"I'll try anything except the raw fish/' I said.
"You'll like it the way they fix it."
"Okay." I figured if millions of people ate sushi and lived to tell about it. I might as well give it a try. "When do you want to pick me up?"
"Eight o'clock."
I wondered if I could find a babysitter who'd be willing to stay until midnight. I had no idea what a babysitter would charge. I wondered how Carrington would react to being left alone with a stranger. I wondered how I was going to react to it. Carrington. at some stranger's mercy...
"Great," I said. "I'll see if I can get a sitter, and if there's any problem, I'll call you b—"
"A sitter," he interrupted sharply. "A sitter for what?"
"For my little sister."
"Oh. She's spending the night with you?"
I hesitated. "Yes."
I hadn't discussed my personal life with anyone at Salon One. No one, not even Angie. was aware that I was the permanent guardian of a four-year-old. And although I knew I should have revealed it to Mike right away, the truth was I wanted to go out on a date. I'd been living like a nun for what seemed like forever. And Angie had warned me that her brother didn't want to date anyone with baggage, he wanted a fresh start.
"Define 'baggage,'" I had said to her.
"Have you ever lived with anyone, been engaged or married?"
"No."
"Do you have any incurable diseases?"
"No."
"Ever gone to rehab or signed up for a twelve-step program?"
"No."
"Ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor?"
"No."
"Psychiatric medication?"
"No."
"Dysfunctional family?"
"I don't have a family, really. I'm sort of an orphan. Except I—"
Before I could explain about Carrington, Angie had interrupted with a gushing, "My God, you're perfect1. Mike's going to love you."
Technically I hadn't lied. But withholdine information is often the same as a lie. and
most people would say Carrington was definitely baggage. In my opinion, they would have been dead wrong. Carrington wasn't baggage, and she didn't deserve to be lumped in with incurable diseases and felonies. Besides, if I wasn't going to hold it against Mike that he'd had a divorce, he shouldn't hold it against me that I was raising my little sister.
The first part of the date went well. Mike was a handsome man with a full head of blond hair and a nice smile. We ate at a Japanese restaurant with a name I couldn't pronounce. To my surprise, the waitress led us to a table no higher than my kneecaps, and we sat on cushions on the floor. Unfortunately I had worn my least favorite pants because my best black ones were at the cleaners. The pair I'd had to settle for, also black, were too short in the stride, with the result that sitting on the floor gave me a wedgie for the entire meal. And even though the sushi was beautifully made, if I closed my eyes I would have sworn I was eating out of a bait bucket. Still, it was nice to be out on a Saturday night at an elegant restaurant instead of the kind where they handed out crayons along with the menus.
For all that Mike was in his mid-twenties, there was something unformed about him. Not physically...he was nice-looking and appeared to be in good shape. But I knew five minutes after meeting him that he was still trapped in the end of his marriage, even though the divorce was final.
It had been a bad divorce, he told me, but he'd put one over on his ex because she had thought winning the dog was a major concession, when Mike had secretly never liked it. He went on to tell me how they had split up their belongings, even breaking up pairs of lamps to achieve strict equality.
After dinner I asked Mike if he wanted to go back to my apartment and watch a movie, and he said yes. I was overwhelmed with relief when we reached the apartment. Since this was the first time I had ever left Carrington alone with a sitter in Houston, I'd worried about her all during dinner.
The babysitter, Brittany, was a twelve-year-old whose family lived in the apartment building. She had been recommended by the woman in the front office. Brittany had assured me that she babysat for lots of children in the building, and if there were any problems, her mother was only two floors down.
I paid Brittany, asked how things had gone, and she said she and Carrington had gotten along great. They had made popcorn and watched a Disney movie, and Carrington had had a bath. The only problem had been getting Carrington to stay in bed. "She keeps getting up." Brittany said with a helpless shrug. "She won't fall asleep. I'm sorry, Mrs.... Miss..."
"Liberty," I said. "That's just fine, Brittany. You did a great job. I hope you can come back and help us out again sometime."
"I sure will." Pocketing the fifteen dollars I had given her. Brittany went out. giving a little wave over her shoulder.
