Winter Solstice (Winter #4)(20)

“I don’t like her,” PJ says.

“What?” Harrison says. “You don’t like Ava? Well, I like Ava quite a lot myself. She’s a beautiful woman.”

“No, she isn’t,” PJ says.

“I’m standing right here,” Ava says with a smile. “I can hear you.”

“Maybe you’re not old enough to appreciate Ava’s beauty,” Harrison says. “And that is all well and good. You’re only seven years old, after all. Barely out of short pants.”

This gets a giggle from both Ava and PJ. The elevator doors open, and the gentlemen big and small wait for Ava to exit first.

“Why don’t you like Ava, PJ?” Harrison asks. “Did she lock you in a closet, feed you snakes, and then go and get her nails done?”

“No,” PJ says.

“Then tell me why you don’t like her.”

“Because,” PJ says.

“Because isn’t a reason,” Harrison says. “We’ve been over this a few thousand times, have we not?”

Reluctantly PJ nods. Ava is impressed with how deftly Harrison handles PJ. She likes to think she has solid skills in relating to children, but she was never this good.

“Don’t worry about it,” Harrison whispers to Ava. “He’ll come around.”

“Do you think?” Ava says. She wants to pepper Harrison with questions: How did Harrison first bond with PJ? What are a few of his favorite things, other than Minecraft? What is Ava’s best strategy for getting PJ’s guard down?

Harrison says, “I have an idea, actually. Why don’t you give me your cell number?”

“Okay?” Ava says, though she’s a bit taken aback. Why on earth would Harrison need her cell phone number? Still, she rattles it off and Harrison programs it into his phone.

A few seconds later Trish comes clipping through the lobby with a suitcase and a small backpack. She grabs PJ by the hand and says to Harrison, “We’re going.”

“Okay?” Harrison says. He smiles ruefully at Ava. “Cheerio, then, Ava. Lovely to meet you.”

“And you,” Ava says. She tries to catch Trish’s eye. They’re all adults; there’s no reason why they can’t be civil. But Trish storms through the revolving door to the street without a word or look in Ava’s direction.

“Bye, PJ!” Ava calls out, but it’s too late. He doesn’t hear her.

Ava fills with sadness and—she’s not going to lie—with relief. Meeting PJ was an unmitigated disaster, but at least now it’s over.

For the time being. If she’s going to have a future with Potter, she will need to find a way to relate to Potter’s child.

Ava waves at Keith, the doorman, who has his nose in a book, studiously trying to appear uninterested in the drama.

Sometime tomorrow Ava will have to call her mother, tell her what transpired, and ask her advice.

But wait—no. Margaret knows nothing about being a stepmother, or even a father’s girlfriend. Drake doesn’t have children, and to Ava’s knowledge, Margaret never dated anyone else with children, or at least young children.

The realization dawns on Ava that she does know someone who has been through this. She does know a woman who had no choice but to parent a child not her own. Three children, in fact.

Mitzi. Ava needs to talk to Mitzi.

She could call, she supposes, but the conversation she wants to have would be far better broached in person. As Ava pushes the button for the seventh floor, she makes a decision. She will go home on Tuesday, home to Nantucket. She will go to Bart’s birthday party.





BART


The party has three saving graces. One is there will be plentiful alcohol; it is a Quinn party, after all. Two is there will be meat: tenderloin sandwiches, crumbled bacon at the mashed potato bar, passed pigs in a blanket, and more bacon wrapped around Nantucket bay scallops. Bart isn’t immune to the allure of good food. He has been living at the inn along with Mitzi and Kelley; he has been subjected to the watery spinach soup and the kale–egg white soufflé.

The third saving grace is that his siblings are attending. Patrick and Jennifer are leaving the kids behind in Boston so that they can enjoy an adult evening, and Ava is taking a half day off Tuesday and a personal day on Wednesday so that she can attend. Bart knows his siblings love him, but this party is wholly Mitzi’s idea, and… well, sometimes the elder Quinn children resist Mitzi’s ideas.

It does feel good to wake up on the thirty-first and be met with a purpose. It feels good to take a long shower, to shave, and to put on some nice clothes. Bart is wearing jeans, a white button-down shirt, a navy fleece vest, and his good Chucks, the black ones that Mitzi bought him for Christmas. She bought them without even knowing if Bart was alive or not.

He asks his mother if there is anything he can do to help. He is, after all, an able-bodied twenty-two-year-old Marine, still in pretty formidable shape despite everything. Both his parents treat him like a cracked vessel that must be handled gently or it will break in two.

And aren’t they right, in a way?

The only injury Bart sustained overseas was a puncture wound to his right cheek; he was attacked when he was trying to save Centaur’s life. “Take me, not him!” Bart had cried out. He had tried to pull Centaur from the grip of two Bely, the ones the Marines had nicknamed Grim and Reaper; one of them fought him off with a sharpened piece of rebar, which he caught just under his eye. It knocked him out cold, and when he came to, Centaur was gone.