Practice Makes Perfect (Single Father)

by Macdonald, Janice

  “Huh,” he said. “Interesting.”

  “It was,” Elizabeth said, disappointed. People usually said interesting when they meant just the opposite. “Sarah’s… I mean, she’s not like me. She’s very smart.”

  “You don’t think you’re smart?”

  “Well.” She bit her lip. “I don’t think I’m not smart. It’s a different kind of smart, I guess. She and my ex used to be good friends.”

  “They’re both doctors,” George said. “They would be.”

  “Even before that,” Elizabeth said. “It was as if they had this secret world together. They thought the same way, laughed at the same jokes. But they were just friends…”

  “Right.” George smirked. “Typical chick thing to say. Guys are never just friends with women. They always want something.”

  “I don’t think it was that way with them,” she said, but he was still smirking as if she was naive. “It’s hard to explain—”

  “Is she attractive?”

  Elizabeth considered. “Well, she’s…I don’t know. The intellectual type. No makeup, that sort of thing.” She drained her iced tea. “That was good.”

  “Want another one?” When she nodded, he waved his empty glass at the waitress. “She probably had the hots for your ex,” he said after he’d ordered more drinks. “But he went for the best-looking woman.”

  “Thanks.” Elizabeth smiled. “I did used to be good-looking.”

  “Still are,” George said. “You’re just carrying a few extra pounds, is all. I like that. Can’t stand skin and bones.”

  “Then you wouldn’t find Sarah attractive,” Elizabeth said.

  “Probably wouldn’t.” He smiled and stared into her eyes.

  ELIZABETH WAS IN the bathroom when the phone rang. She ran into the bedroom and answered it on the second ring.

  “Lucy?”

  “No. It’s Sarah. Sorry to call so late. I tried to call Matthew, but he was at the hospital. Anyway, we’re taking Lucy to Agate Beach tomorrow to look for fossils—”

  “Fossils?” Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed.

  “…anyway, I just wanted to make sure Lucy has boots.”

  Elizabeth thought for a minute. “She’s got this cute pair with fake fur around the tops and—”

  “We’re going to be in the water,” Sarah said. “Actually, I might have an old pair that would fit her. She’s about a size seven, right? If you have a pen, I also have a few other things she’ll need…”

  Elizabeth tried to think where a pen might be. “Okay, found one,” she said. “Go ahead.”

  After hanging up, Elizabeth couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah and how upset she’d been about whatever it was she’d said to Matthew. The difference between Sarah and herself was that Elizabeth was like some uncomplicated kid’s toy, wind it up and it chugs merrily along, but Sarah was like a difficult jigsaw puzzle. You always had to look at the little pieces from different angles, trying to fit them into the picture. Sometimes you’d think a piece was going to fit, but even though you’d try to make it fit, it wouldn’t and you’d get frustrated and want to just knock the whole thing to the floor.

  Still, it was good talking to Sarah. Except, knowing her daughter, she was pretty sure Lucy did not want to spend a day climbing over rocks.

  ON THE MORNING of the beach trip, Matthew woke before the alarm clock, which he’d set half an hour earlier than he usually got up. Sarah had left a message the night before.

  “I just checked the tide tables,” she’d said. “Low tide is at ten-fifteen and, if I remember correctly, it’s a couple of hours’ drive to Agate Beach. So we need to leave no later than eight. Oh, Lucy might enjoy looking for fossils. She’ll need boots. Okay, never mind, I’ll check with Elizabeth… Hey, Matthew. You think Lucy will like me? I’m not exactly a kid person…well, that’s not true. The girls at Saint Julia’s liked me, but…okay. I’m going to shut up. Good night, Matthew.”

  And then she’d left a second message. “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m glad we’re doing this. Okay, now I’ll really shut up. Good night again.”

  Matthew had played the messages twice, smiling as he listened to her. Talking fast, rapid burst of words. Just as she’d always spoken, he remembered, when she was nervous. It had been after midnight by the time he got home from the hospital, too late to call her. Although, knowing Sarah, the time wouldn’t have mattered.

