Starting Over (9 page)

“You skipped over third base, which is impossible,” Alex says with a grin. “You have to step on third base; if not, you might not be waved home.”

“You say toe-may-toe, I say tah-mah-toe,” she says back to him.

“Why are we talking about this anyway?” he asks her.

“I’m giving sex advice to Vanessa.”

Alex looks at me with his eyes wide and in shock. “Vanessa, do not listen to whatever craziness my wife just explained to you. You take all the time in the world and for the love of God, please use protection. And you,” he says to Julia. “Stop being nosy.”

Her laughter fills the room like a wild hyena’s. “I’m not being nosy. She asked for it.”

Alex stands up and goes over to where Julia is from behind the couch. He bends down and gives her an upside-down kiss on the lips, then says, “I love you, but please do not flood her brain with all this baseball sex nonsense.”

He goes upstairs to check on the girls, leaving me alone with Julia, who’s still laughing. “Don’t listen to him,” she says.

“Seriously, should I be worried that he’ll expect to . . . you know?” I ask her. My mind is now in overdrive as I wonder if our next time out equals second base or is a second date, or is it technically our first date / first base situation. I feel as if we blew past first and second this morning, but we haven’t even kissed yet. Oh my God, I’m going to throw up.

“Relax, Vanessa,” she says. “You look like you’re gonna boot. Listen, if he’s half the gentleman you made him out to be, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Okay, if you say so,” I say but my mind is still racing a mile a minute. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Julia leans forward again. “Do you want to know something else?”

“What?” I answer.

“The older you get, the better the sex,” she says. “It’s true, especially with men. When they’re young bucks all they think about is trying to hit it, and it’s over pretty quick. As they get older and more mature, they realize they won’t be able to hit it again and again if they don’t make it worth the while for the woman. That means that they’ll do just about anything to please you and make sure you . . . you know, before they . . .”

She wiggles her eyebrows like some crazy cartoon character. It occurs to me I have no idea how old Cameron is, which makes me feel like a buffoon. Because here I am going to first and maybe second base earlier today with the man, and contemplating having sex with him, and yet I don’t know if he’s old enough to vote.

“What’s wrong now?” Julia asks. “Did I freak you out? Listen, what I said about doing just about anything doesn’t mean anal or anything. I mean that could happen if that sort of thing floats your boat. And if you do anal, my friend, Sarah, says—”

“I’m not thinking about anal!” I shriek in horror. “I’m realizing that I don’t know a lot about him.”

“Vanessa, that’s what the date part of the night is for.” She pauses and takes a good long look at me. “I know it’s been a long time and all, but you do remember the ‘getting to know you’ part of dating, right?”

“Of course I do. I’m not that stupid.”

I am that stupid, apparently. But I don’t dare voice that to Julia. I can still remedy this before any physical relationship goes further with Cameron the next time we see each other. My mind is drifting to all the questions I should ask him when Alex and Violet come back downstairs, with Josie trailing behind.

“I want to go home, Mommy,” she says in a whimper, climbing on top of Julia.

Julia cradles her in her arms and kisses her cheeks. “Me too, sweet pea, Mommy’s very tired.”

“Mommy, will you naptime with me? Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice, baby.”

Julia, with Violet still in her arms, says a quick good-bye, as does Alex. Before they leave though, Julia makes sure to let me know that if I need any more advice to give her a call. What with the advice she gave me today, I’m not certain that’s a good idea. So I nod and say sure as politely as possible before seeing them off and out the door, leaving Josie and me alone.

Instead of telling Josie about spending time with Cameron, I end up inviting her to zone out on the couch with me for the mommy and daughter time that I’ve been sorely missing out on recently. Her face lights up with a beatific smile at my request, and we veg out for the rest of the day, taking turns picking what we’ll watch next. As boring as that may sound, it turns out to be a perfect way to wind down this crazy weekend.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
fter a full week of radio silence from my new attorney, she calls me at work the next morning, bright and early and raring to go with a point by point breakdown of Matthew’s petition in detail.

That is, until I reach a point where my inner thoughts slip out of my mouth by accident, interrupting her train of thought.

