I sent, Do that, sweets. Am I making dinner?
And got, Dinner! Yummy!
My kids liked my cooking. Then again, I cooked like a mom and could do that freely now that Conrad wasn’t around.
I replied, Dinner. Check.
A few hours later, I got a text from Auden that said, Drop Polly and Pip off after school. Pick them up at nine.
To which I sent, Thanks, kid. And I’m thinking of a Cayenne.
And got back, Land Rover. White. Totally you.
I grinned.
Then I changed the girls’ plans when they got there (a change of plans they were ecstatic about) and before homework and dinner, we went out and test-drove Land Rovers.
* * * * *
“You buy a fuckin’ car without me, Amy, it’s gonna piss me off,” Mickey said in my ear.
My daughter and her friend were gone. It was late. Now, I was in bed saying goodnight over the phone to Mickey.
I’d also, obviously, shared my plans to purchase a new vehicle.
“Do you want to test-drive it?” I asked.
“I want you not to get fucked over buying it,” he answered.
“Mickey, car salesmen hardly screw over women anymore,” I scoffed. “They freely screw over everybody.”
“You’re wrong, Amy.”
“It’s not 1968, Mickey.”
“Right, you go in, get the best deal you think you can get, then walk away. I’ll go in after and get the best deal I can get, text you, you come in and we’ll see about that shit.”
“You’re on,” I snapped.
“Tomorrow?”
“Perfect.”
“You pissed?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Because you know you’re goin’ down,” he declared.
“Whatever,” I mumbled.
He chuckled.
I changed the subject. “The kids okay?”
“Tonight, we had the drunk driving talk. They got me as in got me. Tomorrow, before I show you car salesmen are still assholes, I’m goin’ in and havin’ all my teeth pulled without Novocain. Figure that’ll be a whole lot more fun.”
“Oh, Mickey,” I said quietly.
“It’s done. They get me. All I can do. Movin’ on,” he stated.
“Okay,” I said and decided it was time to change the subject again. “So, I was thinking, the kids coming over and things going better, this keeps up for a little while, when they both say they’re coming over together, I can tell them about you. Then, the next time they’re over together, you’ll be here. We can see how it goes when they get here. A quick meet and greet or you casually stay for dinner.”
“Let me know, I gotta rearrange some shit, I’ll do it.”
He’d rearrange some shit for a chance to meet my kids.
And again I was floating.
“Thanks, honey,” I whispered.
“No problem, Amy. Now hate to cut this short, but wanna check on Ash. She’s been quieter than her normal lately and has been in her room all night. Gotta check on my girl.”
That didn’t sound good at all.
But it wasn’t surprising.
“Okay, I’ll let you go.”
“Sleep tight, babe.”
“I will, Mickey. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. And plan to be over for dinner. We’ll get your car, come back and hang out.”
I couldn’t wait.
“Sounds good. ’Night, honey.”
“’Night, baby.”
We hung up. I read a bit.
Then I went to sleep.
* * * * *
Mickey was right.
Car salesmen still screwed over women more than men. He got my Land Rover (I got black, Auden would just have to deal) for several thousand less than I could negotiate the deal.
Cillian and Aisling came with us and hung with me while I tried my hand at the negotiations. I asked for their company because I thought this was added incentive—kids in the mix—that would make the salesmen less inclined to screw me.
I was wrong.
Cillian gloated with his dad.
Through this and all the time I spent with her that day, I found Mickey was right, but it was more.
Aisling was quieter than normal to the point that she was unusually sullen.
It also looked like she wasn’t washing her hair.
This alarmed me.
But I didn’t have a chance to say anything about it until after we had dinner, Ash had retreated to her room and closed the door, and Cill had commandeered the TV to play some game on Xbox.
This forced Mickey and me to lounge on the loveseat on the deck in our jackets.
“She’s not good,” I noted.
“Nope,” Mickey replied, rocking the loveseat with me beside him, curled into him, legs up under me, one of his arms around me, the other hand around the neck of a bottle of a beer he took a tug from after he answered.
“Does she open up to you?” I asked.
“Got no clue how to talk to an almost fifteen-year-old girl with a drunk for a mom,” he replied.
“Is she…does she have moods?” I pressed carefully.
“If you mean, has she started her period? Then yes,” he told me. “That happened last summer. Her mom took care of that. She comes home with boxes of shit Rhiannon gets her. I saw Midol on her dresser, made sure there was more in the bathroom. Didn’t have any sisters but did have a wife for fourteen years, so I got a clue when those kinds of moods strike. Ash gets ’em. This is not one of those.”
“I’m not sure I’m at that place where it’s okay for me to talk to her,” I noted.
“I hear you,” he muttered.
“But we can keep an eye on the situation and if she doesn’t open up to you, regardless if I’m at that place, if you want me to, I’ll go in.”
His arm tightened around me, tucking me closer. “That’d be good.”
He wanted me to.
That made me snuggle even closer.
I did that and took a sip of my wine before I asked, “Do you think they know what’s happening with you and me?”
“On the deck havin’ a drink with you and you’re over a lot. Close with the Gettys that live next door because they moved in when I was eight and never left. They’re welcome here any time. The kids love ’em. But I don’t walk them home, sit close to them on the couch or out on my deck at night, havin’ a beer.”
“Do you think that’s what’s troubling her?” I went on, even though, in the early stages, she seemed to hope her dad and I would get together.
“Again, no clue,” he said.