A jolt of electricity hit me when he spoke. “So sorry. No damage done, though. Here you go.”
I focused on the unbelievably still intact phone so that I didn’t stare at him. My gaze darted around so that I saw only small bits of him—a blinding smile, stubbled jawline, light hair, that foreign accent, and the expensive and yummy cologne he wore.
Before I could respond, he was already walking away. Tall, broad shoulders. I felt a strange twinge in my stomach, and I was struck with an overwhelming desire to run after him to find out his name. If I’d tried to explain this moment to my sister, she probably would have made fun of me. Crushing on some stranger who obviously wasn’t the least bit interested in me.
So instead of following my completely inappropriate urges, I turned my attention back to my phone. The handsome, polite man and my unbroken device felt like some kind of cosmic reassurance that things were going to be okay.
It was all going to work out.
CHAPTER THREE
I woke up early the next morning and got ready quickly. I heard Milo singing a song and washing his hands in the bathroom. I wondered if I was supposed to go in and wake him up at a specific time or just generally try to be awake at the same time he was.
He came out of the bathroom and looked up at me, his enormous glasses hanging slightly crooked on his face, and muttered, “Breakfast.”
“Sure thing. What do you normally eat?”
“Cookies.” He said this so hopefully I almost didn’t have it in me to disappoint him. I filed away the fact that cookies were motivating for him.
“Sorry, buddy, I don’t think your mom will be okay with that.”
“She wants me to have oatmeal with banana slices and Greek yogurt,” he said with a sigh and climbed up onto one of the stools next to the island.
I went into their pantry, and it was literally like walking into a grocery store. Another bad assumption on my part—I thought for sure that Sheila would have her house stocked with only the most organic and freshest of ingredients. Like the kind where I’d find small woodland creatures making themselves at home on the shelves. Instead, there was a little bit of everything, including sugary and processed foods. It took me a couple of minutes to locate the oatmeal with Milo shouting unhelpful directions at me from the island.
The fridge was also stuffed to the gills, and the Greek yogurt was eluding me. Milo finally got off the stool and got the yogurt himself. He got a spoon and I made a mental note of where the silverware drawer was. He climbed back onto his stool while I took the lid off his yogurt and grabbed the oatmeal.
“You have a tag,” Milo said, pointing his spoon in my direction. “Is that a new shirt?”
Huh. He was more observant than I would have thought. There was a tag sticking out from my armpit. “Yes. I did some shopping last night. I didn’t have warm enough clothes for the mountains.”
I’d been very careful with my spending. I needed almost all of my earnings for Alice and enough to fly back to Florida, and everything here was so expensive. I did get a coat, gloves, a hat. A few shirts and a new pair of jeans, along with a pair of boots. I hoped it would be enough.
I was reading the directions on the back of the oatmeal container when Sheila came in the room.
She didn’t look very well. She coughed, and it definitely sounded phlegmy.
“Good morning,” she said, sneezing as soon as she finished speaking.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She waved her hand. “Just feeling a little under the weather.”
Milo bore his signature solemn expression when he offered, “Maybe you have consumption, Mom.”
“I don’t have consumption and neither do you, Milo.” She went over to the coffee maker and pushed a button.
“Can I get something for you?” I offered.
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just take a couple of DayQuil. I have a lot to do today.”
I reached for the binder and patted the top. “So do we!”
She smiled, then left the kitchen, presumably to find that cold medicine she’d mentioned.
I opened a few cabinets until I found a bowl, and then I filled it up with water and stuck it in the microwave. It took me only three tries to figure out how to use it.
While I waited for the water to heat up, I opened the binder and began reading Milo’s schedule.
7:00 a.m. Wake up; bathroom
7:10 a.m. Breakfast
I felt a tiny bit of pride that we’d already managed to do the first two things on his schedule. Check and check.
7:25 a.m. Change clothes; brush teeth
7:30 a.m. French—vocabulary
8:00 a.m. Masters of the Renaissance—sixteenth century
9:00 a.m. Calculus—fractals and patterns
10:00 a.m. French—present-tense conjugation
It continued in that vein—there were breaks for lunch and snacks, one for playtime, one for screen time (“if Milo behaves”), one for skiing practice, and then it was a list of topics and assignments that would have made a graduate student cry. I didn’t understand most of the words, and it seemed they were all written in English.
My experience with other small kids said they preferred Play-Doh and snowflakes made out of Popsicle sticks over Renaissance masters and fractals.
Maybe this was just Mondays. I flipped through the binder and every day was just as full and busy as the one before it.
Wow.
“This is some schedule, Milo.”
He nodded mournfully. “I know.”
“Your parents know you’re five, right?”
“I keep telling them that.” He shrugged. “And it’s very hard for someone with the plague to do it all.”
“Let me see your fingers.”
Slightly confused, Milo held up both of his hands.
“Just like I suspected. If you had the bubonic plague, your fingers would turn black.”
“Really?” He sounded very interested in this revelation.
“You don’t have the plague.”
“Smallpox?” he tried.
“Not smallpox, either. Not even chicken pox.”
Sheila reentered the kitchen and pulled a coffee mug from the shelf. “What were your plans today?” she asked.
I gestured toward the binder, not sure what I should say. Teaching young Milo how to take over the world?
“Our current lesson plans are in there, but you should feel free to adjust those however you wish.”
“Okay.” I should have gone through the binder the previous night when I got back from shopping so that I could have been better prepared.
“If you want, you could delay today’s work until after lunch and spend the morning exploring the hotel with Milo. There’s a lot of amenities.”
Exploring sounded much more up my alley. “That would be fun. What do you think, Milo?”
He grinned and shrieked/said, “I’ll get dressed!”
Sheila smiled as he ran through the kitchen, but slumped against the counter once he’d left.
“Seriously,” I said. “What can I do? You seem really sick.”
“Nothing. I’ll be fine. I just need rest and fluids. We try not to talk too much about sickness around here,” she said and I nodded. That seemed smart. If someone in the Crawford household got the flu, Milo would probably proclaim that he was dying from Ebola.