I’ve never met a woman like that before in my life. Words and images are flashing through my mind, shoving into one another as I walk out of the room and try to get my thoughts in order. The nerve of some people. Red hair. Obstinate. Headstrong. Beyoncé. Dancing. Short.

Sexy.

The word flares up in my imaginary eye, and I have to throw it to the imaginary floor and stomp on it, imaginarily, because that’s not the way to think of a woman like that. She’s not my type, let’s be real. I’ve always loved long-legged, blonde, gamine women who charmingly forget to put a bra on before they leave the house. That’s my speed. Not loud-mouthed, caustic, incredibly sexy dammit not again.

I speed walk into the courtyard, the freaking gong sounding the end of the day. Rubbing my eyes, I focus myself. It’s fine. Suzonne’s going to start picking Amelia up again once she’s back from that stupid yoga retreat. I won’t have to deal with that woman anymore, which suits me fine. Hell, I know it’s got to make her happy.

Though she was checking me out. Obviously. I could feel it. I know these things. I have a sort of radar for those sorts of things. My antenna, as it were, is rising just thinking about—

There are many good places to start getting an erection, but an elementary school is never one of them. My brain shuts down and I cool the fuck off. Good. Collected. Centered. I take a lap around the pine trees at the school’s edge, stop by the vending machine to pick up some kimchi-flavored Chex mix, and wait ten minutes for my little princess to come running out of her classroom, her Adventure Time backpack bouncing on her shoulders and a radiant smile on her face.

“Daddy!” She slams into me, wrapping her arms so tight around my middle that I just about start choking. But hell, there’s no better way to go. Amelia’s at the age where she could be embarrassed about calling me Daddy or giving me a cheerful hug in public, and I’m grateful it hasn’t happened yet. I take her backpack and we walk to the car. People are giving my Lexus dirty, judgmental looks as we get inside. I know, it still uses fossil fuels, which means I am Satan himself. Giving a wave to all the carpooling hybrids on the street, I gun the engine and pull out.

“I had the best. Day. Ever!” Amelia punctuates the last three words by knocking back against her seat, knees up to her chest. She’s dressed in a pair of pink, zebra-striped leggings, with a yellow tee shirt and a purple hoodie with mouse ears. If there’s one thing this kid is, in every sense of the word, it’s loud. She’s already taken control of the radio and is rolling her window up and down with a speed and dexterity that borders on the incredible.

“What was good about it?”

My smile evaporates a little as Amelia gushes, “We got a new drama teacher named Chelle. She’s the best. She let us dance!” Her entire face lights up, and she tugs on my sleeve. “I want to be an actor! They’re going to have tryouts for the play, so I have to be in it. I have to.” Amelia bunches herself up into a little ball, then flings her arms out wide. Well, I can see her being bitten by the acting bug.

“You know, about dancing. I had a talk with Ms. Chelle and the assistant principal.” I stop there, because the annoyance I felt at finger-painting Willow is resurfacing. What’s so wrong with a kid dancing, for god’s sake?

And Chelle agreed with me. She was standing up for Amelia, if doing it in the most combative way possible. To me.

She was doing her best for my kid. Standing up for her.

I can’t think about my two fortuitous run-ins with that woman, though. I need to keep my mind and eyes on the road.

“What about dancing?” Amelia asks, giving me the perfect angel look that means I become putty in her hands. Hell, she doesn’t need to know about what an idiot the assistant principal is.

“Never mind. Ice cream?” I watch Amelia’s excitement level go from normal to stratospheric.

“Mom never lets me have ice cream anymore!” That’s true. It’s all probiotic yogurt squeezes and low-protein goat milk over at the yurt. I’ll admit that when I found out Suzonne had sold our house to live with our daughter in a very nice tent in the canyon, I lost my temper a little bit. But the lawyers tell me it’s very safe, absolutely no bears and minimum sightings of wild cats. I’m not pleased, but until we get this custody issue sorted out, I need to keep my cards close to the chest.

“Well, how about a little Salt and Straw and she never finds out?”

Amelia gives me Angel Eyes™, the required accessory of every ten-year-old girl. “You’re the best, Daddy.”

See that? I’m the best. Ice cream for every meal from now on.

We’re sitting on the street corner in Larchmont, enjoying a double serving of sea salt caramel ice cream, when my phone buzzes on the table. It’s an incoming FaceTime message, and Amelia’s eyes go wide. As for me, my testicles retreat a little bit up into my body. I try to keep that information limited to as few people as possible.

