Page 86 of Seven Year Itch
“I want to take mine home now!” a little girl cries from besideDakota’s leg, and her lower lip sticks out into a large pout before she erupts into tears.
Dakota looks around, clearly trying to find the child’s mother who is nowhere in sight. “Anyone know where this one’s mom is?”
“Bathroom!” another woman calls back.
Amused, I cross my arms and prop myself on the doorway to enjoy the show. The girl continues to cry, and Dakota grows more and more frazzled as she deposits the T-shirt onto a rack holding other wadded-up, dyed shirts and pulls her gloves off. She walks over to the little girl and sits down on the floor where she’s throwing her fit.
“There, there,” she says, awkwardly patting the little girl on the head. “You’ll still get your T-shirt, but it needs to dry first.”
“But I want it,” the girl says, crying harder.
“I want a time machine, but I’m afraid that’s just not how the cookie crumbles.”
The little girl shoots Dakota a confused look before resuming crying, so Dakota tries another tactic. “Do you have a dog, Tay?”
She nods and wipes her running nose on her shirt.
“What color is your dog?”
“White.”
“If you take your T-shirt home today, then your pretty white dog might get dye on his nice fur. You’d have a rainbow puppy, then. That’s not good!”
The girl immediately stops crying, and Dakota looks relieved.
When the bathroom mom appears beside them, the girl jumps up onto her feet and smiles. “Mommy! We can make Rizzo a rainbow puppy!”
“What?” Dakota’s eyes are wide as she stands up and shoots the mom an apologetic look. “That’s not what I said.”
“Rainbow dog! Rainbow dog! Rainbow dog!” the girl chants.
“I want a rainbow dog!” a little boy says from the other side of the room.
“Me too!” Two other kids join in.
All the kids begin whining to their mothers about wanting to bring home their shirts to make rainbow dogs. You can feel that the mothers are on the verge of their own meltdowns. Dakota presses the back of her hand to her forehead and murmurs a curse to herself as she turns around and spots me in the doorway.
Her arms drop, and she shoots me a glower as my shoulders shake with silent laughter. She walks over and drops her head down low. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long enough,” I reply with a laugh. “I would have come earlier if I knew you were putting on a show. This is performance art!”
“The rainbow dog thing totally backfired on me,” Dakota murmurs and crosses her arms.
“What makes you say that?” We both look out at the mothers consoling their crying children. I gently nudge her with my elbow. “You ready to get out of here?”
“God yes.”
I can’t decide what’s more entertaining: watching Dakota Schaefer do a horrible job at consoling crying children, or watching Dakota Schaefer peruse a sex toy store.
It really is a toss-up. She’s not good at either of them, apparently. With the kids, there’s a lot of wincing and heavy breathing and some audible gasps.
Apparently she’s the same way at the sex shop the moment she presses a button on a display item and jumps when it starts vibrating in her hand.
“Find anything interesting?” I whisper in her ear and delight over how she shivers at my proximity.
“You know... Cozy threw me a bachelorette party, and I got a few sex toy items, but they just collected dust for years until I threw them away.”
“That’s sad.”
