He leans down to whisper in my ear. “We’re practically heroes . . . even though we’re sworn enemies.”
“Why did you pick that costume anyway?” I ask him, still in a quiet voice.
“I don’t know, I kind of just really like the look of it.” He stares at me a beat, then asks, “How about you?”
“As your sworn enemy, I cannot divulge that answer.” I stand on my tiptoes and quietly say, “Plus, Bruce Wayne might get jealous.”
He laughs, and it isn’t until that moment that I realize that the music has already changed back to an upbeat song, but we’re still dancing in a slow circle, his hand wound around my waist and one of my hands lightly gripping the back of his neck. I try to put some space between us, but he stops me.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cameron, we can’t be dancing like this still. People will talk. Plus, my daughter is here.”
I make a mental note to talk to Josie about this later tonight or tomorrow as Cameron canvasses the room to notice what I’ve already observed: the kids are doing their own thing; it’s the parents who are still staring. Honest to God, I don’t know which is worse at this point.
“Okay,” he says reluctantly. “But before I let you go, can I ask you something?”
I nod.
“As I tried to tell you that day in the coffee shop, there isn’t a rule in place about dating a student’s parent—”
“I’m so sorry about storming off that day,” I say to him abruptly. “I didn’t mean to do that. I just didn’t know what to think. Honestly, I still don’t know what to think about it.”
“It’s okay.” He stops moving me around in slow circles long enough to ask, “What I’m trying to get at is, well, I’m wondering if you’d think about letting me take you out to dinner sometime.”
I told myself that I’d be okay with us being friends even though it would be weird knowing that we are attracted to each other. And I have been psyching myself up very recently to possibly start dating again. Even Josie was on board with the idea. But I’m not sure that this is what I had in mind. It’s just too . . . I don’t even know . . . maybe too close to home or something?
“Can I think about it?”
His face drops for a second, disappointment clouding his normally welcoming eyes and bright smile, making me feel terrible instantly.
“Sure. Of course,” he says slightly more formally than he’s spoken to me before.
With that, he lets me go and I already miss being held by him. He was a very good dancer: strong and assured, gentle, yet commanding in his leading. The best part about being so close to him was his warmth; it’s like snuggling up to the best pillow ever, but only after it had been lying in the sun all day.
Now it’s my turn to feel disappointed as I watch Cameron turn around and walk away from me, leaving me on the dance floor surrounded by kids dancing. It’s all very surreal and like something out of a really bad eighties movie.
I feel a small tug on my right arm and turn to find Josie and her two other Renaissance Ninja Turtle Zorro mask–wearing friends bouncing from foot to foot with excitement.
“Mom, we need to talk,” she says forcefully and starts pulling me off the dance floor to a small corner of the gym where the lighting is so dim that I can barely make out which one of them is which until Josie starts talking again. “Okay, so we had been planning to hook you up with Carrie’s dad since her parents are divorced and that way we could be stepsisters, but this is a whole new ball game.”
“Yeah,” Carrie and Lorelei say at the same time.
“You like Mr. Thomas,” Josie announces, and her friends nod their heads in agreement. “And he obviously likes you.”
“I mean, who wouldn’t? Just look at her.” This is from Carrie, who inspects me up and down and then up again. “She’s way hot.”
“Yeah,” says Lorelei.
“So we’ve changed the plan around so that you get together with Mr. Thomas instead,” Josie goes on to say. “I mean, he’s pretty cute too. Better looking than Carrie’s dad. No offense.”
“None taken,” Carrie says, surprisingly. “He’s not bad or anything, but he really needs to start working out if he wants to be a hit with the ladies. Mr. Thomas already has that part covered.”
“Yeah,” Lorelei adds.
I put my hands up to stop them from talking. “Girls, stop for a minute!”
They all look at me through their masks with expectant eyes. For the first time, I realize just how much Josie had been secretly hoping I’d start dating sooner rather than later, which comes as a shock even though we had discussed it recently. And for some reason, my mind goes straight to her father, Matthew, and that letter that’s sitting at the bottom of my purse. Maybe it’s the fact that she doesn’t know her own father, and it bothers her more than she’s ever let on. Or maybe she really wants me to do my own thing.
“First of all,” I say to Carrie, “I’ve met your dad, he’s very handsome, but it would be very strange to ever date him because . . . well, I’ve known him and your mother for so long and . . . let’s just say he’s not my type, but thanks for the offer. Secondly, Josie, are you sure you would be okay with this?”
She tilts her head to the side in confusion. “Okay with what?”
“Okay with me . . . I don’t know, I guess dating Cameron?”
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” Carrie says in a rush of excitement. “She’s already on a first name basis with him!”
“Girls! Stop, relax for a second,” I say, trying to take back control of the situation. I look my daughter in the eye. “Josie, I need to know if you have even one tiny reservation about this. Because if you did, I wouldn’t dare go ahead with it.”
With a bright smile she says, “I am more than okay with this. I just want you to be happy more than anything, Mom.”
And with those words, even if nothing were to ever happen between Cameron and me, even if I never date another man for the rest of my life, I feel relieved and assured that my daughter is more awesome than I could have hoped she could ever be.
