Page 26 of SEAL'S Baby Surprise
We shop at the Goodwill a lot. It often has better clothes than Walmart, some of them with real fabric instead of polyester stuff.
They are having a stuff-a-bag sale, so we get wigs, scarves, ladies’ clothes in different sizes, girls’ clothes in Julia’s size, and even a couple of shirts for me.
Then we stop at the Dairy Palace and get Julia a coney dog, me a double cheeseburger, Ark, a plain burger, and a coney dog and a cheeseburger for Lee, so she could have her pick. Then I add vanilla shakes for everyone and french fries.
We look like Santa Claus and his helper elf going back, what with all the bags of clothes and the food. I settle Julia at her table with her coney dog, fries, and shake, tuck the rest of the food in the outdoor cooler, and go in to check on Lee.
I find her snuggled up against Ark. Looking over her shoulder, I see she is reading the chapter inLittle Women, where Jo cuts her hair. I sit in the driver’s seat because there’s no room left on her bed. It’s full of girl and dog.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask.
“No, not really,” she says. “But I am sorry. When I get scared, I just go all to pieces. And I do stupid things.”
“That’s why I left Ark with you. He’s got good sense about most things,” I say.
She hugs Ark, and the big lug licks her face. “Ew,” she says half-heartedly, “Dog germs.”
“Yeah, he gives super sloppy kisses,” I say, grinning. Then, on a more somber note, “Did you kill anyone?”
“No,” she says. “I ran away.”
“Did you steal anything?”
“No! All I took with me was the top half of that dress. It’s my design, and my brother bought the materials.”
Note to self: Lee’s brother must be loaded. The plot begins to thicken.
“Well,” I say, “If you didn’t kill anyone, and you didn’t steal anything, then I don’t see that anyone has grounds to come looking for you. Unless you tell me you did something criminal,I don’t see any reason for me to rat you out. And if you did do something, we’ll go together to turn you in. How’s that sound?”
“All right, I guess,” she says, hiding behind Ark. “I didn’t do anything, honest.”
“Then come have your supper and go through the bags of clothes and stuff Julia and I bought at Goodwill. They were having a stuff-the-bag day, so I got the whole lot for two bucks.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Come on, Ark,” I say, “Your hamburger is getting cold, and fries are just nasty when they aren’t hot.”
Julia is already halfway through her coney dog by the time we come out. She has it smeared around her mouth and over her shirt. I’d made sure there were some swimsuits in the stuff we’d bought, so I’m not too worried about that. We could all go down to the beach after a while. There is even an old swim cap in the lot, so Lee won’t need to be embarrassed or get a sunburn on the top of her head.
Lee makes Julia wash her face after lunch, and then they dig into the stuff we picked up at Goodwill.
The girls squeal and giggle, especially over the witch wig, with the long white stripe down the side.
I get my tablet and get in some work while keeping one eye on the girls. Every once in a while, they’d come out in ridiculous outfits and parade up and down.
After a while, they both begin to get tired. Then Lee sorts out the stuff they could actually wear and stuffs the extras into two bags: one for ladies’ clothing, and one for kids’. She has a practical streak in the oddest places.
It is too late to go swimming by the time my lady mermaid and my daughter get through playing dress-up. So, they both put on bermuda shorts and white blouses, and Lee wears a simple little brown wig that curls around her ears.
When they’re dressed, we walk up to the pizza place and have an extra-large pie with all the trimmings, and Ark has a canine companion special— which is mostly hamburger. All in all, for a day that started off weird, it is ending pretty nice.
13
LEE
By the timewe get back from the pizza place, it is nearly dark. Since Austin is very much a sunup to sundown kind of guy, that means it’s bedtime. It makes sense, really. Solar energy powers the fridge, A/C unit, and anything else we want to use, including the television and charging cell phones run on power from the sun.
He’s kind of like the sun, too. Bright. Shining.