“I don’t understand how Matthew could even do all of this to begin with.”

“Well that’s easy, Ms. Holt,” my attorney calmly says. “The system is in place to protect the rights of both parents and—”

“But that’s just it. He has not been a parent. He has
never
been a parent to Josie. It’s only ever been me.”

She blows out an exasperated breath. “Ms. Holt, I understand your frustration in the process, I really do. But it’s a process. Right now, our best course of action is to file the counterpetition to his initial petition. Which as I told you via e-mail last night was in fact filed with the family court, and they have in turn already confirmed receipt.”

That makes me a feel a bit better, but not much. I’m grateful that she’s in my corner and even more grateful that Alex was able to find her on such short notice and procure a meeting with her immediately. I appreciate her approach and how she can break things down from the most technical legal mumbo jumbo to something I can understand. It helps to alleviate some of the stress, but in the back of my mind, I’m already preparing for the worst.

“Then what happens?” I ask. “Worst-case scenario.”

“He could very well fight your counterpetition, and then we would end up in court.”

“So you mean I would have to sit there and defend all the decisions I’ve had to make in order to raise Josie all by myself? Then some stranger gets to decide what’s best for my daughter without ever meeting her?”

“In cases where the child in question is a minor such as Josie, the presiding judge could also request to meet with the child and/or have an independent evaluation conducted on behalf of the court before ruling.”

“I can’t believe this,” I say underneath my breath. “They could really do that?”

“Believe it, Ms. Holt.” She sighs into the phone before adding, “Look, you asked for the worst-case scenario, but that doesn’t mean that it will get that far. In my honest opinion, I don’t believe that your ex has much to go on other than pure, unadulterated guilt for being an absentee father. I just want you to be aware of the what-ifs and be prepared for whatever happens.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry you have to go through this, Ms. Holt,” she says. “But you have to trust that I am working my hardest to do what is best here for you and Josie.”

“I understand that, Ms. Gomez, and I appreciate it. I just hope that it works.”

“I believe it will, Ms. Holt.”

After saying our good-byes, I’m left with a feeling of unease and dread as I picture Josie having to be interviewed by someone she’s never met before to discuss her entire life. The more I think about this, the angrier and more frustrated I get over the entire legal process. I just have to trust my attorney to make the correct decisions and have faith in her belief that it will all work in my favor in the end.

I’ve also decided that I’m not going to tell my parents just yet about any of this mess with Matthew. I know that it will only add an unnecessary stress into their lives if I do. That’s not completely true. There is a part of me that feels like somewhat of a disappointment to them. I mean, I had a child right out of college
and
out of wedlock. Even though I know they don’t have an issue with any of it since they’ve been so supportive of me, I don’t want to have to tell them about a problem that involves Matthew . . . again. So, as of right now, the only person who knows what’s going on is Alex. Who, thank God, has been able to keep things quiet about it to date. However, he now thinks it’s time to tell Josie, and I will . . . I just can’t seem to pick the perfect time to do that.

When my cell phone starts to ring in my hands, it shakes me out of my depressing and futile thoughts. Looking at the screen, I see that it’s Cameron calling me, and it’s a welcome distraction.

“Hello, Cameron.”

“You didn’t call me Mr. Thomas right off the bat. I’m impressed and honored.”

“You should be.”

“How is your day going?” he asks.

I’m not about to start unloading on him all the drama surrounding me right now so I take the safe route. “Fine. How about yours?”

“Funny you should ask, because I’m good. Great, actually.”

“What’s so great about it?” I ask.

“Well I’ve been sitting here planning our date,” he says with an air of excitement in his voice.

This throws me for a loop. Even though we agreed to see each other this weekend for what would be our first official date, I didn’t think he would be mapping it out so seriously and with such gusto.

“What did you have planned, exactly?”

He takes a quick breath and then lets loose all the things he has
been planning for us to do on Saturday, beginning with a wine tasting
and ending with a laser light show at the planetarium. In the middle of
those things, he wants to squeeze in a trip to Bayside to take a boat ride
around Star Island and of course dinner somewhere close to the beach.

