Mercedes looked to Harrison. “Do you think that would work?
He set a dry cigarette between his lips and shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
Mercedes hadn’t thought of a more reasonable option by the time she brought both kids home that afternoon. Of course, she’d been preoccupied with mentally trying to undo the small scene she’d caused in the doorway of Dayton’s classroom. She’d peeked in on him when she had picked up Ayjia to take her to after school care. Dayton had seen her leaving with his sister, assumed he was going too, and Mrs. Pinchmouth had had to interrupt her lesson to straighten things out.
Dayton had been near tears, but he had refused to cry in front of his new classmates. He’d bravely retaken his seat and Mercedes had hated herself all over again. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this, but Dayton figured he had the solution.
“Now can you phone her?” he asked.
“Let me get my shoes off.” Mercedes kicked her sandals into the closet and dialed the cordless phone Dayton handed her. She got voicemail of course.
“I’ll text her and let her know it’s important,” she told Dayton.
He dropped to his knees beside the Lego bucket and dumped it out, ignoring Ayjia as she tried to show him some of her artwork from daycare. Mercedes hadn’t had the heart to leave him there with Ayjia until five so she was reduced to answering a few emails between pouring milk and stirring packaged macaroni and cheese, hoping the phone would ring with an accompanying miracle.
Maybe if she moved Ayjia to afternoon kindergarten and they at least both left the school at the same time? She would ask the school if she could do that.
The phone rang an hour later. Dayton leapt to his feet.
Mercedes smiled at him when she heard her sister’s voice, even though Porsha’s voice was flat in her ear. “What?”
“Dayton wants to talk to you. Here you go, hon.” Mercedes handed over the receiver, then tucked her fists into her armpits, praying Porsha wouldn’t screw this up.
Dayton took one step away and said, “‘lo?” Then, “Can you come get us?”
Porsha’s voice came through, tinny but clear. “Soon. I’m busy.”
“But Auntie M made me go to school and I don’t like my teacher. She’s a pill.”
“She put you in school? She really did?” Porsha’s voice rose with disbelief.
Ayjia waited for her turn, face tilted up to Mercedes’s. “I like my new teacher.”
“That’s good, sweetie.” Mercedes hugged the girl into her leg and motioned with a finger over her lips for Ayjia to stay quiet. She wanted to eavesdrop.
“Can you come?” Dayton asked. “Please?”
“After school, hon.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No. When it’s finished. In a couple of weeks.”
“What?” Mercedes reached out toward Dayton. “That’s not— Let me talk to her.” What a hideous, hideous mistake she’d made. Although now she thought about it, she wasn’t sure what else she had expected.
“But I want you to come now,” Dayton said, turning away from Mercedes’s extended palm.
“God, Dayton, this is pay as you go. I’m not losing minutes so I can listen to you whine. It’s just a few weeks. I’ll call again soon. I have to go. Give Ayj hugs and kisses.”
“But—” Dayton said.
“Porsha.” Mercedes grabbed the phone from Dayton’s hand.
“I want to talk to Mommy!” Ayjia sprang for the phone too, but it was too late.
“Sorry, hon,” Mercedes said. “I guess she had to go.”
“You hogged it!” Ayjia accused Dayton, taking a swing.
“Whoa!” Mercedes held the two apart, but Dayton only jerked away and went back to his Legos.
“Stupid Dayton!” Ayjia turned red and made tiny fists of fury. Tears filled her eyes. “You didn’t let me talk!”
“Shh, shh.” Mercedes scooped up the little girl’s stiff body. “It wasn’t his fault, sweetie. Mommy had to go. That’s all. She’s busy.”
“But I want to talk to her. I want to talk to mah, mah—”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay.” Mercedes hugged her, trying to stem the explosion she could feel building.
Ayjia wrapped herself like a vine around Mercedes’s trunk. “I want Mah-meee.”
“I know.” Mercedes jiggled and patted. “It’s okay. We’ll talk to her another day.”
“I want Mommy!” Ayjia screeched.
