Chapter 20 #2
I take Cynnie out, too. Movies and dinners every night, cramming in as many dates as I can get before I have to leave.
Rather than having to face Mary Lisa at playgroup now that I’m very firmly with Cynnie, I pitch an alternative to Miss Ginger.
When she enthusiastically agrees, I book out a whole trampoline park on Staten Island.
We make a day of it: bouncing, giggling, and tickling.
I can’t remember when I’ve seen Logan smile so much.
The other mommies and daddies are wreathed in smiles, too, and I know my expression mirrors theirs.
When I met Emily, I realized what was missing from my life. That effervescence. I knew I wanted it, but I had no idea how deeply it would affect me once I got it. How my little’s joy would lodge in my heart and lift it, making me feel more carefree than I ever have.
Therapy in the Navy made me aware that I missed out on important parts of being a kid.
Kids with parents who care for them aren’t worried about when and where their next meal is coming from, or whether the babysitter is going to molest them.
I carry a lot of anxiety from those experiences and therapy made me aware of how much it weighs me down.
What therapy never addressed was how much having a little in my life would lift me up.
Watching Cynnie as she sleeps in my bed after a long day of bouncing and giggling, her lips and cheeks glowing a soft pink in the low light from laughter and lovemaking, something in me opens.
Something that closed a long time ago. When Ma left me alone with Greg again and again, even after I told her what he’d done to me.
Something that was hammered shut when I granted Uncle Max’s last request.
Whenever it was, whenever the lid snapped shut, watching my baby girl sleep so sweetly, so serenely, in my arms, after a day filled with so much light and laughter, with a creak of very rusty hinges, the clamshell begins to open.
I try to tell her the next day, as we’re walking down East 9th Street with our frozen yogurts, on the way to a new vintage boutique she wanted to check out.
Shopping is my second least favorite thing, after having dental work, but she gave me such a good day yesterday that I can endure a little torture by retail.
“I had a really great day yesterday,” I begin, fumbling from the outset. I know this isn’t going to go the way I want.
She looks up at me, a big lick of dark brown goo melting on her tongue before she draws it back into her mouth. Who likes Black Sesame, dairy-free, frozen yogurt, anyway? Evidently, my little girl.
She looks utterly relaxed as she strolls and licks.
No lines around her eyes, as dark and sweet as her treat.
No tension in the pink bow of her mouth.
Her hair’s gently mussed from my hands and floats around her shoulders, held back from her face with a huge bow.
She’s unselfconscious in her little-wear: a soft lavender, cropped tee with a gold outline of Tinkerbell, being spanked and flinging sparkles in every direction, over a flounced pastel blue skirt, polka-dotted tights, striped pastel socks, and sparkly silver sneakers.
The clamshell creaks open a little wider and I know I’m not going to be able to tell this woman how much I feel for her.
She slips her free hand into mine and grins. “Me, too, Oppa.”
We take a few more steps before I try again. “I love—I love seeing you wear your little clothes outside. I wish you could do it more often.”
She tips her head onto my biceps, a warm, soft weight. “I’z only safe when I’z with you or other littles. Aggie wore little clothes out shopping by herself and some boys threw milk on her and said if she was going to dress like a baby, she should drink her milk like a baby.”
I slide my hand out of hers so I can put my arm around her and tuck her into my side, where she’s safe.
“I’m sorry that happened to her, baby. Has anyone ever done anything like that to you?”
She shakes her head before resting it in the hollow of my shoulder. “I’z always careful when I’z alone. Some people pulled faces and whispered nasty things when I visited Daddy Tony and he took me out, but no one said anything to my face.”
“Still, those whispers have to hurt.”
“Little bit,” she admits.
“I’ll find places we can go where there won’t be any whispers. Logan and Emily will know places. It sounds like his club is safe. Have you ever been there?”
“No, Oppa.” She licks her yoghurt into a spiral before she continues, “Emmy said they’re making a nursery at the club, and we’d all be invited to the grand opening. Youz take me?”
“I’d love to take you. But I’ll find other places, too. I want you to be free to be little and wear your little clothes. I want you to feel free—as free as you make me feel, baby.”
I swallow hard but Cynnie just tips her head back on my shoulder and grins a yoghurt-y grin at me. I’m not sure she understands, but, at least for now, I’ve said enough.
