Page 51 of Goodbye Paradise
Right.
Josh and I toweled off in a hurry, then got dressed. “I hope they don’t notice that we both have wet hair,” I whispered, jumping into my jeans.
“I don’t think they’ve looked twice at us since the baby was born,” Josh said in a low voice. Then he opened the door and went out.
After waiting a little while, just to make the timing seem random, I walked into the kitchen. Josh was holding the baby, and Daniel had already departed for his workshop.
“I really liked this doctor,” Maggie was saying as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “She said no question was too dumb. And she gave me her cell phone number, and said I shouldn’t be afraid to use it.”
“That’s nice,” Josh murmured. He stood on the wide pine floors, bouncing his knees in a little maneuver that was part of his baby-soothing technique.
“I’ll take her now,” Maggie said. “No, wait. Let me pee first.”
“Good call,” Josh said, rocking his chest from side to side while little Chloe’s eyes fluttered shut.
Maggie ran out of the room, and I just stared at Josh, fighting hard to keep my distance from him. He was so fucking cute.
“What?” he asked, his eyebrows arched in confusion.
I smiled. “You amaze me, that’s all,” I whispered. At the Compound, I only ever saw Josh doing the work that everyone else did, always careful to keep his head down. I didn’t know that he would like babies, or cows. Or that he’d always choose the blue coffee mug, with the luminous glaze, but an unfortunate chip on the rim. Here in Massachusetts I got to see more of him, and not just his skin.
Now he was looking at me as with confusion. “Why?”
“Nothing.” There wasn’t time to explain. But there was time to move nearer to him, while listening closely to the sounds of the house. A toilet flushed somewhere, so there was an opportunity to sidle up to him and kiss his cheek. He gave me a startled look, and pink spots appeared on his cheeks. “Nobody saw,” I argued.
“Chloe saw,” he joked. We both looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms. “And it’s true, by the way,” he whispered.
“What is?”
“Icanstill feel you right now.”
My stomach did a dip and a roll, and my neck heated. But Maggie’s footsteps were coming closer, so I moved away from him, over to the counter.
She entered the room looking wearier than I’d ever seen her. Today she’d put on nicer clothes than usual, and they accentuated rather than hid her exhaustion. Without a word, she took the baby in one arm and her coffee cup in the other, then retreated upstairs.
The next morning, I heard Maggie answer the phone upstairs.
“Caleb?” she called. “You have a phone call.”
My heart leapt into my mouth.Could it be…?I picked up the kitchen extension. “This is Caleb.”
“This is Joe from The Perry Garage,” a man’s voice boomed into my ear. “I got an application with your name on it. Can you come back down here this afternoon and talk about the job?”
“I sure can, sir,” I said, hoping that was true. “What time?”
“Wander by any time after one o’clock,” he said. “See you then.” He hung up.
Josh came trotting out of the laundry room, where he’d been folding towels for Maggie. He was sneaky like that — taking over tasks for her whenever he saw an opportunity. “Who was that?”
“The garage called. They want me to come in this afternoon.”
His face lit up. “Awesome.”
“What did I miss?” Maggie asked, making a rare appearance at the bottom of the stairs. Her arms were empty, so the baby must have agreed to take a nap.
“Caleb might get a job this afternoon!” Josh crowed.
“Can I, uh, use your car?” I asked, wishing I had my own wheels.
