Page 43 of Hell In A Handbasket
I snicker. “And I have no doubt heloveshelping you.” I stack each thing and do my damnedest not to look at anything too closely. I refuse to violate Charlie’s privacy. I refuse to put myself in a position where I might want to. And when I do, finding out things that hurt my feelings.
Ignoranceisbliss.
“Uncle Cato always looks like he’s having fun when he’s hanging out with you. And you’re pretty tall already, so maybe you will be the next star of the NBA.”
“WNBA,” she counters confidently. But then a page falls out of the notebook in her hand, a small, Polaroid-sized photograph that was long ago laminated and stared at, considering the peeling corners. Curious, she turns it over and tilts her head to the side, then she flashes a broad smile and shows me.
A picture of her mom and dad from a long, long time ago.
Such big, beautiful smiles. Pure contentment in their eyes, back when the world wasn’t so harsh and the reality that their relationship would unceremoniously disintegrate, not even a thought in their minds.
Jada sits happily on Charlie’s lap, her legs up on the couch and her head tucked under his chin, while he fists a beer in one hand and wraps her up close with the other arm.
Damn, they looked happy.
“I like looking at this picture.” She spins it back around and strokes her father’s face. “This was when I was in my mom’s tummy still. I must’ve been tiny.” She brings honeycomb eyes up to mine. “Her tummy was still small in this picture, so I must’ve been the size of a,” she pinches her fingers together, closing one eye and squinting at the minuscule gap she leaves between them. “Like a piece of rice, dontcha think?”
“Sounds about right to me.” I offer my hand and wait for her to place the notebook in my palm, but I don’t take the picture. I wouldn’t dare. Collating all the things I dropped, I stand again and set them back on the drawers. “You look like the perfect mix of your mom and dad, don’t you think? You have your dad’s eyes. The same shape and color. But you have your mom’s cheekbones.”
“My mom was very pretty. Which means I’m going to be pretty, too.” She straightens out and snags my hand, then she drags me back to Charlie’s bed and climbs up to sit on the edge. “I can’t wait till I look as pretty as her.”
“You’re already so beautiful, Moo.” I lower to the edge of the mattress and search her eyes. “I like to think beauty has nothing to do with people’s skin or nose or lips or whatever their face looks like. I think beauty is about how kind your soul is. The people with ugly, mean souls don’t look very nice on the outside. And the people with beautiful souls are beautiful on the outside. Which means you,” I gently poke her chest, “are the most beautiful, inside and out. You don’t have towaitfor anything. You’re already exquisite.”
“So I guess your soul is beautiful, too.” She leans against my arm and snuggles in. “Because I think your face is beautiful. You should be on magazines or somefin. Or on bus seats.”
“On bus seats?” I run my fingers through the end of her piggy tail and give it a gentle, barely there tug. “You want people to sit on my face while they’re waiting for a bus? That doesn’t sound very fun.”
She giggles. “Or maybe you should be on the TV. Do you know Miss Emma?”
“Uh…” I look around the room, like this Emma might appear out of thin air. “I don’t think so.”
“She has lovely red hair wif curls. And a really pretty face.” She looks down at her parents’ picture again. “She’s on the TV and does ballet and stuff. Like, wif the Wiggles.”
“Oh!ThatMiss Emma?” I breathe out a heavy exhalation and sweep aside the annoying jealousy trying so freakin’ hard to turn my soul ugly. “Miss Emma from the Wiggles! I know who you mean.”
She gasps noisily. “Youknowher? Can I meet her?”
“I don’tknowher.”
“But you know ballet, too!”
“I don’t know all the ballerinas in existence,” I laugh. “It’s a big, wide world out there, Moo, and it would be impossible for anyone to know everyone. But…” Go ahead, stupid. Promise her the world. “I swear, if I ever meet her, if by some crazy, insane happenstance that I end up in the same room with her, I’ll call you and get you wherever she is as soon as possible.”
“Thanks.” She so easily accepts my words, tucking them away for later, then she settles against my arm and exhales a soft sigh. “It’s kinda weird how there are so many people, though, huh? You were born somewhere else, a really long time ago.”
Notthatlong.
“And I was born somewhere else five years ago. But now we know each other, even though there are so manyotherpeople we could have met instead.”
“I’m really glad I met you.” I draw the piggy tail off her shoulder and enjoy the soft ends on the pads of my fingertips. “It’s always a little funny when we think about how these things happen. That I worked at the George Stanley, which is how I met Aunty Minka, which is how I got to know Uncle Archer a bit more, which led me to,”bickering with your father, “becoming friends with your father. And now here we are. We get to have a fun sleepover, a limo ride together, and soon, a visit to the markets.”
“And you came to my mom’s last party.”
God. She’s so oddly well adjusted. So pure and sweet and kind.
“Yeah, I went to your mom’s last party, too.”
She looks down at the photograph and traces Charlie’s face with the tip of her finger. She’s thinking. Wondering. Mourning, probably. And missing her dad.
