“Do you know where?”
Emira crossed her arms over Briar’s lap. “This Mexican place called Gloria’s.”
“Gloria’s?” Alix clarified. “Is that the one that’s BYOB? And really loud?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’ve gone there. That’s fun. Oh, you should take this with you.” Alix flicked the wine bottle. “I can’t have more than a glass since I’m still pumping.”
When Emira said, “Really?” Briar looked up at her and said, “Shhhh, no Mira, no no.”
Emira placed a finger in front of her mouth, and Briar turned the page. Emira mouthed, Thank you, and Alix said, “Of course.”
This is good, Alix thought. We aren’t there yet but we’re getting there. Alix knew that her aspirations for a relationship with Emira were possibly too high because of what she’d seen with her girlfriends and their sitters. Rachel and her nanny, Arnetta, often discussed their divorces, their least favorite children in Hudson’s class, and the most attractive fathers. Tamra once took the day off from work and allowed her kids to skip the first half of school to watch their beloved sitter, Shelby, have a speaking role on a daytime soap opera. And Jodi was always picking up scarves and lotions because her sitter, Carmen, wore things like that, or she might want to try them. Alix didn’t know what Emira liked, or what she didn’t like, or how she stayed so skinny, or if she believed in God. It wouldn’t happen all at once, but she had to keep trying, even if it meant being the first to speak at every silence, and with Emira, there were many.
“Are you going there with girlfriends?”
Emira smiled and shook her head no.
Alix let a cartoonish, gossipy expression go into her eyes. She said, “Ooohh,” and Emira laughed. Her lips came together in a flirtatious secrecy. “Well, come on. Is he cute?”
Emira nodded in thoughtful consideration. She took one of her hands up next to her face and made her fingers flat as she whispered, “He’s really tall.”
“Yesss,” Alix said. Emira laughed again. Alix felt like Emira’s laughter was still backed by a small token of toleration, but she didn’t care. This conversation was better than any of the ones she’d had with Peter’s co-workers. She rocked Catherine and said, “Where’d you meet him?”
“Umm . . .” Briar slammed the first book shut and moved to the second. Emira ruffled her bangs. “We met on the train.”
“Really? That’s cute.” In her arms, Catherine had started to fall asleep, but her lips continued in a furious rhythm for a now-empty bottle. Alix placed the bottle on the table and stuck her pinky in her daughter’s mouth. “Is it your first date?”
“That’s for the horsies,” Briar said into her book. “We need a map.”
“It’s like . . . the fourth?”
“Shhh, Mira,” Briar said.
“Okay, shh,” Emira whispered back.
Alix shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”
Emira mouthed, It’s fine.
There was a very small window of time where Catherine would fall right asleep in her crib, and Alix knew that this was it, but she didn’t want to break the moment just yet. She couldn’t ask what his name was. That would make her sound so old. And she couldn’t ask what she really wanted to know, if Emira had slept with him yet, or if sleeping with someone before they were together was a thing Emira did, if sleeping with someone, for her, meant anything at all. It was officially six minutes after seven o’clock, the latest Emira had ever stayed. Alix knew she could ask one more question before she had to let her go. “Do you think it could be serious?”
Emira slumped and laughed. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s cute. But I’m not tryna get like . . . wifed up anytime soon.”
This sentiment made Alix squeal inside.
She wanted to ask Emira when her mother had gotten married and tell her that her own mother had been twenty-five. She wanted to know if Emira had had serious relationships before, and what this new guy did for a living. But Briar’s whispers had turned into nods, and Emira placed a hand on the child’s forehead so she wouldn’t bang it into the table. Phil Collins started pouring from the speakers. Both of their glasses had turned transparent and empty.
Alix did two long nods and said, “Good for you.” She touched the wine bottle, stood with the baby in her arms, and said, “I’m going to put this by your bag.”
Seven
There was a two-story Starbucks near the Chamberlain house where freelancers and college students camped out for hours. After babysitting, Emira typically walked to the second level—seemingly to meet other classmates and friends—and changed her clothes in the single bathroom. Tonight, over jeans, she changed into a white T-shirt, oxblood-colored booties, and Shaunie’s maroon varsity jacket with a textured letter S on the front left side. Emira applied lipstick in the mirror, put her hair into a ponytail, and texted Kelley, I’m late I’m sorry I’m running.
Gloria’s was always at max capacity. There were permanent Christmas lights on the walls along with hanging sugar skulls, roses, and dense patterned blankets. Emira stepped through couples and groups waiting outside and past a hostess calling, “Reuben, party of six!” When her eyes adjusted inside, she saw Kelley seated in a corner.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You’re fine, you’re fine.” Kelley touched her elbow and kissed the side of her face. When he pulled back he smiled and said, “Is it weird if I say you smell like a bath?”
Kelley Copeland was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He had an older sister who had one child, and two younger brothers who worked at the same post office his father had worked at for twenty-eight years. Kelley made a huge effort to avoid screens after ten p.m. He read only print books, and before bed, he wore embarrassingly large, orange-tinted glasses that were called Blue Blockers. He spent half his day staring at a computer, coding and creating interfaces for gyms, yoga retreats, physical therapy sessions, and spin classes that required their participants to sign up using apps with campy copy and push notifications. Emira knew that Kelley had broken his collarbone twice, that he became “irrationally furious” when people didn’t hear their names being called out at coffee shops, and that he was grossed out by the thought of drinking whole milk, but what she didn’t know was what it was like to sleep with him a second time.
Four days after their night at Luca’s, Kelley asked Emira if she could get coffee before she went to work. Emira screenshotted his request and sent it to Zara, who replied, I can’t tell if you’re getting hired or dumped rn. Coffee with Kelley felt strangely formal. It was as if they were pretending that they hadn’t had sex the last time they saw each other, that she hadn’t repositioned his hands away from her hair (he’d said sorry twice and she’d said it was fine), and that he hadn’t very cutely removed the remote control he’d sat on, placed it on the side table, and said, “Sorry. As you were.” In a very trendy place with lots of natural light and four-dollar cold brews, Emira kept expecting Kelley to give her a promotion, or ask her about a time when she had to be part of a team. But he asked her about where she was from, who the most embarrassing person she followed on Instagram was—she didn’t have an Instagram account; his was a pet raccoon—and if she ever, while doing something very ordinary in her day, suddenly remembered a dream she’d had the night before.