Yeah, my daughter is a force to be reckoned with . . . and I like to think that I have a lot to do with that.
CHAPTER NINE
It’s been a week since the Halloween dance, and nothing has happened. Then again, I haven’t attempted any sort of contact with Cameron, so I only really have myself to blame. But he hasn’t contacted me either. I can’t fault him though, what with me giving mixed signals and sort of leaving him hanging about whether I would take him up on dinner.
Here’s the thing . . . it’s been so long since I’ve dated, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to call him or if I’m supposed to wait for him to call me or if I’m supposed to wait until we run into each other again or if—
Oh my God, Vanessa, I tell myself. You’re going to drive yourself crazy!
I’m not dead though. I am aware of how much the dating world has changed since I was last out there. However, my knowledge is strictly limited to what I’ve read in books and seen in movies and television shows. Which isn’t a very good barometer, in my humble opinion. I do not see myself being that ballsy woman who storms into his classroom in the middle of the school day and says something like, “Cameron, let’s do this!”
Cameron, let’s do this?
Really? Ugh, that would be more than embarrassing, and what man in his right mind would fall for that awful line?
I need to work on that part of it. Hopefully, I’ll get there soon, because the word on the street, or at least from Maria, who has now become semi-friends with me, is that one of the other moms—the one who was drooling over Cameron at the Back to School Night—is setting her sights on him . . . openly. And by openly, I mean dressing scantily and showing up unannounced at the school for a quick hello, bringing him treats like cupcakes, at least on two occasions that I’m aware of, and making sure her child stays for extra-credit assignments so that she has an excuse to pop in.
Maria says that this
certain mom is a word I’d rather not repeat, because I don’t know the lady at all other than what I’ve heard, but it rhymes with bore. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if I were a man looking to just whet my appetite, I’d consider it. Why not?
At the end of the day, everything inside of me is telling me that I need to take the next step. It’s the matter of gathering up the courage to take that step that’s the hardest part. I’ll get there though. I can feel it.
A knock on the door as I’m preparing dinner startles me. Josie’s in her bedroom upstairs, so I wipe my hands and go to answer it. I peek through the peephole to find a man on the other side I’ve never met before, in a pair of jeans and a button-down dress shirt. He’s holding something in his hands that I can’t make out clearly. Since I don’t know this guy, I undo the locks but keep the link on and see immediately that it is an envelope he has in hands.
“Are you Vanessa Holt?” he asks by way of introduction.
“Um, yes. Who are you?”
He thrusts the envelope in the small space that the door allows, and it falls inside my house at my feet. “You’ve been served,” he says and then walks away quickly.
The man is already in his car and pulling away by the time I can process all of this. I slam the door shut, lock it, and snatch up the envelope from the floor. I have no idea what this is in regards to, so I open it and take the documents out while walking back to my kitchen.
When I see the plaintiff’s name, Matthew Ford, my legs start to give out on me. The breath leaves my lungs as if I’ve been sucker punched in the gut. Luckily, I’m right by the couch, so I sit down to try to finish reading the document.
I don’t get any farther than a few more lines when I see the term “petition for paternity,” and I’m having a full-on panic attack.
How dare he do this to me? To Josie? Who in the hell does he think he is that he can just waltz back in from out of the blue after thirteen years and pull this crap? Not to mention the stupid letter that, yes, I’ve been ignoring, but it made it seem like he was trying to be amicable about it all. But then he pulls this stunt? And how in the hell did he find out that his name doesn’t appear on the birth certificate?
My head feels like it’s spinning with questions and thoughts that have me on the verge of a full-on nervous breakdown. I glance at the stairs up to where Josie is none the wiser . . . yet. The threat of losing her to him terrifies me so suddenly that I start to cry, big and heavy tears run down my face as silent sobs rack my body for a few minutes.
I wipe the tears and try to compose myself. Taking a few deep breaths, in and out, again and again, until I’m semi-normal. Normal enough to take action and get up off the couch and call the one person I know I can turn to that will help me.
Digging through my purse, I find my cell phone and call Alex, who picks up on the second ring. “Hey, I was just going—”
When I hear his voice, I start to lose it again.
“Vanessa, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Matthew,” I manage between my sobs. “He’s suing me.”
“I’ll be right over,” he says and hangs up.
In the ten or so minutes that it takes Alex to arrive, I splash my face with water and try to collect myself again. I also tend to the food that I was preparing for dinner. Josie’s still in her room, completely unaware of the hurricane that has come to our front door. And I’d like to keep it that way.
Alex was my crutch during the time I was pregnant with Josie, after Matthew decided to skip out on us. And he’s been the father figure in her life, the only one she’s ever known. He’s also the only person I ever confide in when there is something going on in my life, or Josie’s for that matter, so I trust him implicitly with this.
As soon as he’s in the house, he takes one look at me and wraps me in his arms.
I’m technically the big sister, but he’s always acted and treated me like a precious little sister, and I find that in times like this, I’m glad that he’s always been that way with me. Because I need it, especially now.
“Are you okay?” he asks with me still in his arms, and I don’t answer. “Do you want me to kill him?”
