Head Over Heels

by Serena Bell

  He said style like it was a dirty word. Which irked me. For me, style is everything. It’s hair, it’s clothes, yeah, but it’s also putting your stamp on a home or a room or a table setting or a greeting card—it’s making the world beautiful, one small act at a time. It’s taking your time with everything you do, because the littlest things can be works of art.

  Regardless, I wasn’t going to pretend to be someone I wasn’t for the sake of this date. Especially not if he wasn’t going to even try to make nice. “Yeah. I always style my hair.”

  “Not low maintenance, then?”

  It’s funny how once you’ve decided you don’t care, you can be yourself. With another guy, I might have tried to pretend to be lower maintenance than I am, but since this wasn’t happening, I told the truth. “Nope. I’m not one of those girls who can go from shower to out the door in ten. Never have been, never will be.”

  “Hundred bucks says you hate camping.”

  “Look at you with the assumptions and stereotypes.”

  He squinted at me.

  I folded like a cheap table. “Hate it.”

  “Sports?”

  “What—do you, like, have a checklist?”

  “Pretty much. What, you don’t?”

  “I might have a mental checklist, but I don’t trot it out first thing on a blind date!”

  “There’s your first mistake. Why not? It takes all the guessing out of the process.”

  “You mean all the fun?”

  He glares. “If by ‘fun’ you mean the part where after you’ve had sex for the first time, you ask if she wants to go to a baseball game and she says, ‘I hate sports,’ then yes. It takes all the ‘fun’ out. So. Spill. Do you like sports?”

  As much as I wanted him to be wrong about something, I couldn’t lie. I shook my head. “I watch the Super Bowl, for the commercials, and the World Series if I’ve heard of the teams.”

  He shook his head too, giving me a look of disgust that was only half in jest. “Okay, so shoot. What’s on your checklist?”

  At least he was fair. “How do you feel about art museums?”

  I probably wouldn’t have normally led with that, but he’d turned this into a tennis match and it was kind of entertaining, so what the hell.

  He winced.

  “Modern dance?” I was amping it up for effect.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Knickknacks and throw pillows?”

  He shook his head. Then he threw me a doozy:

  “How do you feel about kids?”

  “Um, is that a first date question?”

  He laughed. “I have a two-year-old daughter. She’s mostly with her mom. We never got married, long story. But yeah, I have a daughter.”

  “I love kids. But I grew up in foster care and between that and nannying, I’ve already raised, like, six babies. So—I don’t know. Not anytime soon. I need to do life, career.”

  He nodded at that. “Also.” He tapped the table. “I hate this restaurant.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. “Me, too.”

  “We could—get out of here. Go someplace else.”

  “Like?”

  “There’s a burger place—”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. I was already laughing.

  “Why, where would you want to go?”

  “There’s this vegan bistro—”

  His eyes got really wide.

  “I’m messing with you,” I admitted. “I’m totally not vegan. But maybe something like Il Capriccio? You know, gourmet food, candlelight?”

  “That’s two more strikes against you.”

  But he was grinning, and I couldn’t help grinning back. It was so absurd it was starting to be fun.

  It was too bad it wasn’t going to happen, because he had a great smile, hair so rumpled it made my fingers itch, and the perfect amount of scruff on a strong jaw. Not to mention a gray T-shirt clinging to broad shoulders and sculpted pecs. But Zeke had been good-looking too, and look where that had gotten me.

  That night, we managed to agree on a few things: that blind dating—really, all dating—sucked, that it was important to know the points on which you couldn’t compromise, and that people overall spent way too much time beating around the bush about important stuff when they could lay it all out up front.

  Also that we wouldn’t ever be a couple.

  We parted ways after dessert, and I figured that would be the last I heard of Chase.

  A couple of weeks later, I went out on the worst date of my life (still), with this guy who wouldn’t even make eye contact with me over dinner and could barely stammer out answers to my questions, let alone pose one of his own. I’m sure he wasn’t a bad guy, just painfully socially awkward, but it was brutal. And he’d successfully checked every box on my mental checklist, so I texted Chase to say that I’d added one more criterion to the list, the ability to carry on a conversation, and he texted back to say that he’d just been on a date with a woman who’d brought her cats with her in their carriers, one in each hand.

  That was a waste of an evening, he texted.

  Amen to that.

  I would have been a lot happier at home with an action flick, a six-pack, and a large pepperoni.

  Me, too, except chick flick, chocolate, and wine.

  Let’s do it.

  Do what?

  Let’s have a consolation party. My place, 45 minutes, bring your own movie-playing device and snack and drink of choice.

  I hesitated.

  I texted back: Just to be clear, I’m not interested in hooking up. I didn’t want to be a jerk, but I also didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. He was so not my type, and I was so not his. And he’d been so straightforward with me the night we’d gone out—surely he wouldn’t begrudge the same from me.

  I am all for being clear. No hookup. Just movie. I swear on the Mariners’ prospects for this year.

  It made me smile. Maybe because dating was so exhausting—the hope, the preparation, the anticipation, the burst bubble, the putting on the best face you could while the minutes crawled by.

  Chase was offering me the opposite.