  He lay with his hands behind his head. Lucy was still at her friend Sierra’s house where she’d spent the night. He’d left a message with Sierra’s mother that he’d be by at seven to pick up his daughter. She’d laughed and said something about that being the middle of the night as far as kids were concerned. He’d said nothing about the beach expedition. He rehearsed his response to Lucy’s inevitable protest. “Lulu, you need to do more than hang out at the mall. We live in one of the most beautiful areas in the Northwest and it’s time we started taking advantage of it.”

  After a while he became aware of a new sound. Rain beating against the window. He dragged himself out of bed and shuffled downstairs to make coffee. It was not an auspicious start. He turned on the TV. The rain would clear, the relentlessly cheerful announcer informed him. He showered and dressed, then made two fried-egg sandwiches.

  “Why couldn’t we just go to McDonalds?” Lucy complained when he presented her with the sandwich, doubled wrapped in foil to keep it warm.

  “This is just like McDonalds,” he said, biting into his as they drove. “I even put cheese on it. And it’s better for you.”

  Lucy, cocooned in a red goose-down coat, her hair hidden under a square hood, took a cautious bite. Then another.

  Matthew shot her a sideways glance. “Good?”

  “It’s okay.” She flipped the hood of her jacket, shook out her hair and turned to look at him. “So what’s going on? How come we had to leave so early?”

  “We’re going to Agate Beach,” Matthew said. “To check out tide pools.”

  “Huh?”

  Matthew explained the day’s itinerary, trying to make it sound every bit as exciting as a trip to the mall. Lucy’s expression told him he’d failed. “You’ll enjoy it,” he said with more conviction than he felt. “There’s a lot to see. Starfish, sand bars.” He reached out to ruffle her hair. “Come on, Lulu.”

  “But I don’t get it,” she said as he parked outside Sarah’s apartment. “Why do we have to do this?”

  “I already explained.” Matthew saw Sarah at the window as though she’d been watching for them. Knowing Sarah, she probably had been. A moment later, the front door opened and she appeared wearing a yellow oilskin slicker, black boots and carrying a large canvas bag. He smiled. A blue felt hat and she’d look like the Paddington Bear he’d once tucked into Lucy’s crib. “Remember you were asking me about Sarah? Well, you’re going to get a chance to meet her.”

  MATTHEW’S DAUGHTER LOOKED just as she had in the picture Elizabeth had shown her. Glossy dark hair, green eyes, a rosiness to her cheeks that, as it used to with Elizabeth, reminded Sarah of Disney’s version of Snow White. But while Lucy had been smiling in the picture, the Lucy who greeted her from the backseat of the car, huddled into a bulky red parka, just barely managed to be civil.

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” Sarah said as she reached to shake Lucy’s hand. “And your dad was right, you look just like your mother.”

  Lucy frowned and met Matthew’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Sarah means when your mother was your age.” Matthew started up the car and winked at Sarah. “Right, trooper?”

  “MOM GOT the wrong socks for me,” Lucy said some thirty minutes later. “I told her the kind I wanted and she got these weird ones.”

  “What kind did you want?” Matthew asked.

  “The
kind that wick the moisture off your skin. They have them in Brown’s Outdoor, but they were ten dollars and Mom said that was too much.”

  “You know, I think I saw the kind you mean at Goodwill.” Sarah turned to look at Lucy. “It’s amazing how people buy stuff like that, spend a bunch of money on it and then decide they don’t really need it after all. Lucky for us though, we can pick it up for a fraction of the price.”

  Lucy smiled politely.

  You’re talking too much, Sarah told herself. Shut up. Don’t try to ingratiate yourself. Be cool. Looking at Lucy, she had the oddest sense of talking to the old Elizabeth. But unlike Elizabeth who, despite her formidable beauty, was always sweet and kind, Lucy had clearly been brought up to believe that she was the center of the universe. She’s just a kid, Sarah reminded herself after Lucy had continued to complain about the socks.

