Nick

She must’ve had a burglary, and recently: that’s the only thing that can explain the complete lack of, well, much of anything in the kitchen, plus the brand new locks. The place looks pretty grim in the light of day. It’s neat and clean, but apart from the sky-blue spiders painted all over the walls—must’ve been the kid—there are no homey touches, no signs anyone lives here. In the cupboards, I find one pot, one pan, one mixing bowl, and...whew! One sad plastic spatula.

The Iron Chef kitchen it’s not, but I can work with this. Which is good, because I’ve decided the best way to make a good first impression on the kid is to be the guy feeding him pancakes.

After last night, I definitely want to make a good impression. I’m still feeling kind of sheepish after my meltdown at the opera, but what came after... It did feel good to get everything out in the open, to slide some of the burden off my shoulders. And later, in bed.... I can’t help but smile. This time, I know it was good for her, too. I think we’ve got something here, something promising.

I shake flour and baking powder into the mixing bowl, and a little sugar and salt. Been a while since I made these from scratch: Katie likes that Aunt Jemima pancake-and-waffle crap, which is total sacrilege, but what can you do?

Awkwardly, it’s the kid who wakes up first. He wanders into the kitchen in his Superman footie pajamas just as my bacon’s starting to sizzle. I’m fully prepared for him to scream bloody murder and get me in trouble, but he just rises on his tiptoes, trying to see into the pan. He’ll probably be tall enough to get a peek pretty soon...but not today.

He tugs on my pant leg. “Whatcha making?”

“Bacon pancakes.” I flip the bacon, holding up my free hand to keep any spatters off him.

“Can I have some?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I never had bacon pancakes.” He lifts up his arms. “Put me on the counter?”

“Your mom lets you sit on the counter?”

He nods.

“Really? She does?”

“No....” Sneaky little guy! He pulls at my pant leg again. “Are you my new babysitter?”

“If I am, would you say I’m doing a good job?”

Joey takes his time and thinks about that, standing back to take me in fully. “Well... You’re tall. And I like pancakes. But I don’t know yet if you’re fun or boring.”

Fair enough. “Okay—so what’s fun to you?”

“Going to the park or the beach. Feeding birds. Finding shells.”

“And what’s boring?”

“Watching TV on your phone.”

“Yeah. That is pretty boring.” I start crumbling the bacon into the pancake batter. Joe starts jumping up and down, trying to get a better look. I envy him. I never have that kind of energy this early in the morning.

Lina makes her appearance just as the first pancakes are fluffing up in the pan. She’s in a fuzzy pink dressing gown that someone seems to have gone to town on with a tube of yellow puffy paint. Must’ve been the kid. He seems to have a thing for adding his own personal touch around the place.

Joey jumps into her arms the second he spots her. “Mom! The new babysitter’s making bacon pancakes!”

She musses up his hair. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. I like this one so far.”

“Yeah, so do I.” She winks at me over his head. “You wash your hands yet?”

“I was just gonna.”

“All right—so go on then.” Lina gives him a little push. He bounces off in the direction of the bathroom.

“He thought I was the babysitter. Wasn’t sure what to tell him, so I kind of...went with it.” I ladle out more pancake batter.

“He’ll be disappointed when Maria shows up.” Lina retrieves a folding TV table from on top of the fridge. Hadn’t noticed that there. “She’s good with him, and all, but she’s in high school. Spends most of her time doing homework, or on her phone.”

“He might’ve mentioned something about that.” An idea occurs to me. “Hey, when do you work today?”

“Not till six. Why?”

“I don’t have anything pressing to do, and Katie’s got a half day at school. Thought we could pick her up at lunch, take the kids to the Museum of Natural History? Checking out the dinosaurs might soften the blow of me not being the babysitter.”

“Joey does love a good dinosaur. Yeah—yeah, let’s do that.” Lina digs out some plastic kiddie cutlery and a sippy cup, and sets them up on the TV table. “Sorry—there’s only enough table for Joey. We’ll have to balance our plates on our knees.”

I shrug. “No table, no problem. Did I mention I love camping?”

“I wanna go camping.” Joey’s back, holding up his freshly-washed hands for inspection. “See? All clean.”

“Good job, honey.” Lina kisses him on top of his head. “Go ahead and sit down—you want syrup or jam?”

“Syrup!” He starts toward the table, but screeches to a halt moments later. “I mean, syrup please.”

“You got it.”

I’m impressed: Lina’s got a happy, healthy kid. Polite too. Whatever her place looks like, whatever her life looks like, she’s doing something right. Joey’s positively bubbling with energy and good spirits, and there’s no mistaking the affection between them.

When we’re all crowded around the tiny table, passing the syrup back and forth, Lina nudges Joey. “Hey, you remember that picnic we had the other night?”

Joey nods, mouth full of pancakes.

“Nick here’s the one who gave us the basket.”

His little face lights up. He chews, swallows, and jumps up to give me a sticky hug. “I liked the mouse brains,” he says.

“Mouse...brains?”

Lina laughs. “He means the smoked oysters.”

Of course. “They do kind of look like mouse brains, don’t they?” I make a mouse face, pulling out my ears and baring my front teeth. Joey giggles, especially when I start squeaking at him.

“Oh, God, don’t encourage him!”

“Mouse brains!”

“Ugh! Boys!”

Lina somehow manages to get breakfast back under control, but every time I catch Joey’s eye, it sets him off snickering again. Looks like I could be a bad influence.

Joey winds up quite spectacularly glazed with syrup and pancake crumbs, so Lina whisks him off for a bath while I tackle the cleanup. I text Katie, as well: can’t have her taking off with her friends and ruining my plan. She texts back right away, which tells me she’s got her phone on in class—what’d I tell her about that?

wat? y the museum? cant we go shopping? and whos ur friend?

Sigh. because, katie, shopping is not a leisure activity. it is something you do when you need supplies. and the museum is educational. also, why are you texting in class?

because im not.

Eyeroll emoji, eyeroll emoji, and...yep. Another eyeroll emoji.

im in home ec which is not a real class.

plus u didnt answer, whos ur friend? did u get a girlfriend????????

Did I? Maybe... I hope so. Still. Time to put on my stern dad hat: katie, can you get an F in home ec?

wat? i guess? if ur rly dumb?

then it is a real class. pay attention in home ec. and you’ll meet my friend this afternoon. :-)

I get a sticking-out-tongue emoji for that—and, a moment later, a line of thumbs-ups.

Guess we’re on for the museum.