Chapter 22
Perry offers to drive me to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to take the learner’s permit test.
Even though we’ve known each other for almost two years, I can’t remember another time when we’ve been in the car together, just the two of us.
This leads me to assume the gesture could be a ploy to force some intimacy between us before the wedding: They want to let me in on some surprise for my mom or talk about my slight meltdown the other night.
But there’s no contrived small talk or ulterior motive for the ride. We spend most of the drive listening to an audiobook about the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica.
“I read this a few years ago,” they tell me. “Maybe it’s weird to reread a nonfiction book, but it’s such a great story. You couldn’t have made it up.”
Admittedly, I’m a little disappointed to stop the audiobook when we arrive at the BMV.
“Want to text me when you’re done?” Perry asks. “I’ll run some errands and then pick you up?”
“Aren’t you going into the office?”
“I took the morning off for wedding stuff,” they reply.
“I can just take a Lyft or something. It’s—”
“I’ll meet you out here. Break a leg.”
Being dropped off like this reminds me of high school. I get a slight wave of nausea, like I’m about to take a standardized test that I didn’t prepare for.
I suppose that’s exactly what this is.
In the end, it’s not my best performance on a multiple-choice test—anything less than 100 percent irks me—but I do pass. When I exit the building with my permit and text Perry fifty minutes later, their Audi is already waiting in the parking lot.
“Should we stop at Graeter’s?” they ask.
“Really? I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“Hey, you just did something important. Don’t you think this calls for celebratory ice cream? It’s on the way home.”
I’m never going to turn down ice cream—whether the occasion is joyful or melancholy—so I agree.
At Graeter’s, I try to pay for the cones, but Perry beats me to the card reader. Since it’s a nice day, we elect to sit outside.
“Mint chocolate chip is my favorite,” Perry says, nodding at my cone.
“But you got cookies and cream?”
“This probably sounds silly, but I didn’t want you to think I was—I don’t know—copying you or…trying to get in your good graces or something. After the Cinnamon Toast Crunch revelation, it seemed too soon to have identical ice cream orders.”
If I took Kira out for ice cream, I wonder if that same concern would occur to me—a fear of trying too hard to fit into someone’s existing life. But I’m pretty sure she’d be too preoccupied with her flavor choice to worry about mine.
And also? Should I be picturing myself taking Kira for ice cream? I don’t know any of these single parent protocols.
“Did you ever date someone with kids?” I ask. “I mean, before my mom. Someone who had, like, actual children?”
“Briefly. Not to sound like I’m blaming innocent children, but that’s why I ended it.
I was already pretty sure that I would be child-free.
I’ve felt that way for my whole life I think?
But I really liked this woman and I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I just haven’t experienced the wonder of spending time with small children. ’ ”
“But it wasn’t…wonderous?”
“The thing is—and I say this as delicately as I can—parents find their own kids cute. They raised them. When it’s not your kid?” They raise their eyebrows.
“Not cute?”
“I felt aggravated by them. The bad behavior, the attention seeking, the lying. One of them would get jealous and possessive over her mom anytime I came over. I felt like a monster because I was constantly in this position of feeling angry and frustrated with little children.”
Do parents find other people’s kids more tolerable?
If Shawna and Nick hit it off, would he remain calm when Shawna’s Chili’s-loving son throws a tantrum when his screen time is over?
Would Shawna know the right way to answer Kira’s questions about periods and virginity without accidentally introducing the concept of furries?
“Now, I loved this woman,” Perry continues. “When her kids were at her ex’s place, it was amazing. But it didn’t feel like the kids and I were ever going to mesh. And that’s not fair to anyone. So I ended it and decided that kids would have to be a hard limit from then on.”
“What about my mom? Did she originally tell you I was her niece or something?”
Perry chuckles. “No. I figured an adult kid would be a pretty different experience.”
I take a few more bites of ice cream and decide that Perry and I have reached a level of closeness where I can be a little more open.
“I’m sorry about the bad behavior the other night,” I say. “I felt a lot like a teenager, to be honest.”
“We all have our moments,” Perry says. “We sprung something on you. And I had finished your cereal, so there was probably a blood sugar issue.”
I pop the point of the sugar cone into my mouth. “So as long as we have sugary food at the ready, we’ll be fine.”
Hal still isn’t back at Lōkahi. Even though my paranoia over his whereabouts reaches new illogical heights (Did he and Leen elope in Reno?
Will they return to Brooklyn as some literary It Couple?), I keep him blocked.
It’s the nicest thing I’ve done for myself in ages.
And all this time, I thought self-care was about expensive moisturizers!
I usually hate working shifts without Hal around, but tonight I’m so busy that I don’t feel his absence.
I don’t even feel the coconut bra digging into my ribs.
I put actual finesse into the drinks, too.
Dare I say, my banana dolphins look livelier?
The lemon peel pirate ships are floating nicely on the scorpion bowls.