  “When I was in Nicaragua,” she said when Lucy finally ran out, “I met this woman who was probably about my age, but she lived in a grass hut and washed her clothes in a stream.”

  Matthew shot her a glance, no doubt guessing where the story was going. Lucy seemed to be watching his face in the rearview mirror. Or watching her own, Sarah couldn’t tell.

  “Anyway,” she forged on, “I started wondering what it would be to live like that, to have nothing—”

  “Pretty hard for you to imagine that, huh, Lulu?” Matthew asked.

  Lucy rolled her eyes.

  “But the point is, I could see this woman was eyeing my backpack. I’d just bought it to go on the trip and it was really expensive, but I figured it would be like winning the lottery for her to have something like that so I thought, what the hey. I was just about to unstrap it, when she looked at me and shook her head. Then she asked me what it was like to have to carry such a heavy load around all day.”

  Lucy smiled faintly.

  “She felt sorry for me,” Sarah elaborated, not sure whether Lucy had understood the point.

  “What d’you think about that, Lucy?” Matthew asked.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, an edge of irritation in her tone.

  “It must have been quite a culture shock for you, coming back here after all those years away,” Matthew said. “Not that Port Hamilton is exactly a thriving metropolis.”

  “No, but you’re right.” Sarah turned back in her seat, grateful that at least Matthew seemed interested. “Even in a town the size of Port Hamilton, the quantity and variety of things you can buy is amazing.”

  “Port Hamilton needs a mall,” Lucy said.

  Matthew chuckled, then reached into the backseat to squeeze her knee.

  Sarah felt oddly defeated. Reading the newspaper yesterday, she’d found herself turning from an article about the Manila slums, where mothers supported families with garbage salvaged from a dump, to an ad for Ikea. Worse, she’d been reading both with roughly the same degree of involvement. Maybe I should just volunteer for the Philippines, she’d thought. Or maybe I should buy some candles, some new sheets. Invite Matthew over. No, she had a better shot in the Philippines. If there was even an outside chance Matthew might reconsider the practice idea, complicating it with a personal relationship would be disastrous. If he’d made up his mind to join Compassionate Medical Systems, she still had all the work of setting up the practice, but without Matthew. Complications enough. Besides, she hadn’t picked up the slightest hint that Matthew saw her as anything other than a friend.

  Which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

  “Daddy, when we get home, can I stay the night at Brittany’s?”

  “We’ll see,” Matthew said.

  “Daddy, can I see if your cell phone works out here?”

  Matthew handed it back to her. “How did we ever get along without cell phones?” he asked Sarah with a grin.

  “Pigeons,” she said. “Remember?”

  “Oh, right, but I always hated the mess they made. The way they’d poop on your hands when you were trying to retrieve a message.”

  “Oh, gross,” Lucy said.

  “Sarah taught her pigeon to play the piano,” Matthew said. “Chopin, Beethoven. Her pigeon was much smarter than mine.”

  “Shut up, Dad.” Lucy punched his shoulder. “You’re crazy.”

  Sarah glanced at her watch. The rain hadn’t let up and she was getting a headache. They still had a good forty-five minutes to go, which meant they’d miss low tide. Less beach to search on but, given the rain, it probably didn’t matter a whole lot. She thought of the box of hammers and tools and shovels and who knows what that she’d carefully assembled. Matthew had loaded them into his car as Lucy looked on.

  “How come we need all that stuff?” she’d asked.

  Sarah tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Earlier, trying to fill what felt like a suffocating silence, she’d launched into a rambling explanation about the Mesozoic period. She’d intended it as an introduction to the dinosaurs—something she was sure Lucy would find interesting. Nerves had sidetracked her into a lengthy discourse on how the continents were formed and, even though she could see that Lucy was struggling to keep her eyes open, she hadn’t been able to stop talking. She now gazed through the streaming passenger window at the stands of dark pines, at the relentless rain. Lucy was wearing some kind of perfumed cream that smelled like apples. She could smell her own wool sweater. The scents filled her nose, mixed with the stuffy warm smell of three bodies in a small space. She rolled down her window a crack, felt the rush of cool, wet air, then quickly closed it, afraid she might get Lucy wet.