At the same time, the bedroom door burst open, and Carrington came flying into the main room in her pajamas. "Liberty!" She flung her arms around my h*ps and hugged me as if we hadn't seen each other in a year. "I missed you. Where did you go? Why did you stay out so long? Who's that yellow-haired man?"
I glanced quickly at Mike. Although he had forced a smile, it was obviously not the time for introductions. His gaze traveled slowly around the room, adhering briefly to the worn-out sofa, the places on the coffee table where the wood-grain veneer had chipped. It surprised me that I felt a sting of defensiveness. that it felt so uncomfortable to see myself from his perspective.
I hunched over my little sister and kissed her hair. "That's my new friend. He and I are going to watch a show. You're supposed to be in bed. Asleep. Go on, Carrington."
"I want you to come with me," she protested.
"No, it's not my bedtime, it's yours. Go on."
"But I'm not tired."
"I don't care. Go lie down and close your eyes."
"Will you tuck me in?"
"No."
"But you always tuck me in."
"Carrington—"
"It's all right," Mike said. "Tuck her in, Liberty. I'll look through the videos."
I flashed him a grateful smile. "It'll only take a minute. Thanks, Mike."
I took Carrington into the bedroom and closed the door. Carrington, like most children, was ruthless when she had a tactical advantage. Usually I had no problem letting her cry and holler if she didn't like it. But we both knew I didn't want her making a scene in front of my visitor.
"I'll be quiet if you let me keep the light on," she wheedled.
I hoisted her into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chest, and gave her a picture book from the nightstand. "All right. Stay in bed and—I mean this, Carrington—I don't want to hear a peep out of you."
She opened the book. "I can't read the words by myself."
"You know all the words. We've read that story a hundred times. Stay here and be good. Or else."
"What's the 'or else'?"
I gave her an ominous stare. "Four words, Carrington. Hush and stay put."
"Okay." She subsided behind the book until all that was visible of her was a pair of small hands clamped on either side of the cover.
I went back into the living room, where Mike was sitting stiffly on the sofa.
At some point in the process of dating someone, whether you've gone out one time or a hundred times, a moment occurs when you know exactly how much significance that person will have in your life. You know this person will be an important part of your future, or you know he's only someone to pass the time with. Or you wouldn't care if you never saw him again. I regretted having invited Mike into the apartment. I wished he was gone so I could have a bath and get in bed. I smiled at him.
"Find anything you want to watch?" I asked.
He shook his head, gesturing to the trio of rented movies on the coffee table. "I've already seen those." He gave me a sort of cardboard-looking smile. "You've got a ton of kids' movies. I guess your sister stays with you a lot?"
"All the time." I sat next to him. "I'm Carrington's guardian."
He looked bewildered. "Then she's not going back?"
"Back to where?" I asked, my confusion mirroring his. "Our parents are both gone."
"Oh." He looked away from me. "Liberty...are you sure she's your sister and not your daughter?"
What did he mean, was I sure? "Are you asking if I had a baby and somehow forgot about it?" I asked, more stunned than angry. "Or are you asking if I'm lying? She's my sister, Mike."
"Sorry. Sorry." Chagrin corrugated his forehead. He spoke rapidly. "I guess there's not much resemblance between you. But it doesn't really matter if you're her mom or not. The result is the same, isn't it?"
Before I could reply the bedroom door burst open. Carrington ventured into the room, her face wreathed in anxiety. "Liberty, something happened."
I stood from the sofa like I'd just sat on a hot stove-plate. "What do you mean, something happened? What? What?"
"Something went down my throat without my permission."
Shit
Fear wrapped around my heart like barbed wire. "What went down your throat, Carrington?"
Her face crumpled and turned red. "My lucky penny," she said, and began to cry.
Trying to think above the panic. I recalled the stray brown penny we'd found on the carpeted elevator floor. Carrington had been keeping it in the dish on our nightstand. I rushed over and picked her up. "How did you swallow it? What were you doing with that dirty penny in your mouth?"
"I don't know," she wailed. "I just put it in there and then it jumped down my throat."
