Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
The door flew open. “Brodie!” Zoey had obviously been waiting there for him to arrive.
Brodie had been sitting in his car for the last ten minutes debating whether or not to drive away. “Zoey, isn’t it? Right?” He pointed at her, looking mock-confused.
She giggled. She looked super cute in a Taylor Swift T-shirt and tie-dye shorts.
He grinned. Then handed her a massive box of beads and charms that he’d bought from the toyshop in town on the way over.
He’d walked into the shop like he was trespassing, eyes suddenly awash with stuffed animals and Lego sets and, quite frankly, things he’d never thought he’d need to see again in his life. The girl behind the counter had chosen the bead box for him.
Zoey gasped in delight. “Wow!” Then almost immediately, “Mom is going to go nuts.”
“Why?” Brodie couldn’t understand how he’d managed to do something wrong without even setting foot in the house.
“Because this is, like, a Christmas present.” Zoey marveled over the fancy box.
Brodie chilled out. He owed the kid eight Christmas presents—one for each year Maeve had denied him. He readied himself with that comeback as Zoey raced ahead toward the kitchen and he strode down the hall, defensively righteous, behind her.
But then in the kitchen he saw Maeve listening, rapt, as Zoey showed her the box and together they forensically examined each little compartment, pointing out the tiny pliers and beads stamped with the letters of the alphabet.
When Maeve looked up, there was no annoyance on her face, she just bashed Zoey on the shoulder and said, “Have you said thank you?”
“Yes,” Zoey replied immediately without taking her eyes off the beads. Then she paused and said, “No.” She looked up at Brodie and said, “Thanks, Brodie.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome.” He wanted to say, I’m your dad.
Instead, he looked at Maeve. “These are for you,” he said, handing her a bunch of flowers, equally over the top.
Where the bead box seemed fun in its lavishness, the bouquet seemed immediately too expensive, gaudy even, among the everyday-ness of their home.
During his very short-lived marriage, they’d paid a guy to refresh the flowers in their house what seemed like every day.
Brodie did his best not to think of those days.
He was at the height of his solo fame but lonelier than he’d ever been.
Celeste M. was similar levels of famous as him and model-beautiful.
They looked good in photos together, everyone said they were the perfect couple.
His management team were delirious at the idea of marriage.
In retrospect they were playing at being grown-ups, with their huge house and their little dogs.
Aside from growing up at the ranch, his marriage was the only other touchstone he had for family life. Five minutes in Maeve and Zoey’s house was enough to tell him that his attempt had been as bad as the National Enquirer suggested it was.
As Maeve thanked him for the flowers, he took an instinctive step away, hands in his pockets, on the pretense of taking a look around.
He didn’t want to tell Zoey he was her dad.
That would be a very bad idea. He peered into the living room, at the wooden floors and the shagpile rug, the coffee table covered in papers and felt-tip pens, the iPad propped up, a book open on the well-worn couch.
Behind him, Maeve said, “This was my grandmother’s house. I haven’t had time to do much to it so don’t judge me on the furnishings.” She said it kind of jokey, but he wondered if the whole time she was thinking, he’s going to annihilate me in court.
“It’s really nice,” he said, turning round, hands still in his pockets. On the wall behind him was a pair of moose antlers and a watercolor of Starlight Mountain at sunset. “Homely.”
She made a face. “That’s a polite way of putting it.”
He laughed, couldn’t help himself.
She smiled, then tucked her long hair almost self-consciously behind her ears.
It was strange interacting with her. On the one hand, there was obviously some attraction because they’d slept together—although she was completely the opposite of his type.
On the other hand, she was a total stranger and effectively the enemy—she’d kept knowledge of his daughter from him for eight years.
But enemy didn’t feel like the right word.
Because as he turned at the sound of a million tiny beads hitting the floor to see Zoey looking up guiltily holding the overzealously ripped packet in her hands, he was secretly—shamefully—quite relieved that Maeve had never told him.
She went to get the dustpan and brush and Brodie pulled up a chair next to Zoey. “So, what are we making?”
“Name bracelets,” she said, “like Taylor Swift.” She pointed to her T-shirt emblazoned with Taylor’s face.
Brodie tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Gotta love Taylor.” Then he got his phone out his pocket and said, “I went to one of her concerts a while ago, I’ve got a video—”
Zoey gasped. “You went? Really?”
