving, gobbling like a lunatic turkey, without them?
I keep telling myself that I’ll be all right. It isn’t the end of the world, even if it feels like it.
Outside the high school is another table with a brown tablecloth and stacks of cans piled in a corner. I plop my grocery bag on the tabletop.
“Hanging in there, Terri?” The high school math teacher gives a sly smile, and before she can open her mouth, I add, “I’m not dating. Doughnut?”
I open the lid and turn the box around. She twists her lips to the side.
“Fine, but I have the perfect woman for you,” she argues anyway while snatching a cruller. Her hand hovers over a glazed one, and she peers up at me. I nod solemnly with permission, and she steals that one too. “She’s a blonde. You like blondes, right?”
What is with this weird assumption that I like blondes? Didn’t I divorce a blonde?
I snap the box closed. “And to think, I was gonna offer a third one.”
“Ah, Cliff, don’t be so dramatic. But I’m glad you’re?—”
“Getting back out there?” I finish. “I’m not.”
“Oh, but you deserve to! You’re such a catch.”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you buttering me up for a third doughnut?”
“No, I’m being sincere,” she counters. “You’re a kind man with a great personality.”
“People only say that about ugly people.”
“You didn’t give me time to say that you’re handsome as well.”
I pop open the lid again, and she draws out a third doughnut while shimmying for joy in her chair.
“Good luck with the food drive,” I say, nodding toward my dropped-off bag.
“Thanks. And, Cliff, you know my granddaughter is?—”
I hold up my hands with a half smile. “I’m good, Terri, but thanks.”
“Let me know, and I can give you her number!”
I’m already halfway down the sidewalk when I call back, “Maybe!” I shouldn’t have left that door cracked.
Back at the bakery, I slump in my office chair with my head in my hands. Carol pokes her head in the office, and I smear my palm down my face.
Her face scrunches. “Ugh, you look terrible.”
“I feel terrible.”
“Was it the date?”
I groan, flopping my head into my folded arms on the desk.
“It was a mistake,” I grumble.
“Of course it was. It wasn’t Michelle.”
The tension in my arms pulls taut again.
I turn to my cheek and mumble, “You’re more annoying than me—you know that? And that’s saying something.”
Carol cocks her head. “Why’d you go?”
It’s a good question that I’ve asked myself over and over. I went because Michelle had asked me to, is the simple answer. But that’s unfair to Michelle. Ultimately, it was my decision. She didn’t force me to walk over and ask Sara out. She didn’t shove the sports coat over my shoulders. I chose to try dating. I stupidly hoped my feelings for Michelle were exactly what we’d said they were—two horny divorcees.
I was wrong.
When I don’t answer, Carol slides into the steel folding chair in the corner.
“I wish you knew how good of a guy you are.”
I lift an eyebrow. “That was a nice thing to say.”
She shrugs. “You’re my brother. I’m allowed to be nice every two to five months.” We exchange smiles. “So, why wouldn’t it work with her? Michelle—not her sister.”
I snort. “Because … she’s got Seattle. A life she loves so much. And I’ve got my whole life here. A very busy life. I work long hours. I have two kids. She didn’t ask for that.”
Carol blinks, opening her mouth to maybe say something, but a ding echoes from the front lobby.
I grit my teeth. “If it’s someone else with a picture of some woman, so help me God.”
She snickers. “Don’t worry about it. You mope.”
“I’m not moping.”
“It’s okay; you can feel sad.”
“I’m not sad!” I insist, but she’s already left my office, which is good because I don’t have the energy to argue my obvious lie.
I wait a few minutes until the bell over the door chimes again. I leave my office and poke my head out. Lars is in the lobby, giving a goofy wave. I groan through it.
“How’d the hot date go?”
“Don’t ask.”
“But I—hey, wait, what?—”
I walk past the display cases and toward the door painted in turkeys and pilgrims.
“Where are you going?” Carol asks.
“For a walk.”
“To mope?” Lars asks.
“Yeah, yeah. Funny.”
I walk outside, and to my dismay, Lars follows. We pace down the sidewalks and through the center of the square. Little pilgrim hats rest on leftover Halloween skeletons. Standing cardboard cutouts of cartoon turkeys hide behind haystacks. Their beady eyes mock me—I can feel it.
“It’s okay that it didn’t work out,” he says. “I mean … what did you expect to happen though?”
“Lars?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll give you a dozen doughnuts if you don’t talk right now.”
“Deal, man.” He claps me on the back. “But I’m not leaving you like this.”
“Fair enough.”
We emerge on the other side of the park and cross the street. I feel aimless. And I’m cold.
A single raindrop hits my forehead. I sigh and tuck myself under the nearest awning for cover. I peer through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and exhale again. It’s the video store, and Emily is inside once again, leaning on the counter across from Josh.