  Just like that, we were friends. And we have been, for three years. I don’t know what I’d do without Chase to make me laugh, especially after bad dates. We have a tradition now: If either of us has a bad date, the other one has to come over afterward so we can debrief. We mock the bad dates relentlessly, laugh like fools, and toast our continuing single status (Chase stocks wine for me; I stock scotch for him; and we bring our own snacks, because we can’t agree on them). Afterward, if it’s not too late, we watch movies—sitting side by side with our iPads, earbuds in, watching our respective genres.

  We get together other times, too, but for me at least, my favorite times are still those post-date bitch sessions.

  I’m going to miss our get-togethers when I go. Earlier today, I was hoping Chase would say he’d miss me after I left, but let’s be real: He’s not good with emotions. He’s never going to say that.

  Maybe we can move our consolation parties to FaceTime, but it won’t be the same…

  Anyway, tonight, we’re midway through our cocktail of Jason Bourne and Bridget Jones’s Baby when Bridget Jones’s baby starts crying. Only Bridget hasn’t actually given birth yet, so I pause my movie and tug out my earbuds. Katie.

  I look over at Chase, and he’s asleep in his chair. Poor dude. I hate to wake him, not when he’s been getting up with Katie so many nights, so I push myself out of my chair and head up the stairs. I push her door open and kneel beside her bed. I put my hand out to touch her hair in the dark.

  “Mommy.”

  My heart wrings.

  “It’s Liv, baby. It’s Liv.”

  Even though I know I’m not who she wants, s
he shushes. Thank God, because I could feel her sobs in my gut.

  “You okay, Katie girl?”

  “I had a bad dream.”

  “You’re okay now.” I stroke her forehead, and she settles back down. Her hair is wet from tears.

  My own mother died when I was seven. I don’t remember her very well. But one thing I remember vividly is that sometimes, when she left me with a babysitter she would come in late to say good night, and I would rise through the layers of sleep to the comforting feel of her cheek against mine and the scent of her shampoo in my nose.

  I’m not sure if the sharp grief I feel right now is Katie’s or mine.

  “Had a bad dream.”

  “I know, Katie girl. It’s okay, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep. I’ll sit with you a minute.” I brush Katie’s hair back.

  I hesitate a moment, then lie down beside her and rest my cheek against hers. She smells clean and salty-sweet. Not a baby smell, but a healthy-kid smell.

  I wonder if it’s how I smelled to my mother.

  In the first foster home I lived in, the mom used to sit up with me when I woke from nightmares, stroking my hair or my back, telling me I’d be okay.

  She smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon, whereas my real mom had smelled like vanilla. Her hands were big—hefty and reassuring—whereas my own mom’s had tripped lightly. But she was there, and most nights, that was enough.

  The first time I woke my second foster mom in the middle of the night, she told me for Christ’s sake not to be such a baby, it was just a dream.

  I never woke my third foster mom up. By then—age ten—I’d learned to do everything I could to be hassle free. The less trouble you caused, the more likely you’d get to stay. So I got up in the middle of the night to comfort the younger kids who woke with nightmares, not expecting anyone to comfort me.

  Until Zeke, of course. Zeke comforted me when I had nightmares.

  With promises he didn’t keep.

  Katie has turned over onto her stomach and is settling down now, hiccupping occasionally. I rub her back, listening to her breathing. Her body warms as she slips toward sleep.

  She shudders once and the last bit of tension ebbs away. Her breath sighs out in sleep. I stay with her a few minutes longer, then slowly draw back my hand, willing her not to wake.

  I slip out of her room and tiptoe downstairs, where I almost knock Chase over, coming up.

  Chapter 5

  Chase

  “She okay?”

  “She’s fine.” Liv’s voice is soft. Gentle, like I might be breakable. “She had a nightmare, but she’s asleep now.”

  “Thank you.”

  It’s a weird feeling of relief, having someone else take care of Katie, for a few minutes. I know now how Thea felt all along, doing this on her own.

  Which, to be honest, only opens the old wound, the part of me that still asks: How could Thea think so little of me that she’d rather raise Katie by herself than include me in their lives? And not only that, but how could I have wanted so much to be with Thea when she hadn’t wanted to be with me?

  “Chase? Where’d you go?”

  “Sorry—thinking of something.”

  I reverse down the stairs and Liv follows me into the living room. We sit down with our iPads, but neither of us turns them on again right away. I don’t know what’s in her head, but I’m thinking. Not about Thea any more. About how when I woke up to find myself alone in the living room and realized Liv was upstairs with Katie, I totally trusted that she would do right by my girl.

  Since Katie came to live here, Liv’s been amazing with her. Like the way she was earlier, chatting with her about Frozen, bringing her spaghetti. And at dinner, when Katie had that meltdown over her spaghetti not being cut the way Thea did it, Liv just fixed it. No muss, no fuss.

  “You’re really good with her.”

  She shrugs.

  “No, you are. She loves you.”

  Suddenly I realize I’m being a big, huge dope. The answer to my problems is right in front of my nose.

