Page 12 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
I roll down the window. “Hey, Greg, what’s going on?” I ask.
That is when I realized Gregory is wearing a uniform that he filled out to perfection. He still has the physique that had made him an outstanding athlete. His mask gives him an air of mystery and turns his normal good looks into super badass mystique. Maybe he would remember me?
“Sorry, Kate.” His voice is as kind and gentle as ever, asort of Sidney Poitier baritone. Clearly, he does remember me. “But the management asked me to do a sweep of the parking lot. Your phone was flagged as spending too much time on the store’s customer access.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling myself flush even redder with embarrassment. “Just let me log out . . .” I reach over, save my work, log out of the university system, then out of the store’s customer Internet access. “I’m sorry. I ran out of time on my mobile network card. And I’ve got classwork I need to do.”
“Hey, I get it. I’m taking some classes online myself, and you aren’t the only one out here tonight. It’s lagging the store system,” Gregory says sympathetically, his left hand, with the wedding ring glinting on his finger, resting against the open bottom of my window.
“I got some more bad news,” he goes on. “We got a parking lot curfew now, and we’re getting ready to close. I gotta ask you to leave.”
I can feel tears starting to form behind my eyelids. I was so close to being finished. And to be caught piggy-backing on the store’s network — by Greg, of all people!
I look away and take a deep breath. Did the entire world hate me? Then I collect myself and turn back. “It’s all right, Greg. Thanks for telling me.”
He steps back, a charming, gentle knight in rent-a-cop blue. If the earth could only swallow me…of all the ways to get someone’s attention. At least I didn’t say anything stupid.
I start my car, guide it out of the parking lot, and head back home.
When I trudge into the house, book bag on one shoulder, laptop bag on the other, James is on the landline, using an old rotary phone that was connected to our party line.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I get it. Way more than a sensitive kid needs to hear, but not something you can email or hand over to the secretary.”
He pauses, listening. “I could ask her again, or I could let you talk to her.”
Before I can say no or put my bags down, James thrusts the handset up to my ear. I slide my bookbag off my shoulder and take the call.
“Hello?” I say.
Charles Emory’s cultured voice comes over the phone. “Kate, I need your help.”
“I really don’t think . . .” I start to say.
“No, please. Hear me out. Cece is here, in my office. I need to make confidential calls to people, and some of the content might not be suitable for her to overhear.”
“What kind of content?” I ask.
“Um. . .” He pauses. Then I hear him say, “Cece, sweety, can you go get Daddy a glass of water from the kitchen sink? Is your steppy stool tall enough? You can use one of your plastic cups.”
“Ok, Daddy,” the little girl’s voice pipes clearly through the phone.
There is a minute or two of silence. I can imagine Cece dashing away to the kitchen, climbing on a stool that is probably too short, and struggling to get a plastic cup of water. Maybe she will forget that part and use a glass, maybe break it… I shut down my imaginary scenario. I love Cece, just as I had all the kids at the daycare. But I am not going to do this.
“Look,” he says, “I’ve got people calling in all over. Some of them are sick, some of them are just worried. I need to be able to speak candidly with them about death and dying, and I don’t think Cece needs to . . . hear Daddy having heffalumps and woozles over the telephone.”
I can hear Cece’s giggle, and I can just imagine her face. All the same . . .
I open my mouth to say no, when Mrs. Higgins, our nosy-parker neighbor, the one who is always glad to tell on me andJames, pipes up and says, “Well I never! I don’t know who you are, mister, but if you can’t manage to talk business in front of your own kid, then you shouldn’t be in that kind of business. And here you are, asking my sweet, little ol’ neighbor girl to . . .”
Then it all comes crashing down on me. Finals week without reliable Internet, no money except what I could beg from James, no job prospects. And now this nosy old biddy thought she could dictate who I should work for? Something explodes inside me.
“I’ll do it,” I say. “And Mrs. Higgins, you get off this line right now! This is not any of your business.”
“Well, I never!” Mrs. Higgins exclaims. “Just wait until your mother hears about this, young lady! And don’t you come crying to me if you get raped and killed!” There is an emphatic click on the line, followed by a moment of silence.
“Are you still there?” Charles Emory asks.
“I’m here,” I say. “And I don’t mind waiting until we are not on a party line to discuss terms.”
