“Can he sleep in my bed tonight?” Sasha asked.
“How about on the floor next to your bed?” Josh said. After leaving Carl’s, he’d taken the dog to be groomed, and while Norton was being attended to he’d purchased all the necessary supplies, including a large dog bed with plenty of cushioning and support. He had reservations about bringing an older dog into the mix but only because he knew it would be hard on Sasha when they lost him. But Carl’s daughter had been distraught over the news of her father’s death and she’d been so relieved when he’d offered to find a home for the dog.
Might as well be mine, he thought.
chapter 7
Layla
“So, Annie and I were talking the other day and we were thinking it might be time for you to dip your toes in the dating pool,” Tonya said as they stood outside on an overcast morning. “Maybe try an app.”
Thankfully, Annie had not yet arrived. Layla didn’t have the energy to deal with an ambush, and the morning drop-off was still a complete clusterfuck. How could so many grown adults not understand the simple process of dropping off their children?
“I’m not interested in a dating app,” Layla said. “Plus, I’ve heard everyone lies.”
“Nobody really says what they mean at first.”
Nobody really says what they mean during ten years of marriage, either, Layla thought.
“You’re free to browse,” Tonya said. “See what’s out there.”
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
Layla noted the arrival of Josh and Sasha. Either he had little patience for the drop-off line or Sasha continued to need extra encouragement, because Josh was still walking Sasha in. Layla was quickly becoming a touchstone of sorts for Sasha, and the little girl almost always stopped to say hi. That morning, Sasha barreled toward her shouting, “Miss Layla! Miss Layla! Guess what?”
Layla had no idea what Sasha might say. Teachers were often on the receiving end of some very personal information that parents would be mortified to learn came out of their offspring’s mouth in a school setting. A little boy had recently told Tonya all about the farting contest he’d had with his dad that resulted in one of them shitting themselves. “And it wasn’t the little boy,” Tonya said.
“What is it, Sasha? It must be pretty big news because I’ve never seen you so excited before.”
“We got a dog! It sleeps on my bed.”
“That’s hugely exciting news,” Layla said.
Sasha beamed. “His name is Norton and he’s big and fluffy. He eats a lot and his poops are really big,” Sasha said, wrinkling her nose.
Layla stifled a smile. “Well, that is to be expected, I guess.”
Josh looked at them and shrugged. “She’s not wrong.”
“I’ll draw you a picture of him,” Sasha promised as Josh began nudging her closer to the building’s entrance.
“I would love that,” Layla said. “Have a good day.”
“Okay, I will,” she said. Layla watched them walk away. Josh always smiled at Layla, and it made her happy. She would never admit to Tonya and Annie how much she enjoyed the daily interaction with Sasha and her dad. They’d lose their goddamn minds.
Annie joined them at the curb. “What are we talking about?”
Tonya answered her. “Online dating.”
“Oh, good. You told her. So, there are different apps depending on what you’re looking for.”
“I never said I was looking,” Layla said, but Annie wasn’t going to let something like Layla’s disinterest deter her.
“There’s one for hookups and another one that only allows women to send the first message so you wouldn’t have to worry about a bunch of dick pics in your inbox.”
“You’re making it sound so appealing,” Layla said.
“I just said no dick pics. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that such a concern exists in the first place.”
“This is what dating looks like now,” Annie said.
“How do you even know this?” Layla asked. “You’re married.”
“I like to keep my husband on his toes.”
“This is the most depressing conversation I’ve had all week,” Layla said.
“It’s only Tuesday,” Tonya said.
“Exactly.”
The truth was that Layla didn’t know if she had the energy to do it all again, especially now that the rules had apparently changed. It exhausted her to think about the various stages of dating. There was the meeting stage followed by the getting-to-know-you stage. Then there was the I-like-you stage, and the falling-in-love stage. Then there was the I-can’t-live-without-you and let’s-spend-the-rest-of-our-lives-together stage.
At that point, no one was thinking about the other stages. The ones that got progressively hurtful and shouty and ended in the office of an attorney.
* * *
Layla considered herself a mood performer, and that night at Connie’s she was feeling a combination of kick-ass and sultry. The band had opened the set with a screaming rendition of Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly,” with Layla on lead vocals. Onstage, she was a lot less sugar and a hell of a lot more spice, and she moved across the small space like a lioness stalking its prey. She sang about being kissed once and then twice, and more than one guy in the audience wondered what that might be like. They followed the opening song with “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette, and by then Layla was completely in her element.
They kicked it down a notch with Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” and Sarah McLachlan’s “Building a Mystery.” Layla had loved so much of the music that had come out of the last three decades, especially the releases by female artists that felt like they’d been tailor-made for someone like her.
On “Picture” by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, their bass player, Rick, a tall guy with longish hair, stared into Layla’s eyes as they sang. The two of them shared a microphone, and a casual observer might have wondered if there was something between them, but she and Rick simply sounded good together and they sang the hell out of that song.
Layla strummed a few opening notes and announced that this would be their last song of the night. “This is a new original tune. We hope you like it.”
She sat down on a stool, center stage. Kevin, their drummer, had been writing a lot of original material, and they’d slowly been adding it to their sets. Cover bands brought people into bars and they’d never be able to stop playing crowd favorites. But they hoped their fans would begin to recognize the new stuff and start asking for those songs as well.