“Stupid, fucking Legos!” Dayton smashed his creation, scattering blocks so they rained on the wall and floor with a clatter. He kicked the bin so it banged against the wall, spilling in a fall of yellow and red. “I hate Legos! Why’d you even buy them?”
“Everything all right?” Mrs. Brewster called from the walkway beyond the patio.
“Fine.” Mercedes carried the wailing Ayjia across the room so she could shut the door. Lego drove into the bottom of her foot and her knee buckled. She staggered to stay upright while Ayjia sobbed, “Ma-Meeeee!”
Dayton gave the pile of Legos another kick, raining blocks over the couch and into the register with little pings.
Yeah, everything was just friggin’ terrific.
L.C. was staring at the pipe in the laundry room, wondering if he would have to get that repair inspected before he closed up the wall, and was peeved all over again that he didn’t have a proper trades certificate of his own.
He had started looking online for a GED class here in Flagstaff, but it seemed like he had missed the cycle and would have to wait for summer to find one anywhere again.
A knock at the back door pulled him into the living room.
Mercedes stood behind the closed screen. She packed a lot of sex appeal into loose curly hair, a sporty halter dress and red toenails peeking from a pair of dollar-store sandals.
“Hey,” he said, instantly hard, just from one glimpse.
“I thought you would still be moving in or fixing something.” She hugged herself, looking up at him as he opened the screen.
“Not much to move in.” He waved at the two lawn chairs, one with a toolbox for a footstool, but his attention stayed on her, admiring how the late evening sun slanted from the back patio, making her hair glow and leaving shadows of vulnerability in her soft face.
A bicycle bell pling-plinged. Mercedes swung around to say, “No ringing in the complex, Ayjia. Dayton, stay where I can see you.” She sighed wearily and turned back to L.C., staying in the doorway as she said, “New bikes.”
“Good idea.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see. And sorry to interrupt, but I needed to ask you something. Is there any way you could work on the other unit first? I could pay you a bit of overtime myself, maybe help in the evenings.”
“You? Why?”
“So me and the kids could move in. My apartment is too small. I’m on the couch because the kids are in my bed. It sounds like this arrangement could go on a little longer than I planned. Moving is the board’s idea—”
The bell ping-pinged again.
“Ayjia, please! I have to go.” Mercedes turned back to him. “I promised we’d ride to the park and Dayton is... Okay, I can’t see him. So can you? Fix it first?”
“I guess,” he started to say, but Mercedes was gone.
He stared after her as she retreated.
She couldn’t move in next door. He was already lousy at hiding his interest. He would wind up flirting. Zack would turn it into something it wasn’t. Eventually he, L.C., would do something stupid. Then she’d rip his heart out and leave it for the crows.
He ought to leave now, before it got ugly.
He closed the screen and moved back inside only to see another shadow flicker.
Zack parked his bike and came in, heading straight for the cereal cupboard. “I just saw Mercedes. She said she wants to move in next door.”
“I heard.” Sante Fe, he thought. He could still get a day in on that course in New Mexico.
“We could finish ripping up that carpet tonight, get it loaded into your truck. You could get rid of it tomorrow morning while I’m at school.” He poured milk on his cereal and began shoveling it into his mouth.
“So you think it’s a good idea?” He folded his arms, waited for his son’s gaze to hit his. It glanced away just as fast.
Zack shrugged. “I like her. She’s done me a favor. Why? You don’t want to be around the kids?”
“I don’t mind the kids.” It was the woman who was the issue and Zack had made it clear he saw it that way, too.
“You said you’d leave her alone, right? So why shouldn’t we give her a break? Seems like she could use one.” Zack scraped the bowl and slurped the milk, then set down the dirty dish with a satisfied sigh.
There it was. The nascent trust L.C. had been hoping to rebuild between him and his son.
“Yeah,” L.C. said. “Sure. Let’s get those carpets up.”
The board hadn’t properly met since before Mercedes had started her vacation weeks ago, so they had a number of items to address. Mercedes arrived unusually weighed down with binders and spreadsheets. She’d even brought the framed “A Place For Family” plaque for some reason that Edith couldn’t fathom.