If You Only Knew(61)

Then a car pulls over, and a man gets out. “Rachel?” he says, coming closer.

I’m still crying, so it takes me a minute to figure out who he is. Then he smiles, his eyes turning into merry little arcs, and I do know.

“Gus... Hi,” I sob. “It’s so nice to see you. How’ve you been?”

The girls’ volume inside the van has risen to shrieks of rage.

“I’m...I’m great,” he says. “But you’re not, I’m guessing? Unless you always wear vomit.”

“My girls... I gave them too...too much ice cream, and they...they threw up.” My sobbing intensifies.

He grimaces. “Nasty.”

I nod and try to control myself. I sound like a cat being slowly strangled to death.

“Want some help?”

“What?”

“Want me to help? It sounds like you have rabid weasels in there.”

“Um...no. I mean, no, I’ve got it.”

“Can I open the van door?” he asks.

I nod. He slides it open, and the girls all fall silent immediately at the sight of a stranger.

“You must be the Puke Sisters,” he says.

“You not funny,” Rose says, and her own comment makes her laugh, then puke again.

“You’re gross,” Gus says. He reaches in the back for something—Rose’s backpack, opens it up and takes out her lunch box. “If you need to puke again,” he says, “do it in here. Okay? You too, Princess Pukey.” Charlotte accepts her Hello Kitty lunch box from him, and I grab Grace’s backpack and give her hers—Matchbox cars... She’s not the girliest girl.

“Mommy, why you crying?” Rose asks.

“Oh, honey,” I say, not aware that I still was, “I’m just sorry I let you have all that ice cream. I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry you feel bad.”

“It okay,” she says kindly, and my tears surge hotter and harder.

“Tell you what,” Gus says. “I’m gonna follow you home.”

“No, that’s—”

“Oh, come on. How could I live with myself if I didn’t?”

* * *

An hour later, the girls and I are clean again. I’ve given the girls a bath, put them in their jammies and tucked them into bed for nap time. “We love you,” Grace says sleepily, speaking for her sisters as she often does.

“I love you, too, my little angels. So, so much.”

I go into my room and change into jeans and a sweater. I washed up while the girls were splashing in the tub. No makeup. My hair seems to have been spared the puke-a-thon, but I brush it and put it in a ponytail, then head downstairs.

Gus is just coming in, a bucket and some laundry detergent in his hands. “I cleaned up as best I could,” he says, “but, good God, woman. It’s terrifying in there. You probably need to get the car detailed. Or just set fire to it.” He smiles, his eyes all but disappearing.

“Would you like some coffee?” I ask. “Or do you have to get back to work?”

“I’d love some.” He washes his hands at the kitchen sink, and I make the coffee. Put out some cookies, too—organic oatmeal with fair-trade, locally grown organic cranberries—and we sit at the kitchen table.

“How’s work?” I ask.

Gus is still at Celery Stalk Media, the company where I worked for seven years before I left in my sixth month of pregnancy, an act of mercy for my boss, Adele, who was terrified the girls would slide out at any minute. It was—is—a lovely company, fifteen or so employees, a casual, happy place, as you’d hope it would be. We designed children’s educational software, after all—lessons masquerading as games. I haven’t kept up much; some of the women came over to visit when the girls were a few months old, a blurry, exhausting time that I barely remember. I send a Christmas card, the photo-montage type, and always get a few emails about how beautiful and big the girls are.

A lot of the women at Celery Stalk had a crush on Gus, who is so nice it’s hard to believe he’s genuine. He’s cute rather than handsome; he has a round face and a slightly receding hairline which he doesn’t try to hide; his hair is in a crew cut. He’s only five-eight or so. Adele, our boss, once asked him what his ethnic background was. Italian, he said, with an Inuit great-grandmother, which explained those happy eyes. I think the quality that makes him so popular with women is simply his happiness.

He asked me out once, two days after my first date with Adam. Something casual, like “Want to get a drink sometime?” and I was taken aback; we’d worked together for more than two years, and he’d never shown any special interest toward me. I blushed so hard my face hurt and mumbled something about not being a drinker, really, but maybe a bunch of us could go out for happy hour sometime, I know Eliza had mentioned a new place she’d been wanting to try.

He got the message. Didn’t seem to hold it against me. And truthfully, I forgot about it, caught up in the romance of Adam, who was tall and so handsome and sent me flowers the very next day with a card that said, “I like you a lot, Rachel Tate.” I still have that card, in our photo album, along with a pressed rose from the arrangement.

“Are you seeing anyone, Gus?” I ask now, strangely at ease. Once a guy’s seen you covered in puke, sobbing on the side of a highway...