Chapter 6
Thirty minutes on the Total Gym always made Warren feel better, especially when he listened to Pearl Jam. Raquelle had bought the apparatus for him from an infomercial starring Chuck Norris for their one-year anniversary, and it was the only good thing she’d given him, except Mikaela. He kept it in the garage next to his workbench and would slip out on days like this to work out before Mikaela woke up. At eight-thirty a.m., she was still asleep.
Warren lifted the bench higher and stuck in the safety pins. He attached the cables and started working on his delts.
When he was Mikaela’s age, he’d always gotten out of bed when the sun came up. No way would his parents let him or his brothers sleep late. Larry drove a tour bus over the summer, and Astrid packed take-home lunches for Seattle Public School’s free and reduced lunch program. They made sure all three boys had eaten breakfast and started their chores before they left for work.
If it were up to Warren, he’d wake Mikaela up early too. He had done just that, in fact, until last summer when she threw a royal fit about it. He’d intended to hold firm, but Alison and Laurie talked him out of it. Laurie argued that growing girls needed their sleep, and Alison pointed out that Mikaela staying up later and sleeping in gave her and the twins space from each other.
When they put it that way, Warren could see their point. It was nice to have alone time with Trent and Ash when it was his turn to watch them. The boys loved Play-Doh, and Mikaela hated the smell. They also enjoyed pounding nails into a big piece of foam he kept on his workbench and wearing their kid-sized safety goggles. Mikaela used to have fun with that activity, too, when she was little, but now, she scorned it as being “babyish.”
Babyish. As if. Warren flipped over on the bench and pulled the cables down to work his pectorals. Mikaela shot down any suggestion of a fun activity Warren offered as being beneath her. She’d surprised him by agreeing to make slime tonight at Laurie and Alison’s house. When he’d offered to make Gak, she said it was stupid. Weren’t they pretty much the same thing?
Warren sat on the bench and switched to biceps. He didn’t think tonight was a good idea in the first place. Alison had planned the whole thing, except the part about confronting Dawn at her shop last night. Alison agreed with him about the importance of the safety bridge, but she also thought that a political win like this one would help propel him on to a promotion to battalion chief. The current battalion chief was getting ready to retire soon, and Warren was in the running to be his replacement. But that would mean Warren passing the battalion chief exam, and he hadn’t begun studying for it yet because he’d spent all his free time in those city council safety plan meetings.
The baby monitor on the workbench crackled. Mikaela was awake and poking around the kitchen. Warren heard the fridge open and a cabinet slam as she made herself a bowl of cereal. He climbed off the Total Gym and turned off the monitor. He walked from the detached garage, through the backyard, and toward the kitchen. When he got to the sliding glass door, he found it locked. Mikaela sat at the bar, eating Cheerios and playing on her iPad. Her iPad? First thing in the morning? She knew better than that. Also, screens weren’t allowed at meals.
Warren rapped his knuckles on the glass. Mikaela turned over the tablet and looked up.
She took her time walking over to the slider and pulling out the pin. “Sorry,” she said in a tone that told him she didn’t mean it.
“That’s okay.” Warren kept his voice even. “It’s good to lock up when you’re home alone.” Not that she was really by herself. Warren would never leave an eleven-year-old at home alone, even though Mikaela claimed she had friends whose parents left them for quick trips to the store. “How are you doing? Did you sleep well?”
Mikaela crashed into her seat at the table. “No,” she grumbled. “It was so bright last night I couldn’t fall asleep.”
Warren could relate. Summer in the Pacific Northwest meant sunshine until nine, so he’d installed blackout shades in their rooms. “Did you try closing your blinds?”
“No.” She scooped cereal with her spoon. “Then it would be too hot.”
“I’ll put a better fan in there for tonight.” Their house, like most homes in the Seattle area, didn’t have air conditioning. Warren toweled perspiration off his forehead. The morning was warm, and the garage had been steamy. “I’ll shower, and then we can do something fun. Maybe we could go hiking at the ice caves in the mountains.”
“Ugh, I hate the ice caves. You never let me climb inside them.”
“Because people die in there. We’re supposed to stay on the trail.”
“Other people go in them.” Mikaela looked at him accusingly.
“Yeah, well, people make dumb decisions sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we have to be like them.” He thought fast. “If you don’t want to go hiking, maybe we could swim.”
