Page 61 of Canadian Boyfriend

“Yeah, about that.” He turned serious. “Maybe don’t tell her we came here without her?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. We should have waited.”

“No, we shouldn’t have. And don’t be sorry. I’m not, not even fake Canadian sorry. This was about you getting to do something you never got to. Olivia wasn’t invited.”

Well. I was in danger of getting a little verklempt.

“Take these. I’m going to hit the washroom.”Washroom, I had learned, was Canadian forrestroom. “Get something better than a plastic Slinky.”

“What if Iwanta plastic Slinky?”

“Then get”—he bent over to look at how many tickets a Slinky went for—“two plastic Slinkys. Wow, this is a huge rip-off, isn’t it?”

I checked out a stuffed frog that cost three thousand tickets. “Yep.”

“I’ll meet you out front in a few?”

“Thanks,” I said. “For these.” I lifted the tickets. “But also for…” I used my other hand to wave vaguely around. “This.” I hoped he knew that I meantThank you for taking me here, but also thank you for being the kind of person I can confide in about my childhood disappointments.

And the kind of person who would try to right them.

Click-click-click.“You’re welcome.”

13—PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

MIKE

I took too long in the washroom. I was trying to figure out what in God’s name had possessed me to kiss Aurora out there.

Well, I knew the answer in a literal sense. She was doing that thing she did sometimes where she looked so wild and free, it felt like she was a giant magnet. Like if you let her draw you in with her pink cheeks and her wide smile and the clinking of her charm bracelet, you might catch her beat, be enfolded into a secret rhythm that would pulse through you and make you believe, for a second, that life was good and that everything was happening the way it was supposed to.

She’d been doing a lesser version of it earlier, in class. It didn’t always happen when she taught, but occasionally the class would be working on a long combination and she’d stop cuing them verbally and they’d go through it silently. It usually didn’t work. Someone was always out of step or forgetting what came next. But on the rare occasion when everything aligned, it seemed like she and the students were part of a larger whole, strands in an invisible web, as woo-woo as that sounded.

It was why I’d gone into the studio, even though Oliviawasn’t there. I’d been waiting in the car—I’d arrived early because I was embarrassingly excited for our outing—and I’d thought,What if it happens and I miss it?

But yeah, kissing in public: not a good idea. I hadn’t been recognized at the arcade. I had met the gaze of one guy and seen a spark of recognition and done the Minnesota finger-lift wave and moved on, willing the spark not to catch fire. So I don’t think anyone noticed anything. It was more the idea that I had lost control of myself. Like I thought I was someone else. Someone with a different life. A life where I was on perpetual vacation, no kid to worry about, just a date with a pretty girl in that limbo time between Christmas and New Year’s where nothing seems real.

But it was real. My life was real. I was a widower getting an F in work-life balance.

The larger question was whether kissing was a good idea at all, even at home. The answer, of course, was no. Aurora was our not-nanny, and we needed her. It wasn’t even about Aurora. I couldn’t dateanyone, not for a long time—probably not till Olivia was out of the house. Dating led to breaking up, and I couldn’t risk Olivia getting attached and getting left. Again.

I’d been drawn in by Aurora’s low-stakes claim. It hadfeltlow-stakes. Initially. But an impromptupublickiss? One I hadn’t known was happening until it washappening? That had poured a metaphorical bucket of water over the proceedings. The stakes were not low. They never had been, not really.

She was waiting near the entrance, staring at a group of boys putting on coats after a birthday party. They looked to be about six or seven. She was looking at them almost hungrily. With anyone else, I would have said she was staring at them with a ticking biological clock.Ilooked at them that way. But I told myself to knock it off. That ship had sailed for me.

Aurora, though, was looking at the childhood she’d never had. I could bring her here and play Skee-Ball with her, but I couldn’t actually give her the other stuff, the intangible things she’d missed out on that had to do with being a kid among other kids. Those long summer afternoons with nothing to do but drive with my buddies, blasting the radio and measuring, by the height of the corn in the fields, how many days left until the start of the hockey season. She didn’t have those kinds of memories, and it about broke my heart.

“Hey,” I said, “sorry to keep you waiting.”

She turned, and maybe I needed to chill on the whole she’s-mourning-her-lost-childhood front, because she shot me an exaggerated grin, and she was wearing fake vampire teeth.

I barked a surprised laugh.

“I thought I’d get some teeth and wear them to play fetch with Earl 9. I got this, too.” She held up a multicolored Slinky.

“You ready to go?”

As we got into the car, the boys from before spilled out into the parking lot, and she said, “I always wanted to have my birthday party here. Or be invited tosomeone else’sbirthday party here.” Once situated in the passenger seat, she said, “Thank you. This was the most amazing evening. I mean, vampire teethanda rainbow Slinky.”

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