“Good idea.” I bat my lashes up at him, flirting, feeling those butterflies stir for him once again and wondering if I still had the power to do the same, but Hailey’s tongue licks between us like a viper.
I head out front to the cool autumn air just as a little girl about Reagan’s age, perhaps a little older, comes skipping toward me—cute and smart looking with a refined sharpness to her affect you normally don’t see in children. She’s dressed in an old-fashioned pinafore, something Reagan, even at six, wouldn’t be caught dead in. Her dark hair is knotted in a bushy little pom. Her eyes are deep-set with a natural sparkle, and that gleam suggests she has a secret. The curve of a mischievous smile starts to take form once she sees me.
“You’re new here!” Her mouth opens wide with a measured sense of surprise.
“Why yes, we are.” I glance past her looking for a sign of a mother, a father, a grandparent maybe. But then this isn’t L.A. People aren’t as paranoid about these things, especially not in this beautiful neck of the woods. I can’t say I’m too sorry we traded all of the glitz and glamour of traffic and human overcrowding for a paradise where children can roam without the guidance of a helicopter parent. Imagine that. Free range children. It would be perfectly illegal in L.A. Chaos versus solitude. The decision was practically made for us.
“I thought I saw a little girl here.” Her tiny nose rises to the sky as she peruses the vicinity. “Is she yours? Can I play with her? It’s so lonely on this street.”
“I sure do have a little girl.” A thrill runs through me at the 1950s feel of it all. Reagan will have a friend about her age, and suddenly a little more color comes into this sepia world. “She’s out in the back. I’ll go get her.”
Her brows peak as she cranes her neck past me. “Oh, I’ll head on over. I don’t mind.”
“How about letting your mom know where you’ll be, and come right back? I’m sure someone is going to worry an awful lot about you.” I couldn’t help it. You can take the girl out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the girl. They’d have missing posters up in an hour back home.
Her little lips pull into a line as her gaze narrows in on me, twin pools of ebony, and I hold my breath until I spot the whites of her eyes just beyond that. For a second there, I thought she wasn’t human. Driving thirteen hours straight and living off gas station carbohydrates will do that to a person, make them loopy and turn everyone into a cheap B-movie alien.
“She knows exactly where I’m at.” Her lips twitch like maybe she doesn’t. “She’s the one who sent me to say hello. We live just down the street.”
“That’s fantastic. My name is Allison. What’s your name?”
Her lips cinch as if considering this. “My name is Otaktay, but everyone calls me Ota. Nice to meet you.” She bubbles with laughter as she skips over to the side yard and disappears.
“Cute,” I say as James comes out choking a bottle of beer in his hand.
“Who was that?”
“Neighbor girl. It looks like Reagan has a brand-new friend.” I steal the cold drink from him and take a quick swig. “Strange name, though. Almost sounded like—pig Latin.”
James gives my ribs a quick pinch. “If this were L.A., it would’ve been.”
We share a laugh, and the sun breaks free from the clouds a moment before veiling itself in the murky thicket once again.
If it were L.A., a lot of things would be different.
My gaze snags to the grass in front of me, its whiskers dehydrated in the shape of two Mary Jane slippers, and a shiver runs through me at the sight.
I’m betting a pot sat there too long with the previous owner, but something about the sight unnerves me.
* * *
Ota comes by almost every day after school, so after two weeks of being helplessly rude to her mother, I bake a batch of cookies in hopes to walk down and have a proper introduction.
No sooner do I pull them out of the oven than a brisk knock erupts at the door.
“It’s for me!” Reagan sings, her dark ponytail whipping behind her like a leash. Back home there were penciled in play dates, overscheduled activities—sports all year round. But here in Concordia, life unspools at a much slower pace. James and I haven’t even looked into extracurricular activities yet. I told James that Reagan is the new kid, and I want to make that transition as easy as possible, to which he replied everyone in first grade is the new kid. Point taken, not to mention the fact there’s not a six-year-old on the planet who needs a scheduling calendar to keep track of their social events. They need a breather, and perhaps a nice friend like Ota.
“Well, hello, young lady.” I open the door to the bushy-haired delight. She’s donned her bright yellow sundress for the occasion. Each day it’s a game between Reagan and me to see what color dress Ota will show up in. Apparently, her mother doesn’t believe in jeans, but that’s part of the charm of Concordia in general. In L.A., if you had ovaries, you lived in black yoga pants right down to the six-year-olds, but here, Ota wears a dress every livelong day.
“Yellow!” Reagan does a little bunny hop because she guessed right. “You look pretty in yellow. Come on. Let’s go. I’ll race you to the swings!”
James insisted we uproot Reagan’s swing set and drag it across several state lines with us. At first I thought it was silly. Eventually, we could have bought her a new one, but James didn’t listen to me, and for once I’m glad about it.
“Actually”—I step between them before they take off—“I baked some cookies for your family. I’d love to go over and give them to your mom.” I thump my finger over the top of Ota’s little nose, and a tingle travels up my arm with a static current. “Ouch.” I’m quick to laugh it off. “How about we take a walk down the street? I’m dying to meet her.”
Ota’s lips pull into a flat line. Her jaw redefines itself as if what I’ve suggested angered her on a cellular level.
A breath hitches in my throat. I don’t think I’ve technically ever pissed a child off. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice erupts an octave too deep, and the hair on the back of my neck prickles. She clears her throat. “My mother can’t have company right now. She has a cold, but I’ll gladly take the cookies.” Her eyes plead with me to understand as she bats those heavy lashes my way. Ota holds a strange beauty, dark and mysterious with the eyes of a very old soul.
“That’s fine.” My own lids flutter because I had told myself I wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You’re more than welcome to take them.”
Reagan picks up her hand and I listen as the girls squeal their way through the house and into the park-like yard.
Why do I get the feeling there’s something she doesn’t want us to know about her mother? If this were L.A., it would have been an easy leap to surmise that she was a user, in rehab maybe, or an absentee, but Ota is impeccably clean, those pinafores—a fifties throwback if ever there was one, are always pressed to perfection. Somebody cares deeply about this child, so I let it go. But there’s a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that says I shouldn’t.
* * *