Page 14 of Skin Deep

I cringed. Ihatedsports, but especially baseball. It was hot, boring, and took forever. Why go? To watch people I didn’t know run around in circles and hit balls? No thanks. “I can’t,” I lied. “I have plans.”

“Ah. Well. That’s too bad.” He sounded genuinely disappointed. “Warrick, listen…”

“Sorry. I have to go. Traffic.” I hung up before he could say whatever it was he was about to say. His attempts at connecting with me were decades too late. I’d made it thirty-six years without a father; I sure as hell didn’t need one now.

“Daddy,haveyouseenmy purse?”

I shifted my youngest daughter, Charlie, on my hip with a sigh. I swear, Scarlet would lose her head if it wasn’t attached. Were all nine-year-olds such disorganized messes or just mine? Didn’t matter to me. I wouldn’t have traded even the worst day with my two girls for anything, and hopefully this day would be a good one.

“Check under your bed!” I shouted down the hall. “But hurry. We got to go if we’re going to make it in time!”

Charlie started to fuss and twist, trying to wiggle free. Damn, she was getting big. And heavy. What was Mrs. T feeding her while I was at work? Luckily, the foreman had given me the day off so I could get Charlie to her appointment. We’d been waiting months for a spot to open up at Best Face Forward for her cleft lip repair. I couldn’t afford to get it fixed otherwise since the government insurance kept kicking it back as a cosmetic procedure.

“Lettie!” I called to my oldest daughter, again shifting Charlie on my hip. “Come on, girl!”

“Coming!” She came running down the hall, her shoestrings flying every which way.

“Drawbridge!” I threw out my hand, stopping her in her tracks. “Punkin, what’d I tell you about them shoelaces? You’re going to fall and break your cute little button nose.”

She let out a frustrated sigh and bent down to jam her shoelaces in behind the tongue of her shoe instead of tying them.

I gave her the look, the one all parents seem to magically develop when it comes to scolding their children without words.

“I forgot, okay?” she mumbled.

“All right, Punkin.” I put Charlie down and she immediately toddled off to grab her stuffed dog. While she was distracted, I bent down on one knee and tapped my chest. “I’ll show you one more time.”

She let out an exasperated sound and swung her foot up to rest where I’d tapped.

“Pay attention now. Over, under, around and through. Here’s Mrs. Bunny and pull and ta-da! One tied shoe. Now you do the other while I get Charlie.”

I stood, sliding Charlie’s diaper bag up onto my shoulder, and then I retrieved her from the pile of toys she was making. When I came back, Scarlet had something that almost looked like a knot. Good enough for me.

I hustled the kids down the stairs and through the parking lot, nodding to the group of young guys with their matching red bandanas lounging near the broken light pole.

“Hey, P-dog,” one of them called and gave a salute. I didn’t know his real name, but he went by Flex. He was all right for a gangbanger.

I waved back. “Take it easy, Flex.”

I got the girls in the truck, securing Charlie in her car seat while Lettie sat in the middle with the gear shift between her legs. Sometimes, when we weren’t in any hurry and traffic was light, I let her move the stick shift for me while I worked the clutch. I figured it couldn’t hurt to teach her a thing or two about driving stick no matter how young she was.

Other than that, her job was to man the music, which inevitably meant we’d be listening to Doja Cat all the way. Wasn’t my thing, but it was Lettie’s latest obsession. We had to be careful with some of the lyrics, though. I wasn’t ready for my girl to be singing about dicks and drugs yet.

I did my best not to seem nervous, but I was definitely anxious about this appointment. Charlie’s cleft lip wasn’t as bad as mine had been when I was a baby, but it should’ve been repaired already. It would’ve been if I could afford it, or if her mamma was still around. The last year had been hard for all of us.

I cast a glance up at where Maya’s photo sat clipped to the dash, and the loss of her squeezed my heart all over again. The night before was the first night I’d felt anything even remotely sexual with anybody since she passed, and I still felt a little guilty about it. Maya had been gone fifteen months. Maybe it was time to put myself back out there, find someone new, but I wasn’t sure I was ready. No one could ever take her place, especially when it came to the girls.

But I needed that, missed that connection with someone, even if it was only with a beautiful stranger. It was too bad he hadn’t given me his last name. I might have looked him up.

I was still thinking about Warrick when we got to the clinic and parked, but I shook him out of my head, hustling the girls in through the front doors. The waiting room was packed full of people of all ages with clipboards in their laps. Some of them had obvious scars or deformities, but I’d made sure Lettie understood not to stare before we left, so she kept her eyes fixed forward. We approached the check-in window where a pair of secretaries manning the busy phones hastily slid us a clipboard.

“Sorry,” I said, “but they didn’t give us an appointment time. Just said to come in between noon and five today. Do you know how long it’ll be?”

“Monday consults are on a first-come, first-served basis,” the woman recited as if she said it a hundred times a day. “You’re number fifteen of fifteen today.”

I sighed and looked around. There was only one empty seat, which I gave to Lettie. She plopped down, getting out the old smart phone I’d bought second hand for her to play on. Charlie found some worn wooden blocks to play with while I filled out what felt like an entire novel’s worth of paperwork. The forms asked me for all kinds of information that didn’t even apply, and some things I didn’t know, but I did my best.

Slowly, people started to be called back. When a chair emptied, I sat. We waited.

---