Page 13 of First-Time Caller
“Maybe I should,” she says.
I don’t want to let her go yet. I want to hold on to this feeling for a little longer. But then she makes a muffled sound that could be a yawn, and I glance at the clock, surprised when I see how much time has passed. I haven’t played a single song in an hour. None of the commercials either.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Lucie. I really do.”
“Yeah.” She sighs. Blankets shift and I imagine somewhere in this sprawling city, Lucie is smiling. For one night, at least, the both of us a little bit less lonely. “I do too.”
LUCIE STONE:Did you flip to commercial again?
AIDEN VALENTINE:Yeah. Last run of the night. Thanks for staying on with me.
LUCIE STONE:Yeah, ah. No problem. Hopefully I didn’t say anything too embarrassing.
AIDEN VALENTINE:I don’t think you did.
[pause]
LUCIE STONE:Okay, well. I should be going.
AIDEN VALENTINE:Yeah, yeah. Of course.
LUCIE STONE:Good night, Aiden Valentine.
[dial tone]
AIDEN VALENTINE:Good night, Lucie.
How long are you going to do this?” I ask carefully, my chin in my hand.
Maya adds a half-bent box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch to her cereal wall, sectioning herself off from me on the other side of the table. The only part of her I can see is the top of her messy bun, an errant curl sticking straight up like a unicorn horn.
“As long as I need to,” she explains. A box of Frosted Flakes is stacked on top of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It wobbles precariously, but one thin arm reaches out for the napkin holder, and everything stabilizes. I frown. I didn’t even know we had this much cereal.
“And why do you feel the need to make a cereal fort every morning?”
“Because you haven’t said anything about the radio situation.” One pale green eye peeks out from behind the Frosted Mini-Wheats. “And you’re scaring me.”
“Is that what we’re calling it? The radio situation?”
Maya nods wordlessly. It’s been a week since our late-night chitchat with Aiden Valentine ofHeartstrings. After I hung up, I tucked Maya in her bed with her mermaid blanket, flicked on the glowing twinkle lights twisted around her bookshelf, went down to the kitchen, and cried into a half-empty bottle of sauvignon blanc. I took two fortifying gulps, dragged my knuckles across my mouth, and then put it back next to a jar of pasta sauce.
I’m not mad Maya called in to a radio station and exposed my dismal love life to the greater Baltimore area. I’membarrassed. Humiliated. Slightly devastated. I told Aiden way more than I meant to and now I’m having trouble tucking everything back in the place it belongs. I’ve been walking around all week feeling like the whole city knows my business.
Am I that pathetic? Did Maya truly think my best hope was . . . Aiden Valentine ofHeartstrings? The guy who laughed when I said I wanted magic in my relationships? Who said the wordromanticlike it was a rare, incurable fungal infection?
I’ve been holding everything in my heart, unsure how to bring it up and unwilling to figure it out. I know Maya was raised in an unconventional family structure, but I’ve always done my best to fill in the gaps for her. It’s something her father and I agreed on all those years ago.
Is something missing for her? Does she think I’m unhappy with the life we’ve made for ourselves? Issheunhappy with the life we’ve made for ourselves?
I’ve been wobbling precariously between bone-deep embarrassment and fear that I’m not doing enough for my kid while simultaneously hoping we’d both forget that call ever happened. I guess that’s not going to happen.
I reach for the box of Frosted Flakes and pop it open, unrolling the bag and grabbing a fistful of sugary goodness. My phone buzzes to life on the tabletop with a call from an unknown number. I silence it.
“I owe you an apology, Maya.”
It’s quiet on the other side of the Mini-Wheats. “What?” she whispers.
“I didn’t realize you had feelings about all of”—I shovel the cereal into my mouth, unsure how to categorize the nuclear disaster that is my romantic life—”this,” I say, flecks of cereal flying across the table. I swallow it down with a drag of coffee and try again. “If I had known, we could have talked about it.”
