Chapter 6 Natalie #2
I think about that smile all day, as every single thing that happens threatens to interfere with my plans.
When Blaine gets home, crying, because she left her book at school, the book she needs to do a report on tonight, and I have to spend thirty minutes I don’t have driving down to pick it up with the help of a friendly janitor, I think about the smile.
When we only have three tortillas, and I have to race to the store, I think about it.
And when I finally text-confess to Sam and Vanessa that I have a real date tonight, and they squeal and show up at my door and press me into my room, gushing and giggling, I’m forced to describe the adorable smile.
But when six o’clock rolls around, I’m miraculously wearing a clean pair of jeans and a sparkly Ann Taylor blouse as I walk between Sam and Vanessa on the gravel drive in front of the main house.
“Did we really have to walk this far?” Vanessa turns back with a slight grimace. “This place is so big that walking all the way over here takes forever.”
Samantha hiss-snorts in a very unladylike manner. “Please. You were the queen of dashing through windows and ducking under tables before you got outed, so let her have a beat to flirt with Cillian before she has to tell her kids.”
Vanessa sighs. “I wish my cat was still in the proverbial bag.”
“Why?” Sam frowns. “Isn’t it a relief that your kids and all the stupid PTA moms know about you and Jack?”
Vanessa shrugs. “Maybe, but that’s not the only person who knows.”
Of course Cillian’s right on time, rolling up the drive and slowing as he nears.
“Whoa.” I wave him off, and I turn to face Vanessa. “What’s going on?”
She inhales sharply, and I realize she’s really upset.
“Hey, now, are you okay?” Sam asks.
“You have a date.” Vanessa shakes her head. “You need to go. We can talk later.”
“You can tell me now,” I say. “Cillian’s not a toddler. He can wait.”
“I’m not a toddler either,” Vanessa says. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What?” Sam glares. “Now I’m getting nervous.”
“Jack’s mom—I ran into her after our dinner the other night—she isn’t much of a fan.”
“Of hurling?” I can’t help my wry smile. “Because, honestly? Ditto. It’s a little overly complicated, and frankly, not much different than soccer, but with sticks, which seem unnecessary.”
A deep laugh behind me startles me a bit.
“You need to go,” Vanessa whispers. “We’ll talk more about this later.”
I point at Sam. “No telling her everything and leaving me out. That’s not what we do.”
Only, as I walk off, I worry that Vanessa needs to talk about whatever is wrong right now. So I text Sam frantically.
I was kidding, of course. Talk to her and fix it. If we need to key Jack’s mom’s car, send the address.
Sam sends a laughing emoji, so I’m going to trust that she can handle it.
“Do you really not like hurling?” Cillian asks. “Because that’s almost as un-Irish as you can get.”
I snort. “I’m not Irish, you know, but in this case, I was just being silly. I don’t really understand it, but I like it as well as I like any sports that don’t involve horses.”
“Which is to say, not much.”
I shrug. “You got me.”
“Then on the way to dinner, you have to tell me three things about you that I don’t already know,” Cillian says. “Or I’ll never be able to impress you with my brilliant insight ever again.”
“But I won’t be impressed if it’s something I’ve told you,” I say. “I’m hard to impress.”
He laughs. “Don’t I know it.” His hands loosen and then tighten again on the steering wheel of his sports car.
“Look, when I learn these new things, I’ll reform my opinions of you with that information.
The impress-you part comes later, when I’m able to apply that information to a new situation. You’ll see.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “But only if you do it, too.”
He shrugs. “That’s a valid stipulation.”
“Since you’re driving, I’ll start.”
“Perfect.”
“I like getting my nails done.”
He glances at my very bare, very not-done nails. In fact, my index finger on my right hand still has a nail that’s completely ragged. I kept meaning to file it, but never had time. He cocks one eyebrow.
“I’m telling you that, because it’s something I really enjoy, but it’s something I haven’t had time for since I had kids, so I just quit doing it.
It also saved money, which I spent on other very unglamorous things like diapers and baby clothing.
I haven’t gotten my nails done in a really long time, and I miss it, but not enough to spend time and resources on that instead of my kids. ”
“That tells me a lot about your priorities. Good one.”
“Now you go.”
He grunts. “I’ll share something about my priorities, too, then. I love fast cars, and I own three.”
I thought he had an Audi, and I noticed this was a Mercedes when I got in earlier. Now that makes sense. “You clearly haven’t spent the past few years paying for kids’ gymnastics and horseback lessons.”
