by Noelle Adams
“But you’re basically doing his job now?”
“Yeah.”
From what she remembered, his father had never done anything but work. “Are there enough hours in the day?”
He gave a dry huff. “Not even close.”
No wonder he looked so tired and stressed. He’d played around for most of his twenties. She assumed he’d taken his earlier job with the company seriously, but he’d not had anywhere near as much work and pressure as he must have now.
She racked her mind for some way to express understanding and support, but before she could think of anything to say, Baron pulled out his smartphone.
The thing never seemed to stop vibrating.
He glanced at the display and gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he murmured, before he stood up and took a few steps away to take the call.
Leila could hear his side of the conversation, but it was mostly just a series of “yes,” “no,” “fine,” and “Be sure you do.” He hung up after less than a minute.
When he sat down, he stared toward the girls again, but this time he didn’t seem to really see them.
Leila’s throat clenched in concern. “Is everything all right?”
He met her eyes. “Fine.”
She wished he wouldn’t lie to her, but things were too new between them to reproach him for it. “Are you sure?” she asked, leaning forward to put a hand on his arm. It was as intimate as she felt comfortable doing. “You look... you look like something might be wrong.”
“There’s something, but it’s too complicated to get into.” He stared down at her hand on his dark sleeve. “But thanks.”
She squeezed his arm, pleased that he’d at least told her the truth. “Okay.” She wasn’t going to push, as much as she might want to. Baron was a private man, and they weren’t really that close, although they’d known each other as kids.
They sat in silence for several minutes, but it wasn’t awkward so it didn’t bother Leila. They were both just wrapped up in their own thoughts.
Then, out of the blue, Baron asked, “How’s Dave?”
She blinked and oriented herself to the question. “He’s fine. He had his third son a few months ago. Had you heard?”
“No. We lost touch over the years. Are you still close to him?”
“I think so. We talk about once a week, and we visit a couple times a year.”
Baron lowered his eyes and let out a long breath. “That’s nice. That you’re still close.”
She suddenly understood something of what must have prompted his mood. “Yeah. I guess so.” She was dying to ask about his brother, dying to pry more information out of his reluctant lips, but she bit her tongue and didn’t pursue the subject.
She’d never liked Steven James, but she liked him even less now—since something connected to him was really bothering Baron.
“Mr. Baron! Mr. Baron!”
The girls had come running over, panting, grinning, and with rosy cheeks. Leila wasn't sure when the more proper "Mr. James" had transitioned into "Mr. Baron", but at some point it had.
He arched his eyebrows. “I’m being hassled again, am I?” His voice wasn’t warm and didn’t even have a teasing tone—but somehow the girls understood it.
They giggled as if he’d made a hilarious joke. “Can we have some money for ice cream?” Jane asked, putting her hands behind her back and giving her most beseeching of expressions. “Please!”
Baron glanced over at Leila, who gave a resigned laugh. “Yes, you can have ice cream.” She reached down for her purse. “I’ll give you some—”
“I’ve got it,” Baron interrupted, pulling out his billfold before she could object. He singled out a five dollar bill for each girl.
The girls thanked him profusely and started back for the snack bar.
“I expect some change,” he called out after them, sending the girls into more peals of laughter.
Smiling, Leila met his eyes. Then she couldn’t seem to look away. There was something warm, intimate, incredibly real in his gaze. For a moment, she felt trapped by it, surrounded by it. Instinctively she leaned forward, feeling the overwhelming urge to touch him, embrace him, kiss him.
“You have the most beautiful daughters,” a voice said, breaking the warm trance they’d fallen into.
Both Baron and Leila blinked and stared up at an elderly woman, who was beaming down on them maternally.
“The girls,” the woman said, seeing they were confused. “They’re lovely. I’ve been watching them. You both must be so proud of them.”
Leila swallowed, realizing the woman had innocently assumed that Baron was Charlotte and Jane’s father.
