Look at me, Mom. I’m in New York City.
She wanted me to move on and be happy. Well, I moved on. Quickly. Even the excitement of being in the overcrowded city excited me, leaving little room to be sad. Not at that moment anyway. It took us nearly an hour and a half to get through the city and to downtown Manhattan. Holy shit. I was in New York City.
This was too much for one day. The word Zazen separated from the word Resort as the medieval gate opened, inviting us in.
“Holly f-f-fish sticks,” I exclaimed, recovering language Blake Coast didn’t like, “This is like a whole other city. A city in a city. You live in the hotel?”
“It sort of is. You get the best of both worlds. It’s gated. There should be no reason why you need to take London out of these gates. I prefer you stay behind this fence with her.”
“So you’re not taking us back to Chicago with you?”
“No, but just so you know, everyone in this hotel knows who my daughter is. I’m going to make sure Larry knows to keep you on the grounds. Got it?”
“Ah man, really? I was hoping to do some sightseeing.”
“You can do that when I get back. There’s a pool out back, state of the art gym on the first floor, tennis courts, and even a restaurant, but stay out of there. You’re not really the type to eat there,” Blake added, giving my street clothes a once over. I couldn’t help it. If this guy knew what I’d just been through he would understand why I couldn’t eat, why I didn’t care about the stain on my shirt, or why my hair was pulled into a messy bun in the back of my head.
“What does that mean?” I defensively questioned.
“You’ll see in about two minutes. You’re about to feel like a fish out of water.”
If there was one thing my mother taught me, it was to never feel like a fish out of water. Just because this guy chose to walk around in a tailored suit and tie didn’t mean I was going to wish I was like him.
The driver nodded with a frown when he opened my door. Even after I smiled at him, he held the frown, “Wait here,” Blake said, leaving me on the stone drive. Wow, even the circle drive was beautiful. I hiked my bag over my shoulder while I watched Blake walk away. The fountain was nice and I wondered what it was supposed to be; maybe a cross between a cherub and a fat angel.
A man dressed to kill in white approached me from the grand entrance, “Hello, Ms. Makayla. I’ll show you to your quarters now,” I nodded, wondering where Blake had gone and why he just left me. I figured it out when we entered the building.
Jumping Jack Flash.
Whoa.
This place was crazy, like a five-star resort. Oh, yeah. It was a five star resort. There was a counter for customer service, a beautiful seating area, and the shiniest chandelier I’d ever seen. Lights danced off the burgundy plush carpet and I tried like hell to hold in the awe.
Trying not to act like the fish out of water I felt like, I observed the fashionably snobby women, whispering and then laughing at me and my attire. Nice. Really? One wore heels the size of yardsticks and the other one had earrings that matched the hanging chandelier.
“Girls around here must take longer to mature,” I distastefully said with a smile to both the cold bitches. Screwthat. They were no better than me and I wasn’t about to let them think they were.
My escort held a smirk, “It’s probably best not to say anything,” my chaperon offered the unwanted advice. I didn’t reply. He could think what he wanted, just like those two higher than thou tramps. This just kept getting crazier. I guess I didn’t realize how much money you had to have for a private jet. This place was ridiculous.
“What floor are we going to?”
“Fifty-eight through sixty, north side.”
“What do you mean? Like he has two floors?”
“Yes, the north penthouse. Ms. Laura Wilson lives in the east penthouse.”
“Where is he? Where did he go?”
“I’m not at liberty to ask Mr. Coast his business,” the cool, older man informed me. Snooty old geezer. I sure as hell hoped everyone in New York wasn’t this stuck up.
My breathing stopped again when we finally stopped on the fifty-eighth floor. A fancy, white marble lobby was waiting when the elevator doors opened. I could sleep there. No problem. Who had their own private lobby? Whoa…
I closed my mouth and looked to the left when I heard the ruffling noise. Besides the frilly dress, the kid was cute as hell. This guy was going to be in huge trouble in about ten years. Her long eyelashes and teal colored eyes were the first things I noticed.
