Page 28 of One More Baby for the Boss

CHAPTER 13

ALEX

Jack came running out of his classroom and into the hall, a piece of paper held up in front of his face. “Dad! Alex!” he said, holding it up to them. “Look what I made!”

Elijah took the paper from him and examined it. “This is a great painting, Jack,” he said.

The truth was that it was a little messy. It was difficult to be sure what the painting was meant to depict. Alex stepped in. “Why don’t you tell us about it while we walk to the car?”

Jack grabbed her hand and swung it back and forth as they made their way out of the school building. “We’re going to study families,” he said. “That’s what my teacher said. And she told us to draw a picture of everyone who lives in our house. Then we had to get up and talk about them. Some kids live with their grandparents! But my grandparents live in Oregon, not at our house. So I didn’t draw them.”

“That makes sense to me,” Alex agreed. “Who did you draw? You and your dad?”

“And you!” Jack reached around the picture and stabbed a finger at one of the figures. “That one’s you. Because you live at our house too.”

“What did your teacher say when you told her about that?” Alex asked. She felt a little embarrassed by being included in the picture, but she was also a little flattered. It meant a lot to her that Jack had considered her important enough to include her in what was basically a family portrait — though she did wonder what Elijah might think. Perhaps he would have preferred to have a painting from his son that didn’t include the hired help. She glanced at him. There was no sign of irritation on his face, but she couldn’t be sure what he was feeling.

“My teacher said it’s nice that I have so many people who care about me and that it must make me really happy,” Jack said. “And I told her it does! Can we get ice cream? Dylan’s parents are taking him for ice cream because of it being the first day of school.”

“Who’s Dylan?” Elijah asked.

“Dylan’s my best friend,” Jack said. “We decided today. We both love dragons and we’re the two fastest runners in our class, and he also lives on a horse ranch.”

“That’s fun,” Alex said. “Maybe we can invite Dylan over to play sometime. If it’s okay with your dad, that is.”

“Fine by me,” Elijah said. “And sure, we can go out for ice cream. I don’t need to get back home right away.”

He took them down a road that was unfamiliar to Alex, who hadn’t spent much time inside the town limits since losing her job at the diner. The ice cream parlor turned out to an old-fashioned one. Hope’s Creek wasn’t generally a very moderntown — most of the buildings looked as if they had been around for decades — but the ice cream shop was straight out of the nineteen-fifties, with a black-and-white checkered floor, bolted-down stools lined up at the counter, and even a vintage jukebox in the corner.

“Can I put on a song?” Jack asked his father.

Elijah fished a quarter out of his pocket and handed it to Jack, and Jack ran over to the jukebox. A moment later, a sixties beach rock song filled the air.

“Leftover quarters from the petting zoo?” Alex asked.

Elijah nodded. “I took out more than I needed. We’re going to be buying gum balls everywhere we go for the rest of the month.”

“Or we could blow them on that jukebox,” she said with a grin. “You could let me put on a song next.”

Elijah laughed and handed her a quarter. “Be my guest.”

Alex went over to the jukebox. Jack was still flipping through the songbook even though his quarter was spent, and Alex remembered what it had been like to be his age and to want to play with every piece of technology that was put in front of her. “Want to help me find a song?” she asked, holding up her quarter. “You can push the buttons and I’ll stop you when I see the one I want.”

Jack nodded. “Can I hit the number for it too?”

“Sure you can. But go slow, so I can read the options.”

She spotted the song she wanted almost at once, but she allowed Jack to page back and forth through the songbook a couple of times before stopping him. “That’s the one,” she said. “B-19.”

He entered the number carefully. “It doesn’t play right away,” he informed her. “It’ll go when mine is finished.”

Alex nodded. “Thank you for telling me. And we should get back to your dad, otherwise, he won’t wait for us to order ice cream, he’ll just get us whateverhethinks we want.”

“Oh!” Jack said. “He’ll get it wrong. I was going to try stapashio.”

“Pistachio?”

“Yes. That’s Dylan’s favorite. I only usually get chocolate or rainbow, but Dylan says it’s good.”

---