“Okay,” I said. “How? Give me an example.”
She set her fork down. “All right. Today, for example. The weather’s bad, so play hide-and-seek in this building. Or poke around in all its nooks and crannies.”
I gave her an amused look.
“What? I’m serious. This building is so cool. I mean, I know you own it, but have you actually ever explored it?”
“Of course. It was a flour company in the late 1800s. There was a loading dock for the train where the lobby is now. It’s one of the things I loved about this property. They put flooring over the railroad tracks in the public areas, but if you go into the boiler room, it’s still there.”
She beamed. “I looove this building. Did you know the broom closet in the lobby by the mailboxes has the original brick where the workers for the mill graffitied their names?”
I hadn’t known that…
“You can pick a name and google him. See how he lived.” She went back to eating. “You can always figure out a way to have fun. Even if you can’t go anywhere.”
Huh.
I bet she was good at her job. She had this bottomless-energy thing about her. Something perky and shiny, the thing news anchors pretend to have on air.
“So that’s why I don’t really see you around,” I said. “You’re gone a lot.”
“Oh, I’m around.” She gave me a wry smile. “You probably just weren’t looking.”
Grace started making noises from her swing. Vanessa got up and grabbed a bottle from the dishwasher. I watched her as she had her back to me. She had a nice ass. A nice everything, actually.
I tore my eyes away from Vanessa leaning against the counter to get formula from a cabinet. “How old are you?” I asked, looking for something to talk about.
“Twenty-eight.” She measured formula with a scoop. “How tall are you?”
“Six-two.”
“So tall,” she said, filling the bottle with water. She twisted her lips into a smile. “If I need something from a high cabinet, can I text you to come grab it for me? Or would that be abusing my new phone number privileges?”
I chuckled. “Sure.”
“And I have a hard time with jar lids. Weak hands.” She wiggled her fingers. “Can I count on you for that too?”
“Why not.”
“Sweeeet,” she said, scooping formula into the bottle. “I’m going to do that, you know.”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and nodded at the swing. “I’ll feed her. You eat.”
She shook the bottle with her finger over the tip. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I got up to wash my hands and joined her by the sink. “You just have to show me how to do it.”
“You’ve never fed a baby?” she asked, looking up at me.
I dried my hands on a paper towel. “I’ve never done anything with a baby. This is the first baby I’ve ever held.”
“Really? Well, you’re a natural.”
I walked to the swing, leaned down, picked up Grace the way Vanessa had showed me this morning, and sat back at the table.
Vanessa crouched next to me. “It’s pretty easy.” She put the bottle in Grace’s mouth and the baby sucked on it hungrily, making little cooing noises. “Just keep it angled like this so she doesn’t get bubbles in her stomach.”
Vanessa’s head was just a few inches under my nose as she leaned over Grace with the bottle and again I thought about how good her hair smelled. It was better without the vomit.
I took the bottle, and Vanessa sat back down to her food.
“Hey, do you wanna watch a movie?” she asked. “Here? After we eat? I feel like I’m in solitary confinement. I am bored out of my mind, and I just wanna hang out with somebody.”
Now that I’d torn off the Band-Aid and come over, I realized I wouldn’t mind staying. I’d officially had about all I could handle of the Keller transcripts for one day. And frankly I didn’t love the idea that I’d be going back to my empty apartment in a few minutes to sit around dwelling on the Rachel/Mom/Richard situation until I got tired enough to go to sleep. Why not.
“Sure,” I said, looking at Grace but talking to Vanessa.
“Yay! So what do you want to watch?”
“Whatever you want is fine,” I said, smiling down at Grace. She was falling asleep while she ate, nodding off with milk pooling around the sides of her little mouth.
She was so small. Trusting.
I’d never really been sure I wanted kids. I’d always been worried I’d screw it up. That I’d somehow fail them. I hadn’t really had a good childhood myself. My parents had a tumultuous marriage. Then Dad left, and I’d practically raised myself from that point on. I hadn’t exactly been shown a good example.
I rubbed Grace’s tiny pink cheek with a knuckle.
But maybe being a father was like this. Just being there and doing what needed to be done, one small task at a time until they added up to something good.
Maybe if you started at the beginning and stuck around…
Vanessa picked up the remote. “I know exactly what we should watch. You cannot go wrong with The Office, even though you’ve probably seen it a million times.”
“I’ve never seen it,” I said.
She blanched. “You’ve never— Are you serious?” She looked at me like I was crazy. “Where have you been? How do you understand memes?”
“Memes are not really a large part of my day-to-day operations.”
She blinked at me. “Oh my God. This is…Okay, you know what?” She waved a hand. “We’re gonna set this right. We’re going to start now so that starting tomorrow you won’t have to walk around and tell people you’ve never seen The Office like some kind of lunatic.”
I laughed. Again.
* * *
Three hours later, I was standing to stretch. The TV was asking us if we were still watching, and I hoped we were. I liked the show—and Vanessa was easy to be around. She was one of those people who just sort of rolled with things. The kind you didn’t have to work at hanging out with.
Grace spit out her pacifier, and I leaned down over her swing and put it back in her mouth.
I’d changed my first diaper today. I was here, might as well help give Vanessa a break. She showed me how to do it, and I took the next changing off her hands.
Vanessa was holding Harry Puppins.
About an hour into the show my conscience got the better of me and I went to go get him. I figured as long as someone was holding him, he wouldn’t have any accidents. Vanessa had been more than happy to do it. Apparently she loved dogs.
He bit her when she picked him up.
He didn’t have any teeth. It didn’t hurt, but it was the thought that counts. I was worried it would put her off, but she couldn’t stop laughing. She said he was like an angry potato with legs.
“So is this your bedroom?” she asked, pointing to the wall at the head of her bed.
“Yup.”
The headboard of my bed was pushed up against the same wall. We were separated at night by only about a foot of bricks and plaster. It was a little weird to think about.
I had a retroactive twinge of relief that Vanessa hadn’t heard me having sex with Rachel through the wall. I didn’t realize they were so thin.