24. Elyse #2
“Hey, Dad!” I shout. The sound of scrabbling and wheels tells me he’s scooting out from whichever vehicle he’s fixing.
“Yeah?” Uncle R. asks in the meantime. “Look at that smile! How come we ain’t seen you on a billboard in Times Square yet, huh?”
That makes me laugh. “Because I’m too short, Uncle R. Short girls can’t be supermodels.”
“Bullshit! Don’t you go believin’ that! You get more beautiful every damn day. That coffee for me?”
“Yep.” I turn and grab the cup with a big R. scrawled across it. “Here you go.”
“You are an angel. Was Pam on today?”
“She sure was. And she put in extra creamer,” I say as he rips off the lid in delight. Pam, the owner of the coffee shop, is a big fan of Reggie. Let’s say Auntie Glo is not a big fan of Pam, nor of Pam’s attempts to kill her husband with saturated fat.
“Oh man, oh man. Do not tell your aunt.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say. I don’t have a death wish. “Hey, Dad.” I hand my father his cup of black filter coffee, just the way he likes it—which is lucky, because Pam doesn’t put creamer in his coffee. Apparently, he “doesn’t have enough meat on his bones” to tempt her (Pam’s words).
“Hey, kiddo.” Dad gives me a one-armed hug and a smacker on my cheek. “To what do we owe this awesome surprise?”
I glance from him to Uncle R., who’s standing there, looking happily expectant, though the happy part is probably creamer-induced.
It does not look like the chance of a private conversation with my dad is in the cards.
I sigh inwardly and summon up a mental image of Sinclair and me snuggling in his country pad for courage, because this is awkward.
I don’t like putting Dad in this position, and I don’t like giving my family members any reason to think that they’re not my absolute priority at all times. But I owe it to myself to try.
Here goes.
“So the guy I’m seeing,” I begin carefully, glancing behind me to make sure Danny is still out front and not listening in, “has invited me away for a couple nights next month.” I clear my throat. “He, uh, has a place on Long Island.”
Dad full-on grins at me.
Uncle R. whistles. “Long Island? Wowzers! Who is this kid? He good enough for you?”
“That’s a good question,” Dad tells him, though he’s still grinning. “We don’t know shit about him.”
If only he knew that the guy wanting to whisk me away is one of the most photographed men in the country. But honestly? He may not be wrong. When it comes down to it, even I don’t really know shit about Sinclair Voss.
“I can promise you he’s good enough for me,” I deadpan.
Honestly? The far more pertinent question is whether I’m good enough for him.
“Anyway,” I push on, “I know it’s a big ask, but…
I’d really like to go away with him, you know?
And I figured I’d just put it out there and…
see. You know, if there was anything we could do to, like, make it work. ”
Dad presses his lips together like he’s thinking. “But it’s a weekend? I’ll be home from work, sweetheart. We can manage.”
“I know, but… it would be overnight. Two nights. And it would be a lot. For you, and for Sylvie and Fleur.”
I don’t want to say it out loud in front of Uncle R.
, but the truth is, I have to help Sylvie with intimate things.
It’s especially difficult for her to get out of bed unaided because her bad hip seizes up so much in the night that mornings are painful.
And if she’s having a flare-up, it can be hard for her to lower down and get up off the toilet.
Plus, I really don’t like her showering when I’m not at home.
She has a high plastic chair she uses, but again, getting out of the shower when she’s wet and slippery is super hard, and I always worry that she’ll fall.
The bottom line is that I want to protect everyone.
I want to shield Sylvie and Dad from the humiliation that would be him having to step in and help in any bathroom situation, and I want to shield Fleur from the distress she’d feel if her mom had a fall and I wasn’t there to help.
Any kind of slip could set her back weeks, if not months, in her rehab.
“It’s better to have a woman there,” I finish, shrugging lamely.
Uncle R. is squinting at me. “When is this, Lees?”
“We were thinking the first weekend in November,” I say, feeling deflated.
I don’t know why I brought this to Dad. It’s not fair to make him feel bad over something he has no control over.
He has enough to worry about already. “But honestly, don’t worry about it.
Maybe I could take a day trip up there on the Saturday and get back late.
” That could work, surely? I’d go up there just for lunch.
I’d do anything to have just a few hours with Sinclair in his own private hideaway.
Uncle R. takes a leisurely sip of his coffee. “Gloria and I got no plans that weekend. I bet she’d love to help.”
“Oh no,” I say, flustered. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Why not?” he asks with a shrug, as if it isn’t a big deal that he’s offering up his wife as some kind of unpaid nurse for our family.
“It’s too much to ask,” I say, instantly uncomfortable. Not only is it far too big of a favor to ask of Auntie Glo, but I can’t conceive of accepting this kind of favor from anyone. I should be the one holding us together, not putting literally everyone else out.
But Dad’s looking at his buddy with interest. “Could work. You honestly think Glo would be willing?”
I feel I need to explain the stakes a little more clearly. “It would be a lot to ask,” I tell Uncle R. “She’d have to stay over, and she might have to help Sylvie with the shower, you know? That kind of thing.”
He snorts. “You think Glo hasn’t seen your little white asses before? Man, she probably changed as many of you kids’ shitty diapers as your mom did, God rest her soul. Takes a lot more than a shower to scare my wife off.”
I mean, he’s not wrong. Auntie Glo did babysit Sylvie and me a heck of a lot. Still, Sylvie is no longer a baby. Asking Glo to help her shower is a big ask all around. I shake my head. “I dunno. Thank you, though. I appreciate the thought.”
But he leans forward, coffee in hand, and wags his free finger at me. “You listen to me, kid, and you listen good. You guys are family. You’ve been through shit no one should go through. And you have worked your skinny little ass off to look after your sister and your niece.”
“And your father,” Dad chimes in, looking somber.
“Quite right. Now, you’re tellin’ me you got a new fella who wants to give you a break from all this and take you away to some fancy-ass place o’ his, and you don’t think your auntie and I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to make that happen for you?”
He straightens up, and I stare at this kind, wonderful man who has been such a rock for my family. The fierceness in his voice has my eyes welling with tears.
“Well, you think wrong, baby girl,” he says with a forceful nod. “Let me make that call. You’ll see. Your aunt will be squealin’ with excitement at getting her hands on those two girls for a weekend, you see if she ain’t.”
It takes one extremely noisy phone call and about ninety seconds to confirm that I will, in fact, be joining Sinclair at Fairwater.
“A sleepover?” Auntie Glo screeches so loudly that Uncle R. has to hold his cell away from his ear. “With my Sylvie? And my little Fleurie? Sign me the hell up.”
I guess sometimes, just sometimes, the universe is capable of serving up one heck of a treat.