“At the outdoor pool?” Mikaela wrinkled her nose. “It’s freezing.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“No way. I like the pool at the Cascade Athletic Club better. It’s warm and doesn’t reek of chorine. Besides, I already swam there yesterday.”
“Well, that’s great that Alison and Laurie have a membership and can take you swimming in a pool you like,” said Warren as he tried to regulate his rising blood pressure. “When I’m cleaned up, we’ll think of something else fun to do. Finish your cereal, get dressed, and don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
“You don’t need to remind me to brush my teeth.” Mikaela glared at him. “I’m not a baby.”
“And you don’t need to talk back to me, young lady.”
“I’m not talking back!”
Warren wasn’t sure if she was or she wasn’t. All he knew was that he’d never spoken to his parents like that, and neither had Neil or Rudy. Growing up, he and his brothers had made their own fun during summer break. Larry and Astrid didn’t cater to them or shlep them around to one activity after another. A vacation to them meant a day at Woodland Park Zoo, and no, they would not get slushies or ice cream. Astrid had packed them sack lunches, and they ate at a picnic table to save money. Mikaela didn’t know how good she had it.
“I’m taking a shower to cool off,” he said as he walked away. It gutted him that things were becoming so bad with Mikaela. Ever since he caught her sneaking the Guevaras’ WiFi, there’d been tension between them that he could cut with a knife. His confidence in how he’d handled that situation was starting to wane. She’d definitely deserved consequences for her sneaky behavior, but maybe he’d been too harsh.
The tiny shower in their 1950s brick home boasted pink tiles and a shower nozzle installed so low that it only reached Warren’s chest. He’d always intended to remodel it but never found the time between Mikaela, the boys, volunteering at school, and working overtime.
After he lathered his hair with shampoo, he stooped low to rinse it out. The bathroom steamed up like a sauna and helped him relax. Worries about fatherhood faded, and he began to think about Dawn and their feisty conversation yesterday. He hadn’t meant to lose his cool, but he had. Alison told him afterward that he’d used his crowd-control voice. That was an accident.
Warren didn’t like to admit it, but Dawn had flustered him. For one thing, she was gorgeous, and the V-neck T-shirt she’d worn revealed a tantalizing peek of her cleavage. But her poise and composure had also rattled him. Hysterical citizens, he could deal with. Articulate, alluring antique shop owners were another matter.
Warren finished showering and stood in front of the pedestal sink to shave. He wiped fog off the mirror and took a good look at himself. Forty-one years of hard work had etched lines across his forehead that he was proud of. The crow’s feet around his eyes, he could do without, but he wasn’t about to follow Saul’s example and start using moisturizer cream. He and Dennis gave Saul a hard time about that every time he brought out his toothbrush caddy. Still, Warren took extra time shaving, especially around his neck. Since Mikaela didn’t want to go hiking or swimming, he dressed for dinner that night. He put on the shorts and collared shirt from REI that Laurie and Alison had given him for Father’s Day. He felt like he cleaned up good.
But when he walked into the living room, he found Mikaela dressed in sweatpants and a fleece hoodie. “What are you wearing?” He walked over to the fan on the windowsill and turned it on. “It’s supposed to be eighty-five degrees today.”
Mikaela didn’t bother looking up from her iPad. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ll get overheated in no time.” He walked over to the thermostat. “It’s already seventy-seven inside the house. You must be roasting.”
Mikaela glared at him. “I’m not a baby. Don’t tell me what to wear.”
Warren crashed down on the couch. “Fine. What do you want to do today? We could go kick the soccer ball around at the park.” He’d been trying to get Mikaela interested in soccer again ever since she quit in first grade. He even bought her a pink ball, thinking that would help, but it sat abandoned in the garage, next to her bicycle.
Mikaela heaved a dramatic sigh worthy of daytime television. “I’ve told you a million times that I hate soccer.”
“But you used to?—”
“I hate it,” she said in a definitive tone. “And there’s nothing to do. I’m so bored.”
“Uncle Neil, Uncle Rudy, and I were never bored during summer.” Warren looked over at the framed picture of his brothers on the mantel. “If we said we were bored, Grandma gave us chores.”
“I already made my bed and put my dishes in the dishwasher. Are you saying I’m lazy?”