“Hi,” I said, dropping to one knee in front of her. Oh my God!!! This child was gorgeous. Her light brown hair was long for not being three yet; half way down her back. She sucked in both her lips and cowered behind her dad’s legs.
Blake dropped her bag, and then his phone. I caught the sippy cup mid-air.
“Do you think maybe you could help? Take her,” he ordered, gathering his things.
I picked up the child and glared at Blake, “Maybe if you put that phone down for five seconds you wouldn’t be dropping everything.” Shit. I did it again, but damnit. This guy didn’t have a clue. I never saw blinders that wide on someone before.
“You do realize you’re the help, right? I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself if you’d like to keep this job past your three day trial period.”
The gasp was vividly audible when Blake opened the thick double doors. Wow, wow, and wow. I didn’t have a reply anymore. My eyes went right to the massive wall of glass, but it was what was displayed in front of the glass that was giving me that ah-aw moment.
“Makayla. Do you have a cell phone?” Blake asked, looking through emails, and typing a million miles a minute with his thumbs on his phone.
I looked to the phone resting on the fancy table just inside the grand entrance, “No, doesn’t the house phone work?”
“It works.”
“Is that an August Förster?” My mother would freak over this piano. I mean like she would have screamed to the top of her lungs over this thing.
“You know what an August Förster is?” Blake questioned with a frown.
“Do you play?” I asked, carrying London with me to the piano. My fingers glided over the sleek white shine and emotions stirred something in my soul. Something my mother left there.
“Some. Do you?”
“Some,” I nonchalantly replied, shifting this little girl on my hip.
“How old are you?”
“How old are you?”
“Why can’t you just answer my questions?”
“I already told you I was eighteen,” I nervously replied. I hated lying. I sucked at it.
“When will you be nineteen?”
“September. When will you be twenty-eight?”
“Watch it. Twenty-five. Okay, I’ve got to get going. Here’s my credit card. Get yourself some clothes.”
“You said not to leave the grounds.”
“There’s a desk computer in my office you can use. You should find plenty on there. I’ll have Larry bring you a cell phone later. I want to be able to reach you at all times. Okay, I’ll see you later, London. You be a good girl for Makayla. I’ll phone you when I land. It’s almost six. She should have supper and a bath.”
And just like that. He was gone.
Silence filled the room after the clicking of the door. I turned to London and she stared at me, neither of us, making a sound.
“Do you talk?”
Nothing. Man. Those eyes. Now that I looked at them closer I realized they were darker up close. The fun teal color was replaced with dark emerald, like her dad’s eyes.
I set London to the floor, but she didn’t let go. Her sticky fingers were tangled in my hair with a cherry ring-pop around her finger. I knew she smelled funny. I blew it off as the way rich kids smelled, like cherries. Once her fingers were out of my hair, I guided her to the bathroom with her hands in the air, feeling the sticky sucker tug on my hair as I walked.
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“Holy shhh…” I held the word I didn’t want her repeating to her dad and took it all in. This bathroom was outrageous. Ridiculous. I washed London’s sticky hands first and then lifted the lacy dress over her head. Why a two year old needed to walk around the house like that was beyond me.
“Wait a minute. You wear diapers? Shouldn’t you be house trained by now?” I asked. I didn’t know much about kids, but I knew this one would be three in four months. I would have thought she could use the toilet. After filling the tub with water, I lifted her in. She could have swam in that thing, but she didn’t. She stared at me with those now teal colored eyes, just sitting there.
“What is your name? My name’s Mikki,” I explained through the mirror while I tried desperately to get the foreign, sticky object out of my hair. London still didn’t respond. She sat there motionless while I fought for ten minutes, trying to free the sucker from my hair. Sadly, the scissors had to help a little.
