Chapter 7 #2
Across the room, another mom leans toward Courtney Walsh. Whispers something. Both of them look at Gemma, then at me.
Great.
This is going to be all over town by tonight. Micah's going to have a field day.
Across the room, Gemma accidentally knocks over a cup of paint water while gesturing enthusiastically about continental drift. She grabs paper towels, tries to mop it up, knocks over a container of googly eyes in the process.
Googly eyes everywhere. The floor looks like it's watching us.
Kids laugh. Parents stare. Gemma turns bright red and starts collecting googly eyes while apologizing to everyone within hearing distance.
"It's fine!" she says, voice too loud. "Totally fine! Googly eyes are very bouncy! That's their whole thing!"
A dad tries to help. "I think you got them all---"
"Did you know that dinosaurs probably couldn't see googly eyes?" Gemma blurts out. "Because googly eyes weren't invented yet. Obviously. Because dinosaurs were extinct. Which I already mentioned was sad."
The dad's smile freezes. He takes a small step backward, then another, nodding like he's agreeing with something profound while clearly planning his escape route.
Gemma spots me watching. Her smile is sheepish and a little desperate. The corner of my mouth moves before I can stop it.
Ivy appears at Gemma's side with her completed stegosaurus project---construction paper body, googly eyes, pipe cleaner tail, covered in tons of glitter.
"Look what I made!"
"That's amazing!" Gemma says, and the awkwardness vanishes. "Did you use thermoregulation theory for the plate placement?"
"YES!" Ivy launches into an explanation that involves hand gestures and sound effects.
Gemma listens like Ivy's explaining the secrets of the universe. Nods in all the right places. Asks follow-up questions like a pro.
I set the supply bag down on the edge of the table and tell myself I'm watching Ivy.
I should not be cataloging this. Keeping a running tally of all the things she does that I keep noticing.
The way the room gets louder when she's embarrassed and goes quieter when she's actually listening.
The steadiness that shows up the moment the social fumbling drops away.
The guilt follows, automatic and familiar. Three years out of my marriage and I still feel it when I notice another woman.
Except I'm not married anymore. Haven't been for three years. Vanessa's moved on with her life in Seattle. Has everything figured out.
So why does noticing feel like cheating?
The event winds down. Parents collect their kids and their construction paper dinosaurs. Courtney corners me one more time to remind me about the potluck, and I make noncommittal sounds until she finally walks away.
Gemma helps Ivy gather her projects while I collect our bag. When we finally make it out to the parking lot, Ivy is clutching her stegosaurus like it's made of actual fossils.
"Can Gemma ride home with us?" Ivy asks.
"She has her own car."
"But what if her car gets LONELY without friends?"
"Cars don't have friends, bug."
"Mine does," Gemma says, grinning at Ivy. "My car's friends with your dad's truck. They probably hang out in the driveway and talk about oil changes."
Ivy giggles.
The parking lot has gone cold in the time we were inside---mountain air sliding in sharp and clean under a sky that's already starting to turn. We walk to our vehicles. Gemma unlocks her Honda Civic, then pauses.
"That was... fun?"
"You knocked over the googly eyes."
"I KNOW." She covers her face with her hands. "I panicked. Why did I start talking about continental drift? Nobody cares about continental drift at a Dinosaur Day event."
"Ivy cares," I say.
"Ivy's six."
"And she had a great time."
Gemma lowers her hands. Her smile is softer now. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I shift the bag to my other hand and look at a point just past her shoulder.
Her eyes hold mine for a beat too long. I look away first.
Not thinking about how that felt. Definitely not.
"See you at home, Captain Grumpy," she says.
Home.
The word lands wrong. Too domestic. Too... together.
"See you, Lockhart," I manage.
She climbs into her car and drives off. I get Ivy buckled, load her projects into the truck bed, and pull out of the parking lot.
We're halfway home when Ivy speaks up from the backseat.
"Gemma's nice."
I watch a cyclist turn onto Main Street. "She is."
"And she likes dinosaurs." Her feet kick against the back of my seat in that rhythmic way she does when she's thinking.
"Clearly."
The hardware store slides past my window. Then the pharmacy. I focus on the faded awning over the dry goods store like it's the most interesting thing I've seen all day.
"She's really pretty too."
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. "Ivy---"
"Emma asked me something today. At the fossil dig. Between the brachiosaurus and the triceratops."
Everything in me goes still. "What did she ask?"
"If you liked Gemma. You know, like LIKE-liked her."
The truck swerves slightly. I correct it. "What did you tell her?"
"I said I didn't know. But then I asked Gemma if she was your girlfriend."
Oh no.
A six-year-old. My six-year-old. Asked my tenant if she was my girlfriend. At a school event. In front of other parents. While I was standing twenty feet away, completely unaware that this was happening, talking to a man named Todd.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
"What did she say?"
"Nothing. She got really quiet. Then she helped me find a T-Rex tooth."
I grip the steering wheel hard enough to make my knuckles go white. Neither of us speaks for the rest of the drive.
We pull in and kill the engine. Clarence is sitting on Gemma's doorstep. Waiting. Like he knew we were coming.
Gemma's car is still gone. But the cat sits there like a sentry.
Where is she? She left before we did. Is she meeting someone? It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I have no idea if she's seeing anyone. No idea why that thought lands the way it does.
I catch myself. Stop. She's my tenant. What she does, where she goes---none of my business. She pays rent. That's the extent of our arrangement.
By the time I've come around to Ivy's side, she's already working on her own buckles with the fierce concentration of someone determined to do it herself.
She looks at Clarence, then at me, then back at Clarence.
"Even Clarence knows you like each other," she announces. "He's VERY smart."
I carry her stegosaurus project toward the house without answering.
Because what the hell am I supposed to say to that?