Play Maker(30)

I could see myself being happy here in the sun and the sand. I made a mental note to look at houses in the neighborhood. Close to the beach. Very close to the beach. I pictured Nicole in a bikini and smiled. Oh yeah. Extremely close to the beach, but with a private shower for us to enjoy each other under the SoCal sky.





18





Nicole





This day sucked. Usually I didn’t think that on my day off, but I was having a shitty morning. First, the dryer at the laundromat hadn’t been working properly so I had been stuck there for hours running our clothes through several cycles until they were dry enough to take out. It had put a major dent in our quarter supply and our towels were still going to need to dry out for a few more hours. Ugh. I f*cking hated doing laundry.

Then I lugged it all home to find Mikey sitting in the corner, staring at the wall.

I looked at my phone and realized that we had missed the movie. The movie I had promised him we could go to. On my day off. Our special day. Dammit. I had been so distracted by laundry and the occasional daydream about James that I had forgotten to call to tell him I was going to be late. I dropped the laundry to the floor and went over to kneel next to him.

“I’m so sorry buddy.”

“We missed it,” he informed me, his eyes filling with tears.

“I know and I’m sorry.” The headache that had started after the third round of drying our clothes was now compounded by the guilt I felt. I was exhausted all of a sudden. I just wanted to lie down.

“We missed the movie. You promised.” He was shaking his head now as a few tears ran down his face, and my heart broke.

“You’re right.” I gathered him in my arms, thankful that he allowed me to. “I messed up. And I’m sorry. But I can make it up to you, ok?”

He wiped his nose on my shirt and leaned back. “How?”

“I’ll make you a special dinner.” Thankfully I had gone to the grocery store before starting the laundry. “I can make cheesy noodles with hot dog bits.” That was Mikey’s absolute favorite.

“Ok,” he said quietly, but I could tell that he was still upset.

“And we can watch the first Doctor Who episode of each season,” I offered.

His eyes lit up. “Really?” It was a serious time commitment, but since it was my day off, I would be able to sit with him the whole time. I reminded myself to text Maya to cancel our evening plans.

“Really,” I told him.

Over seven hours later, when he had finally fallen asleep in front of the TV, my mom came home from her full day of work. I was sitting at the kitchen table still nursing a headache. In front of me on the table was my untouched plate of cheesy noodles and hot dog bits. I had been staring at the bottle of cognac James had given me for a half hour. My gum had lost its flavor and I still couldn’t decide if I should open it.

“Gift from work?” my mom asked, putting down her cleaning supplies.

“A guy,” I said, without thinking. I immediately wished I could take it back. My mom and I weren’t at the point in our relationship where I wanted to share the personal details of my love life with her. Especially not what was going on in this particular situation.

She held up the bottle and let out a whistle. “Expensive.” She gave me a sideways look. “Is he rich?”

I grabbed the bottle away. “I’m not interested.” Total lie.

“He obviously is,” my mom noted. “Is he expecting something in return?” She paused. “Or did he already get it?”

I really didn’t appreciate the implication in her voice, even though she was pretty much spot on.

“That’s not really any of your business,” I said quietly, not really wanting to get into this discussion with her.

“I’m just trying to help,” she responded, hands on her hips. “I want to make sure you’re not making the same kind of mistakes that I did.”

“Well, you’re about twenty years too late to give me the don’t-give-it-away-for-free talk.” It came out much more harshly then I intended, but it was true. She didn’t have any right to lecture me on my personal choices.

Her face hardened. “I’m just thinking of Mikey,” she said.

I gaped at her, unable to believe her nerve. After the day I’d had, with the laundry and Mikey and everything, I just couldn’t hold back on everything I had been feeling since my mom had come back into our lives. I was tired of pretending that everything was ok. That we could just ignore what she had done. The pain she had caused.

“You should have thought about Mikey when you left us,” I snapped. “You have no right to criticize me. I let you back into our lives for Mikey’s sake. We were doing fine without you – I was doing fine. So you can mother Mikey as much as you want, as much as he allows, but I gave up on that the day you walked out on us.” Even as I spoke, I knew that I didn’t really have any right to chastise her after what I had done to Mikey today. We had both failed him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, face wilting and tears welling up in her eyes.

Guilt rose in my throat. I needed to get out of there.

Grabbing my purse, I pushed past and headed out of the apartment. She didn’t try to stop me. It wasn’t until I was three blocks from my house that I realized I didn’t really have anywhere to go and it was nearing ten o’clock.