“No, I just... How about you call up Emilie and invite her over?” Warren didn’t like sending Mikaela over to her best friend’s house for a playdate because Emilie’s parents were too untrustworthy when it came to Mikaela’s peanut allergy, but he didn’t mind Emilie coming over to their house.
“Emilie’s at Great Wolf Lodge. Remember?”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”
“How could you forget? She invited me to go with her, and you said no.”
“Because it’s too far away, and I don’t trust her parents to properly supervise you.”
“We never go anywhere.” Mikaela pouted. “It’s so unfair!”
“That’s not true. We went to Disneyland.”
“Yeah, like when I was four. Why can’t we go now?” Mikaela asked.
Their family trip to Anaheim had been a high point in Warren and Raquelle’s marriage. When he’d finally stood in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, he felt like they were living the American Dream. He’d always dreamed of going to Disneyland as a child, but it had never been possible. After they’d come home, Warren got a tattoo of Minnie Mouse on his left bicep, with Mikaela’s name and birthday at the center.
“I’d love to go back to Disneyland,” said Warren. “We just can’t afford it right now.”
“Why not? Everyone goes to Disneyland but us.”
Because I had to refinance the house, thanks to your mother, Warren wanted to say. “I’m saving money for a trip,” he said instead. “We need to budget for big expenses.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it takes a long time to save money for a vacation. Disneyland is expensive.” Warren frowned. Everything he said made Mikaela grumpier. “We could go for a bike ride,” he offered. He, Neil, and Rudy had raised hell on their bikes when they were kids, tearing through the neighborhood and not coming home until the streetlights turned on.
“Riding bikes would be too hot.”
Because you’re dressed for winter , Warren wanted to say but didn’t. “Maybe we could bake something for tonight instead. I bought a package of chocolate chips. How about cookies?”
Mikaela didn’t answer for a moment as she finger swiped across her iPad. “Could we make this?” She held up a picture of what looked like a pink sponge. “It’s called cloud bread.”
“Sure,” Warren said uncertainly. He could cook, but he wasn’t a pastry chef. “What are the ingredients?”
“Sugar, corn starch, and egg whites.” Mikaela didn’t smile, but her blue eyes held a softness he hadn’t seen in a while.
“We’re in luck then.” Warren got up from the couch. “We have all of those ingredients.”
“Really?” A smile drifted across her face for just a second before it disappeared. “It probably won’t turn out very good.”
“If it doesn’t, at least we tried, right?” He walked into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to wash his hands. “Every time I make a mistake following a new recipe, I learn something, and that’s important too.”
Mikaela followed him into the kitchen and waited her turn for the water. “Wait a sec,” she said, stepping back. “I better put my hair in a ponytail first.”
“Good idea.” Warren dried off his hands.
When Mikaela came back, her hair was pulled back, and she wore shorts and a T-shirt. Warren didn’t say anything about her change of wardrobe. He just handed her an apron and got out the mixing bowl.
“It calls for separated egg whites.” Mikaela showed him the recipe on her iPad. “How do we do that?”
“Easy, once you learn how.” Warren opened the fridge and took out the eggs.
He’d gone through a phase in his early twenties in which he ate twelve egg whites and a pound of sautéed spinach every morning for breakfast, so he could separate eggs like a pro. Luckily, they had two dozen, so Mikaela would have the chance to practice. “First, you crack the side of the eggshell,” he said, demonstrating. “Then you bounce the yolk from shell to shell over the bowl until you get all of the whites out.”
“That looks like fun.” Mikaela looked up at him. “Can I try?”
Fun? His daughter was having fun with him? Warren felt a ripple of pride. If baking was the answer, they could try a new recipe every day this summer as far as he was concerned.
“Of course.” He handed her the egg carton and coached her as she cracked one egg after the next. It took six eggs to get three clean whites, but she did it.
“Great job,” said Warren. “Now we’ll put the shells into the compost.”
He reached under the sink to get the bucket, and when he did, he spotted a crumpled piece of trash lying next to it instead of in the wastebasket. He picked it up to throw it away and noticed that it was a campaign flyer from Brittany Barrow. Across the bottom was a hand-written note with her phone number and a heart. “Call me ,” Brittany had scribbled in loopy cursive. She’d dotted the i above her name with a heart.