“Yeah,” Brodie laughed, swiping through his phone photos to find it. “Next time she’s touring, I’ll take you—if you want?”
Zoey looked like her world had paused. “Mom, did you hear that?” She looked down at her mom’s head as Maeve swept up beads.
“That would be incredible, honey, wouldn’t it?” Maeve’s head came up and she smiled at her daughter, sharing her enthusiasm.
Brodie couldn’t help but feel a little smug at Zoey’s reaction and thought now might be the time to really blow her mind by telling her that when he was in Silver Sky, he, too, used to fill out stadiums with girls wearing T-shirts with his face on them.
He reclined in his chair and said, “Yeah, you know, Zoey, I used to be in—”
“The year above me at school,” Maeve cut in before he could finish. She stood up with the dustpan and brush. “Brodie was in the year above me at school,” she said again, more definitively, her eyes locked on his in warning.
Brodie frowned.
Zoey said, “Yeah, I know, you told me that already,” and gave her mom a look like she was losing it.
Maeve put the dustpan full of beads on the floor by the back door to deal with later and said, “Did I? Silly me.” Then she mouthed something at Brodie that seemed like gibberish at first, until she did jazz hands and sternly shook her head and he realized it was actually “No bamboozling.”
Annoyed that he wasn’t able to wow Zoey with his past, Brodie briefly wondered what else he had to offer, then turned back to the task in front of him and said, “So, what name are you doing?” He nodded toward Zoey’s bracelet.
Zoey made an exasperated face. “Zoey!” she said, as if he and her mom were equally perplexing.
They had pizza and salad for dinner. Water in glasses with tiny clouds printed on them.
For some stupid reason, when Maeve had said come for dinner, Brodie had imagined some three-course thing, where they might start with a glass of crisp white wine and end by breaking out the good bourbon to discuss logistics.
His phone pinged as he was reaching for an extra slice of the pepperoni and he paused, got it out his pocket and read the message. It was his friends in San Diego checking what time he was arriving.
“Mom says no phones at the table,” Zoey admonished.
Brodie glanced up from the screen, saw Maeve looking anywhere but him. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think. Yes, that’s very rude.”
Zoey nodded in agreement.
For a moment, Brodie thought longingly of San Diego. Imagined lying on the deck of the yacht, cracking open a beer and casting his fishing line while being able to scroll on his phone to his heart’s content.
Later, as they were having scoops of vanilla ice cream and sprinkles, and had talked all about Zoey’s day at school and she’d recited the lyrics to a number of Taylor Swift songs, Brodie said, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A vet, a YouTuber, an actress,” she replied without pause, lifting up her hand to count them off. “And I’d also like to run an animal sanctuary.”
Brodie’s mouth turned down, impressed. “Well, they are very complementary professions.”
Over the other side of the table, he heard Maeve either scoff or laugh as she scooped up her ice cream.
He surprised himself by hoping it was a laugh.
He’d noticed that every time he and Zoey spoke, Maeve reached for her water or patted her lips with her napkin to hide her face as if having to take a moment to calm herself down.
Zoey looked confused. “You think?”
“Why not?” he said, turning to look directly at her.
“You train as a vet, you set up a little sanctuary in the back yard, you film yourself saving some cute little hamster with a broken leg, post it on YouTube, follow up with videos of it limping around on its little crutches.” He did an impression.
Zoey snorted when she laughed, which made her laugh some more.
That made Brodie laugh, too. “You’ll have like ten million followers in no time,” he said, still smiling.
Zoey turned to Maeve, “See, Mom, I can be a YouTuber when I’m older.”
Maeve nodded, her smile less overt than Zoey’s. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
Brodie realized that this choice of profession must be an ongoing argument, and he felt momentarily like he’d messed up. But then, how was he to know?
Zoey sat back all smug and said, “Can Brodie come for dinner every day?”
Brodie swallowed. This was fun and everything, but the idea of sitting around the table every evening eating pizza and ice cream and talking Taylor Swift made his palms start to sweat.
Luckily, before she could answer, Maeve’s pager went off. Brodie was about to quip, No phones at the table, when she picked it up and said, “Oh, no!”
“That means Mom’s gotta work,” Zoey said matter-of-factly.