...read it, then looked at her watch: 4:56.
“Oh crap!” Kelly said, just as Steve pushed her office door open.
“Um, you don’t seem very happy to see me,” Steve said, teasing.
“No, not you Steve. I just found out we have a 10:30 deadline tomorrow morning for a new ad execution and the team still needs to review it with me – and I need to pick Chloe up in 20 minutes.”
Her mind raced in problem solving mode – call her Dad, send an Uber, text her to take the subway —
“I’ll pick her up,” Steve said, offering a perfect solution.
Kelly looked up at him, grateful but not wanting to inconvenience him – and in the back of her mind, a little anxious about the circumstances of this first meeting between her daughter and her…
“I can’t ask you to do that, Steve.”
“Of course, you can,” he said. “Where’s her school? Text her that I’ll be picking her up today.”
She felt relief that Chloe would have a safe way to get home; and a sense that Chloe would be comfortable having Steve pick her up – why wouldn’t she? He was a friendly, easy-going guy, a good father with his own kids…it would be okay. She would have preferred a different occasion, one that was planned, and a little bit further in the future, for Chloe to meet Steve, but circumstances were driving this.
“Thanks Steve, I really appreciate it.”
“No problem – that will be $50.”
Kelly laughed. “Will you take a cheque?”
His eyes narrowed comically. “Not without proper identification.”
Kelly laughed some more. She told him the address of Chloe’s school, then texted to her:
sweetie, I have to stay a little later at work tonight my friend Steve from work is coming to pick you up.
A moment later her phone buzzed:
ok
Kelly looked up. “Thanks Steve.”
He turned toward the door.
“I’m happy to do it,” he said, and left her office.
She hit “reply” to the email about the ad and typed:
Ok let’s meet now, in my office
Then she leaned back in her chair and sighed.
Steve pulled up to the curb of Chloe’s high school where girls were standing around in little groups, apparently waiting for their parents to pick them up. He scanned them and saw a gangly girl about Kelly’s height with long dark brown hair. Most of the girls turned around to look when his car arrived and when he saw her face, he recognized Chloe from photos her mother had shown him on her phone.
Steve opened his door and stepped out and called out over the car roof, “Hi Chloe, I’m Steve.”
He felt every pair of 13-year-old eyes on him. Some girls giggled and whispered to each other, and one said, “Good night, Chloe,” in an exaggerated, ironic tone, and Chloe rolled her eyes and waved to her friends and walked toward Steve’s car.
“Hop in,” Steve said, and swung into the driver’s seat.
When she had clicked her seatbelt, Steve pulled away from the curb.
He glanced at her and noted she was very pretty, with many of Kelly’s features, her nice little oriental nose, and almond shaped eyes a little rounder than Kelly’s.
He sensed she was shy and wanted to put her at ease.
“So, how was school today?” he asked.
“Okay,” she said, not in any way taciturn, just clearly not enthusiastic on the subject.
That was pretty lame, he thought. Grown ups always ask children about school. He tried to think what 13-year-old girls were interested in. He strained to think of the latest boy band. Probably not the Backstreet Boys – by now, they’d be more like the Backstreet Middle-Aged Guys.
Then he had an idea.
“Hey, do you want to hear a joke?”
“Sure,” she said, smiling up at him.
“Okay, there were these two guys that wanted to go camping…”
It was a little after 7:30 when Kelly walked into the kitchen and deposited her laptop tote bag on the table where Chloe was seated, doing her homework.
“Hi sweetie,” she said.
“Hi Mommy,” Chloe replied, looking up then back at her homework.
“Did you get something to eat?”
“Sure, I just heated up some leftovers in the microwave.” She looked up at Kelly. “I’m not helpless, you know.”
“I know, sweetie.” Kelly kissed the top of Chloe’s head, then sat in the chair beside her.
Kelly was very curious about Chloe’s ride home with Steve, and what she thought of him, but didn’t want to make it a big deal.
“I guess my friend Steve found your school all right?”
“Yeah, his car kicks ass.”
Kelly wasn’t sure she liked that particular phrasing but let it go.
“All the girls were staring and later I got whole bunch of texts asking me who the dude was with the cool car.”
“Oh,” Kelly said, trying to be nonchalant. “And, um, what did you tell them?’
Chloe’s attention was back on her homework. “That he’s my mom’s new boyfriend,” she said casually.
Kelly felt a slight alarm. She was nowhere near ready to have that conversation with Chloe.
“No, honey, actually he’s just a friend, a work friend.”
Chloe looked at her and rolled her eyes. Then her face lit up.
“Hey, Steve told me a joke. Wanna hear it?”
Seeing her mother wince, she said, “Oh Mommy, it’s not bad.”
“Okay, honey, tell me.” Chloe was practically bursting to tell.