“Hide the ice cream,” I tell her, because Suzonne is messaging me. I accept the FaceTime, and she’s there. Right there. Looking as beautiful as the day I met her, and as utterly pissed as the day she left. “Hey, Suze. What’s up?”

She says nothing. At first I think this is a call to let me take a hard look at what I let slip away, but then she holds up a dry erase board.

CAN’T TALK. SILENT YOGA.

Oh. Right. I let Amelia polish off my own ice cream while Suzonne erases the words and writes again, her brow furrowed with concentration. On the bright side, this is the quietest she’s ever screamed before. Finally, she holds up the board with a new message.

VMAIL FROM SCHOOL. AMELIA IN TROUBLE??

“It’s not bad,” I tell her, mentally kicking myself for not coming down sooner and keeping Suzonne out of this. Then again, the school probably called her first. Since she’s the primary caregiver, it makes sense. Still, a friendly little aneurysm is building up in my brain, just waiting for the moment it can finally pop and end this. “Everyone laughed about it. Me, the teacher, the assistant principal… Well, she didn’t laugh, but she did finger-paint. We enjoyed that.”

There we go, writing again. I wait about three minutes, and in the intervening time I toss my ice cream cup and wipe Amelia’s face with a napkin. I swear to god, her food ends up everywhere. Finally, Suzonne finishes, and it’s a long message, so the words are much smaller.

Why can’t I go out of town for three days without a problem? My guru says that this entire divorce has thrown me out of alignment, and I can’t put up with this amount of negativity. They say it’ll cause brain cancer. I’ve been on a cleanse since Monday, and I’m already low on blood sugar. This did not help! Why can’t you think about my needs once in a while? Why don’t you try spending some quality time with our daughter so she doesn’t end up doing something crazy like taking drugs or dating an engineering major when she’s older??

“Is Mom mad at me?” Amelia asks, her voice uncharacteristically quiet, her eyes on the table. Okay. You can take it out on me all you want in this life, but you mess with my kid and the Hulk breaks out. And I don’t have those expanding underpants Hulk does, so it’s going to get really awkward exceptionally fast around here.

“No way,” I tell her, then turn my attention back to Suzonne. “Suze. The school is fine. The teacher is fine. The class is fine. Amelia is fine. Go back to your garbanzo bean treatment, and we’ll see you in a couple of days. All right?”

I’m still being pleasant, but Suzonne knows me well enough to understand not to push any harder. She mimes a sigh, and nods. The tension deflates. Then, quickly:

ARE YOU EATING? WHAT KIND OF FOOD?

Oh, dammit.

“Soy yogurt,” I tell her. It’s not a lie. Except for the fact that it’s a lie. She looks mollified, and signs off of the call. I look at Amelia, who’s now scuffing the toe of her sneaker across the sidewalk. She’s drooping.

“I didn’t mean to screw up,” she says softly.

“You didn’t. Ms. Chelle thinks the world of you,” I tell her. Just like that, her energy powers back up to 100%. The kid runs on sugar and good thoughts. I defy you to find me a more perfect human. “She even told me you have a lot of energy and stage presence.”

“Really?” Now Amelia’s flying high, and starts typing away at her iPhone. “I need to put that on my calendar of good vibrations.”

“They make you keep that at school?” What am I saying? Of course they do. “You want to audition for that school play, huh? Nervous at all?” Amelia’s never done anything like that.

She scrunches up her face and giggles. “Nope. I’m going to get in, and then I’m going to get an agent, and then I’m going to get into movies or TV. I’ve got it all planned out,” she says, serious as a heart attack. Where’d she hear about agents? “Nichole’s dad’s an agent. Maybe he’ll be at my play!”

“Slow down, lightning. You still need to get cast.” I ruffle her hair. Then, more softly, I say, “This is why I’m proud of you. I never had such big plans for myself when I was your age.”

“Okay. First get the play, then talk to Nichole’s dad. That’s on the planner.” She hits send on the email, and sits back in her chair, swinging her legs and feeling pretty damn pleased with herself. I point at her ice cream.

“I don’t like to see quitters. Finish that up, then we have some work to do. Like picking which movie we want to go see.”

Look, I’m not going to be one of those Willy Wonka dads, I swear. But you’d never believe how happy a kid can sound. As she thinks about how much butter she wants on her popcorn, I realize Amelia’s only this happy because of Chelle. The woman really did her a solid on the very first day.

Must be good at what she does.

That’s a pretty sexy quality, come to think of it.