Page 114 of Connectio
“White for me.”
She goes about pouring the drinks as the men follow Bryce into another room, and Carly and I take a seat on the sofa behind Charlotte—Alexis’s seven-year-old daughter—who’s sitting in front of a giant TV on the plushest rug I’ve ever seen.
“What ya watchin’, squirt?” Carly asks.
Both Charlotte and I answer, “The Little Mermaid.”
Her twinkling blue eyes land on mine. “You like The Little Mermaid?”
I slide off the sofa and onto the floor next to her. “I do! It’s my favourite movie ever.”
She smiles and hands me her Ariel doll. “Here, you can play with this one. You have the same hair.”
I take it from her and hold it next to my face.
She giggles. “I’ll play with Ursula.”
Charlotte pulls a yuck face, and I copy.
“What’s wrong with Ursula?” Carly asks. “She looks like a baaad bitch.”
“Aunty Carls, you just swore.”
Carly raises her hands. “Sorry.”
“For that”—Charlotte tosses Ursula to Carly—“you can play with her.”
Carls tosses it back. “I don’t play with dolls.”
“You sure ‘bout that?” Alexis drawls.
Carly glares at her friend of thirty-plus years. Alexis just winks.
Chuckling at the both of them, I leave them to their devices and focus back on the movie. “Ooh, ooh!” I nudge Charlotte. “I love this bit!”
“Me too!” She picks up a fork that’s lying among her toys.
“A dinglehopper!” we both say at the same time Scuttle—the eccentric seagull—says it in the movie.
Charlotte threads the fork into her hair and starts combing it. I laugh, and she hands it to me before running off and returning moments later with another fork.
“Now you have a dinglehopper, and I have one.”
“Why thank you, Charlotte.”
“My friends call me Charli. You’re my friend now, so you can call me Charli too.”
“My friends call me Libby.”
She hugs me. “I like you, Libby.”
“Naww, I like you too, Charli.”
We sit there, enthralled, combing our hair with dinglehoppers until Ariel—and Charlotte—start singing “Part of Your World.”
“This is one of my favourite songs,” she says, eyes alight.
“Mine too!”
