Britt smiled, wide and mean. “The wife.”
“Ex-wife,” Joe said.
“Whatever, babe.” She slithered out of her chair. “I didn’t know you were babysitting for extra money these days. Can I get you anything?” she asked Anne before he could react. “Juice box? Sippy cup?”
“I’ll take a Corona.” Anne smiled sweetly. “With a straw, please.”
Joe bit the inside of his cheek, containing his grin. There was a pink smudge on the rim of his glass from Britt’s lipstick. “And I’ll have another beer. Thanks.”
He exhaled in relief as she moved away, the smell of her perfume heavy in the air, and Anne took her empty chair. She’d dressed up like this was a date. But over her pretty top, she wore his old flannel shirt like a jacket.
He felt his jaw relax, the tension leaching from his shoulders. “How’s Daanis?”
28
Anne
Life wasn’t a storybook, everythingunspooling neatly toward a happy ending. It was more like writing. “Like driving a car at night,” Doctorow had said. “You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Something like that, anyway.
I had enough light to take my next step, and I wanted to take it with Joe. I fizzed with excitement. I couldn’t wait to tell him, to see where / how far we could go.
“How’s Daanis?” he asked.
I was briefly thrown off-balance, as if I’d run over a bump on my bicycle. “Um. Aren’t we going to talk about it?”
“What?”
Everything. Us. You. Your ex-wife.I glanced toward the bar, where Brittany and Cindy had their heads together. Friends since high school. But I wasn’t focusing on the past. I was brimming with my own news.
He was watching me with that dark, expectant gaze, waiting for an answer.
Daanis.Right. And that was another big, shiny, exciting thing I couldn’t wait to share. Because she was part of my decision, too.
“Daanis is great,” I said, letting the other stuff go for now.Being in the moment, which, according to Daanis, was the only way to be around a newborn, who ate and slept and cried and pooped at random. “They’re coming home tomorrow. I have pictures. Look!”
Another message from Chris popped up on my lock screen,Miss you, with a thumbnail of…Was that a bed? I flicked it away to scroll through my camera roll.
“They named her Namid,” I said, turning my phone so Joe could see. “It means ‘star dancer.’ Isn’t she gorgeous?”
I went a little overboard, sharing everything I had, marveling over the baby’s long dark eyelashes, her tiny, perfect fingernails. “This one.” I tapped it. “This is my favorite.”
Joe stared down at it for a long moment, his face unreadable. “Sure.”
“Don’t you love it?”
His mouth pulled to one side. “That’s like asking me if I like puppies or kittens. I like kids.”
“I remember.” Our eyes met. Something fluttered inside me, lodging under my heart.
“Blackrocks for you,” Brittany said, setting Joe’s beer in front of him. “And a straw for Little Orphan Annie.”
Joe shot Brittany a hard look, which she ignored. “Sorry,” he said to me as she sashayed away.
“I asked for it.” I waggled the straw between my fingers. “It’s fine. As long as she didn’t spit in my beer.”
He smiled slightly and looked away. I suppressed a sigh. Seemed like we couldn’t escape the subject of his ex-wife after all. “So, what’s going on with Brittany?”
“She’s back on the island. Working.”
