Trent (Season Two: The Ninth Inning #4) (15 page)

“We’re celebrating today,
right?”

“Yes.” I’m still unsure where
this is going.

“Well, then I think I need
some ice cream. Can we go get some?”

“Hmm,” I pretend to think it
over. “I don’t know.”

“Please,” she begs. “You can
get some, too! I just have to have some ice cream, Daddy. We always
eat ice cream when we celebrate.
Please
. I’ll love you
forever,” she finishes as a last ditch effort.

I laugh. “You’re supposed to
love me forever anyway. You don’t need to use your love against me,
Kaelyn; we’ll go out for ice cream.”

She squeals with her
excitement. Once we get out of the parking lot, it doesn’t take but
about twenty minutes to arrive at our favorite ice cream place. The
heat is ridiculous outside. Ice cream really does sound like the
perfect thing to eat right now. The first thing I notice when I
walk inside is we aren’t the only ones with this idea. The second
thing I notice is that Scarlett is in front of us in line.

“Pick me up. I can’t see.”
So, I pick her up for her to peer at the images on the menu.

At the sound of Kaelyn’s
voice, Scarlett glances behind her. Her eyes widen, and I give her
a small smile.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hi,” she replies softly.

“Hey,” Kaelyn jumps in.
“You’re pretty.”

"Thank you. You're beautiful.
I love your...curls." Scarlett tries not to laugh, and I look at my
daughter. What’s wrong with her curls? I thought I did a good job.
"Did your daddy do them?"

“Thank you,” she beams. “He
did, but,” Kaelyn drops her voice to a whisper and leans toward
Scarlett, “he needs to practice more.”

She whispers back to her,
"You should tell him to watch YouTube. I think it helped him
before." She winks.

Kaelyn looks at me with the
most serious expression and says, “Watch YouTube, Daddy.”

“Hey, you told me I did a
good job. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

She shakes head, her
apparently terrible curls shaking with it. “You did good for your
first try.” And that’s all the attention I get as she faces
Scarlett again. “What’s your name? My name is Kaelyn, and I
graduated from Kindergarten today.”

Scarlett looks at me, waiting
for permission to interact further with my daughter. Maybe I’m
crazy, but I nod.

“I'm Scarlett and
congratulations on graduating. Are you excited for first
grade?”

“Yep. We won’t have naptime
anymore, but we’re still supposed to have snack breaks. What’s your
favorite kind of ice cream? Last time, I tried that green one, but
it was yucky. I got the blue one instead.”

“I love the cherry. It’s my
favorite.”

“Can I try the cherry one?”
Kaelyn asks me.

“Yeah, you can taste it first
and if you like it, you can order it. I’m sure it’ll be just as
good with gummy bears and sprinkles.”

“What do you get on
yours?”

“Sometimes I do chocolate
syrup and sometimes plain. It depends on my mood. I’ve had a bad
day, so I’m having a lot of chocolate syrup,” Scarlett explains to
her.

“Why are you having a bad
day? You should sit with us. I can help. Daddy always says I make
his bad days better. She can sit with us, right?”

“Ah, yeah, sure, if she wants
to.” Have I gone completely insane?

“Do you want to?”

“Um...you’re very sweet, but
I think you should enjoy your day with your daddy. Thank you though
for being kind to me. It did brighten up my day.”

“Are you sure? I won’t mind,
Scarlett,” I say, my mouth blurting out words regardless of whether
or not I’m sure about this.

She hesitates before nodding.
“Okay. I’d like that.”

We order our ice cream and
Kaelyn gets the cherry flavored ice cream with chocolate syrup. We
claim a table with three chairs. Kaelyn immediately takes charge of
the conversation.

“What’s your favorite color?
I like yellow, pink, and red and blue because those are the colors
on Daddy’s baseball team.”

“I like red and purple. Those
are my favorite colors.”

“Purple is pretty. Daddy
likes blue and my granny says she doesn’t have a favorite color,
but I think it’s green because she wears green stuff all the
time.”

“It’s possible you’re right,”
Scarlett agrees.

“Do you like Cinderella?
She’s my favorite princess. We watch the movie all the time.”

“I do, but my favorite
princess is Snow White because she was the first cartoon I saw in a
movie theater.”

“Oh! I have a friend named
Happy, but Hector likes to call him Grumpy. My Happy is one of my
best friends. He plays baseball, too.”

“He must be a lucky person to
have you as his friend. Do you like baseball?”

“Only if my daddy is playing
and if I get to sit in the room with the air conditioner because
it’s too hot in the other seats. I like to get a soda and a bag of
peanuts. You have to have it when you go to the game. That’s what
my mommy told me.”

My heart catches at the
mention of Deborah, but the conversation doesn’t even pause.

“Your mommy sounds like a
smart lady. I hate the heat, and I’d rather sit in the air
conditioning too. Do you read books? Do you have a favorite?”

“
Cinderella
. Daddy
reads it to me at bedtime. I read books I get from school to my
Granny. She says I’m a good reader.”

“I bet you’re the best
reader. I bet your dad loves reading to you, too.” Scarlett looks
over to me with a smile.

Finally, I’m able to join in.
“I’ve tried to get her to let me read
Curious George
, but
she’s stuck on
Cinderella
.”

“It’s not as good!” Kaelyn
exclaims.

“How do you know?” I ask her.
“I haven’t read it to you yet.”

