She points out a girl in the second row of belt-testers. I grimace silently. I swear I saw her and Tali with their heads together, gossiping before the test. That means I’ll be expected to know who this very touchy mom is but, even as I fish for her name, I’m getting nothing.
‘We’re new in town,’ she states. ‘Just moved in from Danforth.’ She then gives my bicep a blue-taloned squeeze, tossing a tendril of brown hair over her shoulder. ‘You look familiar. You play sports, too, don’t you?’ A very interesting twinkle fills her eyes. ‘I can tell.’
I very gingerly remove her hand from my arm and exhale through my nose, forcing myself to keep the smile on my face from falling. ‘I don’t really play anything.’
It’s a safe answer. She cocks her head in confusion, as if theanswer she got isn’t at all the one she was expecting. Maybe she thought I’d at least give her something like ‘community centre curling team’. But over time, I learned that to be Dad, I had to put Pro Athlete away. Yes, I’m proud of how I clawed my way to where I am, playing at the highest level of lacrosse in the country, Major League for the New Haven Woodchucks, steady income and then some, but there’s a time and place for it. This whole thing, right now, is about my daughter. I refuse to bring my career into it.
Once the instructor has doled out her certificate, Tali rushes right up to where I stand on the sidelines, her yellow belt swishing to and fro as she jogs, arms full of wood and paper. I crouch down so she can absolutely smother me in a Lucky Charms-scented hug. She’s a hell of a lot bigger than she’d been when she was born, and it honestly feels like that was just yesterday. She’ll get embarrassed if I go all Sentimental Dad on her, so I push the tears down for now, although I can’t guarantee they won’t come out tonight over a glass of whiskey with my sister. ‘I broke it!’
‘Look at you go, Wilson.’ I hold her at arm’s length, and she extends the board my way. ‘Clean through, huh?’
‘Locked it down,’ she states firmly.
I can’t help letting out a laugh. ‘Man, we need to keep you away from Colt.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if it was visits from Tali’s Uncle Colt, my best friend, that have her talking like a frat guy. CJ ‘Colt’ Bradley is the definition of the dude at the very bottom of the stands during a football game, hanging over the gate and screaming bloody murder while wearing bib overalls with no T-shirt underneath. I wish I could say thatgraduation and true adulthood have mellowed the guy out, but that’s about as far from the truth as you could get. ‘You’re turning into a college kid, Tal. You want ice cream?’
‘Heck yeah.’
‘Helen’s?’
‘Yup.’
‘Done deal. Let’s get you a sundae, sport.’
The drive (and the jarringly cold ice cream) is a good way to shake off the fact that I had been daydreaming about my soon-to-be co-worker at a kids’ karate belt test. Not that I had any particular intent. It was a mind-drift kind of moment. Suddenly, I saw her frozen to her spot at Eddie’s Convenience, her eyes wide as dinner plates, eyelashes fluttering in shock. I mean, I was equally surprised. I hadn’t actually seen her outside of game footage in about a year. And suddenly, for reasons I’m not totally sure of, my best friend’sgirlfriend’sbest friend is here, in Whittaker, in all her spontaneous, sporadic glory, not to mention denim that fits her defined curves a little too well—
‘Where’s your head at, boy?’
Helen leans against the glass counter, a washcloth over her shoulder and an eyebrow raised. Her greying-blonde hair defies gravity in a bun that looks like it’s bound to fall out any moment. Helen’s been running the place – homemade ice cream like nothing you’ve ever tasted – since I was a kid, happily inhaling my ice-cream sundae just like Tali currently is. She’s already about half cleared the glazed white bowl, which is impressive considering we got her a banana split. She smirks up at me with a mouth covered in chocolate syrup, and I steal a napkinfrom the dispenser in the centre of the table to dab the disaster from her face.
‘Nowhere special,’ I reply to Helen, who just quirks her eyebrow even higher. Helen’s a special brand of Whittaker no-bullshit. There’s lots of lore on angry, unkind New Englanders, but I like to think we’re truly just spirited. Helen’s the exemplar when it comes to straight shooters with zero tolerance for fluff and a knack for cutting through the crap. She reminds me an awful lot of my own colourful Italian mother.
‘Don’t give me that. You’re all glassy-eyed, Roddy.’ She glares at my currently melting ice-cream cone. ‘For God’s sake, your cone is about to fall apart.’
‘Shi-Dang!’ I quickly correct for profanity, a cut of my eyes Tali’s way to make sure she hasn’t caught wind. The kid’s still scarfing down her sundae with total contentedness. I take a massive bite from the side of my mint chocolate chip, and the brain freeze rockets its way through my teeth. I squeeze my eyes shut. ‘Ow.’
Helen just smiles wryly and knowingly as she leaves the counter to help the next customer. I huff through the brain freeze for a moment, but she’s not wrong. The last time Jordan and I crossed paths had been her draft day, down in Oklahoma. Naturally, she’d been on cloud nine, in her own world celebrating with her team, so I never really talked to her. I was charmed when I found out she was a fan, sure, maybe more than charmed when I started noticing things about her like the crooked incisor that showed when she smiled, or the stacks of silver and turquoise rings on her slim fingers, but never a real conversation. The bit I’m hung up on is why the hell she’d be in Whittaker over the summer. Also, why I’m so hung up on that bit. On her.
‘She should be in Oklahoma,’ I mutter under my breath and another bite of ice cream. Tali, who has now somehow managed to get ice cream both on her face and her fingers, says, ‘Are we going to Oklahoma?’
‘We aren’t goin’ anywhere, champ.’ I pass her a handful of napkins: team effort to mitigate the damage. ‘Clean-up time.’And then I can call May and ask her what the hell Jordan Gutierrez-Hawkins is doing in Massachusetts.
‘Whoever she is,’ Helen calls as I hoist Tali out of the booth and we head for the door, ‘give it a shot, would you, Roddy?’
Yeah. Helen and just about every other person in Whittaker. I wouldn’t call myself notorious, but when you’re in a town of five thousand and everyone is in each other’s business, word gets around when you become a single teen dad right out of high school. Everyone starts wanting you togive it a shot. They’ve been wanting me to ever since Tali’s first birthday, but the pressure has weighed heavily on my shoulders over the past couple of years, and it’s a lot harder than just taking a chance when you factor in raising a kid. Besides, there’s no shots to give here. Just figuring out what caused this woman to disturb my peace by bringing her happy chaos to Whittaker.
‘Ok-la-ho-maaaa,’ hums Tali, her hand in mine as she skips right out the door in her pink light-up sneakers, leading me towards Main Street and around to the parallel parking that I’ve nudged the car into. My entire existence has revolved around making sure that Tali never felt like she was being deprived of something the other children got to have, from the pigtails to the packed field-trip lunches to the tears and hugs, and even to learning how to fish and trail ride like a pro. People can sayshe’s just a kid, not my entire life, but she is. She’s mywholedamn life.
‘Dang, that banana split will have you bouncin’ off the walls,’ I chuckle as Tali clambers into her booster seat. I can already see the carnage back home; another crayon drawing added to the drywall behind the couch already full of them. She extends an insistent hand to let me know it’s seat-belt time, and I strap my backseat passenger princess in. ‘Let’s go crack this case, Tal.’
Chapter Three
Man Crush Monday
Jordan
The chai has not left my upholstery.
About a bottle of fabric cleaner and an hour of vigorous scrubbing in, I haven’t yet managed to shake the physical sign of my magnificent fall from grace. I also haven’t managed to shoo away the less-than-ideal memory of the gas station incident, which replays itself in my head like my scratched-up Fleetwood vinyl.
