Funny Feelings (7)

She looks me up and down, studying my face for something before she glances over my shoulder.

“You don’t seem like a drunk or a deadbeat,” she says.

“That’s nice. You very much do seem like you might be on…something.”

She shakes that off with an eye roll. “If you’re not a drunk or a deadbeat, why do you have these kids at a bar for a birthday party?” The party hats I picked up on the way must’ve clued her in.

“It’s a comedy club, not a bar.”

She smiles wickedly. “Funny, you’d think it was just a bar with the shit this guy keeps giving me over closing it down for a few minutes to focus on the whole comedy thing.” She stabs a thumb towards Lance.

I look over at him and snort. Fell into that one.

Lance reddens, but appears resigned as he mutters to his inventory clipboard. I catch movement in my peripheral and spin to see the girl approaching Hazel’s table.

“You guys could at least put some music on for them or something.”

“Hey. No—“ Shit, what was her name? “Jones. Stop.”

Her steps stutter a bit when she gets over there, pausing as she looks at the side of Daisy’s head, noticing her cochlear.

“How you girls doing today?” Jones asks then, as well as signs, and I suck in a gasp. Each girl sits up in their seat, instantly a little brighter. None respond.

“Whose birthday is it here?” she asks, and signs perfectly again.

Hazel raises her hand. “And how old are you today?” she signs as she speaks.

“Seven,” Hazel replies.

“Seven?! What the hell are you guys doing sitting in here instead of out celebrating being seven?! Seven puddle jumps, now!”

They’re all smiling at her, looking a little awestruck. “My dad won’t like me jumping in puddles,” Hazel says with a laugh.

Jones glances around, not overselling it, but making it appear like she’s searching. She lifts her hands with a smile and signs, “I don’t hear him complaining, do you?” and all four of them burst out in laughs.

Good God. The woman hit them with a hearing joke, within a minute of meeting them, completely unafraid.

Needless to say, we all head to the alley out back, and jump in gigantic puddles while the rain pours down, until we are soaked to the bone.

When we head inside for hot pizza, Hazel says, “I guess I still got to splash around with my friends today after all.” She beams up at me.

Hazel had her first cold when she was just a few weeks old. Suffice it to say she was pissed about it. She’d screamed and cried endlessly—great big tears that only led to her being stuffier. I was terrified, alone, and utterly clueless. So, like any good twenty-six-year-old man, I called my mom. “Mom, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can, Meyer. Keep her elevated. Let her drink as much as she wants, whenever she wants… and have you tried a bath? If the rest of the cord has fallen off all the way, you can try a bath.”

I checked her belly, peeling her off of me just enough to see. I couldn’t set her down long enough to dress her without her screaming, since my clumsy, shaking hands made the process last way too long. Even diaper changes required bracing.

I drove out and bought her a baby bath, as she screamed the entire way to, in, and from the store. The moment I set her in it, against the little bouncy chair, her eyes went wide, and her lips pursed. She hiccuped, and kicked her legs, splashing, finally happy.

She’s always been a water baby.



“Did I hear Lance call you Farley earlier?” I say to Jones when Haze goes back to the table with her friends.

“You did. It’s my name.”

“Your name is Farley? You some scion descendant of a comedy dynasty or something?”

She laughs bitterly. “Nope. Just a family name. The only family I have left hates this,” she gestures to the club, her finger whipping around in a circle.

She pivots on a heel and goes back to the girls, naturally taking them through what feels like a set that was designed for them, without the unnecessary theatrics behind it. She doesn’t stand up, doesn’t use a mic (which is good since it would be pointless in ASL), just makes it feel like conversation over pizza, but has them all giggling and snorting uncontrollably. She pokes plenty of fun at me, at Lance. She jumps up and leaves for a second before running back in and presenting something to Hazel. As she takes it in her palms, Farley signs, “It’s a tattoo. Now you can say you got a tattoo for your birthday.”

I feel my eyebrows pinch together. “No tattoos!” I call. Farley ignores me, and since Hazel isn’t facing me, she’s not privy to my objections. Farley looks at me and grins, eyes twinkling even from a distance.

As her hair dries, I notice that it’s got quite a bit of red in it.

She brings Hazel to the sink at the bar and applies the temporary tattoo on the back of her hand, while I look on, trying to settle the strange feelings muddling in my chest.

Hazel runs over to show the other girls, the tattoo making her smile and flourish her hands as she signs. The manner that she holds her hands and twirls them makes something heavy catch in my throat. She clearly feels proud, and pretty… Even more special for the way that she communicates in this moment. I’m actually jealous that I didn’t think to do it first.