Page 85 of The Lies I've Told
The right man.
Wiping away the copious amounts of sweat that had gathered on my brow, I let out a happy sigh. “I need ice cream.”
“Are you talking to yourself?”
Nearly jumping out of my skin, I looked down to find a kid staring up at me. It took me a moment, but I recognized her as Cora’s little girl.
“Hey, aren’t you a little young to be out and about by yourself?” I asked, taking a look around.
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m almost seven,” she answered, as if this were all the explanation I needed.
“Um, okay. Hey, where’s your mom?” I asked, not really sure how to interact with kids, my only experience thus far being the few precious moments with Ruby, and she didn’t exactly talk much.
“Back there,” she said. “She’s slow.”
I looked to where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was Cora only a few houses back.
Taking another look down at Lizzie, I gave her a sideways stare. “Well, she doesn’t exactly have a scooter to help her out, does she?”
She merely shrugged. “Hey, you said you were going to get ice cream. So are we. Want to go together? I can tell you how they make it on the way.”
“How they make it? Don’t they just freeze the ingredients?”
“Oh, you’re gonna wish you hadn’t asked that question,” Cora said, giving me a quick wave as she finally caught up.
“Oh no,” Lizzie answered. “There are dozens of ways to make ice cream. Let me explain—”
“Actually Lizzie, why don’t you see how fast you can get to the end of the street? I’ll time you,” Cora suggested, giving me a look that said I owed her.
“Okay!” The small girl readjusted her helmet on top of her wavy dark brown hair and waited as her mom pulled out her phone.
“Ready?” Cora asked, looking down at what I assumed was some sort of stopwatch app.
Lizzie nodded.
“Set…go!”
Lizzie tore down the empty road as Cora smiled, turning to me with a satisfied look on her face.
“We have a few minutes to ourselves. I can’t promise that you won’t know all about ice cream rolling or the entire inner workings of an industrial ice cream maker by the time we leave the ice cream shop, but for now, we have some time to chat. How are you?”
I let out a small laugh. “Ice cream rolling?”
“Yeah, it’s this super-trendy thing where they pour out the liquid cream on a—you know, never mind. How are you?”
“Fine,” I answered automatically, as most of us did. But then I stopped myself and thought about it, and I ended up blurting out, “My family doesn’t like the guy I’m dating. Or at least, they’re not sure about him. Not entirely.”
“And you’re upset about this? I mean, you care what they think?”
I turned to look at her. “What? Of course I do!”
She gave a little shrug. “I’m sorry,. I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that you always seem so self-assured and fearless. I mean, the first time I met you, it was via FaceTime while you were walking through an airport somewhere in Italy, I think.”
“Milan,” I clarified.
“And you seemed like nothing bothered you, so I wasn’t sure if something like this would affect you.”
“Being confident at work is nothing compared to my family,” I said. “And, besides, my career imploded last week, so that tenacity you remember? It’s a little shaken at the moment.”
