Chapter 27
Liv
I wake up feeling like I’m sleeping under a dentist’s lead apron. My limbs are so heavy with satisfaction they don’t want to move; my mind is so sluggish under layers of sleep I can barely string thoughts together.
Last night.
I almost purr with pleasure, remembering.
And then…
Shit! Didn’t set alarm!
I open my eyes and it’s almost 9:30. I was supposed to be up at 8:00 with Katie so Chase could go into the store.
I stagger downstairs and find Katie and Chase playing Candy Land on the kitchen table.
“Play with us!” Katie suggests. Or, actually, demands.
“She needs a cup of coffee,” Chase tells her. He gets up from the table, crosses to the counter, and pours me a steaming cup. He hands it to me and I bring it close to my nose, the scent alone swoon-worthy. I suck down a few glorious hot sips and feel infinitely more human.
“Why are you still here? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Thought you might need a little extra sleep,” he says, smirking, eyes warm.
I go hot all over. “But—”
“Brooks can handle the store for a couple of hours. I thought you and Katie and I could go in together and you and Katie could get fitted for some hiking boots.”
Oh. Right. Camping.
“Play Candy Land!” Katie exhorts.
“Let Liv drink her coffee and take her shower. I’ll play with you.”
“But I want her to play,” Katie wails.
I brush her hair back from her face. “I’ll play Chutes and Ladders with you later while Daddy’s at work.”
“How ’bout this,” Chase says. “While Liv’s showering, I’ll tell you about something super fun I have planned for us. A camping trip! With Liv.” Chase shoots me a look. Triumph.
Bastard! He knows he’s sealed my fate. Telling Katie means there’s no way I can back down. I won’t break a five-year-old’s heart, not even to avoid sleeping in bugs and dirt.
Katie’s eyes are huge. “A camping trip? With a tent?”
“With a tent, and a cooking stove, and a special filter for making clean water…”
Even after I grab my mug and head upstairs for my shower, I can still hear his voice behind me, listing the instruments of my torture.
Sandra, a plump woman with curly gray hair who says she’s worked in the store since before Chase took over, measures my foot. I didn’t know people even did that anymore. I thought they just ordered three sizes from Zappos and chose the one that fit best.
Katie sits next to me, swinging her legs because they won’t touch the floor, lining her foot up precisely when the saleswoman asks her to.
Sandra comes back with a stack of shoe boxes. She squats and helps Katie into a pair of cute pink hiking boots, then guides my feet into a pair of boots so brown, ugly, and stiff I’m not sure whether my desire to cry is more about loathing or pain. “Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” Sandra asks.
I look gratefully at her, thankful she’s so sympathetic about the awful boots, then realize her question isn’t about the boots, it’s about Katie, who’s hopping all over the store now, showing her boots to anyone who will look.
“Losing her mama like that,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. Katie is better every day, but I know from personal experience that being motherless never really gets easier. All those times when someone else’s mom brings cupcakes to class. When your friend skins a knee and you watch her mom cry with her over the sting of the alcohol. When you get your period.
Someday, when Katie’s older, I’ll tell her, You survive it, but you don’t get over it.
“It’s a terrible thing, no doubt about it,” Sandra says briskly. “But then there’s this other part of me that’s—well, not glad, that’s not what I mean at all; you don’t ever wish ill of the dead—but at least now Chase’ll get to be a real part of his daughter’s life.”
As if on cue, I hear Katie crowing with joy over her new boots, and Chase chuckling, and I look over at them. My ovaries swell to bursting.
“You gotta give ’em a real try before you know if they’re right for you,” Sandra says, and my eyes fly to hers. She’s looking at my feet.
Oh. The boots.
I obey the command, walking in the miserable boots back and forth. I’m distracted now, from the discomfort and the dislike. I stop in front of Sandra.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Sandra says. “I’m sorry Katie lost her mama. Nothing worse than that. But she has an amazing dad. And maybe a nice stepmama, someday, too?” Her voice rises, teasing.
She’s talking about me. She thinks—
She thinks Chase and I—
And Katie—
What if…?
But there is no room in my life for what-ifs. There never has been, and there certainly isn’t now.
“I’m just Katie’s nanny. And only for another week.”
“Oh!” Sandra blushes furiously. “I thought—I guess because of the shoes and the camping trip and the way you guys look at each other—”
She stammers to a stop, the sentence unfinished.
“How do you like those boots?” Sandra asks, recovering her equilibrium.
Relieved, I hold up a foot, which feels like it’s been encased in concrete. “I hate them,” I admit.
Sandra’s smile widens. I think she’s been messing with me. Maybe it’s a test of some kind.
“Is there anything, I don’t know—”
“Softer? Lighter weight?”
“Less like a ski boot?”
She opens another box and takes out a pair of boots I don’t hate. I mean, I don’t imagine they’ll get a lot of use after the camping trip, but they don’t make me want to curl up and rock, either. They’re black and white, with craggy white soles and a diamond pattern in the nylon. I try them and on walk back and forth across the shoe area a few times, not exactly admiring them, but at least not hating them.
Sandra and I give them our joint stamp of approval, and I head over to find Chase and Katie.
Katie is playing with some of the bright-colored fishing lures. “They’re fairies,” she says.
They do look an awful lot like fairies.
“Where’s your dad?”
“Helping a guy.”
I round a corner to spot him chatting with a wiry dude. I hang back a ways, not wanting to interrupt.
“…best rental out that way is probably Jake’s. And you can stop at the Lutenberg Market for sandwiches and ice. They open at five thirty a.m. on Saturdays. Even have some nice lures if you’re in a pinch.”
The guy is keying stuff into a note on his phone as fast as Chase can talk.
“If you want to bring your rod by beforehand, we can take a look and make sure everything’s shipshape.”
“Gosh, thanks,” the guy says. “It’s been a while, so that would be incredibly helpful.”
“Feel free to text me, too, if you’re out on the water and have questions.” He gives the guy his cell number.
The guy thanks him profusely, they exchange a manly handshake, and the guy strides off.
“Nice boots,” Chase says, nodding down at the box in my hand. “I bet those’ll make you look like you like camping. They’re magic boots.”
I can’t help my snort of laughter.
He takes the box from my hands and I follow him to the cash register, where he rings them up.
I hold out my credit card.
“Nope,” he says.
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m making you go camping. Supplies are on me.”
There’s a certain logic to that, and I don’t fight him. I accept the box back from him. “If I take a look around, think a little bit about marketing stuff, will Katie be okay?”
“Is she playing fairies?”
I nod.
“She’ll be good for hours.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” I ask him. “I think we should stake out Big Win. Pretend to be customers, go in looking to buy stuff. It’s always a good idea, when you’re trying to come up with marketing ideas, to really understand the competition.”
His face brightens. “Okay.”
“We’ve even got a legit excuse. We’re going on a camping trip and we need some help about what kind of backpack would be good for me—”
“I’ve got a rental pack here you can use—”
“No, I know; we’ll be pretending. But legit pretending.”
“How is legit pretending different from real pretending?”
“Legit pretending is when it’s real underneath even though it’s pretend on the surface.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s not a thing.”
“Whatever. You get the gist.”
“I get the gist. When should we go?”
“Whenever you can get away.”
He hesitates, surveys the store, then says, “How about as soon as you finish your research here?”