Round Fourteen
BILLY
“What does your typical shift schedule look like?” Maggie’s like a dog with a bone, asking her questions despite the Spy Kids movie playing on the television.
She doesn’t care about the food filling my mouth.
Or my consistent refusal to answer any of her questions over the last forty-five minutes.
“Successfully planning your calendar means I need to know what hours you work.”
“No comment.” I sit forward on the couch and trade the container of rice for the container of sweet and sour pork. Because we’re men, and in this house, we have assigned forks on Chinese takeout night and simply rotate through the containers of food. “Not interested.”
“Jeremy.” Pasting on her sugary-sweet smile, she picks up the television remote, pauses the movie, and captures my son’s heart with nothing more than the glitter in her eyes. “What days does your dad work?”
He releases a grunt of displeasure. “All of the days. Every day. All the time.” Pursing his lips, he shoots a glare my way. “My dad is alllllways working.”
“Geez, bud.” My stomach, hungry a moment ago, turns to lead instead. “You make it sound like I’ve never got time for you.”
“He’s supposed to work Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday.”
“Not weekends?” Maggie picks at their shared bag of prawn chips and balances her folder on her lap. “He never works weekends?”
“He’s not supposed to work weekends. He’s not on the schedule or anything. But he goes to the station most weekends anyway. And on school days, his shift is supposed to start at eight and finish at four.”
Eight till four, M-F. She writes that shit down, too.
“How do you get to school if your dad is working those hours?”
“Are you a parenting expert now, too?” I growl. “Mind your business.”
“I usually go to the station with him in the mornings. School’s just up the street from there. And then I go to the gym afterwards for classes. Then he picks me up from there.”
“Hey, now.” Why do I feel so judged? “I pick you up from school most days and take you to the gym myself. Make sure we’re telling the full story.”
“Eliza picks me up sometimes. Or Alana, cos Franky is two grades ahead of me. Or Mrs. Jenkins sometimes picks me up, cos Molly is in my school, and she goes to the gym, too.” He inches forward and blasts me with a glare. “My dad doesn’t pick me up from school very often. He’s too busy.”
Ouch.
“You go to the gym five days a week?” Maggie doodles and makes her notes in shorthand. “What time do you usually finish? And what about on weekends? Do you go then, too?”
“We finish at the gym whatever time my dad comes and gets me. Sometimes at four-thirty, and sometimes at five-thirty or six, like today.”
Because I was working! I was busy!
“But it’s okay, cos Alana and Tommy and them keep an eye on me.
They don’t let me leave till my dad gets there, and sometimes when Molly and Franky are there, too, I get to hang around with them.
” From sour to thrilled, his eyes light up.
“Franky taught me how to play chess. Do you know how, Maggie?”
“Ah…” She places the end of her pen on her bottom lip. “I guess I used to play when I was younger. In school. But I haven’t played in a long time, so I’ve probably forgotten a lot of the rules.”
“Maybe I can teach you sometime.” He leans against her side. He fucking flirts with her. “But don’t play against Franky after that and tell him I taught you, cos if I teach it wrong, he’ll get cranky.”
“I won’t tell him you taught me.” She draws a cross over her heart. “Swear. Also, what do you think makes your dad the happiest in the whole wide world?”
“Magnolia—”
“Like, if there were no rules,” she continues. “And money didn’t matter and work wasn’t on his mind, and bad stuff never happened ever, what do you think would make him smile the biggest?”
“Um…” Stumped, his eyes come around to me, his brows pulled tight to create wrinkles on his forehead. “I… hmm…”
“You can’t think of anything?” she presses. “Nothing at all?”
“Well… he doesn’t really choose things for himself.
” Thoughtful, he focuses on her again. “My dad smiles a lot when we play basketball out the back. And he smiles a lot when I show him how good I’m getting at the gym.
And he smiles a lot on my mom’s birthday, when he takes me to the shops to buy her flowers—”
“Dude.” I drop my head back and groan. “Make it stop. Please.”
“But all those things are things for me. Because I asked to play basketball. Or because I learned something new at the gym. Or because I asked to buy the flowers.” He pauses for a beat, crunching on a prawn chip, then he leans forward and warms the side of my face with his stare.
