Page 61 of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

“On the phone. And Gramma is paintin’ her toenails. Peach passion. She’s gonna do mine later.”

She took great care in placing her dog on the chaise, then sat her little rump on the bottom edge, staring up at him, expectantly. She was barefoot but still wearing the red dress.

“What?” he asked when she continued to stare at him.

“Mommy tol’ me to come outside and help you put together the friggin’ grill.” She was still giving him the stink eye.

“Oh, she did, did she?”

“What’s a frig?”

K-4 exchanged a look with him and chuckled.

“It’s not a nice word for little girls to use,” Merrill said.

“Mommy did.” More stink eye.

“Well, it was probably just a slip of the tongue.”

She giggled. “Tongues can’t slip.” She stuck out her own tongue and tried to look at it, to no avail.

Merrill wasn’t much into kids, but this one, despite her attitude toward him, was really cute. Looked just like her mother, except for the golden blonde, rather than silver blonde hair. And she had a few freckles across her nose and cheeks.

“Tell you what, kiddo. You can watch me make my world-class black and blue burgers, and if you’re really good—”

She perked up at that and finished for him, “. . . you’ll get me a dog?”

“No. No dogs from me. Only mommies buy dogs. What I was going to say was, if you’re really good, I’ll tell you my favorite story.”

“Please, poopyhead, don’t let it be the one about how you captured a bunch of tangos in Peru just by fucking up their computers,” K-4 said, low enough that Maggie couldn’t overhear.

“You already know the story of Little Orphan Annie,” he started.

Maggie nodded.

“Oh, man! You’re going to tell her about that porno flick, Annie Does the Orphanage. Not appropriate, my poopyhead friend!”

“Shh,” he warned K-4, then continued addressing Maggie, “but have you ever heard of Little Orphan Andy?”

“Was he Annie’s big brother, who came searching for her, forever and ever, but couldn’t find her, and that’s why she had to live in an orphanage, where she had a hard-knock life for five whole years?”

“Um, probably.”

“Can I have a dog?”

“You expect a poopyhead to get you a dog?”

“You wouldn’t be a poopyhead if you got me a dog.”

“Nice try, monkey, but no bananas today.”

The devious little imp frowned with confusion, then stomped inside where she yelled, “Mommy! Mister Merrill called me a monkey.”

Later that evening, everything had been cleared up from what everyone agreed were the best hamburgers ever. The side salads they’d bought in the supermarket deli, along with dishes of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream added to the feast, but it was his burgers served on fresh rolls with lettuce and tomato and spicy mayo that had been the big hit.

K-4 had gone off to some local singles bar to check out the action, and had only teased Merrill a little when he’d said he wasn’t interested. Maggie and the grandmother were in the bedroom, which they’d taken over, Maggie already fast asleep and Sal, as she preferred to be called, was reading several back issues of Cosmo. Don’t ask!

Delilah would be sleeping on the pullout sofa bed in the living room. But for now, she’d come out and was sitting at the patio table across from him, going over some last-minute details for tomorrow’s return to the site. He was drinking the last beer, and she had a tall glass of iced lemonade.