All for Maddie (13 page)

“Oh my God, Alex. That is
amazing. This is what you do?” I asked the dumb question. I wanted his job. His
job was the coolest job I’d ever seen. I didn’t even know this was a job.

“You like it?” he asked, looking
over his shoulder.

“Um, it’s okay,” I said,
remembering that I hated him, and I didn’t care what he did.

He snickered.

<><><> 

I was not looking forward to
meeting his family. It was stupid and it was all fake. I was expected to go
there and pretend that I was madly in love with their son. Their son who raped
me. Their son who was forcing me to live in his house. Their son who my
daughter was madly in love with, not me. How could he even expect me to like
them? I didn’t want to like them.

I once again, stubbornly
stared out the window, radiating hatred and defiance.  

“Please lose the attitude
before we get there. Have a good time, enjoy yourself.”

“Okay, are you planning on
staying in the car? And I don’t want you touching me either. You don’t have to
touch me to fake how you really feel about me.”

“How I really feel? How would
you know how I really feel? You avoid me like an infection.”

“I don’t care how you really
feel. All that matters is how I feel,” I selfish and boldly stated.

The rest of the ride was
quiet. Maddie wasn’t even talking. Hmmm, that wasn’t like her. I hoped she
wasn’t getting sick.

“Who’s the little girl?” I
asked as we pulled into the driveway of another immaculate home. The girl and,
I assumed, her father were tossing a baseball back and forth in the front yard.

“I play too,” Maddie said,
seeing the little girl.

“That’s Trenton, my niece.
She’s my sister’s daughter, just turned nine last month.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a
niece.”

“That’s because you don’t
care about my life.”

“Oh yeah,” I remembered,
getting out of the car.

Alex helped Maddie out of her
seat. I was rather impressed when he insisted she had to go in and potty before
she was allowed to play.

I was instantly swarmed by
Mrs. Wesson and Regan. Great, why couldn’t they just let me be the mouse in the
corner that I wanted to be?

“Whitley, we’ve heard so much
about you. I’m so happy to finally meet you. I’m Connie, and this is Regan. We
were just getting ready to mix a drink and bash our men. Surely you want to
join us,” she joked, taking my hand.

Damn, I didn’t want to like
her. She was supposed to be some snooty, nose stuck in the air bitch. She
wasn’t, not from what I’d seen so far. She wore shorts probably a little short
for her age, but damn did she have nice legs. I’m sure I would have been
showing them off at her age too. She wore her dark hair in a plain ol’ ponytail
and a worn t-shirt with Carli Simon’s picture in the middle.

I looked to see where Alex
had taken Maddie. I didn’t see them as I was being led to the beautiful
kitchen.

“Regan here is our bartender.
She can make you anything you want. What’s your flavor?”

“Grandma, can we get in the
pool now?” the dark haired little girl came in flushed.

Connie bent to kiss her cheek.
“Yes, sweetie, but wait for your cousin. I’m sure she will want to get in too.”

“I go wimmin,” Maddie said,
overhearing the conversation as Alex carried her in. He sat her down and took
Trenton’s hand.

“This is Madelyn, your
cousin. Maddie, this is Trenton,” he introduced the girls.

“I go wimmin wif Twenton?”
she asked.

“You come and see me first,”
Connie said, grabbing her up and kissing her cheeks.

Maddie squealed with
laughter.

“We didn’t bring her bathing
suit. You didn’t tell me they had a pool,” I told Alex. “She can’t get in by
herself,” I added.

Alex smiled at me, held my
arm, and leaned in for a kiss. Goddamnit, that lasted a long time.

 “She’s three. She can swim
in her undies, and I’ll get in with her.”

“YAY!” Trenton called,
jumping up and down, excited that Uncle Alex was getting in with her.

Alex left with both girls and
Regan turned to me. “Now about that drink?” she smiled. Okay, I could use one
of those or five.

“Um, I don’t know. I don’t
really drink mixed drinks.” I was a twist the cap off and chug it like a man, kind
of drinker. We were all beer drinkers back at the resort. I didn’t know what
kind of drinks there even were.

