I swear my daughter gets taller every time I see her—which is usually every couple days, so it can’t actually be true. She’s only twelve, but she’s almost as tall as her mother, though she’s still got a long way to go before she catches up to me. She’s also starting to fill out, and I’m sure getting no shortage of attention for it—attention she complains about and attributes to beingIvy Pless, which she says in the most condescending tone possible.
“Dad!” Luke throws his arms around me. I hug him back and pull Ivy in with us, then wave a hand at the photographer across the street, who’s snapping away. As long as they stay over there and don’t start harassing my kids or trying to get past the gate, we’re good.
The photographer waves back and keeps on snapping.
I usher the kids through the gate. I’d swear that the press has worked out our entire custody schedule, but I know they don’t have to. Most of the major entertainment news places have at least one photographer permanently on Blake Pless duty, especially since they haven’t been able to pin down who I’m dating lately. It’s been a year since Simone and I broke up, and whoever gets the first scoop on my next longterm girlfriend stands to make a lot of money.
Joke’s on them, because I’m not going to settle down like that again. Swearing off marriage was clearly not safe distance enough.
“So,” I say when the gate locks behind us. “I’m thinking we head up to the condo, change, and then hit the pool. Who’s in?”
“Me!” Luke yells.
Ivy, who is too cool for childish outbursts, gives me a calm smile. “Sounds good,” she says. I sling an arm around her—thankfully she hasn’t gotten too cool for that, at least when we’re locked away from the public eye—and we follow Lukas as he races out of the entry yard and across the lawn, which is flanked on both sides by large, multi-level town homes.
Luke comes running back when it’s clear we’re not following fast enough. “Guess what!” he shouts, more as a statement than as a question. “I got a job!”
I smile. “Really? I didn’t know they gave those to seven-year-olds.”
“They do to seven-year-old actors,” Ivy says.
She has me there. “True. Are you an actor, Luke?”
He wrinkles his nose.Thankfully neither of my kids have expressed any interest in going into acting. It might be hypocritical, but I have enough trouble shielding them from the effects of the Watterpless fame. I don’t need them stepping out on their own to add to it.
“No,” Luke says. “I meant a job on theranch.”
I’m pretty sure he has lots of jobs on the ranch.To listen to the two of them whine, you’d think Kim was working them both to the bone. “A new one?”
“Yes!” Lukas shouts. “I’m feeding Susan the chicken.”
I’m trying to figure out who Susan is named after—Kim names all her animals after characters from classic television shows—when Ivy leans over to me confidentially. “It’s a bigger deal than it sounds. Susan’s beak is broken, so she has to be fed through a dropper.”
I smile. “Of course she does.That sounds like a big job, buddy.”
Luke beams at me. “Mom says I’m very adept at it.”
I laugh. “Sounds like your mother.”
Ivy gives me that look she gets when she thinks I might be insulting Kim. Which I never do, and not just when they’re around. Besides that she clearly can’t stand me, I don’t actually have many complaints about Kim.
“So how did Susan break her beak?” I ask.
Luke rockets off ahead of us again, apparently already done with this conversation.
“Susan came from an abusive home,” Ivy says. “The place Mom got her from thought her beak was clipped with wire cutters.”
I wince. “Ouch.”
Ivy nods sagely. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad. But she’s getting some weight back on her through the dropper.”
Anyone else would be fattening up the chicken for the slaughter, but Kim is a staunch vegetarian. With help from Kim’s staff of animal handlers—and Lukas, apparently—Susan will get to live to a ripe old chicken age. However old that is.
“Any other new animals?” I get the update whenever the kids come over, and even though it’s often only been a few days since I last saw them, there’s usually one addition or another.
“Nothing new,” Ivy says. “But Mom’s getting a blind boxer next week. His original name was Lazyboy, so Mom is renaming him Costanza. It’s more distinguished.”
I laugh. Susan must be named after George Costanza’s late fiancée. Kim usually picks a show and mines it until she runs out of characters, but she’s doing that faster lately than she did when we were married.