“Triste,” London quietly said. My heart melted. Oh my God! That was the cutest voice I’d ever heard in my life. I had no idea what she said, but it was adorable.
I smiled. She didn’t smile back. She only stared at me with eyes that I hadn’t learned to read yet. London let me bathe her, wash her hair, and dress her in the stupidest nightgown in the world. Who would want to sleep with all this lace?
***
That was the beginning of the bond that I couldn’t see ever separating. This child quickly became the only thing that mattered to me. I pulled the plug on my tub, shaking off the past when I realized how cold the water was. The small space reminded me I was miles away from New York and Pea was safe, sleeping below her cozy ‘Frozen’ covers and wild pink sheets.
I woke before Pea the following morning and scrubbed away my life, watching the black rain swirl around the sink and down the drain. I tried not to let her see that side of me although on occasion, she did. I watched my life’s symbol being erased from my skin, feeling hopeless again.
“Something bad happened,” Pea said from the door.
“Something like what?” I asked puzzled, drying my red, scrubbed clean arm on the hand towel.
“This,” she giggled, spinning in a circle. The butt of her pajama pants had an L shaped flap from a fresh, new tear.
I giggled too, “What did you do?”
“I slid off the window seal. My butt got stuck on a staple.”
Thank God. Pea had forgotten all about her nostalgic plea to go home the night before.
“What do you want to do today? I thought maybe we would go walk the river. Ranger Rick said we could take bread and watch the minnows swarm in schools.”
“Okay, we can pretend like they’re great white sharks, but they can mutate into land animals, so we have to build a wall to keep them out.”
My head spun with where she got this stuff, but I was more than okay with talking about escaping imaginary, transforming sharks. It beat the hell out of talking about ending our vacation and going home.
After packing a lunch and a backpack full of ammunition to conquer the morphs, Pea and I set out on new adventures. She ran ahead of me, bouncing up and down eager to find the river. Pea held the map of the great forest and led us to the trail, leading us to the shallow stream.
“Hey, look, a dog!” she exclaimed, running ahead of me.
“Pea, come back. You can’t run up to strange dogs. Pea! I’m serious,” I called, picking up my own pace.
“It’s okay, mom. She doesn’t bite,” I heard, looking up to a male voice.
Pea paid no attention to the mom comment. She was too busy with this very big dog.
“That’s close enough,” I said right before she ignored me and petted the dog’s head.
“What kind of dog is he?” she asked, blowing off everything I said.
“It’s a she. Her name is Sadie and my name is Quinton, but my friends call me Quinn. You can call me Quinn if you want.”
I cautiously watched while Pea interacted with the stranger. We were going to have a serious talk about this.
“My name is really London Jane Coast, but I’m pretending to be Penelope,” My face and heart recovered quickly when she continued, “We’re going to throw bread in the water and build a shark trap so they can’t get us on land.”
Quinn laughed, and wished her the best of luck. He paid absolutely no attention to one word of her name pretending. He blew it off with the imaginary sharks. Phew…
“Jenna,” I offered my hand when he held his to mine first. Okay, move along now.
Quinn talked to Pea for another fifteen minutes, answering dog questions and then fish questions.
“Did you catch a fish out of here?” Pea asked excited, “Me and Mikki can’t fish,” she explained. I looked to Quinn for the name reaction.
He didn’t have one. He was overlooking the things she subconsciously told the truth about, disregarding it as her wild imagination, “You fibber. I took you fishing here lots of times now.”
“But we didn’t catch anything. We only fished.”
“Yeah, yeah, what’s your point?” So what if I wasn’t a fisherman. We had fun trying.
“What are you using for bait?” Quinn asked me rather than Pea. She was off, playing with the dog already. Pea tossed a stick to the middle of the stream and Sadie chased after it.
“We’ve used everything but live bait. We both tried, but the wiggly worms were just too much. We did a lot of screaming then let them go,” I spoke the truth, “We’re fine with pizza crust. The little fish nibble on it and Pea gets to watch. That’s all that matters.”