“I’m having a dirty martini.
Want to try that? If you don’t like it, I’m sure we can come up with something
else. My alcoholic mother here has every kind of liquor available.”

“I’m only an alcoholic on the
weekends. You live with your father for almost thirty years, and remain sober.”

“I did live with him for nineteen
years and that was enough.”

“Don’t listen to a word they
say,” a middle aged man came in, kissing Connie on the cheek from behind.

“This is Alex’s dad, Rob,”
Connie introduced.

He shook my hand and welcomed
me to their home. Damn, I liked him too.

“Where are my grandbabies?” he
wanted to know.

“Getting in the pool, but you’re
not getting in. You’re going to start the grill.”

“I’ll start it, you take care
of the steak and dogs,” he countered.

“Fine, go play in the pool,
you big kid,” Connie said, giving in.

We took our drinks and walked
out back with the screaming girls playing in the water with Alex. Maddie clung
to him like she was afraid of drowning. She was normally a water bug. She was
getting sick, I sensed it. I could tell.

I couldn’t believe how much
Connie and Regan talked, not to mention how much they drank. I loved them. I
could see us all being very good friends. Might as well make the best of it. I
wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

“I want my mommy,” I heard
Maddie cry from the pool.

Connie handed me a towel and
I walked to the edge of the pool to take her from Alex. He reached her up and I
wrapped her in the fuzzy oversized towel. Shit, our eyes did not just lock.
What the hell? I wasn’t going there with him. It was the drinks; that’s what it
was.

I sat in a lounge chair and
held Maddie. She did feel a little warm but nothing I was concerned with. I
gently rocked her on my lap as Regan came over with another drink.  Were they
trying to get me drunk?

Yup, I needed to quit
drinking. Alex walked up the stairs with his trunks riding low on his hips. I
turned my eyes quickly toward Regan.

“You dirty girl,” she
laughed.

What? No, I wasn’t. Ah hell. Yes,
I was. I laughed with her and looked down to Maddie.

“Is she sick?” Alex asked,
sitting on the other side of me.

“I don’t think she feels the
best today. She might be a little warm.”

“We should go.”

“No, we don’t have to go.
She’s almost asleep. Let’s see how she feels after a nap.”

“I not take a nap,” she
groggily assured me from my chest. I kissed her head and smiled at Alex. What
the hell was in this drink?

Alex carried Maddie to the
couch not even ten minutes later. He came back dressed in the same khaki shorts
that he had worn there. Trenton was telling me about her soft ball game in two
weeks and invited me to come and watch. I loved her too. What the hell was
going on here? I was supposed to be sulking, sitting off to myself, hating
being there. I was having a great time with his family. It was the drinks; it
had to be the drinks.

Maddie still wasn’t being her
normal bratty self and barely ate. She did get down and played in the yard with
Alex, Trenton, and Trenton’s dad, Vince. I caught the smiles on not only my
face but on both Connie and Regan’s too, when Maddie put her arms up for Alex
to pick her up. She laid her head on his shoulder and he rubbed her back.

I offered to help clean up,
but was declined the request when Connie informed me that she too had
housekeepers that would take care of it in the morning. I stood to get Maddie’s
things ready and stumbled back a bit. Whoa, how many of those things did I
have?

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Alex asked as we waved to his family from the car.

“No, not at all. I like your
family a lot more than I like you. You sure you weren’t adopted?” I asked.

He laughed. “I’m sure. I
think they liked you too.”

“What did you tell them? I
mean, how did you spring Maddie on them? We probably should have talked about
that. What if they would have asked?”

“I told them the truth. I met
you at a party, we hooked up, you got pregnant, and didn’t know anything but my
first name. When we ran into each other at that wedding, you told me about
Maddie, and we’ve been together ever since.”

“The truth, uh?” I said,
looking over to him. I had to make sure I didn’t drink around him again.
Ever
.
Why was I looking at him like that? Why was I even seeing him like that?

“I’m glad you liked my
family.”

I put Maddie in the tub and
sat on the toilet while she played.

“I not wash my hair,” she
said, as she blew bubbles from a cup.

“You have to wash your hair.
You have pool chlorine in it.”