He showed it to Mikaela. “What’s this?”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose as she plugged in the mixer. “That woman from the news conference stopped by while you were in the shower.”
“And you opened the door to her?”
“Well, she wasn’t a stranger, right?”
“Right.” Warren’s shoulders still felt tense.
“I wouldn’t have opened the door if I didn’t know her.” Mikaela struggled to put in the beaters. “But she barely recognized me.”
“Here, the beater with the marking on it goes into the left, and the other beater goes into the right.” Warren pointed out the details and let Mikaela do it herself.
“I don’t know why you’re friends with that woman,” said Mikaela as she clicked the beaters into place. “She’s so annoying.”
“I’m not friends with her. We served on the same safety committee, that’s all. But what’s annoying about her?”
Brittany had always struck him as friendly and personable. In her late thirties and in exceptional shape, she was a single mom with two kids, a sophomore and an eighth grader. She owned the advertising agency that mailed out the Harper Landing Coupon Pack and Harper Landing Delights , a faux magazine full of sponsored articles.
“She called me ‘the peanut girl.’”
“Oh.” Warren didn’t want Mikaela to feel stigmatized by her allergy, but since it was life threatening, it was a big deal. “Maybe Brittany mentioned that because I referred to your allergy in my speech. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes it’s hard for people to remember names.”
“That explains why she couldn’t remember your name, either, at first. She really goofed it up.”
“She did? What did she call me?”
Mikaela frowned. “Captain Beefcake. I think she might have been joking, though, because then she called you Warren.”
Warren’s eyebrows shot up. Brittany had a pet name for him? He looked down at the crumpled piece of paper on the counter with the heart scribble. Oh yeah, he was definitely calling her back.
But Mikaela wasn’t done complaining yet. “Then, after calling you that stupid name, she made me turn around so she could write on my back.”
“On your skin?”
“No, on that stupid paper she left for you. I must have thrown it away by accident.” Mikaela turned on the mixer, and it became impossible to talk over the noise.
Warren could have chosen to give her a minilecture on the etiquette of taking messages and making sure they get to the right person, but he held his tongue. He didn’t want anything interrupting a good morning with his daughter.
They spent the next hour finishing the cloud bread, mixing in food coloring, and waiting for it to bake in the oven. When it emerged, it looked almost as good as the picture on Mikaela’s iPad screen.
“It’s perfect!” She squealed and took several pictures. “Let’s get one with the both of us.”
She held her iPad away from them and posed. Warren wasn’t sure where to look until Mikaela pointed at the camera.
She threw her arm around him and squeezed him close. “Smile,” she said.
Warren felt like he had hit a home run. The high lasted even after they tasted their first bite of cloud bread and realized it was disgusting. Warren gagged down a bite and didn’t comment, but Mikaela spit hers out into the sink.
“Yuck,” she said before bursting into giggles. “That definitely looked better than it tasted.” She gave him her iPad. “Can you take a video of me puking? I should have thought of that earlier.”
“Um... okay.” Warren looked at the screen and tried to find the record button.
“You tap this,” said Mikaela, pointing it out to him. “But don’t press it until I’m about to take a bite, okay?”
They went through the whole scenario again, only this time Mikaela’s reaction to the cloud bread was twice as explosive. She turned on the faucet and rinsed her mouth out like she’d been poisoned. Warren was unsure what the point of videotaping her reaction was, but he didn’t mind.
“Thanks,” said Mikaela after she turned off the water. “I’m going to go edit this now.” She took the iPad back and ran off to her room.
“Wait!” Warren called after her. “What about this mess?”
Mikaela looked back at the sugar all over the counters and the dirty mixing bowls. “Oh, sorry.” She came back and helped him load the dishwasher before taking off again.
Warren’s bare feet stuck to grains of sugar scattered across the floor. He mopped up the wood floor and wiped down the counters in silence. But when the kitchen was finally cleaned to his standards, he picked up the paper with Brittany’s number on it and took his phone into the backyard, where he sat in his favorite lounge chair. It had been six months since he and Terri the florist broke up, and Warren was surprised at how nervous he felt calling Brittany’s number. But as his thumbs hovered over the screen, he paused, wondering if he even wanted to. Not because she wasn’t gorgeous—she was—or smart and successful, because she was those things, too, and more. But because she wasn’t Dawn.
