HP flinched just a little.
“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce,” I said. “Imagine if the odds were the same with skydiving. Would you really jump?”
“Ha,” he responded, and squirmed in his seat. The bartender—a man in his early thirties with a Merlot-colored apron tied around the waist of his jeans—arrived at the side of our table.
“Is this a coffee thing, or . . . ?”
“I’ll have a glass of the house red. It’s that kind of weather,” I said.
The bartender nodded.
“I’ll take a whiskey. Single shot, single malt, on ice.”
HP waited a second or two. “So . . . are you dating?”
“A little bit.” I wasn’t.
“Guys from around Cove?”
“Maybe.” I played with the delicate silver charm at my neck.
“Okay, well, look, I just wanted to meet up with you before—” The barman arrived with our drinks. HP waited until he’d gone again. “Before the baby’s born.”
“It must be any day.” My wine lilted thick and bloodred as I lifted the curve of the glass into my palm. “I saw Saskia about a month ago and she looked ready to pop.”
“Yeah, she’s almost ready. We’re gearing up here.”
“I feel like everyone’s getting busier and busier.”
HP eyed me as I spoke, rocking his glass from side to side so that the ice cubes bumped. “Totally. Mortgages and taxes. Who saw that coming? The last time I checked, we were hanging out at the Tarzan swing and our only worry was avoiding a sunburn.”
“Where’s Ezra?” I asked. “He’s vanished.” Which wasn’t true—I’d seen him at the grocery store several times. He didn’t like Saskia and told me every time I saw him. Said she was a drill sergeant cleverly disguised. She’s changed him, LJ. She’s ironed him straight.
“Ezra hasn’t vanished,” HP said. “You have.”
“Oh.” I sipped more wine. “Have I?”
“I never see you.”
“How hard are you trying?” Be nice, Angela. Be nice or he’ll leave. “I haven’t vanished, HP. At least not from you.”
He rolled the base of his glass around his coaster in an orbit. “We worry about you, you know. Don’t disappear on me, okay?”
“Listen,” I began, pausing to wonder whether I was brave enough for this sentence, “it’s not easy. I get that you’re married and all that, but for me . . .” I took a deep breath. “. . . for me it’s complicated. I’ve got leftovers.”
HP frowned.
“Feelings that don’t fit anywhere anymore.”
“Oh, I see.” He looked down at his glass.
“Don’t you?”
“Umm,” he floundered. He didn’t say no.
“That’s not to say I don’t want to be in your life,” I clarified.
“No, good.” HP scratched his head. “Because that’s what I’d really like. It would be nice if I could count on you. And Saskia thinks it’s important, too.”
Bullshit.
“We can be friends, can’t we?” He reached his hand across the table. I took it. His skin was as warm and smooth as I remembered but his fingers had thickened, probably from all the carpentry and housework. Still, I didn’t want to let go.
“Somebody’s got to tell my kid how cool I was in high school. Ezra will never admit it.” His eyes were soft and glassy. It was my touch. I was sure of it.
“We can be friends,” I said, still holding his hand, pushing my electricity through it. “That’s how it all began, right?”
“Right.” He pulled away, sat back, relieved, and then checked his watch. For a moment I imagined myself ripping it from his wrist and throwing it across the room.
“I’ve got to say, I don’t think I can tell your kid you were cool in high school. You know me.” I looked down at my wine. “I never was a very good liar.”
Novak probably thinks I’m a masochist, but that’s simply not true. Things changed when Olive was born. No, I didn’t visit HP and Saskia in the hospital, but I did take flowers over to their house once they were home with the baby. Carnations.
HP had been working on a fixer-upper down by the lake—a ramshackle old place with a wraparound porch. He’d already rebuilt the entire bottom floor. It smelled of sawdust and fresh paint. Olive slept the whole time I was there. She was painfully beautiful, her little fists clenched as she took milky, fast breaths. Blond, velveteen hair swept circular in a helix from the crown of her head.
“You want to hold her?” HP wore his old track T-shirt from high school, and his face was puffy with sleeplessness. It was two weeks since we’d sat in the bar together.
“Let’s leave her,” Saskia urged. She was already back in her skinny jeans. She craned in past my shoulder to peep into the crib and I could smell her—her faint, frangipani-petal sweetness. The three of us stood together, a line of faces, a little team of awe. I stepped back and away.
“It’s really nice of you to come over,” HP said. “You look well.”
“Appearances are deceptive.”
“You’re not well?”
“No, no. Just kidding. I’m fine.”
“Well, you should come visit us more, Little John.”
“You can’t call her Little John anymore. She’s Angela,” Saskia said. “Angela, it’s such a pretty name.”
“It’s true,” HP said. He put his hand on my shoulder but he was looking at his wife. “Listen, Saskia and I have been thinking, and we’d like to ask if you’d be Olive’s godmother.”
I tried not to look horrified.
“Uh, gosh,” I said. Godmother?
“Is that a yes?” Saskia was beaming at me.
“Of course!” Laughter, smiles and hugs, smiles and hugs.
I wondered why they welcomed me into their life with this invitation, but when I told Mom about it, she was uncharacteristically positive.
“You should take that opportunity and run with it, darling,” she said, sorting her clothes on the bed into piles of keep and giveaway. The giveaway pile was huge. “As much as we don’t like the show, we might as well get you a leading role in it.”
So as it turned out, I got over myself and accepted the chance to be a part of the Parkers’ lives. I started to spend more and more time at HP and Saskia’s house, and began to actually feel useful.
“I told you we needed your help,” HP said one day while I was holding Olive. “Your mom’s pleased, too. It’s a win–win.”
I wasn’t sure what my mother had contributed to the situation, but having Olive around me all the time was like a joint I didn’t know I had, clicking smoothly into socket. It was a physical improvement: being near the baby as she cooed and discovered her toes meant that any blocked frustrations in me started to turn fluid and change color. A few months into being her godmother, what poured out of me into Olive was pure connection, a gentle force. I was almost a third parent.