Page 42 of The Loves We Lost
On it, comes the reply.
“Have you ever been on a plane?” Avery asks as I smooth out the hump of the boat’s seat.
“I haven’t. You wanna go somewhere?”
“My friend went to Paris. Where is that?”
“It’s in France.”
“Where’s that?”
“Europe. I can show you on a map.”
“Huh,” she says. “Do you like dogs?”
And so it goes for the next hour. We dig. She asks me questions big and small. Do I like lettuce? Avery doesn’t. And what would I do with a million dollars? She’d buy all the dolls in the toy store for herself. Some new eyeshadows for Vi. She’d get a dog for me, which I actually think is for her because she likes them and seems quite precise on breed and name. And Niro would get a new kitchen.
At least my kid is generous. And curious. And funny.
I actually like this little human.
“You’re very patient with her,” a woman says, standing over our sand boat. Big tits are stuffed into tiny red triangles, and yeah, I’d usually have looked twice because of her snatched waist. But I’m suddenly a one-woman man.
“She’s easy to be patient with.”
“Is she yours?”
“I’m my mom’s,” Avery says fiercely.
I want to say yes, to claim my kid. But Avery still doesn’t know. So I let her answer stand.
“Wow, you guys have done such a good job.” Vi’s voice drifts over me, and I see her shadow before I see her.
“Mr. Miles helped me build it,” Avery says. “Look, it has seats.”
Vi nudges past the woman. “Excuse me,” she says, as the woman wobbles and huffs. When I look up, there’s a flicker of a smile on Vi’s face.
I love the fact that Vi’s a tiny bit jealous but not so insecure that she couldn’t reclaim the situation the way she totally did.
“Good sleep, buttercup?” I ask, offering her my hand to help her step into the boat.
Avery pulls a face as if she’s puking.
Viola smiles as she takes it. “I did.”
And just like that, the woman in the red bikini disappears from my mind. She can’t hold a candle to Vi in her vest top and little denim shorts.
“I see what you did there,” I say, grinning at Vi as she sits on the little seat made from sand.
“Me?” she says, putting a hand to her chest with fake outrage. “I did absolutely nothing.”
I tip my chin and continue expanding the sand boat. But inside I’m relieved. The world of old ladies and club girls is vicious. It can be dog-eat-dog. When Gwen first returned to the club to reunite with her twin, King, and then hooked up with Clutch, the club girls were fucking awful to her.
But my girl’s got a little more spirit.
And I have her back.
Because the one thing I want more than anything is for Viola to feel comfortable here. So that I stand a fighting chance of fixing what we broke.
