around, almost spinning out into the hallway. “You know where the door is. I’ll let you see yourself out.”
27
Carson
“Eat me!”
“What was that, honey?” I pause at the doorway to the den, a bowl of popcorn in one hand, my scotch in the other, but Lulu doesn’t answer. She’s too engrossed in the huge TV screen she’s standing in front of, just a pyjamaed silhouette with wild, dark hair.
“Hey, Lu, are you sure your mommy is okay with you watching this?” It’s animated, true, but so is a lot of other stuff not intended for kids' impressionable sensibilities. As I take my seat in the middle of the sectional, she doesn’t immediately answer, engrossed in the exchange playing out in front, her tiny hands balled into fists.
“Do you know the muffin man?” she parrots, reciting the lines of the scene without an ounce of attention for me. So I guess it’s a safe bet that she’s seen this once or ten times before. It must have received the parental seal of approval. “The muffin man who lives on Drury—” Lulu sniffs and turns. “Ooh, popcorn!” she announces, drawn by the buttery aroma.
As she makes a dive for the cushion next to me, she wiggles her shoulder under my arm to reach the bowl. As she smashes a tiny handful to her mouth, my elbow hovers awkwardly in the air for a moment before I slide it across the back of the sectional.
I wonder if the schoolteacher is right this minute walking down the street with his arm around her. Knock that shit off, I tell myself. The attitude of a caveman isn’t going to help when she finds you here.
So she didn’t exactly say her date was Saturday night, but it took very little effort to find out what actual day. I could’ve called Rose under some bullshit pretext, but as I’d already had a little chat with Ed Martinez, (who, along with his daytime counterparts, I give very generously to at the holidays) about keeping an eye on things, Fee being new to the city. So, I gave him a call and I asked him to let me know when Fee left the building. Not every time, I’m not some virtual fucking stalker, just when she went out in the evening this week. Alone. Before he agreed he would, I had to tell him the whole story, and I found myself admitting that I love her.
Yes, Ed Martinez, the doorman, is the first to hear of my love.
Great going, asshole.
But he kind of commiserated with me, and as he’d already agreed to keep an eye on things on my behalf—again, not like a stalker, but as someone who wanted dearly for her to come to no harm—he said he’d let me know the minute she left the building. Alone.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said as I’d made my way to the elevator.
My answer? “Ed, I haven’t a fucking clue, but I’m rolling with it.”
And now here I am, sitting on my couch, drinking my scotch, watching Shrek, of all things. But it’s an improvement on the last (acid drop) movie of Lulu’s choosing, so there is at least that.
“I’ve been to Drury Lane, you know.” Lulu tips her chin and, along with the statement, sprays a little half-masticated popcorn at my chest.
“Yeah?”
She nods as she grabs another handful of popcorn, wriggling closer. If only I could get her mother this close. “When we went to London in the summer, Granny and Grandpa took me to the theatre, and we walked down Drury Lane.”
“Did you see the muffin man?”
“No.” She rests her head against my chest, and I feel her ribs expand with a long inhale. “Just coffee shops with muffins and donuts and things in the windows.”
“Too bad. Maybe he moved to a new house.”
“The muffin man isn’t real, Uncle Car.” Mouth wide, she palms another handful of popcorn, pressing it to her face. Her expression turns thoughtful as she chews. “But there was a man outside of the theatre. He was shouting and holding a Bible.”
“Like a street preacher?”
She shrugs, unsure. “Grandpa said he was a God botherer, but he didn’t look like he was bothering God, just the people coming out of the theatre.”
“What show did you go to see?”
“Matilda. I put a red ribbon in my hair.”
Red ribbons mean something else entirely at Ardeo. It’s strange, but for the first time, I find myself wondering if our members with children find the whole ribbon