I set about thirty mai tais on fire before I start closing tasks.
As I’m burning the ice, I hear a voice on the other side of the bar. “Excuse me, miss. I’m going to need to see some identification. Maybe a state-issued ID of some kind. A temporary learner’s permit.”
“Hey.” I wipe my hands on a bar towel. “I thought you’d be waiting outside.”
“No, I was hoping to run into your coworker again.” He opens his hoodie to reveal a Nickelback Dark Horse Tour shirt.
“Wow, I have so many questions,” I say. “I’m almost done here. Can I get you a club soda with a grass skirt lime wedge?”
“That’s the other reason I came inside.”
He watches me cut the lime in half and carve out the pulp. “So how did it go?”
“I got a little tripped up on some of the rules around child safety, but I passed.”
“Do I want to know what you got wrong about child safety?”
I use the kitchen shears to make diagonal cuts around the skirt. “I didn’t know that kids under thirteen are supposed to sit in the back seat. I mean, little kids? I get it. But does Kira really sit in the back seat every time?”
Nick looks bemused and slightly alarmed. “Yes?”
This is obviously a question that Shawna wouldn’t have missed.
“Don’t you feel like a chauffeur?” I hand him the adorable little drink with the lime skirt perched along the edge of the highball glass.
“Yes, but it helps that the client is cute.” He takes a sip of the club soda. “This is an excellent lime wedge.”
Perry’s words rattle around my head. Parents find their own kids cute.
“Do you like other people’s kids?” I’m pulling into a parking spot behind Lōkahi for the fifth time, trying not to let the tires touch the lines as I ask this question.
Nick snaps his head away from the passenger-side mirror and looks at me. “What?”
“Obviously you think Kira’s the best kid ever.”
“She is,” he says without the tiniest molecule of doubt. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Now that you’re a parent”—I ease his car forward as smoothly as I can—“do you enjoy being around other people’s kids?”
“Sometimes I don’t like being around other adults,” he replies.
Then he tilts his head a bit, like he’s never considered this.
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to manage a trampoline park or run a daycare.
Some kids are assholes. Kira has a few friends I really can’t stand.
But compared to how I felt about kids before I became a parent?
I probably have more patience than I used to. ”
“I’m pretty sure I cleared the lines that time.”
“Nice.” Nick turns to look out the back windshield. “Try to reverse straight into the spot across the aisle.”
For some reason, backing up straight is my biggest struggle of the night.
“Once you have a child,” Nick says, “you see other kids through that lens. If I see an infant, it reminds me of Kira as a tiny baby. All those intense emotions come flooding back, but it’s not because I have this deep affection for someone else’s baby.
If there’s a toddler learning to walk, I think about Kira stumbling around like an adorable drunk person. ”
“And when you’re on a plane with a screaming kid?” I ask, contorting myself to see out the back window as I overcorrect to the right. My face is almost brushing up against Nick’s shoulder.
“If a kid is crying on a plane, I have empathy for the parents because I know that frustration,” he says. “But I’m also hoping their kid will shut up already.”
“And what if you’re dating a single parent and you don’t get along with their kid?” I’m practically veering into the next space over, but adjusting the wheel just makes it worse. “Hypothetically?”
I feel Nick studying me under the glow of Lōkahi’s red neon sign. “Is this about Shawna?”
SFX: SSSCCREEEEEEEETCH!
Lydia Deetz and Nite Owl II pitch forward in their seats as Lydia slams on the brakes.
“Okay. First of all, I don’t even know Shawna, let alone her child. Secondly, can you put my car in park before we have this conversation?”
I move the gear shift and glance out the window. The car is basically at a forty-five-degree angle, taking up two spaces.
“She messaged me today,” he says. “Maybe it was yesterday. I don’t check Facebook regularly.”
“Okay,” I reply, looking at the steering wheel. “That’s fine.” I ignore the burning sensation in my chest.
“We exchanged some pleasantries. She asked if I wanted to grab coffee sometime. She seems nice.”
“Well, good,” I say, examining the texture of the steering wheel in greater detail. “You’re nice, she’s nice. You’re single, she’s sing—”
“What about you?”
I snap my head up. “Me?”
“Are you single?”
We look at each other under this weird red neon glow that paints the interior of the car in fuzzy red slashes.
I know exactly what he’s asking and I’m about to give him a vague, noncommittal response.
The sort of thing Hal would say, if pressed.
Let’s let things evolve naturally. Why does it need a label?
But I don’t want to be someone else’s Hal.
I don’t think I want Nick to “grab coffee sometime” with Shawna.
And I don’t think I want to be on the far-left side of the casual continuum.
“I’m single,” I say.
“I’m also single.” He waits a beat and asks, “Can we have dinner sometime?”
“Yes.”
“To be clear,” he says. “I mean…a date.”
“No White Castle, then.”
“The most official date. I’ll make you dinner.”
“And walk me to my door at the end of the night?” I ask.
“I can’t guarantee that.”