Luna bounced up and down as she stood beside their white Explorer. “Mr. Hank, do you want to go on the trolley with us?”
“Oh, no!” Skylar rushed out. “I’m sure Hank has better things to do than—”
“I’d love to go.” Although the invitation had technically been extended from Luna, I still felt like I was inviting myself, which was extremely out of character for me.
I tended to avoid all things social and I hadn’t ridden the trolley since before my mama passed. It was primarily a tourist attraction. Locals didn’t ride it. But that hadn’t stopped Sabrina Comfort. She didn’t care what people thought about her.
She loved the trolley. And after every ride, we’d go to Main Street Scoops for ice cream. When I was little, we’d done it every Saturday. But after Billy was born, and then Cheyenne and Jimmy, it turned into more of a special occasion event.
“Are you sure?” Skylar shook her head back and forth. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.”
I could see her uncertainty. As much as I wanted to go, the last thing I’d ever want to do was make her uncomfortable. What if she didn’t want me to go? I needed to give her an out.
“Unless…I don’t want to intrude on your girl time.”
“Oh no! It’s not that,” she quickly clarified. “I just didn’t want you to feel obligated or anything.”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure?” Skylar asked me for the second time.
I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. “Yes.”
When she shrugged I knew her answer.
“Okay. Let’s go.” Skylar pressed the button on her fob and it chirped. “We’ll meet you there.”
“It’s only a couple of blocks. We could walk,” I suggested.
It was only a few blocks away but I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to spend as much time with Skylar as possible and walking would add an extra ten minutes at least, five there and five back.
“Lead the way.” Skylar locked her car again.
Luna talked non-stop on the five-minute walk just like she had when she’d helped me repair the pen when she explained to me that Kevin looked exactly like her pig Princess Penelope Pineapple. Her favorite food was macaroni and cheese. Luna’s that is. Princess Penelope Pineapple’s favorite food was peanut butter and jelly. I also learned that Skylar always read four books to Luna at bedtime. It used to be three, but when Luna turned four she got her mom to up it to her age. Her plan was to negotiate and add another one when she turned five in a few weeks.
When she’d mentioned her age, I acted confused because I thought she’d told me she was ten. She blinked, stared at me for a second and then told me that it wasn’t polite to ask a lady about her age.
I almost spit out the water I’d just taken a drink of.
She went on to tell me about her swim lessons where she was a guppy and didn’t need floaties anymore. She talked about her babysitter Miss Milly who just had a baby named Tyson who lived next door to her. She told me about pre-kindergarten and that her teacher said she could skip kindergarten and go to first grade but she didn’t want to because she’d miss Tyson too much.
I heard all about the ballet lessons that she’d taken when she was three but didn’t take them after she turned four because she wanted to take swim instead. Her favorite movie was The Good Dinosaur which I hadn’t seen but now knew the entire plot of. Her favorite color was sparkle pink. She did look a little disappointed to find out mine was green. But I told her green had been my mama’s favorite color so she accepted it.
There were a few subjects that I’d wished she had covered but she didn’t talk about. Like where the two of them were from and why they moved here. And if her dad was in the picture or not. I’d tried to steer the conversation in those directions several times without being too obvious. The kid was smart and I knew that she’d pick up on it if I wasn’t careful. But I may have overcompensated and been too subtle because I hadn’t gotten any of the information I’d been fishing for.
On our walk to the trolley, Luna had filled Skylar in on everything I’d done to fix the loose boards and reattach the trough, naming all of the tools that she’d handed me, and giving her a detailed, chronological account of the entire process. I’d had no clue that she’d been paying that close of attention. I’d known the kid was bright, but now I knew that she didn’t miss anything.
Now she was filling Skylar in on all the bar mascots that we’d had over the years.
“And before Kevin Bacon and Skittles—”
“Skittles?” Skylar looked at me.
“She’s a parrot,” Luna answered before I had the chance. “Before Kevin Bacon and Skittles they had a goat named Axel Rose, and a bearded dragon who really wasn’t a dragon she was a big lizard named Minnie Mouse, and a huge snake named Cleopatra.”
“A snake?” Skylar’s eyes widened.
“Uh huh, a python,” Luna beat me to the response again. “They are the bar mascots and Kevin Bacon doesn’t like everyone but he loves me. I think it’s because I told him about Princess Penelope Pineapple. Oh, can I go stand by the candy cane?” Luna pointed to the large white and red pole that marked the pickup point for the trolley.
“Yes, but don’t step off the curb,” Skylar instructed.
As we waited in line at the ticket booth Skylar watched her daughter skip a few yards in front of us to the candy cane. “She has a lot to say. Sorry.”
I smiled. “It’s fine.”
It was more than fine.
As a general rule, I hated talkative people. I valued silence. Probably because I’d grown up in a house where there was always noise and commotion. And even after my brothers moved out and it was just me and Pops, the television was always on and turned up to a deafening volume because Pops refused to get a hearing aid even though he could barely hear anything.
But I loved listening to Luna. I could listen to her little voice all day. Even when she was talking about Care Bears and unicorns and fairy dust, I was all in.
When we got to the front Skylar dug into her purse and pulled out her wallet but I beat her to it by sliding my credit card into the ticket kiosk and ordering three tickets, one child and two adults.
“No,” she protested. “I was going to get…”
“It’s my treat.”
I could see that Skylar wanted to argue, but after a moment she grinned. “Thank you.”
As the tickets printed out, I had to admit it was a strange experience. Not just because it was the first time I’d bought myself a ticket to ride the tourist trap, but because I was buying tickets for two other people.
When we boarded the tram, I walked to the back out of habit. It was where my mom always liked to sit. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I lowered down on the wooden bench. I’d ridden this countless times with my mom. But hadn’t stepped foot on it since she died.
Skylar sat beside me and her leg brushed up against mine. It was only for a brief moment, and there were two layers of denim between us, but I felt a bolt of awareness spread through me. The closest thing I could compare it to would be when I’d first started working in construction and accidentally touched a wire that was live. An electric charge zapped through me.