After a long pull of her green tea, she stretched to set it on a shelf out of Polly’s reach. “First, this is not early. We’ve been up since the crack. Zara is already on her fourth costume change.” She set Polly on the floor and nudged over a few brightly colored toys with her toe. “Second, let’s just be honest that the early hour is so you can avoid seeing Kai.”
“Is he there?” I asked again, feeling my heart stutter at the thought.
“No,” she said without looking. Her complete unwillingness to even play along reminded me of how long she’d been parenting. “So you’ve finished filming, right? Pretty soon I’ll be able to watch the whole thing and not just whatever gets passed along to the media?”
“Right,” I said. The warmth from the cup reached into my fingers, which retained a chill from the damp summer morning. August marched onward and that morning had dipped one tiptoe into cool fall temperatures. “We have some publicity things still on our contracts, but we’re getting close to the debut episode.”
“Ooh,” she said, eyes sparkling. “Sounds like a party. Should I host one here? Can I have the star in our midst?” Her voice was inching up in excitement.
I frowned. “I wish. They’re having a party at Thrill. I have to be there. But after that, we can watch the show every week together.” I winced. “Or not. I’m not looking forward to seeing myself on screen.”
Polly had gotten onto all fours and was rocking back and forth in a kind of burlesque-meets-downward-facing-dog.
“Are you still feeling like you did the right thing?” Manda studied my face.
“What, with the show? Yes. Definitely.” I nodded. “I haven’t decided about a second season, but I know this season has been great exposure, great for branding.”
“Branding.” Manda said the word as a statement, but I knew what she was asking.
“You know, marketing. Making my face a household image, building an audience. That kind of thing.” I stopped, hearing a lot of Vic and Margot in my words and not much Charlie. “Anyway, I’ve worked a long time to get here and it’s nice to see things finally taking off.”
“What about Kai?” Manda tucked her feet under her as she adjusted in her chair. “And no, he’s not home.”
As if I were going to ask that again. “He never called back,” I said, shrugging back into my victim’s stance. “I never even got to explain myself and prove I wasn’t guilty of anything. I’ve decided we were just wrong for each other.”
Manda said nothing, her posture waiting for me to explain.
I sighed. “Manda, Kai is great. He is. But I’m going through a time in my life when I need to focus all my attention on work. And if he can’t handle that, well …”
She nodded slowly. “I see. That was a horrid little speech and totally canned. Try again and this time tell me the truth.”
I opened my mouth, locked and ready for reload, but Zara’s voice interrupted.
“Mooooommmm!” she called, sounding more frantic than before. “Dane is eating a Sharpie!”
“A Sharpie!” Manda scooped up Polly. “Sharpies are permanent! How on earth did he get a Sharpie? If he got it on the walls or the floors …”
Her footsteps on the stairs were receding down the upstairs hall when I heard a cheerful knock at the door.
I leaned toward the window and fell out of one of Manda’s kitchen chairs. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” I was muttering and crawling over to hide behind the couch, but the Henricks had a door with a mammoth glass cutout so Kai could easily see me crouching behind the furniture. I managed a weak smile and tried to look nonchalant as I walked to the door.
“Hey,” I said, trying for breezy. “How’s it going, Kai?”
He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. “Been better. You?”
I shrugged. “Not bad, not bad. How can I help you?” I sounded like the Target cashier.
He ran a hand through his already tousled hair. His eyes were annoyingly bright and beautiful. I found myself wishing he would look at me like he had the day we spent at Forsythia Farms.
Holding out a piece of notebook paper, he gestured for me to take it. “This is the neighborhood sign-up sheet for the block party next month. I came home to grab some things for Howie’s and remembered I was supposed to pass it along to Jack and Manda last night.”
I took the page from him and studied it like I really cared about bringing a side dish, salad, or dessert.
Kai cleared his throat. I looked up from where I was reading the words broccoli and raisin salad over and over.
“Listen,” he said, voice lowered. “Charlie. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back.” I noticed a day’s worth of whiskers cropping up on his jaw and chin and wanted desperately to feel their rough texture on my cheek.
“I understand,” I said, hating that I sounded so clinical. “I can see how you were upset. It has to be hard dating someone who is a part of a publicity machine.” I laughed, but my heart was hammering out a primal rhythm in my chest.
“It was,” he said, looking more relaxed. “Really weird, to tell you the truth.”
I nodded.
He nodded.