Baron stared at the woman blankly, and Leila was suddenly afraid he would feel uncomfortable and withdraw.
“Thanks,” she said quickly. “They’re great kids.”
Pleased with this affirmation of her opinion, the woman wandered away.
Leila felt ridiculously nervous, and she gave Baron a sheepish smile. “Didn’t know you’d adopted a couple of girls today, did you?”
After a long moment, to her relief, Baron chuckled and shook off his disorientation. “Let’s see if they bring me any ice cream. Then we’ll talk.”
When the girls came back, they each had two cones in their hands, and it took Leila the whole time she was eating her ice cream to get rid of her flutters.
The damned things just wouldn't go away.
***
Leila took a stack of dishes off the kitchen counter and hastily lined them up in the dishwasher. “You know where the animal crackers are?” she asked, glancing back at her father, who was leaning against the opposite counter. “If the girls want a snack later on, they can have some of those or some of the strawberries in the refrigerator.”
“We’re fine,” he said. “I’ve watched them before, you know.”
“I know.” She grabbed a paper towel to dry her damp hands and then wiped the counter with it. “I’m just saying.”
“You don’t have to clean the kitchen. Go get ready. I’ve got things covered here, and the girls are having fun with the boxes.”
Leila looked hurriedly around the kitchen. It wasn’t really clean, but at least it wasn’t embarrassing. Since Baron would be arriving in five minutes and she was still wearing the tank top, leggings, and belted sweater she’d thrown on after her shower earlier, she really needed to finish getting dressed.
Fortunately, she’d already done her hair and makeup, so all she had to do was put on her clothes, jewelry, and shoes.
“Mommy!” Charlotte called from the living room. “Come look.”
She felt rushed and chaotic—not the way she’d prefer to feel before a date with Baron James to an internationally renowned opera performance this evening.
It was their first date. He’d asked her after their trip to the museum. Leila felt familiar flutters of excitement, but they were mostly drowned now by anxiety, confusion, and fear.
This could be the beginning of something good, something she never could have imagined.
Or it could lead to the biggest mess of her very messy life.
Tightening the belt on her sweater, she followed her daughter’s voice into the living room. There, she saw that the twins had used the old boxes their grandfather had brought with him to build a wobbly fort around the sofa.
“Wow,” Leila said. “That’s a great fort!”
“It’s a castle,” Jane corrected, frowning over one of the boxes at her mother. “Mommy, did Robin Hood live in a castle? Or did the Persians?”
Leila hid a smile. “Robin Hood sometimes lived in a castle, when he wasn’t hiding out in the woods. I don’t think the Persians lived in castles like that.”
“Okay.” Jane disappeared behind the box. As Leila watched, a couple of the boxes wavered precariously as Jane and Charlotte had a little tiff over who would be Robin Hood and who the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham.
“I thought you were getting ready,” her
father said, strolling out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee.
“I am!” Leila glanced at the clock and chewed her lip when she saw it was already six-thirty. She bit back a bad word and took a step toward her bedroom, only to freeze when she heard a knock on the door.
She bit back another bad word.
Flinging open the front door, she greeted Baron, who stood on her welcome mat looking gorgeous and cosmopolitan in a tux and shiny shoes.
Before he could finish his blink at seeing her in what was clearly an inappropriate outfit for the opera, she said, “I know. I’m running late. Sorry. I’ll be ready in less than ten minutes.”
He chuckled as he came into the house. “No problem.”
The girls peeked out behind their boxes with squeals of greeting for “Mr. Baron.”
“What is this? The barricade from Les Miserables?” Baron looked with professional interest at their unstable structure.
“No,” Charlotte replied impatiently. “It’s a castle. But our tower keeps falling down!”
“Ah,” Baron murmured, as if enlightened. “I see the problem. You need a better foundation.”
Intrigued, Leila watched as Baron went over to help the girls restructure the boxes of their fort, but she’d only watched for thirty seconds when her dad met her eyes.