How stupid could he be? Dawn Maddox hated him. Tonight’s meeting at Alison and Laurie’s house was a weak attempt to make her listen to reason. It seemed unlikely—no matter what Alison promised—that Dawn would change her mind. She’d keep up with her campaign to torpedo his safety bridge, interfere with his ability to save lives, and ruin his opportunity to become battalion chief.
Warren stared at Brittany’s picture on the campaign flyer. Meanwhile, here was a woman right in front of him who cared about the same things that he cared about and who wanted him to call her. Plus, she was a knockout. He’d have to be an idiot to ignore this chance.
Warren typed in Brittany’s number and waited for her to pick up.
“Hello?” she asked in a flat voice. “Who is this? I don’t want any.” She hung up before Warren had the chance to speak.
Maybe he should have texted first, but he admired the no-nonsense way she dealt with potential spammers. He hated unsolicited phone calls too. He hit the message icon next to her number and typed into his phone. Hi, Brittany. This is Warren Berg. Sorry I missed seeing you this morning when you stopped by. The long text looked like a novel, but Warren didn’t hesitate. He clicked Send.
His phone rang two seconds later. This time when Brittany spoke, it was in sultry, flirty voice that made Warren grin. “Hi, Warren,” she crooned. “Sorry I missed your call.”
“You didn’t miss it. You hung up on me.”
“Oops! My bad.” She giggled. “I heard you were showering this morning.”
“I was,” he said, hearing his own voice become deeper. “I tend to do that, especially after I work out.”
“Which is probably every day, the way you’re built. What do you do, CrossFit?”
“Nah. Just running and weights.” Warren wasn’t sure how or why the conversation was centering on his exercise routine, but he didn’t mind basking in Brittany’s compliments. “Did you visit a lot of doorsteps today?”
“Tons. I must have shaken a hundred hands. But I don’t mind all the walking.”
The conversation paused as Warren struggled with what to say. His flirting muscles were rusty. “You look like you’ve got legs that can handle hills,” he said, intending it to be a compliment.
“What?”
Damnit, that was definitely not the right thing to say. “The first time I saw you, I thought you might be a runner,” he said, trying to recover.
“Oh,” she said in a breathy voice. “Well, I did just buy a treadmill. I used to belong to the Cascade Athletic Club, but that place has gone downhill since Marlo Jonas took over.”
“You don’t say.” Warren didn’t know who Marlo was, but it didn’t seem important. His mission was clear. He needed to ask Brittany out on a date.
He got up, walked back into the kitchen, and looked at the color-coded calendar pinned to the fridge. Today was Monday, and his next shift was on Wednesday. On Thursday, he had Ash-and-Trent duty, but Friday, he was free, if he could get a babysitter for Mikaela. Or Saturday might be good, when Raquelle was supposed to show up, but he didn’t want to count on her. The likelihood of her bailing and him needing to console Mikaela with a cheeseburger at Red Robin and an endless basket of fries was high.
“I’m so glad you called me because we never get to see each other anymore now that the committee meetings are over,” said Brittany.
“That’s actually why I called. I wondered if you’d like to grab a bite to eat with me this Friday?” Warren was already planning ahead. Hopefully, Alyssa Woodhouse would be free to babysit. She was an honors student at Harper Landing High, and Mikaela liked her.
“I’d love to go out with you this Friday,” Brittany gushed. “Let’s go to the Parisian Café. That’s my favorite.”
The Parisian Café? Warren frowned and scratched the back of his head. He’d lived here twenty years and managed to avoid that place until now. “I was thinking someplace casual, like Red Robin in Lynnwood.” Now that he’d thought about their fry basket, he wanted one.
“You’re so funny,” Brittany said with a laugh. “But we can do better than a chain restaurant. I have a thing Friday afternoon that might run late, so I’ll meet you at the Parisian Café at six thirty. Don’t forget to make reservations.”
Reservations? Crap. What had he gotten himself into? “Okay,” Warren grumbled. But then he saw her picture again on the campaign brochure. Going out with a smart, successful woman who looked like that would be worth it. “I’ll see you Friday,” he said.
“Can’t wait!”
“Me either,” Warren said with a thrill of anticipation.