Chapter 13 #3
Stanley looks up from his crossword, his face crinkling into that slow Cheshire grin that always makes me feel like I’ve actually made it home. “Miss Annie! You’re looking festive.”
I do a quick inventory of my person: salt-stained jeans, an oversized sweater that’s seen better decades, and a garment bag draped over my arm like a heavy, nylon wing.
“If you say so, Stanley. I feel more like a pack mule.”
The lobby has undergone a full-scale spooky makeover.
There are paper bats dangling from the ceiling on invisible fishing lines, positioned at the perfect height to graze the foreheads of unsuspecting residents.
Clusters of pumpkins huddle in the corners, and fake cobwebs are stretched across the mailboxes in a way that’s going to make retrieving a gas bill a high-stakes agility test. A cardboard skeleton is propped up by the elevator, rocking what is definitely Stanley’s spare doorman cap at a rakish angle.
“Did you conquer the grid today?” I ask, nodding at the newspaper.
Stanley chuckles, a low, gravelly sound. “Stuck on seventeen across. ‘Goddess of wisdom.’ Six letters, ends in A.”
“Athena?”
“See, that’s what I thought, but then twenty-three down starts acting a fool.” He picks up his pencil, squinting at the squares. “I’ll get there. Or I’ll wait until I get home and let the wife humiliate me by solving it in ten seconds.”
The elevator dings—a cheerful, nostalgic ping—and he ushers me in, reaching past me to hit the button for the second floor.
As the doors begin to slide shut, he digs into his jacket pocket.
His hand emerges with a palmful of strawberry Crème Savers, the red-and-white wrappers crinkling. He drops them into my hand.
“For the little miss upstairs,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “Happy Halloween, Annie.”
“Happy Halloween, Stanley.”
The elevator lurches upward with its usual arthritic groan. I shove the candies into my pocket and give the garment bag a protective squeeze. My stomach does this sudden, stupid, fluttering cartwheel as we approach Leo’s floor.
I told him I’d make the costume. He’d agreed, with that grateful, slightly overwhelmed look he gets when it comes to “Girl Stuff.” But now the panic is setting in.
What if I overstepped? What if Emma takes one look at this sequined monstrosity and decides she’d rather be a regular, non-sparkly mermaid?
Get a grip, Annie, I tell myself. What five-year-old hates sequins? It’s biologically impossible. Sequins are universally beloved by all small humans.
I knock with two quick taps.
The door flies open so fast I’m convinced she was standing there with her ear to the wood. “Annie!” Emma squeals, launching herself at my knees. It’s a high-impact greeting that sends me stumbling back half a step.
“Hi, Em—”
“You’ll NEVER guess what day it is!”
I look up, and the apartment is a full-blown riot of color.
It’s like a rainbow threw up in the living room.
Yellow, pink, and purple balloons are everywhere—drifting near the ceiling, huddled in corners, tied to the backs of chairs.
A banner is stretched across the wall, dripping in silver glitter: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMMA!
Emma tugs on my jeans, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “And it’s NOT just Halloween. That’s your only hint.”
I press my lips together, trying to keep the grin from breaking wide open. “Hmm. Tough one. Is it…International Pancake Day?”
She shakes her head, her blonde curls whipping around her face like a halo in a centrifuge. “Nope!”
“National…Take Your Iguana to Work Day?”
“Nope!”
“Arbor Day? Are we celebrating trees?”
Emma dissolves into a fit of giggles, burying her face in her hands. “Annie! You are NOT good at this game. You’re the worst!”
I crouch down until we’re eye-to-eye, putting on my most stumped, bewildered expression. “I’m failing, aren’t I? I guess you’ll just have to break the news to me.”
“It’s my BIRTHDAY!” She throws her arms up, narrowly missing my nose. “I’m a whole hand years old now!” She thrusts her palm toward my face, fingers spread wide, presenting her age as if it’s the most profound truth in the universe.
I gasp, leaning back. “Five? No way. That’s impossible. You were only four yesterday.”
“I was four for a WHOLE year, Annie.”
“A whole year? That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s three hundred and sixty-five days,” she says, her voice dropping into a serious, informative register. “Daddy told me. It’s a lot of days.”
“Well,” I say, catching Leo’s eye over her head as he leans against the kitchen counter, looking equal parts tired and soft. “Your daddy is a very smart man.”
“He’s okay,” she says with a shrug that dismisses his entire intellect. “Come on! You have to see my cake.”
Emma hooks her sticky, determined fingers into my palm and drags me past Leo.
He steps aside, but only just enough, his shoulder brushing mine in a way that sends a low-voltage thrum straight to my toes.
