Page 1 of Promise Me Sunshine

Part One

After

Chapter One

This baby will not stop judging me.

The B train brakes and we all slide two inches to the side. Perched atop their mother’s lap, the straps of a bright red sunhat pinned under chubby cheeks, somber, unblinking eyes, the baby studies me, trying to decide if I have a soul.

I stick my tongue out and make my ears dance.

No reaction.

I pull my cheeks out to the sides and do rabbit teeth.

Not even a blink.

Finally, as the train is pulling into my stop, in a last-minute bid to be judged human, I use my ponytail as a mustache.

And there. Finally. I get one radiant, two-toothed smile.

Thank goodness. I guess there is a soul in this scraped-out husk of mine after all. I wave goodbye and bound up, off the train, and head west. It’s dog-breath hot out here and I can’t believe I’ve mustered up the energy for this.

But the thing about losing the person you love the most on earth is—somehow—you still have to do mundane things like tie your shoes and make enough money to continue to exist in this punishing world. So, I plod on. Toward yet another short-term nannying gig. Just to keep the Froot Loops on the table. Even though I’d really rather crawl into that trash can over there and emerge in about a decade.

Oh, look. I’m here. It’s a gigantic brick apartmentbuilding. The lobby is populated by a group of people who look so happy I wouldn’t be surprised if their lives suddenly turned into a musical. They mob the doorman with luggage, so I go up on tiptoes and shout to him where I’m headed.

“Ah. They’re expecting you,” he calls to me in an Eastern European accent. “Eighteenth floor.”

By the time the elevator dings, I’m in a better mood. One of my former babysitting families recommended me to Reese so that I can help out with her kid while she’s out of town this weekend. Besides, here in the worst six months of my life, the only thing that’s brought me even a hint of happiness has been hanging out with the kids I babysit. I’m between jobs right now, so this new family is likely going to be the only spot of light in my life for a bit.

I ring the doorbell and ten seconds later, perfection personified answers the door. She’s got blond hair in a high ponytail and is decked out in head-to-toe Lululemon.

“Hi, I’m Reese.” She holds out her hand and smiles so toothily that I find myself grinning back.

“Lenny. Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you for agreeing on such short notice. My friend Harper usually helps out for stuff like this, but she’s busy during the days this weekend. She’s the one who will be staying overnight with Ainsley. Anyways, come in, please. Did you get my email?”

“I did,” I assure her. It was literally six and a half pages single-spaced and filled with so much loving detail on how to care for her daughter that it teared me up. I come inside and kick off my shoes, straightening them when I realize that all the other shoes are in perfect pairs. We’re in a roomy front hallway, painted a trendy mauve and lined with gigantic black-and-white photographs.

“So, Ainsley is back in the—” The doorbell rings againright after Reese closes the door, and she frowns. She pulls the door back open and her shoulders cinch about two inches upward when she sees who it is. “What’s up, Miles?”

There’s a man standing in the crack of the door that Reese has just opened, and I get the feeling he might have wedged his foot in there so she can’t close it.

He’s not good-looking, really. Low-grade sexy. He’s wearing a used-to-be-black hoodie stretched over two big shoulders and faded blue jeans. Viciously short dark hair and the kind of stubble you can’t ever shave away. Judging by that promising scowl, he’s the type who’d really enjoy partaking in a public bathroom tryst with a near stranger. I can already see it now. He and I will have a tumultuous two-year fuckfest, defined by me perpetually being sent to voicemail. He’ll stand me up on Thanksgiving, thereby dumping me. But then he’ll realize horrifically, cataclysmically, that he’s been in love with me this whole time. He’ll come crawling back to me on all four appendages. I’ll make him wait outside my door for a year before I let him back in. Eventually there’ll be a ring with a black diamond so dark I can see his soul inside it. We’ll get married on Halloween and his wedding present to me will be a sex toy. It sounds ecstatically fun.

It’s probably apropos to mention that I instantaneously spin elaborate fantasies about almost every man I ever meet. Not to say that this guy isn’t special; I have just fallen in love, after all.

He looks over Reese’s shoulder and spots me, his gaze narrowing and his eyes taking me in from socks to eyebrows. I don’t think I’ve passed the test because he leans forward and thus commences an aggressive (and nearly silent) whisper fight between the two of them and it’s getting a little icy in here.

I occupy myself with the black-and-white prints forsomething to do. That’s when I realize that what I’m looking at are actually gigantic photographs of someone very famous.

“Sorry about that,” Reese chirps at my elbow, and I jolt. I hadn’t heard her approach. She’s got a plastic smile superglued to her face and when I look back, the man is still standing in the now fully open door, glowering in our general direction.

“No problem,” I say, and then jog one thumb toward the portraits. “Big Willie Nelson fan?”

“Hm? Oh! Ha. Willie’s great. But that’s my dad there next to him. They toured together for a while.”

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