“Definitely not,” he says. “Haven’t paid for a single one of either thing.”
“Alright, my turn again?”
“You’ve seen my Audi, and now you’ve seen this one, but you didn’t even ask what my third car is,” he says. “Which tells me something else.”
I scrunch my nose. “Yeah, I’m not much of a car person, I’m afraid. I mean, I want my car to fit everyone and to run, and I want it to be comfortable, but I don’t really care about anything else.”
“Noted.” He’s half-smiling, but he also looks a little confused.
“If we’re confessing where we waste money, I definitely spend way too much money on horse tack and gear. Buying saddle pads with matching bonnets makes me happy. Buying saddle pads with matching bonnets that are the perfect color for my horse’s coat makes me even happier.”
“Do you have your own horse?” His head snaps my way.
“It was never in the budget for a big family, so. . .” I shake my head. “I just have the ones we got from your Aunt Clara.”
“You remembered her name.” He’s smiling that hopeful smile.
“It’s my oldest daughter’s name,” I remind him. “So that’s an easy one to recall.”
“Oh, right.” But he doesn’t look like he did remember. When I told him that, I’m guessing he still liked Sam. I bet he wasn’t paying much attention to anything I said, much less the names of my kids.
“It’s fine. I do have a lot of them.”
“Five, right?”
I laugh. “Good job.”
He stops the car. “We’re here.”
When I glance out my window, I’m not expecting to see Frank’s Fryer. “Wait, really?”
He’s beaming. “I love pizza. Can that be my second thing? Love it, and this is the best pizza in Lismore, in my opinion. Since you didn’t have time for a date tonight at first, I figured driving all the way to Waterford or Cork would be a bummer.”
Whereas, for him, driving that far sounds like it would be fun. He loves cars, and he has no kids.
We live very different lives.
“It can be your second thing,” I say. “Sure.”
“What’s yours?”
“Umm, the saddle pad confession. Weren’t you listening?”
He rolls his eyes. “That hardly counts. I already knew you were horse-obsessed.”
“How’s this? For the first time in decades, I’m planning to show on a horse again at a local show, at the Ballinamona Equestrian center. Sam’s our trainer, and two of my daughters are showing with me.” I frown. “Maybe against me. I’m not quite sure.”
His eyebrows rise. “Well, that’s great news. You’re finally putting yourself first.”
I don’t argue, but my girls come first. They always will. I am finally putting myself second or third, after the hotel, at least. It’s an improvement over the past.
As he hops out of the car, I climb out too, and I can’t help saying, “I’ll never put myself first, you know.”
His brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“That’s not really a thing that you can do, as a parent. From the moment your child’s born, you come second.”
He blinks.
“I mean, I think it’s one of the reasons it’s good to have kids. You occasionally meet someone like Samantha who puts others first even without having kids, but most humans tend to get pretty self-absorbed unless they’ve had children. They teach you to focus on other stuff.”
“Other stuff?” He scrunches his nose. “Like changing diapers?”
I don’t bother to continue with my line of questioning while we each order our pizza. But when the smiling man behind the counter hands us our steaming hot slices, and we duck outside to sit at a tiny table on the street, I can’t help it.
“Babies and kids aren’t just about changing diapers.
I mean, yeah, there’s a lot of drudgery, especially at the beginning, and I’m a little relieved to be out of that stage, if I’m being honest. But I just read this interesting study out of one of the Ivy League schools.
” I wave my hand. “I can find it and send it to you if you want, but they were studying people who were close to dying—sick, in end of life care—and they found that the people who were the most happy, the people who were satisfied and had the most joy, were the ones who had loved the most, not the ones who had been loved the most. The number one indicator of how satisfied you’ll be with your life is how much you love.
So having kids wasn’t really about them at all. ” I smile. “It’s about me.”
“So, if the converse is true, my life must be pretty sad.” Cillian’s staring at his pizza.
He can’t see that I take a bite of pizza so I don’t have to agree with him. It’s pretty patronizing, I realize, for me to think that his life is less happy without any children in it than it would be with them.
But I still think it might be true.
Maybe I’m wrong, but from my perspective, that’s how I feel.
He changes the subject to the horse show, then to the hotel, and then to my plans for the Halloween party. It’s a relief, because things were getting a little too real for a minute.
“Last week, I had a client who listed her cottage.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Because it smelled like her aunt.”
“Excuse me?”