Such a Fun Age(23)

“You guys have a good day?”

“Yeah.” Emira picked at dried food on the knee of her jeans. “I think we did pretty good, huh, B?”

Briar held up a crayon and said, “You do it.”

Emira sat down next to her. “I do what now?”

“Let’s say ‘please,’ Bri,” Alix said. “Emira,” she added, “do you drink wine?”

Emira carefully accepted a crayon from Briar. She blinked and said, “I mean . . . yeah.”

Alix took two glasses from a cupboard and thought, Yeah, you do. She sat down, and with a bottle of wine in between her legs, she somehow managed to uncork the bottle while holding Catherine. When Catherine looked up at her, Alix said, “Hi. Did you miss me or what?”

Alix told Emira she could take the wineglass into the bathroom with Briar, that she did it all the time. She hadn’t eaten since lunch (she’d lost five pounds since her very loving and supporting intervention) and as she sipped her glass of wine, cleaned up toys from the kitchen table, and listened to Emira give Briar a quick bath, she sensed those lax and wonderful feelings of decorum leaving her body. She lit two candles on the kitchen counter. She turned on a playlist with Fleetwood Mac and Tracy Chapman. And as she turned off the bright kitchen lights and left the chandelier blushing over the table, Alix recognized that she was very much courting her babysitter. But the evening reminded her of Fridays with Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra. She hadn’t poured a glass of wine for another woman in months.

Emira emerged with a few picture books beneath her arm, a glass half full, and Briar in tow, changed into her pajamas and wrapped in her tattered white blanket. Emira stopped at the kitchen counter and took another sip of her wine. “This is really good,” she said.

“I like it too.” From the table, Alix held up her glass and looked at the color. In her other arm, Catherine was receiving a bottle, which Alix administered with one hand. “Are you a wine person or no?”

“I mean, I like it,” Emira said. She set her glass at the other end of the table, then took the books from underneath her arm and set those down too. “But I’m used to drinking like . . . boxed wine, so yeah, I’m no connoisseur.”

There were moments like this that Alix tried to breeze over, but they got stuck somewhere between her heart and ears. She knew Emira had gone to college. She knew Emira had majored in English. But sometimes, after seeing her paused songs with titles like “Dope Bitch” and “Y’all Already Know,” and then hearing her use words like connoisseur, Alix was filled with feelings that went from confused and highly impressed to low and guilty in response to the first reaction. There was no reason for Emira to be unfamiliar with this word. And there was no reason for Alix to be impressed. Alix completely knew these things, but only when she reminded herself to stop thinking them in the first place.

“Well, I used to be a boxed wine fan myself,” Alix said, “but you know I didn’t buy this, right?”

Emira sat down and settled Briar on her lap. “Hmm?”

“Oh yeah, I don’t really buy wine anymore. Or a lot of other things.” Alix took another sip. “I’ve been doing this for years. I just write a wine company and say that I’m doing an event and I’m testing out wines. And then they send me a few bottles for free. This one is from”—she turned the bottle’s label toward her—“Michigan, I think.”

“So does that mean you have an event coming up?”

“When my book comes out, I will.” Alix winked.

Emira laughed and said, “Dang, okay.”

“I read dis now!” Briar announced, lifting up a board book. “I read dis one.”

Emira said, “Okay, go for it.”

Briar tolerated being read to during the day, but Alix’s child was the only toddler she knew of who didn’t enjoy partnered story time before bed. Instead, Briar liked to be held as she “read” to herself before her eyes cast a sleepy focus on the pages in front of her. She constantly shushed the person holding her, even when they hadn’t said a word. Alix tried to hold her voice at a smooth level to keep Briar happy and keep her sitter talking.

“Are you doing anything fun tonight?”

Emira nodded. “Just going to dinner.”

“Do you know where?”

Emira crossed her arms over Briar’s lap. “This Mexican place called Gloria’s.”

“Gloria’s?” Alix clarified. “Is that the one that’s BYOB? And really loud?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’ve gone there. That’s fun. Oh, you should take this with you.” Alix flicked the wine bottle. “I can’t have more than a glass since I’m still pumping.”

When Emira said, “Really?” Briar looked up at her and said, “Shhhh, no Mira, no no.”

Emira placed a finger in front of her mouth, and Briar turned the page. Emira mouthed, Thank you, and Alix said, “Of course.”

This is good, Alix thought. We aren’t there yet but we’re getting there. Alix knew that her aspirations for a relationship with Emira were possibly too high because of what she’d seen with her girlfriends and their sitters. Rachel and her nanny, Arnetta, often discussed their divorces, their least favorite children in Hudson’s class, and the most attractive fathers. Tamra once took the day off from work and allowed her kids to skip the first half of school to watch their beloved sitter, Shelby, have a speaking role on a daytime soap opera. And Jodi was always picking up scarves and lotions because her sitter, Carmen, wore things like that, or she might want to try them. Alix didn’t know what Emira liked, or what she didn’t like, or how she stayed so skinny, or if she believed in God. It wouldn’t happen all at once, but she had to keep trying, even if it meant being the first to speak at every silence, and with Emira, there were many.