  “Is there any chance—any chance at all—I could talk you into filling in till I find another nanny?” As I’m saying it, I realize it’s a good idea for a lot more reasons than solving my child-care issues. “You’d have a place to stay that wasn’t Eve’s couch. I’d have a built-in babysitter till I can find another nanny. I’d pay you, so you’d have more money to start your new life in Denver.”

  I’m half expecting her to come back at me with all the reasons it wouldn’t work—all the reasons she and I would kill each other living under one roof—but she looks thoughtful.

  “I could use the money.” She brushes her fingers idly over the dark surface of her iPad. “And it would be great not to have to sleep on Eve’s couch.”

  I’m elated. I’ve been wondering since I walked my mother-in-law out to her car earlier how the hell I was going to get through the next few days or maybe even weeks until I could find a replacement, because like I told Jack, it’s not easy hiring a nanny. Liv’s staying here would be the perfect solution.

  “We’d need some ground rules,” Liv muses. She gives me a stern look. “No housework, no laundry, no cooking unless I decide I feel like it.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  She narrows her eyes at me.

  Okay, shoot me, I’m only human. Celia had been doing my laundry, and it would have been nice if Liv kept doing it, but I’m not an idiot, either. I can do my own laundry, and for fuck’s sake, it’s way more important to me that Katie has someone to take care of her than that my laundry gets done.

  “I will do my own laundry,” I say earnestly. “And we can get takeout if you don’t want to cook. And I’ll pay you whatever the last people were paying you.”

  “They had two kids. I charge less for one.”

  “You’re not supposed to negotiate down.”

  “Right,” she says, laughing. “Okay. Terms accepted. Also, I get Saturday nights, Sundays, and Mondays off since the store’s closed.”

  “No problem. Oh, that reminds me: my parents are going to be here Monday night—they’re stopping by on their way back from a Vancouver trip. You don’t have to be here for that. You might not want to be here for that.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe I’ll see if Eve wants to hang out or something.”

  “And—oh. Shit.”

  “What?”

  “You said no Saturday nights, but—”

  “Oh, yeah, right, you have that date Saturday night. Yeah, I’ll watch her then, no problem.”

  But suddenly—and I can’t explain why this is—that feels weird. For all the times we’ve met up after dates we’ve been on with other people, it feels not-right to leave Liv here with Katie while I go out with someone. “Um, no, don’t worry about it—I’ll get someone else.”

  She levels me with a distinctly Liv look, all suspicion and scorn. “Don’t get weird about it.”

  When I don’t immediately respond, she shakes her head. “Chase, what kind of bullshit is this? We have never been weird about each other dating.”

  “I’m not being weird,” I say. The thing is, I can’t quite figure out what my issue is. I mean, it’s not like I’d bring anyone back here with Katie sleeping in the house. But it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that I could go home with someone and not reappear in my own house until, I don’t know, four, five a.m. Walk-of-shame territory.

  And what? So what? Liv’s right. What’s so different about doing that when Celia’s sleeping in the house with Katie versus when Liv is?

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  “If you are going to be weird about this, Chase Crayton, tell me now and we’ll scrap the whole thing, because I will not let you mess up our friendship.”

  Her arms are crossed, her eyebrows drawn together in a glare.

/>   “I’m not going to be weird about it. And you’re the one who’s messing up our friendship by moving to Denver.”

  “We can still be friends if I live in Denver. I’m not going to the moon.”

  I don’t argue with her, although I’m not convinced. Sure, we can post on each other’s Facebook walls or text each other after a bad date with a few funny comments, but it’s not like it’ll be the same.

  Which sucks. Let’s just put it out there. It may be a weird tradition, but it’s our weird tradition. And I never thought of anything changing between Liv and me, even when I knew she was looking for a job. It didn’t occur to me that she’d leave Seattle. Even though I shouldn’t be surprised. She changes her hair, her clothes, her nannying jobs, and even her boyfriends all the time, so why not cities?

  “Okay, so we’re okay with the dating, right?” Liv asks, shrugging. “You go out, you get laid, you come home whenever, no biggie.”

  Something tweaks me about that. “I’m not necessarily going to have sex—”

  “Sorry,” she says quickly. “That was out of line. I know you don’t always. I just meant I know how it is, right? Nothing is going to shock me, and I don’t judge. Just go on your date, and I’ll stay here with Katie.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Your s—dating life.”

  I actually don’t know all that much about Liv’s sex life. I mean, I know—or at least assume—she has one. She’s got more of a typical girl dating pattern, kind of a serial monogamy thing. Though she always breaks up with guys before it gets too serious. She says stuff like:

  He was starting to talk about marriage and kids.

  He wants us to move in together, which would mean I couldn’t take live-in nanny jobs anymore.

  He wanted me to spend weekends at his place.

  He wanted me to leave some of my stuff at his place.

  Huh. I didn’t realize until now that her relationships are getting shorter, her reasons for ending things coming sooner, each guy actually demanding less of her before she bails. I wonder if she’s noticed.

  She sweeps her hair back with one hand and says, “Yeah, there’s this one guy I might go out with, like on Sunday or whatever. But I never bring guys back someplace I work, so you don’t have to worry about that.”