Brodie tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Gotta love Taylor.” Then he got his phone out his pocket and said, “I went to one of her concerts a while ago, I’ve got a video?—”
Zoey gasped. “You went? Really?”
“Yeah,” Brodie laughed, swiping through his phone photos to find it. “Next time she’s touring, I’ll take you—if you want?”
Zoey looked like her world had paused. “Mom, did you hear that?” She looked down at her mom’s head as Maeve swept up beads.
“That would be incredible, honey, wouldn’t it?” Maeve’s head came up and she smiled at her daughter, sharing her enthusiasm.
Brodie couldn’t help but feel a little smug at Zoey’s reaction and thought now might be the time to really blow her mind by telling her that when he was in Silver Sky, he, too, used to fill out stadiums with girls wearing T-shirts with his face on them. He reclined in his chair and said, “Yeah, you know, Zoey, I used to be in?—”
“The year above me at school,” Maeve cut in before he could finish. She stood up with the dustpan and brush. “Brodie was in the year above me at school,” she said again, more definitively, her eyes locked on his in warning.
Brodie frowned.
Zoey said, “Yeah, I know, you told me that already,” and gave her mom a look like she was losing it.
Maeve put the dustpan full of beads on the floor by the back door to deal with later and said, “Did I? Silly me.” Then she mouthed something at Brodie that seemed like gibberish at first, until she did jazz hands and sternly shook her head and he realized it was actually “No bamboozling.”
Annoyed that he wasn’t able to wow Zoey with his past, Brodie briefly wondered what else he had to offer, then turned back to the task in front of him and said, “So, what name are you doing?” He nodded toward Zoey’s bracelet.
Zoey made an exasperated face. “Zoey!” she said, as if he and her mom were equally perplexing.
They had pizza and salad for dinner. Water in glasses with tiny clouds printed on them.
For some stupid reason, when Maeve had said come for dinner, Brodie had imagined some three-course thing, where they might start with a glass of crisp white wine and end by breaking out the good bourbon to discuss logistics.
His phone pinged as he was reaching for an extra slice of the pepperoni and he paused, got it out his pocket and read the message. It was his friends in San Diego checking what time he was arriving.
“Mom says no phones at the table,” Zoey admonished.
Brodie glanced up from the screen, saw Maeve looking anywhere but him. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think. Yes, that’s very rude.”
Zoey nodded in agreement.
For a moment, Brodie thought longingly of San Diego. Imagined lying on the deck of the yacht, cracking open a beer and casting his fishing line while being able to scroll on his phone to his heart’s content.
Later, as they were having scoops of vanilla ice cream and sprinkles, and had talked all about Zoey’s day at school and she’d recited the lyrics to a number of Taylor Swift songs, Brodie said, “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A vet, a YouTuber, an actress,” she replied without pause, lifting up her hand to count them off. “And I’d also like to run an animal sanctuary.”
Brodie’s mouth turned down, impressed. “Well, they are very complementary professions.”
Over the other side of the table, he heard Maeve either scoff or laugh as she scooped up her ice cream. He surprised himself by hoping it was a laugh. He’d noticed that every time he and Zoey spoke, Maeve reached for her water or patted her lips with her napkin to hide her face as if having to take a moment to calm herself down.
Zoey looked confused. “You think?”
“Why not?” he said, turning to look directly at her. “You train as a vet, you set up a little sanctuary in the back yard, you film yourself saving some cute little hamster with a broken leg, post it on YouTube, follow up with videos of it limping around on its little crutches.” He did an impression. Zoey snorted when she laughed, which made her laugh some more. That made Brodie laugh, too. “You’ll have like ten million followers in no time,” he said, still smiling.
Zoey turned to Maeve, “See, Mom, Icanbe a YouTuber when I’m older.”
Maeve nodded, her smile less overt than Zoey’s. “Looks like it, doesn’t it?”
Brodie realized that this choice of profession must be an ongoing argument, and he felt momentarily like he’d messed up. But then, how was he to know?
Zoey sat back all smug and said, “Can Brodie come for dinner every day?”
Brodie swallowed. This was fun and everything, but the idea of sitting around the table every evening eating pizza and ice cream and talking Taylor Swift made his palms start to sweat.
