Page 52 of Dirty Boss

I laughed. “Fair enough. Where should we hang this one?”

“Daddy, it has to dry first,” she said, plucking the paper from my hands. “You’re so silly.”

I huffed and turned back to my computer. Time passed, and I heard my daughter running down the hallway toward me. “Daddy!”

“I’m working, turkey.” The lawyers had sent through the latest communication with the troublesome subcontractor, and?—

Charlotte’s shoulders dropped. Her face was pure disappointment. “Okay,” she said, and disappeared around the corner to rejoin her friends.

Pain shot through my chest, and I stared at the half-read letter on my screen, cursing myself. All this work—for what?

My wife had divorced me for this. She kept vying for more custody time because she insisted I wasn’t spending enough time with Charlotte when I had her. But if I didn’t work, then we wouldn’t have all these nice things.

It was a justification I’d recited to myself a thousand times, but it felt hollow now. I thought of Alba, thrown out on her own, the bitter twist of her lips when she compared my words to her father’s. My throat was tight. My hand snapped out like a striking snake to shut the top of my laptop. Charlotte would be going back to her mother tomorrow, and I could answer emails then.

I followed the sounds of high-pitched squealing toward the second living area, which had been transformed into a play space for Charlotte. The table was covered in a plastic tablecloth, smeared with various colors of paint. The children were feral.

Billie herded them toward the bathroom one at a time, calling out a cheerful, “Time to wash our hands!”

“Daddy!” Charlotte called out as she walked out of the bathroom, her fingers leaving a trail of drips of water from thebathroom back to the playroom, her face splitting into a huge smile. “Sit down. I want to paint your nails.” Imperious, she pointed to one of the child-sized chairs in the playroom.

I complied. What else was I supposed to do? Five-year-old children swarmed me, brandishing kid-safe nail polish bottles at me.

“Matilda,” Charlotte said, “he likesblue.” She held up a bottle of sparkly blue polish.

“Because he’s a boy,” Matilda said, nodding in understanding.

“I’m a boy, but I like purple,” another child said.

“Purple is nice,” Charlotte agreed, wrenching my hand toward her. I sat back on the too-small chair, smiling, and let my daughter smear polish all over my fingertips. When she concentrated, her brow furrowed and her tongue stuck out at the corner of her mouth.

It took her ten minutes to cover my nails (and surrounding skin) with glittery blue polish, while her friends put clips in my hair and wrapped swags of fabric around my body. When she capped the polish and proclaimed the job done, she gave me the biggest, most beaming smile I’d ever seen. “You’re pretty,” she told me, and I laughed.

Later, when the other kids were gone, Billie had gone home, and I had finished reading Charlotte her favorite bedtime story, she threw her arm over my chest and planted a kiss on my cheek. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, turkey.”

She nestled next to me and let out a sigh. “Today was the best day ever.”

I stayed with her until she was asleep, then crept out of the room and went back downstairs. I sat on the couch, a huge piece of wildly expensive artwork behind me, a custom-built coffee table in front, my toes wiggling in the imported, handwoven rugthat framed all the furniture…and I realized that Alba had been right.

None of this stuff mattered to Charlotte. She wouldn’t care about private tutors and luxurious vacations. She just wanted me to be there to let her paint my nails.

Later, maybe, when she was older, she’d appreciate everything I did. She’d have a home of her own, a good career, anything money could buy. She’d know how hard I worked for her.

Or…maybe she’d remember days like today, that had hardly cost a dime.

The next timeI saw Alba was on Tuesday evening at the dance studio. She sat cross-legged at the far end of the room, black leggings cladding her bottom half, a loose white tee giving me a glimpse of a black sports bra beneath. She looked up, blond hair glinting, and nodded.

“Good,” she said. “You’re here.”

My eyes dropped to her lips, then away. “I’m here.”

She stood up and faced me. “Next time, bring your date.”

“My date?”

“To the gala. So you can practice dancing together.”