“I know because it’s not
Cinderella and Cinderella is the best,” she answers decisively.

“I like Curious George,”
Scarlett jumps in. “He is very funny and is always getting into
trouble. You should try reading it. If you don’t like it, then you
can go back to Cinderella.”

“Well.” Kaelyn actually seems
to think about it. “Maybe you can read it to me tonight, Daddy. But
if it sucks, you have to read Cinderella instead.”

“Deal and we don’t say
suck.”

We finish off our ice cream
and Scarlett smiles at my daughter.

“Kaelyn, I want to thank you
for letting me have ice cream with you and your daddy, but I have
to go back to work.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And…” I say, waiting for her
to add to it.

“And what?” Kaelyn frowns in
confusion. “She said thank you. I said you’re welcome.”

“You could thank her for
joining us for ice cream.”

“Oh. Thanks for eating ice
cream with us, Scarlett.”

She giggles. “You’re
welcome.”

“Daddy is taking me on a
playdate on Monday and we always have ice cream. We can all have
ice cream again.”

Scarlett’s eyes widen as
Kaelyn invites her out again. I nod; it seems to be the only thing
I know how to do today.

“Kaelyn, that’s so sweet to
suggest we have ice cream again, but I’m not going to be able to.
Thank you though. I’ve had a lot of fun with you today.”

“Aw, why not?” Kaelyn gives
Scarlett her best pout.

“I work on Mondays and I’m
too busy to have ice cream, but I know you’ll have a blast with
your daddy. You don’t need me intruding again.”

“What does intruding
mean?”

“Interrupting. I don’t want
to interrupt your day.”

“But—”

“That’s enough, Kaelyn,” I
tell her. If I don’t interrupt, we’ll be here all day. “You know
that sometimes people are busy and can’t do what you want them to.
Like when I was on a trip and couldn’t take you to school that
morning. Maybe we’ll see Scarlett around another time. We should
tell Scarlett bye and see you around.”

She folds her arms over her
chest, sulking. “Bye. See you around.
Maybe
.”

“I give you my promise we’ll
have ice cream again. I never break a promise.” One encouraging
smile from Scarlett has Kaelyn all smiles again.

“Okay!”

I laugh and shake my head.
“See you around, Scarlett.”

***

I TAP MY nails against
the wine glass as I wait for Macy to meet me at the bar. The past
couple of days have been the strangest yet. Even more so than
usual. Something told me, deep down inside, not to go have ice
cream, but I really wanted it and now look at where I am. Actually,
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, hence the reason I’m waiting
for Macy.

“I’m here. I’m here.” She
comes rushing toward me. I hand her the glass I ordered for her and
she takes a large gulp. “You don’t ever call and say it’s an
emergency, so what’s up?”

“My life is over. Okay, not
over, but it’s in some downward spiral, and I don’t know what the
hell I’m doing.”

“Let’s step off the crazy
train platform and back onto the rational sidewalk and let’s start
from the beginning.” She smirks at her comment and sips her
wine.

“I went for ice cream
yesterday and ran into Trent. Not just Trent though, but his
daughter too.”

Macy hisses. “How awkward was
that?”

“It was a nightmare, but what
was worse was when his adorable daughter asked me to eat ice cream
with them.”

Macy’s eyes go wide. “What
happened?”

“Trent thought it was a grand
idea, and I spent the next half hour with them.”

Macy laughs. “Are you pulling
my leg?”

“No. It was horrible at
first, but his little girl is a dream, and I had a marvelous time.
Then Kaelyn asked me to do it again with them, and I looked at
Trent, and of course, he nodded, but I don’t know if he was just
being polite or hell, I don’t know.” I rub my temples to ease the
never-ending headache that I’ve had since my first run in with
Trent.

“Oh my God. What are you
going to do?”

“How the hell should I know?
I figured it was all over when he ran away from me after telling
him about Dom. I didn’t expect to have ice cream with his daughter.
I never thought I’d see him there. You know, like a normal person
would think after telling him my brother killed his wife!” I raise
my voice and a couple of people turned to look at us.

“Whoa, Scarlett, calm down. I
understand where you are coming from. I mean, I was in the same
boat you were, thinking he’d never see you again. Do you think he
forgot?”

I give her the same look I
give my kids when they ask ridiculous questions.

“All right. All right, I
understand what I just asked. I have no other ideas then. If I were
in his shoes, I wouldn’t come within one hundred feet of you.
Sorry, but it’s true. Especially if I had a child involved.”

“I feel the same way. Maybe
he hit his head or something.”

We both sit there for a
moment, sipping our wine, and I think we’re both going through
scenarios.

“I got it.” Macy snaps her
fingers. “I know what happened.”

“You do?”

“You said Kaelyn asked you,
right?”

I nod.

“He probably didn’t want to
cause a scene with his daughter there. I bet he didn’t want to do
it, but he weighed his options and it was the best thing to do to
make sure there wasn’t a headline about it.”

I sip my wine again and think
it over. She’s probably right. Trent was trying to avoid a drama
filled outrageous scene. It makes perfect sense. He doesn’t want to
see me again or have anything to do with me. He didn’t want Kaelyn
dragged into some media frenzy. Macy’s right, and I’m glad we don’t
have to see each other again. Even though I do wish our
circumstances were different. I can see myself with someone like
Trent, but
not
Trent because there’s no way he and I can
ever have anything together.

I need to come to terms with
that and move on.