This gets me to chuckle, and I pull back long enough to wipe my eyes and nose against his shirt. “Hey, I kind of like this shirt and so does my wife. It’s one of her favorites, actually.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll buy you a new one and you can tell Julia it’s my fault.”
Alex turns me in his arms, then keeps me tucked to his side as he walks me to the kitchen counter. He props me carefully against the counter and then rummages through my cabinets to get a glass. After filling it with water from the sink, he promptly hands it to me. “Here, drink this and then take a breath.”
I do as he says. When I’m done, I hand him the glass, and he sets it on the counter. His eyes dart to the stairs and then back at me. “Does Josie know anything about this?”
I shake my head.
“Okay, good. Don’t tell her yet.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, Alex.”
“Are you okay enough to tell me what happened?” he asks gently.
Nodding, I reach behind me and thrust the legal paperwork at Alex. As he’s reading it, I say, “There was just some guy at the door. He asked if I was Vanessa Holt. I said yes and then he tossed this inside the house, and that’s pretty much it.”
“A process server?” he asks.
“Yeah, one of those, I guess.”
He finishes reading the document and then folds it back up. “Basically it’s saying that he’s filing to be declared as Josie’s father since his name is not listed on the birth certificate. After that, I’m not sure what the rest of it means.” Alex pauses and his eyebrows furrow together in thought. “How would he know about that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, sounding just as confused as he does. “I’ve been asking myself that same question. He didn’t want to be a part of our lives, so I didn’t add him when Josie was born. And he never said anything about it when he wrote me so—”
“He wrote you?” Alex asks with a shocked look on his face. “When the hell did he write to you? And when were you going to tell me?”
“He wrote me a letter and sent it to Dad’s office a couple weeks ago.”
“I need to see this letter, Vanessa, now.”
I find the letter still at the bottom of my purse and give it to Alex to read; his jaw gets tight and flexes as it sinks in. “Jesus,” is all that he says after he’s through.
I’m sitting on the couch while Alex paces in front of me, running his hand through his hair and not saying another word for a long moment, until I can’t take it anymore.
“Alex,” I say nervously. He stops pacing and looks at me. “What am I going to do? I’m really scared here. I can’t lose Josie.”
My brother’s eyes soften and he comes over and crouches in front of me. Taking my hands in his, he says, “Vanessa, I’m not going to let that bastard take anything away from you. Ever. You have my word.”
We lock eyes before he adds, “Do you believe me?”
I nod and smile and thank God that I have Alex in my corner. Honestly, I don’t know what I would do were it not for him. I’m not inept and I can take care of myself; I’ve been doing it for a long time, but in times like these, I need someone in my corner who is going to go to bat for me, whatever the cost.
“Okay, this is what’s going to happen,” he announces. “First, don’t say a word of this to Josie yet. Second, I’m going to call an attorney friend of mine tonight and see what he recommends your next course of action should be. If I had to guess, he will say to get a family lawyer, so I’ll also ask for a recommendation. Third, you’re going to go about your day and the next day, and the day after that, as if you never got this, because Josie is old enough and smart enough to pick up on anything that is bothering you.”
“I’m going to have to tell her though, eventually,” I say to myself more than Alex.
“
Vanessa, you honestly didn’t think she would go her whole life without having to know one thing about her father, did you?”
It seems like a child’s answer even to my own ears when I say yes. In my heart of hearts, I knew the day would come. I never dreamed it would be today, or even tomorrow, for that matter. It was always in the back of my mind though: a deep dread, like getting several root canals all at once. But I have always been able to compartmentalize that part of my life as if it were all a bad dream so that Josie would never have to feel the shame or rejection that Matthew imparted on us all those years ago.
“I’m going to tell her, Alex, but I’m not ready yet.”
Alex stands up and lets go of my hands. “Are you going to be okay if I leave now and start making some phone calls?”
“I think so,” I say and stand up to hug him good-bye. “Thank you, Alex. I don’t say it enough to you, but I mean it more than you’ll ever know.”
He pulls back and kisses me on my forehead. “You’re welcome. Love you.”
“Love you too, baby brother.”
After Alex is gone, I do exactly as he instructed: I go back to getting dinner on the table for my daughter and me. And when we finally eat together later that evening, I try my best to hide the fear just underneath the surface that this is the calm before the actual storm that has been brought to our doorstep.
CHAPTER TEN
The next week is a complete and utter blur. From the face-to-face meeting with my new attorney, Antonia Gomez, Esquire, to the pile of work at the office, and to the planning of what is supposed to be Josie’s thirteenth-birthday weekend getaway with my family, by the end of the week I’m feeling downright worn out.
Meeting with the attorney actually made me feel a whole lot better. She very calmly went over everything in the petition in detail. I expressed to her my fear that even though Matthew’s been MIA all these years, that this will eventually lead to a request for visitation, or worse, custody. But after hearing the whole story, my attorney thought that a possible ruling would work out in my favor, especially since he was out of our lives before Josie was even born. So I wrote a big check as a retainer for her services with a huge smile on my face, glad to hand over the reins to her and ensure that Matthew’s petition and all that it entails doesn’t get any worse before it gets better.
Starting Over Page 7
