Page 89 of This Time Around
God, she was supposed to know stuff like this, wasn’t she?
She looked down at Paige, expecting to see judgment or disbelief that her father had let someone this ill-prepared be in charge of her well-being.
But the kid just smiled at her. “Want me to find a table?”
“That would be great.”
Allie paid for the drinks and took a few calming breaths. This would be okay. She could handle this. She’d grown up with competent, loving women guiding her through her own childhood. Her mother and grandmother used to take her out like this all the time. It’s not like she was an idiot. Just a little new at this, that’s all.
By the time she had the drinks, she’d managed to talk herself down. She had another quick flash of panic when she didn’t see Paige right away, but her heart rate slowed as she spotted the girl at a corner table.
Paige waved her over, then accepted the cardboard cup Allie handed her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure if you take cream or sugar or anything.” She pushed a few packets across the table, just in case.
“I’m not sure, either,” Paige said. “I’ve never had tea.”
Allie picked up her own cup and pried off the lid so she could blow on it. “My mom used to take me for tea all the time when I was your age. Well, maybe a little older. I always liked cream and sugar.”
Paige nodded as she used a little wooden stir stick to swirl about eighty pounds of sugar into her drink. “My mom’s dead.”
Allie winced. “I know. I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Paige gave her a small smile that nearly broke her heart. “May I try the cream, too?”
Allie handed her some and tried to think of a safer topic of conversation. Something that wouldn’t remind the kid she was motherless or in the care of a woman with dubious childcare credentials. Luckily, Paige picked up the slack.
“So you must like cats a lot, huh?”
Allie took a small sip of tea. “Actually, I’d never even had a cat until a couple weeks ago.”
“How come?”
“My parents wouldn’t let me when I was growing up. They said they were dirty and messy and ill-tempered. My grandma always loved them, though.”
“So she let you play with hers?”
“Yes.” Allie felt a twinge of wistfulness as she remembered running around the house dragging the silk tie from her grandmother’s robe with Stumpy scampering after it. “My grandma was the best. Funny and smart and sophisticated and little nuts, but in a good way.”
“My grandma’s pretty great, too.”
Allie fished the teabag out of her cup and set it on her napkin. “Your dad’s mom?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you see your other grandma much? Your mom’s mom?”
“No. Grandma Sarah’s in Florida.”
“And your Aunt Missy is in Chicago?”
“Yeah.”
The girl sounded distracted, and Allie looked up to see Paige staring at the mannequins across the mall aisle at Victoria’s Secret. Their shiny bosoms jutted out toward the window like pink satin torpedoes, and Paige gaped at them with an expression somewhere between mystified and fearful. Allie touched the girl’s arm.
“We’re not going there,” she reassured her. “The place we’re going is a little more discreet.”
“Discreet,” Paige repeated, her gaze fixed on a bra covered in gold sequins.