“Okay, so, so there’s these two guys, right? And, and they want to go camping, except one of them’s never camped before, okay? So, they put up their tent, and, and the first guy – the guy who’s camped before – says to the other guy – the guy who’s never camped before – go down to the creek and get some water. So, the second guy says, ‘okay but what if I see a bear?’ So, the first guy says, ‘don’t worry, just do whatever the bear does, and you’ll be okay’.”
She was starting to giggle. Kelly was elated to see her happy and smiled, encouraging her and letting her tell it.
“So, the second guy goes to the creek and comes back with a pail of water. Guess what he says?”
“I don’t know,” Kelly answered, “what did he say?” preparing to act surprised by what she knew the answer would be.
“He says, ‘I saw a bear!’” she practically shrieked.
“Oh no!” said Kelly, encouraging her. “So, what did he do?”
“Wait, I’m gonna tell ya!” Chloe said.
“Okay, tell me,” said Kelly, smiling.
“Okay, so the guy – the first guy, who camped before says, ‘wow, so what happened?’ and the second guy – who got the water – and who saw the bear – says, ‘well, I did what you told me – I did whatever the bear did’. So, the first guy says, ‘well, what did the bear do?’, and the second guy says, ‘well, first, the bear, stood up on his hind legs and went: ‘grrrrr’’. So, the first guy says, ‘okay so what did you do?’, and the second guy says, ‘I stood up and said, ‘grrrr’. Then the first guy says, ‘okay, then what did the bear do.’ The second guy says, ‘the bear went over to a tree and scratched his back’, so the first guy says, ‘so, what did you do?’, and the second guy says, ‘so, I went over to a tree, and scratched my back’. The first guys says, ‘okay, so then what happened?’” and Chloe started to laugh so hard she couldn’t speak.
Kelly, loving this, looked at her daughter’s face, reddening and contorted with laughter, and waited for her to continue.
“Ha ha ha, okay, so the second guy says, ‘the bear went over to a log and, and took a huge crap!’”
Tears were starting to roll down her face, and she laughed and laughed and laughed.
Kelly wrinkled her nose and laughed along with her and watched and waited, letting her get to the punchline when she was ready.
“Okay, so the first guy says, ‘so, did you go over to a log and take a huge crap?’, and the second guy says, ‘no, I already did that when the bear stood up and went ‘grrrr’! ha ha ha ha ha!”
Kelly joined Chloe in an eruption of laughter. They both laughed so hard they cried. Kelly laughed so hard her tummy hurt. It felt so good to laugh, and so, so good to see and hear Chloe laugh.
She could hear Steve telling it, could hear his voice. She could see the delight in his face as Chloe would have laughed out loud, and in the midst of their tearful, glorious laughter, it occurred to her that she was falling in love with Steve. She looked at Chloe, doubled over in laughter, saying “grrrrr” and laughing even harder, and wished he were here with them, to share this wonderful moment that he’d created. How long had it been, since she’d seen Chloe smile, heard her laugh? A sudden sob rose up and rode a wave of her laughter and was washed under. She put her arms around Chloe and kissed the top of her head.
“Boy, you sure know how to tell a joke,” she said, sitting back and holding her daughter’s cheeks – streaming with happy tears.
“I can’t wait to tell the kids at school,” Chloe said. “It’s too bad Jennifer’s too young to understand,” she mused, suddenly thoughtful, thinking of her baby half-sister. “But someday,” she said, brightening, as Kelly felt a sharp stab but offered up a sunny smile.
“That’s right, think of all the stuff you’re going to be able to tell your little sister, sweetie.”
“Yeah,” Chloe answered, looking into the distance, and seeing something good. After a moment, she looked at Kelly.
“Mommy, Steve’s really funny.”
“Yeah, he is kinda.”
“And he’s a total hottie.”
Oh my, thought Kelly, ambivalent in her relief and happiness that Chloe was liking Steve, but not at all sure she was ready to hear her talk about ‘hotties’. Wasn’t it just last month that she complained that boys were gross?
“And, man, is he ever crazy about you.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, honey.”
“No, Mommy, he is. He’s in love with you, duh. I could see it in his face every time he mentioned you. Boys are so easy to read. You look at their faces and it’s like reading a book.”
Kelly wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or alarmed at her daughter’s rapidly developing emotional intelligence. And she admitted to herself that she hoped Chloe had read Steve right…
“I’m glad Steve’s your boyfriend, Mommy. You deserve to be happy.”
Kelly’s eyes stung and partly to evade Chloe seeing tears and mostly because she really wanted to, she leaned over to Chloe and wrapped her arms around her.
After Kelly eased back into her chair, having successfully blinked back tears, Chloe looked in her eyes and said, “Are you happy, Mommy?”
And, Kelly realized that for the first time in as long as she could remember, she was happy - really, truly happy.
“Yes, honey, I’m very happy,” and mother and daughter embraced again.
Hugging Chloe, Kelly cautiously allowed herself to have an image of the three of them – her, Chloe and Steve – together.
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