He nodded significantly toward her bedroom and mouthed the word, “Go.”
Leila went.
In her bedroom, she rechecked her hair. It still looked pretty good, after the twenty minutes she’d spent trying to coil it up into an elegant French twist. Her makeup was flattering and understated, and she smelled of the ginger-scented lotion she’d applied after her shower.
In just a few minutes, she’d put on her only evening gown—a charcoal gray 1930s inspired silk with a deep v-neck that made her cleavage look amazing, narrow double straps, and a slinky, bias-cut skirt. She’d also put on a pair of sexy, thigh-high stockings, strappy heels, and simple pearl jewelry.
Touching up her lipstick, she decided she looked as pretty and elegant as it was possible for her to look. So, putting a hand on her twisting stomach, she returned to the living room.
As she approached, she heard Jane’s earnest voice. “Mr. Baron, did you bring us anything tonight?”
“Why would I bring something? Is it your birthday?”
“No!” Charlotte said, “Our birthday is ages away! We thought you might bring us a present.”
“Am I supposed to carry around presents in my pockets then?”
Leila laughed at his dry tone. How the girls managed to realize he was teasing them, she didn’t know. He sounded as bland and matter-of-fact as if he were conducting a business meeting.
She stopped in the hallway bathroom to once more check her appearance. When she finally entered the living room, she found the girls gushing over strings of beads—Jane’s pale purple and Charlotte’s pale pink.
“Look-it what Mr. Baron brought us!” Charlotte declared, running over to Leila with her beads. “Oooh! You look beautiful, Mommy!”
“Thanks, sweetie. What do you have there?”
Charlotte handed Leila her beads for inspection. Leila grabbed her glasses from a side table. She wasn’t going to wear them tonight, since she thought she looked sexier without them, but she wanted to see the string of beads more closely.
What had looked from a distance like the kind of girly beads one might pick up from a discount store was soon revealed to be something else. The beads were of very good quality—not precious stones of any kind but finely crafted with a kind of swirl in their depths that made them mesmerizing. “They’re beautiful,” Leila said, reaching out for the lavender beads that Jane was waiting to offer her for a parallel inspection. “Did you thank Mr. James for them?”
Jane nodded. “Yes, we did, and he said we were demanding little va-grants who had to be ‘peased with jewelry.”
“Appeased,” Baron corrected. His face was sober but amusement glinted in his eyes.
While the girls admired each other’s beads, Leila went over to him and murmured, “They’re too much. You didn’t have to get them anything.”
Baron gave a dismissive shrug. “They’re just trinkets. I passed them in a storefront today and thought the girls might like them.”
Leila studied his face carefully, but she couldn’t read anything in the dark eyes or steady gaze.
“Y’all should head out,” her dad said from the sofa, where he’d been half-watching a ball game. “Or you won’t have time for dinner before the show starts.”
Leila had to snort over her father’s calling the single U.S. performance of the renowned Italian opera company’s newest opera “the show.”
“We should get going,” Baron agreed, glancing at his watch, “if you’re ready.”
“I am.” Leila picked up the small, sparkly clutch she’d prepared for tonight. “You have everything you need, Dad?”
“Yes, we’re fine.” Her father shook his head and stretched his legs out in front of him on the couch. “Have a good time.”
“Girls, you be good,” she said, bringing her daughters’ attention away from the beads they’d just put around their necks.
“Mr. Baron,” Charlotte said, running up to tug on his jacket. “Can you help us with the castle some more? We’re going to be princesses now with our pretty necklaces.”
“Mr. James and I have to leave, sweetie,” Leila said, starting to get a sinking feeling when she saw a particular look in Charlotte’s eyes. “He can’t help you anymore with the castle right now.”
Charlotte’s chin stuck out ominously, while Jane twined her hands behind her back with ladylike precision. “It won’t take long, Mommy. Please, Mr. Baron. We need a better tower.”