“Cameron,” I say hesitantly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d like to keep things simple.”

“Um, I’m sorry, was I going off the deep end already?”

“No, it’s sweet of you, really, to want to make sure I’ll have a good time. But I promise, I’ll have a good time no matter what we do together.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding slightly unsure. Now I feel terrible that I made him second-guess himself.

“Cameron, I hope you realize that more than anything, I really would like to get to know you better, and I think keeping things simple is the best way to do that.”

I can hear the relief in his voice instantly. “I’d like that too, Vanessa, very much.”

“Good.” And now I’m the one who feels more than relieved.

“Good,” he agrees. “So I’ll pick you up at six o’clock on Saturday night then?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

When I wake up on Saturday morning, Josie is already downstairs on the couch, reading a book. I can feel her ever-observant eyes tracking my every movement as I turn on the pot of coffee in the kitchen and wait impatiently for it to brew. Once I’ve poured myself a cup, I sit on the other couch across from her.

We stay silent for a moment or two until she says, “So tonight’s the night?”

“Looks that way.”

I told Josie about going out to dinner with Cameron, and she was very happy for me. Today, as I blow on my coffee to cool it down a little, she seems off, as if there’s something bugging her. Naturally, being
the semi-pessimistic person that I am, I’m guessing that she’s not as
okay as she thought she was about her mom dating one of her teachers.

Gingerly, I put my still-full mug on the coffee table between us. “You know, Josie, it’s normal for you to be upset about this. And if you say the word, I’ll call Cameron right now and call it all off.”

Josie drops the book she had been reading onto her lap. Her eyes scrunch together in confusion, and she’s about to say something to me, but I put my hand up to stop her.

“Because you know, kid, I think we’ve been doing a fine job with just the two of us up until now. And I would hate for you to feel uncomfortable in the slightest with me dating. Or I should say, dating your teacher, specifically, which is kind of weird, but—”

“Mom!”

“Yes?”

“Are you crazy?” she asks and doesn’t let me answer. “Of course I’m okay with this. I was only asking if tonight was the night because I wanted to know what you were going to wear and if you needed any help with picking out an outfit.”

“Oh.”

Josie offering to help me releases a little of the stress I’d been holding on to leading up to tonight. Having two parents who are still happily married some thirty plus years now and a brother who went the traditional route with his love life, kind of, I’ve always felt bad about not having a so-called normal home life for Josie. So to hear her be so accepting and wanting to help me today, especially with me being so nervous about it all, is like a weight off of my shoulders.

My eyes start to water immediately.

“Mom, it’s not a big deal, it’s just clothes.”

Wiping my eyes with the ends of my T-shirt, I smile at her reaction. Then I try to get control of myself before I really start to cry, over of all things, a date.

“Seriously, Mom.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “So clothes. Right. I was thinking a pair of jeans and, I don’t know, a top or something, and some sandals.”

Josie looks at me as if two heads sprouted on each of my shoulders while I was talking.

“Is that not good?” I ask sheepishly.

Her face then morphs into a sly grin. “Let’s go to the mall. But first, I’m going to call someone for help.”

“We don’t have to go to the mall, Josie. I have plenty of clothes here already.”

“Mom, your clothes all have stains on them from painting and drawing. And the ‘nice’ clothes you think you have aren’t that nice. So a couple of new outfits aren’t going to kill you.”

While she’s talking, she has her cell phone out and is pressing buttons maniacally.

“Who are you texting?” I ask.

“Aunt Julia,” she says. “She already texted back that she’ll meet us at Dadeland in about an hour and to bring Spanx.” She looks up at me in confusion. “Do you know what that means?”

“I don’t have any.” Josie presses more buttons on her phone. “What are you texting her now?”

“That it’s a code red situation since you don’t even own Spanx.”

“It’s not a code red situation, thank you very much,” I mumble to myself. Her phone buzzes immediately. “What’s she saying now?”

“She texted back that she’ll meet us in thirty minutes instead and not to be late.” Josie stands up from the couch and starts walking past me. She stops, bends down, and gives me a big hug, then says, “Make that coffee to go, Mom. We’ve got some serious shopping to do.”