Either shopping has gotten better since the last time I had to do it, or Cynnie makes even that fun.
She buzzes around the vintage store, pulling out little flowered blouses and bell-bottom jeans and a top hat that looks straight out of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and posing for selfie after selfie with them.
She begs and promises me all sorts of adorably outrageous sexual favors until I try on some pieces she picks out for me.
A dark tweed jacket with those ridiculous leather elbow patches.
A navy-blue waistcoat embroidered with tiny silver anchors that laces up the back.
Black leather pants. A pair of two-tone dress shoes in deep brown and black. A fedora.
I wouldn’t pick a single one of them for myself, but as I try them on, I realize Cynnie has an amazing eye.
They all look like they were made for me, and make me feel like a million bucks, especially the waistcoat, which laces like a corset and gives me back the square shoulders and perfect posture I had in the Navy, which too many hours sitting, even in my ergonomic chair, has degraded.
I buy everything she picks out for me, and while she’s off selfie-ing, I buy a necklace she admired but shook her head at after sneaking a look at the price tag.
It’s a chain of tiny enamel daisies. What made Cynnie shake her head is that it’s real gold and there’s a small diamond winking in the middle of every daisy.
It’s a little extravagant, tripling the bill when I have the cashier hastily add it to my bag before Cynnie notices.
But it will look perfect with her little outfits, and I want her to have something special to wear close to her heart while I’m in England.
As we walk back to my apartment, laden with our shopping bags, my trip to England is evidently on both our minds.
“You tell me why you going so far away?” Cynnie asks me as she walks along, swinging our joined hands.
“It’s on a job for Logan, baby. I’m going to interview a witness.”
“Can’t do over the phone?” She screws up her face at me.
“No, this is sensitive. I need to interview them face-to-face.”
“Youz do that a lot? Travel to meet witnesses?”
“No. I’m going this time because Logan still can’t fly.”
Cynnie nods. “He was hurt bad, wasn’t he?”
I hate even thinking about how much. “Yes. Please don’t mention it to Emmy because I don’t want to scare her, but we came very close to losing him.”
Her eyes round and her face goes solemn. “He be okay, though?”
“Yes, bumble. He’s gotten really good physical therapy and he’s going to be okay.”
As long as no one bashes him in the fucking head again. That reminds me to check in on the files of Scum, Scummier, and Scummiest LLC to see if Rick’s case notes have been updated.
“You gots lots of love for him?” she asks, squeezing my hand.
“I—” I want to open up to her, explain how much Logan, and Manny, and Mac mean to me. Fear, embarrassment, awkwardness, a hundred prickly emotions rush in to close my throat.
Cynnie grins. “Boys don’t talk about mushy stuff.”
I smile sheepishly back. “It’s hard for me.”
“Youz taught not to show your feelings, like my brothers?”
“I don’t know if I was taught not to. I mean, yes, I guess I was. Not like someone sat me down and said, ‘real men don’t talk about their feelings.’ But weakness—” I shake my head. “Everyone from my Uncle Max to the Navy taught me not to show weakness. It’s just something your enemies can exploit.”
“I’z your enemy?” She asks, swinging our hands again.
“No, of course not. I’m sorry, bumble baby.
I—I’ll try.” I take a deep breath and try to explain how deep my feelings for those three men run.
“I do have a lot of love for Logan. He and Manny saw how lost I was. Mac, too, when he took over our unit. They showed me everything. Not just how to survive in the Navy, but how to succeed. I’m, well, you’ve seen how I am.
Too focused. Too much into machines to understand people.
They accepted me as I was but encouraged me to be better, too.
I’m a better person when I’m around them. ”
“Pretty good person already,” Cynnie says.
I catch the pensive note in her voice, but don’t understand it.
“Baby, are you having worries?”
“Not worries. Not ‘xactly.”
“Then what, baby?”
“You tellz me everything ‘bout everything? Youz don’t have any secrets from me?”
I want to say I’ve told her everything. But that wouldn’t be the truth. I’ve been more open with her than anyone other than Logan, Manny, and Mac. But I haven’t told her everything. I’m not sure I want to burden her with the ghosts I carry, but I don’t want to lie about them, either.
“I—no, baby, I still have secrets.”
“Youz tell me your secrets some day?”
I swallow hard. “Some of my secrets are very ugly.”