Baron’s eyes moved from Charlotte’s pouting face to Jane’s beseeching one and then over to Leila. She gave a discreet shake of her head.
He said lightly, “You’ve got a fine start on your tower. If you finish it up, your grandpa can take a picture of it with his phone and send it to us.”
“That’s a great idea,” Leila said, in as enthusiastic a voice as she could muster. The dread in her stomach had intensified, and her head buzzed with anxiety. “Why don’t you do that? Then we can look at the picture of your tower after we eat supper and call to tell you how good it is.”
Jane appeared as though she might be swayed to accept this plan, but Charlotte’s lip wobbled. “I don’t wanna. Why do you and Mr. Baron have to leave?”
Leila prayed with everything in her being—to whomever might be out there to hear her—that her little girl wouldn’t throw a huge tantrum as she was trying to get out the door on her first date since her divorce. “We talked about this—remember, Charlotte? Mr. James and I are going to see the opera, and you and Jane are going to stay here and watch Aladdin with Grandpa.”
Jane, looking terribly worried at her sister’s declining mood, told Baron with commendable gravity, “The Genie is silly. And blue.”
Before Baron could respond to this insight, Charlotte’s precarious control snapped. “No!” she cried in an extended wail. “Stay here with me! And... and... and Jane!”
After that, Leila could only follow details of the scene in a hassled blur. Charlotte refused to hear reason and refused to be comforted.
Leila’s voice soon took on a shrill note as she tried to handle the outburst with a semblance of control. She usually dealt with parenting issues better than this, but she couldn’t think of a thing to do at the moment.
“Just head out,” her father said, heaving himself up off the couch to make himself available to help, although things had spun out of control so quickly that there was little he could do at this point. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I can’t leave them with you like this,” Leila said, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. She felt trapped by Baron’s presence, half-scared he would respond to this badly and half-anxious he would be judging her parenting techniques, which she wasn't comfortable h
aving observed. Under normal circumstances, she would just go to another room and let Charlotte wail until she got tired or else tell her to stop and take away something fun if she refused.
Leila was on the edge of telling Charlotte she couldn’t watch the movie if she didn't quiet down, but that would ruin the whole evening for Jane and her father—both of whom had been looking forward to it.
Her nerves were even more frayed because the stoic expression on Baron’s face was growing more and more strained.
He wouldn’t be used to six-year-olds throwing tantrums.
“Should we just stay?” he finally asked Leila, turning away from the girls so they couldn’t hear him. A sheen of perspiration had broken out above his lip. Leila wasn’t surprised, since she was overly hot and hassled too.
Despite everything, she was a little touched by Baron's offer.
Leila shook her head—sure of that at least. She never thought she had perfect parenting skills, but one thing she’d managed to do was not reward bad behavior in the girls. “No, we can’t.”
Clearing her throat, she decided she had to do something other than watch in helpless dismay.
“Charlotte, you have to stop now.” Leila was pleased that her voice sounded basically calm and somewhat authoritative. “We don’t act this way when people have been nice to us. There’s no dessert for you tomorrow, and if you don’t start behaving right now, there won’t be any movie tonight.”
This warning finally had some effect. Charlotte quieted down, although she mumbled about how no one had been nice to her.
“Yes, people have been nice to you. Mr. James brought you those beautiful beads, and Grandpa came over special to watch the movie with you.”
“We can wear our necklaces and be pretty like Jasmine,” Jane offered. She’d been upset by her sister’s outburst and clearly wanted her happy again.
“Okay.” Charlotte didn’t look happy, but at least she’d stopped the tantrum. “If I’m good, can I still have dessert tomorrow?”
Leila shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. You already lost your dessert.”
Before the girl could respond, Baron added, “I can come over sometime next week and help you build a much better castle—with a moat, a drawbridge, and two watchtowers.”