“What would make you the happiest, Dad?”
“I’m happy when you’re happy.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, and when that doesn’t relieve the pressure pounding in the back of my skull, I shove up from the couch, set my dinner on the table, and turn into the kitchen. “That’s what makes me the happiest of all, buddy.”
“Makes him a really great dad,” Maggie whispers to my son.
I don’t know what she does, but she elicits a giggle from somewhere deep in his belly, then the sound of Spy Kids plays through the house again, and a moment after that, her footsteps pitter-patter against the hardwood floors.
Frustrated, I walk all the way to the sink and fold my palms over the lip. I stare out the window into my backyard, where the grass and edges are perfect, but the number of balls we currently own again, now that Maggie has tossed them back, is overwhelming.
He kept losing them, so we kept buying them. Now we have more than we can handle, and a neighbor I think secretly enjoys when they land in her yard, all so she can stand at the fence and drop it back into ours.
“You’re trying to convince me you’re a bad person, but I’m not buying what you’re selling, Detective.”
“It’s gonna be your own fault when complaints arrive in your email inbox. That bastard Billy Caster is disrespecting the women you set him up with.”
“Nah.” She stops in the doorway, her reflection bouncing off the window right in front of me, so I catch her sweet smile and her arms folding across her chest. “You don’t disrespect women. This is all just a defense mechanism because you’re afraid of losing someone again.”
“Okay, thanks, Dr. Phil. We done now?”
“You hardly need to do anything. Just let me find you some nice women to spend time with. We’ll make Aria an off-limits topic, I’ll help you select a tie, and even prepare palm cards with conversation starters, in case you get stuck.
You take them out to dinner, leave their panties in one piece, unless…
” She shrugs behind me. “Ya know, you both decide you’d like to try taking them off.
Drive her home. Peck on the cheek if you’re both feeling it.
Don’t criticize her outfit, and don’t go on a verbal rampage about how love is for losers and weaklings.
Bada bing, bada boom. You’ve got yourself a successful date. ”
“Or…” I turn and lean back against the sink.
“You’re in my house right now. We even had a meal together.
I pour you a glass of water, walk your ass back onto my porch, say nothing unkind about your dress from the nunnery, and then I slam the door in your face.
Bada bing, that’s a date and, in the most technical sense, your obligations are complete. ” I flash a wide grin. “Works, right?”
“No.” she drawls. “Because the date can’t be with me. That would be a conflict of interest. And the point of all this is to find love. Not to go through the motions, just so you can slam the door in my face and call it a day.”
“Magnolia! I don’t want to do this!”
“Wilbert! I don’t really care. If you didn’t want to win the prize, you shouldn’t have accepted the damn ticket. If you weren’t interested in dating, you wouldn’t have attended a singles event.”
“I did it to support Alana’s bookstore! I did it to support a friend who wanted to support a friend.
Everyone knows that place is operating in the red, and Ollie said I had to go.
That does not mean I was signing up for a fucking…
” Exasperated, I gesture her way. “Magnolia Sava package. Which is a really weird thing to call it, by the way. Sounds like you’re selling ass. ”
“How could I possibly sell ass when you have the entire market share of ass right there, spilling out of your mouth?” She shoves off the wall and steamrolls across the room, stopping only when her shoes touch mine and her perfume dominates the air I breathe.
“I liked that boy from second grade, just so you know. I liked him a lot, and though I know those Spiderman undies weren’t yours, they still made me smile, because I know you were a fan of Spiderman back then, too.
Ramone offered me a pony tattoo under the bleachers that time, because he thought that’s what girls liked.
But I saw the Spiderman one and took it for myself. ”
“You…” My stomach swishes and swirls, somersaulting and aching. “What?”
“My dad died,” she murmurs, seductively licking her lips.
Fuck, I can practically taste her breath in the air.
“He was my favorite boy on the planet, but after he was gone, my mom packed our things and made us leave the only town I’d ever known.
That’s when I lost my second favorite boy on the planet.
Both in the same month.” She brings her shoulder up in a shrug.
“It’s silly, I know, because we were just kids, and little girls should not spend twenty-five years wondering how that boy from second grade was doing.
But I did, and then I had the good fortune of moving in next door to him. ”
“Magnolia—”