“I wike pool cormamine.”

Maddie got her hair washed,
screaming that her eyes were burning the entire time. I tried to distract her
by talking about Trenton and swimming at her grandparents’ house; it didn’t
work. By the time I was done, she was in a full blown tantrum. Of course daddy
had to come in and be the good guy. He wrapped her in a towel and kissed her
hair as she sucked up his attention and wrapped her arms around his neck. I
didn’t follow him out. He knew where her pajamas were. He could deal with her.

I ran a tub of water myself
and soaked, trying to soak away the headache that I felt coming on. It didn’t
feel like an alcohol headache, more like a stress headache. Stress from the
very crazy day of hanging out with Alex’s family. Stress from my daughter
leaving my arms for his. Stress from missing my dad, Dana, and my friends.
Maybe I would go home the next weekend.

Maybe I wouldn’t.

I was just coming out of the
bathroom when I heard my cellphone ring from the kitchen island. I took it to
the pool and talked to my dad. I loved him so much, but I was sure I wasn’t
ready for this. How the hell was this going to work?

“I didn’t even get three
pages read. She’s out like a light,” Alex said, opening the sliding door,
giving me an apologetic smile, not knowing that I was on the phone.

“Okay Dad, I can’t wait.
Maddie will be ecstatic.”

“I will. Love you too.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you
were on the phone,” Alex apologized.

“Yeah, that was my dad. He
and Dana are coming here to spend the weekend next week. How the hell is that
supposed to work?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. I’m
not sleeping with you.”

“Ah, I see. Well, how else
are you going to pull off our love affair?”

“I’ll pretend to go to bed
with you, and then go get in bed with Maddie once they go to bed.” Yeah, that
would work.

<><><> 

I went right back to ignoring
Alex the very next day. He seemed to have a new work buddy and Maddie even
deserted me. She loved to sit on his lap and push the buttons that he told her to
push. She loved to watch the wall screen come to life. If her daddy was in
there, she wanted to be in there.

I opened the door and walked
in on Thursday. She was giggling as hard as I had ever seen her. Alex kept
pushing a button, causing a cartoon like frog to jump out of nowhere. She laughed
every time. I had to laugh too. She was so funny.

“I’m going to run to the
grocery store to get a few things before my dad gets here. Do you want
anything?” I asked.

“You don’t have to do that. I
have someone that takes care of that for me. Just write down what you want and
I’ll give her a call.”

“No, Alex, I don’t need
someone to grocery shop for me. I need out of this house anyway. Do you need
anything or not?”

“We’ll go with you.”

I was getting mad.

“I don’t need you to go with
me, just keep an eye on Maddie until I get back. Do you need anything or not?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he
replied, following me out.

What the hell?

Alex pulled my purse from my
shoulder and opened my wallet. I couldn’t even speak. I was dumbfounded. Who
the hell did he think he was? He took my debit card the one with
my
money and stuck it in his back pocket.

“Use the credit card that I
gave you.”

“I don’t want to use your
credit card. I have my own money.” I did have money, not much, but enough that
I didn’t need his money…yet. “Give me my card.”

“Nope, let’s go get in the
pool, Maddie,” he said, walking away from me. I hated him. I hated everything
about his stupid controlling idiotic self.

Maddie didn’t even throw a
fit to go with me. I wanted Maddie to throw a fit. Oh Lord, what was I
thinking? I groaned and left the two of them to their fun and games.

“Whitley!” I heard my name
being called as I started across the parking lot to the grocery store at least
ten times the size of the one I was used to.

“Hey, Regan. You live around
here?”

“Yeah, not far, over on
Carriage Court. You have no idea where that is, do you?”

“Nope,” I smiled.

“It’s about, oh maybe ten, twelve
miles from you. What are you doing?”

“My dad is coming this
weekend. I was just picking up a few things.”

“Alex let you? I’m surprised
he didn’t call his people,” she said, using quotation marks in the air with her
fingers.

I laughed. “He wanted to, but
I wouldn’t let him.”

“Do you want to go get a
coffee or something? Vince took Trenton to a baseball game. I have the whole
afternoon to myself.”