  Lucy didn’t like her. But maybe Lucy didn’t like any women Matthew was involved with. Except she wasn’t involved with Matthew. Pepita had liked her, though. All the girls at Saint Julia’s Orphanage had liked her. Fighting for her attention, hanging on to her hands. Resting their heads on her lap. Why could she talk to them and not to Matthew’s daughter? The easy explanation was that Lucy reminded her of Elizabeth. But, come on, she wasn’t that petty. Was she? Maybe it was wanting Lucy to like her.

  Standing at the window that morning, waiting for Matthew and Lucy to arrive she’d felt as if she was waiting for a first date. She’d paced the room, changed from a navy parka that struck her as drab into a bright red one before deciding that wouldn’t be warm enough and putting the navy one back on again. She’d added a scarf for color. And then because of the rain, she’d added the yellow slicker.

  She glanced at her watch again.

  “Only five minutes since the last time you looked.” Matthew squeezed her shoulder. “Relax.”

  Sarah smiled. The gray skies seemed to lighten just a bit. They’d turned onto the road that ran along the coast and, through the pines, she caught glimpses of the ocean. “See that formation over there?” She scooted around in her seat to look at Lucy who was now in communion with her video game. “That tall pile of rocks?” Sarah gestured at the rugged seashore outside the window. “Formations like that are called stacks and they form when part of the headland is eroded.”

  “You know what erosion means, Lulu?” Matthew asked.

  “Like when the sea washes stuff away?”

  “Exactly.” Sarah beamed at her. “Stacks also form when a natural arch collapses due to subaerial processes and gravity.”

  Matthew cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  He smiled. “Nothing.”

  “Was I rambling on too long?” she asked.

  “That’s okay,” Lucy said.

  “See, when a stack collapses or erodes, it leaves a stump. Or sometimes it leaves this small island, like that one over there.” She pointed again.

  “What’s a headland?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s a piece of rocky land that juts out into the sea.” Sarah smiled, feeling
encouraged. She likes me, she really likes me. “You’ve heard of the Rock of Gibraltar, right?”

  Lucy gave her a blank look.

  “Sure you have,” Matthew said. “Remember when we all went to Spain? That big rock—”

  “Oh, yeah,” Lucy said. “Cool.”

  “Interesting, Sarah,” Matthew said.

  “Can we get something to eat soon?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s early for lunch,” Matthew said.

  “Stacks are important sites for nesting seabirds,” Sarah said, trying to regain Lucy’s attention. “They’re also ideal for rock climbing. Your dad and I used to have these great adventures rock climbing.”

  “We did.” Matthew looked at Lucy in the rearview mirror. “Those are the kind of experiences you remember years later.”

  “Dad, really. I’m so hungry.”

  “I made sandwiches,” Sarah said. “Two kinds. Goat cheese with red bell peppers on whole-wheat bread and—”

  “Sounds good,” Matthew said with a tad too much enthusiasm. “Right, Lu?”

  Sarah sat back in her seat. Rose had stopped by while she was making the sandwiches. “Hardly kid’s stuff,” she’d said. “But you know best.” Which Rose obviously didn’t believe and, Sarah could see now, was obviously not true.

  “Or…I don’t know, it’s kind of cold,” Matthew said. “Remember that beach café that made really great clam chowder?”

  “Yeah, let’s go there,” Lucy said, showing enthusiasm for the first time that morning.

  “Hey, Sarah,” Matthew said. “What about that rock formation just west of Agate Beach? One of the rocks was like a little cave, remember that?”

  “I used to hole up in it,” Sarah said.

  “I wonder if it’s still there…”

  “One way to find out,” Sarah said, and Matthew turned to smile at her.

  “Dad,” Lucy said, “I am seriously hungry.”

  “Let’s put it to a vote,” Matthew said. “I say rock formation, then lunch. Sarah?”