I was dimly aware of Mike in the background, mumbling something about how this wasn't a good time, maybe he should go. We both ignored him.
I grabbed the phone and dialed the pediatrician, sitting with Carrington in my lap. "You could have choked on it," I scolded. "Carrington. don't put pennies or nickels or dimes or anything like that in your mouth ever again. Did it hurt your throat? Did it go all the way down when you swallowed?"
She stopped crying as she considered my questions solemnly. "I think I feel it in my zorax/' she said. "It's stuck."
"There's no such thing as a zorax." My pulse was hammering. The answering service put me on hold. I wondered if swallowing a penny would give you metal poisoning. Were pennies still made of copper? Was the penny going to lodge somewhere in Carrington's esophagus and require an operation for its removal? How much would that kind of operation cost?
The woman at the other end of the phone was annoyingly calm as I described the emergency. She took down the information and said the pediatrician would call back within ten minutes. Hanging up the phone. I continued to hold Carrington in my lap. her bare feet dangling.
Mike approached us both. I saw from his expression that this would be forever engraved in his mind as the date from hell. He wanted to leave almost as badly as I wanted him to go.
"Look," he said awkwardly, "you're a gorgeous girl, and you're sweet as all get-out, but...I don't need this in my life right now. I need someone with no baggage. It's just...I can't help you pick up the pieces. I've got too many of my own pieces to pick up. You probably don't understand."
I understood. Mike wanted a girl with no problems and no past experiences, someone who came with a guarantee that she would never make mistakes or disappoint or hurt him.
Later I would feel sorry for him. I knew there was a lot of disappointment in store for Mike, in his search for the woman with no baggage. But for the moment I felt only annoyance at him. I thought of how Hardy had always come to the rescue at times like this. the way he would stride into a room and take charge, and the incredible relief I felt at knowing he was there. But Hardy wasn't coming. All I had was a useless male who didn't even think to ask if he could do something to help.
"That's fine." I tried to sound casual. I wanted to throw something, like you would to get rid of a stray dog. "Thank you for the date, Mike. We'll be fine. If you wouldn't mind seeing yourself to the door—"
"Sure." he said hastily. "Sure."
He vanished.
"Am I gonna die?" Carrington inquired, sounding interested and mildly concerned.
"Only if I catch you with another penny in your mouth," I said.
The pediatrician called, and he interrupted my frantic chatter. "Miss Jones, is your sister wheezing or choking?"
"She's not choking." I looked into Carrington's face. "Let me hear you breathe, baby."
She complied enthusiastically, hyperventilating like a phone pervert. "No wheezing," I told the doctor, and turned back to my sister. "That's enough, Carrington."
I heard the doctor chuckle. "Carrington's going to be just fine. What I need you to do is check her stools for the next couple of days to make certain the coin passes. If you can't find it, we may have to take an X-ray to make certain it hasn't lodged somewhere. But I can almost guarantee you'll see that penny in the commode."
"Can I have a hundred-percent guarantee?" I asked. "'Almost' is just not working for me today."
He chuckled again. "I don't usually give out hundred-percent guarantees. Miss Jones. But for you I'll make an exception. One full-out guarantee for a penny in the commode within forty-eight hours."
For the next two days I had to poke around in the toilet with a wire hanger every time Carrington reported progress. The penny was eventually found. In the months afterward. however, Carrington told everyone who would listen she had a lucky penny in her tummy. It was only a matter of time, she assured me, until something big happened to us.
CHAPTER 14
Hair is serious business in Houston. It amazed me how much people were willing to pay for the services at Salon One. Being blond, in particular, was a serious investment of time and money, and Salon One gave women the best color of their lives. The salon was known for a tricolor blond that was so good, women would fly in from out of state for it. There was always a waiting list for any of the stylists, but for the head stylist and part-owner, Zenko, the wait was three months minimum.
Zenko was a small man with a powerful presence and the electric grace of a dancer. Although Zenko had been born and raised in Katy, he'd gone to England for an apprenticeship. When he returned, he had lost his first name and had gained an authentic-sounding British accent. Everyone loved that accent. We loved it even when he was yelling at one of us behind the scenes.