At the sound of the front doorbell, Emily turns around. Her eyes bug out in fear. Her mouth drops open to argue.
I hold up my hand. “Nope. I’m too tired to be upset. Help me find some movies.”
She and Josh exchange wide-eyed glances. From the corner of my eye, I spot Lars giving them a reassuring thumbs-up.
I know how I look. My hair is damp from the sprinkling rain outside. My hands are shoved in my jacket pockets. I didn’t sleep much last night either, so I probably look like a dead man crawling from the grave.
Emily scrambles away from the counter and down my aisle, sidestepping past Lars.
“Dad, you good?” For the first time since Halloween, my daughter doesn’t look like she wants to lock me out of her room.
“I’m good,” I say with a half smile.
It’s not convincing because her eyebrows furrow together.
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s moping,” Lars cuts in.
“That’s eleven doughnuts now.”
“Ah, come on.”
I turn back to Emily. “I’m looking for some movies for while you kids are gone.”
“Ugh,” she groans.
I huff out an exhausted laugh and rub her back.
“Hurts me too, kiddo.”
I turn the corner to a different aisle, bumping my fingertips over cases. I freeze in front of Pretty in Pink. My heart skips. It’s the movie Allen didn’t like Michelle to watch.
Such a stupid man .
I grab it.
Emily clicks her tongue behind me. “It’s funny you’re here actually. Me and Brittany were talking … and before we leave, we’d like a girls’ night with Aunt Carol.”
“Sounds fun,” Lars says. He’s trying his best to cover for my pessimism.
“That’s fine,” I say. “When have you ever asked for permission to do that?”
“Well, we wanna invite over Michelle and Sara too.”
I freeze. Even her name is a blow to the chest. It shouldn’t be. She’s Michelle . My friend, my neighbor. Michelle.
Lars’s face is pulled into a comical grimace. “Uh …”
I blow out air. “What are some good movies out right now?”
“Wait, what about the sleepover?—”
“Go with Braveheart !” Josh calls from the counter through cupped hands.
“Huh.” I poke out my bottom lip and murmur, “First good thing he’s said.”
Fig roll might have upgraded to something better. A Swiss roll maybe. More spongy.
My daughter stares at me, tucking her blonde strands behind her ears.
“Are you actually dating again?” she asks. “Like, really , really?”
The day keeps getting worse. I didn’t want to cross the dating bridge like this. I wanted to present the right woman at the right time—not be the dad who dates around.
“I’m gonna go over … yep.” Lars shuffles into the next aisle over, leaving me with Emily’s worried expression.
“They got to you too, huh?” I joke.
“Well, there was Sara last night, and now, everyone is asking me if my dad is single. Which is so mortifying.” Then, she gives a sheepish shrug. “It probably sucks for you too though, huh?”
The corner of my mouth pulls up.
“It hasn’t been fun,” I admit. I hold up a tape and yell, “What do you think about Twister , Josh?”
“Fantastic, Cliff?—”
Emily groans. “Since when are you two pals?”
I chuckle. “Josh and I are two peas in a pod. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“So, is it true? Are you dating?”
“No.”
“Okay, but don’t you want to get back out there, Dad?”
“Why does everyone think I should do that?” I murmur under my breath. “Josh! Independence Day ?”
“Dude, yes! The best movie last year for sure.”
“That’s the one then,” I muse, tapping it on top of the other movie.
I attempt to walk back to the counter, but Emily blocks my path.
“Em—”
“You’ve got a problem, Dad.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I have a problem?”
“Yeah. You’re the divorced dad who owns a bakery. That’s your thing.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. “How’s that a problem?”
“Because I think you like the reputation of being the divorced guy. You hide behind it, so then you don’t have to think about the possibility of dating again and being in love.”
I blink at her. “What the hell are they teaching you in school nowadays?”
She slouches. “I don’t like it when you mope.”
“I’m not moping. Wait, did Carol tell you to say that? Or Lars?”
“I wouldn’t mind if you dated Michelle.”
My stomach drops. I know time has passed, but I always assumed Emily would feel betrayed, having another woman in the house who isn’t Tracy. Brittany is too young to remember me and her mom as a unit. But Emily is sixteen; hell, at this point, she probably knows more about dating than I do.
I tilt up my chin. “Aren’t you supposed to be mad at me?”
“Yeah,” Emily agrees. “Gotta keep that up for another few days at a minimum.”
“Makes total sense,” I say through a half smile. I sigh. “And, yes, Michelle and Sara can come over for a girls’ night. As long as we never talk about me dating ever again.”
With a grin, Emily jerks out her hand. “Deal.”
I shake it. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
With a satisfied hmph, Emily strides away from me, leaving me in the drama section by myself to cope with this news of a sleepover with a woman I can’t be with.
There’s some irony in there somewhere.