“You have to eat them.”
“Oh no we don’t. If we want fish, we’ll go where someone else skins them.”
“It’s called filleting. This fresh water stream has the best trout you’ll ever taste. Come here, Pea. Let me show you,” Quinn offered. Great… I didn’t need a nice looking man teaching us how to do anything. I wasn’t here for that and I sure as hell didn’t need it.
Of course I didn’t say anything. Quinn opened a small container and rolled the dough like substance into a firm little ball. After teaching Pea how to bait a hook without getting poked, he taught her to cast it. I do have to say he was way better at it than me. I sat on the sandy bank and watched Pea have the time of her life with this guy taking the time to pay attention to her. Why did girls always want the attention of a man? If this guy was being nice to get to me, he was in another world. Not mine.
“You live around here?” I asked, being curious while he waited with Pea on the fifth fish to jump on the hook. She was in fish heaven.
“Actually, no. I’m a game warden at Cimarron, I’m just here doing a little fishing. Vacation,” he smiled at me. Oh brother. That was a flirt had I ever witnessed one. My eyes shifted quickly to Pea when he tried to hold my gaze. No thanks, buddy. I’m doing just fine on my own. I did know of Cimarron though. I did some research on it while deciding where we were going to go.
“How long you here for?” I asked, hoping he didn’t stick around long.
“Just got here yesterday. I’m staying over at the cabins on Moon Bay. Three or four days should do it.”
I studied him, feeling like there was a hidden message. That should do it? What did that mean? My paranoid question eased when he explained the cabins.
“It’s the cabins along the Dandelion Trails. Have you ventured across that one yet?”
“Did we?” Pea asked, turning to me.
“I don’t think so.”
“You can show us if you want to. We live in New York, right Mikki?”
Come on, Pea. Really? I smiled at her and nodded, not about to admit to that one. Especially not to someone that wore a badge. I didn’t know what a park ranger’s job description was, but I was sure he could make the right call to have me arrested.
Quinn not only taught her how to use the less gross bait to catch fish, he also taught her how to clean them. She screamed a few times, but she did it. Not only did she he
lp him clean her mess of fish, she had to go and invite him to eat them too. I was going to kill her.
Five
I have to admit, Pea and I had a lot of fun with Quinn, and he was a pretty good cook. Quinn was right. It was the best trout around and I was pretty confident that he didn’t know me from anyone else. He was a nice guy and had I not been so hung up on someone else, I may have given the guy a chance. By the time I dropped enough hints for him to finally leave it was nearly nine. Geesh.
“You can come back tomorrow if you want to,” Pea offered, petting the dog one last time.
“Go to the bath tub,” I scolded. She laughed and skipped away, “Sorry about that. She gets a little carried away.”
Quinn snorted and smiled at me again, “Where’s her dad?”
“He’s back in New York.”
“Divorced?”
“Never married.”
“Does he see her?”
“Some. He’s a little detained right now. He’s pretty busy.”
“Are you staying here or is this just a summer thing?”
“Oh we’ll head back home before school starts,” I lied, needing to get rid of the good-looking game warden. I refrained from asking about his personal life, I didn’t need to know anything about him.
That’s not how it worked out at all. Of course not. Why would anything come easy for me? Pea dragged us back to the same spot the very next day. She caught our supper with the dough like bait that Quinn taught her how to use, and she was determined to clean the slippery fish herself. There was no way I was giving her anything sharper than a butter knife. The last thing we needed was a trip to the emergency room.
Although I was guaranteed that the identification cards given to me would work for anything I needed, I wasn’t taking any chances. The lady with the distorted voice assured me the authenticity of our identities while she advised on keeping a low profile for the first twelve months. Don’t open any credit card accounts, pay with cash, stay away from the public as much as possible, keep a bag packed, and don’t make friends. The fewer people we were around the better off we were going to be.