He lingers in the doorframe, his arms crossed over a charcoal Henley.
The sleeves are pushed up, revealing forearms that look like they’ve actually done a day’s work in this life, all corded muscle and dusted with dark hair.
I’m trying very hard to be a normal person, a person who looks at a birthday cake and not at Leo’s thick, chestnut curls, which are fighting a losing battle against a liberal application of hair gel.
A few rogue strands have already escaped, spiraling over his forehead in a way that makes my fingers itch to reach up and smooth them back. Or just…touch them. Once. For science.
“Ta-da!” Emma announces, throwing her arms wide like she’s just unveiled a masterpiece at the Louvre.
The cake is a rectangular sheet cake with white frosting, and someone—probably the bakery on Amsterdam—has done a surprisingly decent job of piping Ariel and Flounder onto the top.
Ariel’s red hair is a swirl of orange and red frosting, her tail a gradient of green and teal.
Flounder is definitely a little cross-eyed, like he’s had one too many seaweed mojitos, but he’s charming in his wonkiness.
“Happy Birthday Emma” is written across the top in teal frosting, the letters loopy and cheerful.
“Em, it’s a triumph,” I say, leaning in to inspect the frosting. “Look at Flounder! He looks absolutely thrilled to be invited.”
“He’s my favorite,” she says with the gravitas that only a five-year-old can muster. “After Ariel. And Sebastian. And Scuttle.”
“So, he’s a solid fourth?”
“Maybe fifth. I also really like that seagull.”
“That is Scuttle, Em.”
She pauses, her little brow furrowing as she recalculates her rankings. “Then he’s fourth.”
I glance up for just a second and find Leo still watching me from the doorway. Not Emma. Me. And I look away so fast I almost give myself whiplash, heat blooming across my cheeks and the bridge of my nose like I’m twelve years old.
He’s Greek and gorgeous and looking at me with this curious, intrigued expression that makes me feel squirmy and warm.
It’s a look that makes a girl want to either move in or move to another continent to save her heart the trouble.
Emma’s still talking, something about her presents and how many there are and which one she thinks has Barbies in it, but I haven’t heard a single word because Leo is still looking at me like that and I don’t know what to do with my face.
“—and Daddy won’t let me open them until after we go trick-or-treating!” Emma’s voice breaks the spell, her tone indignant. “Even though it’s MY birthday.”
Leo finally breaks eye contact, a slow, crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looks down at her. “Yiayia and Pappou are coming over later, koukla. They’d never forgive me if they missed the Great Barbie Unboxing.”
Emma sighs, a sound of such profound theatrical suffering that I have to hide my laugh behind my hand.
“Well,” I say, seizing the chance to do something—anything—other than be pinned under Leo’s scrutiny. “If it makes the wait any easier, I might have a little something for you in this bag.”
I lay the garment bag on the sofa and pull the zipper. It makes a satisfying shhhht sound, and Emma scrambles over so fast she nearly does a cartoon skid. As the costume emerges, the afternoon sun hits the kitchen, and the whole room suddenly looks like the inside of a disco ball.
“NO WAY!” she shrieks, the sound echoing off the high ceilings.
“Way,” I grin.
“Is that—is that a glitter-cat-mermaid costume?!”
“The only one of its kind,” I say, holding it up. I spent a week and an embarrassing amount of caffeine on this.
The transformation is immediate. I help her out of her corduroy overalls and into the black bodysuit, then shimmy the tail up. I gather her blonde curls into two high pigtails and crown the whole thing with the sequined cat ears—teal, floppy, and lined with pink felt.
“Okay,” I whisper, giving her a little nudge. “Go check the mirror.”
She doesn’t run; she launches. When she hits the hallway mirror, she stops dead. Her hands fly to her mouth, her eyes going wide as saucers. “Oh my gosh. Oh my GOSH. Annie, look! I’m so sparkly!”
“The sparkliest.”
“I look like a princess!”
“Better than a princess,” I tell her, leaning against the wall.
“Better than Ariel?”
“Em, you’d make Ariel retire to a tide pool in shame.”
She spins, a whirlwind of shimmering scales and velvet, before throwing herself at my legs again for a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I look up, and my breath hitches. Leo has moved closer—he’s standing just a few feet away from me now, hands tucked into his pockets, watching the scene with an expression that is dangerously close to adoration.
“You actually made that?” he asks, his voice softer, more intimate.
“Cori and I had a brief, glitter-induced falling out during the fin construction,” I admit, trying to keep my voice steady. “But we pulled through.”