I just looked at him. ‘The elevator?’
In response, he bent down and unhitched Thisbe from the stroller. Before I could stop him – and I was pretty sure I should stop him – he’d taken her out, lifting her up into his arms. My first thought was that this was the last thing I’d expected him to do. The second was how amazingly at ease he seemed with her, more than me and my dad and even Heidi, combined.
‘This,’ he said, turning her so she was facing out (still screaming, of course), his hands wrapped around her midsection, legs dangling down and kicking wildly, ‘is the elevator.’ And then he bent his legs, easing down, and straightened them, then repeated it, once, twice, three times. By the fourth, she abruptly stopped her protests, a weird look of calm spreading over her face.
I just stood there, looking at him. Who was this guy? Sullen stranger? Trick biker? Baby whisperer? Or –
‘Eli!’ Heidi said, suddenly appearing behind him. ‘I thought that was you.’
The guy glanced at her, then flushed, but only barely, and briefly. ‘Hey,’ he said, stopping the elevator. Thisbe blinked, then burst into tears.
‘Oh, dear,’ Heidi said, reaching out to take her from him. To me she said, ‘Where’s your father?’
‘He got a table,’ I told her. ‘We were about to sit down when she started to freak out.’
‘She’s probably hungry,’ Heidi said, glancing at her watch. Thisbe wailed louder, over her shoulder, while I glanced at the guy – Eli – trying to process what I’d just seen. ‘What a day! You would not believe the mess I have to deal with at work. The checkbook is all out of order, somehow I missed a deposit or something, thank God the girls are so understanding. I mean, it’s not like their paychecks are for huge amounts, but still, they work hard, and…’
Between this soliloquy and the baby melting down, not to mention Eli witnessing it all, I could literally feel my temperature rising. Why did she have to make everything such a big deal?
‘I better get back to the shop,’ he said to Heidi. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’
‘Oh, Eli, you’re so sweet, thank you,’ she replied, jiggling the baby. ‘And I’m so glad you met Auden! She’s new here, hardly knows a soul, and I was hoping she’d find someone to introduce her around.’
I felt my face flush even hotter; of course she had to make it sound like I was desperate for company. Which was why I barely responded as Eli nodded at me before crossing the boardwalk and pushing the door open to the bike shop, disappearing inside.
‘Thisbe, sweetheart, it’s okay,’ Heidi was saying, oblivious to all this as she strapped the baby back into the stroller. To me she added, ‘It’s so great you and Eli are friends!’
‘We’re not,’ I said. ‘We don’t even really know each other.’
‘Oh.’ She looked over at the bike shop, as if it would confirm this, then back at me. ‘Well, he is really sweet. His brother, Jake, is about your age, I think. He went out with Maggie until just recently. Awful breakup, that was. She’s still reeling from it.’
His brother? I thought, my face flushing. How small was this freaking town, anyway? And Heidi was still talking.
‘Should we go back to the restaurant?’ she asked me. ‘Or maybe I should take Thisbe home, she’s so upset. What do you think? I mean, I’d love a dinner out, but I wonder –’
‘I don’t,’ I said, the words coming even as I knew I should bite them back, ‘I don’t know what you should do. Okay? All I know is that I’m hungry, and I want to go eat with my father. So that’s what I’m going to do, if it’s all right with you.’
I could see her draw in a breath as a hurt look spread across her face. ‘Oh,’ she said after a moment. ‘Well, sure. Of course.’
I knew I’d been mean. I knew it, and yet I still turned and walked away, leaving her and the baby, still crying, behind me. But I could have sworn the sound followed me, hanging on, filling my ears even through the crowd on the boardwalk, into the restaurant, all the way down the narrow aisle to the table where my dad was already eating. He took a look at my face, then pushed a menu over to me as I slid into the booth across from him.
‘Just relax,’ he said. ‘It’s Friday night.’
Right, I thought. Of course. And when the onion rings arrived a few minutes later, I tried to do just that. But for some reason, they didn’t taste the same this time. Still good. But not great like before.
I knew from experience when a fight was over and when it had only just begun. So I stayed gone after dinner, taking a walk on the beach and the longest way home. Not long enough, though: as I climbed the porch steps two hours later, I could hear them.
‘– understand what you want from me. You asked me to stop working and come to dinner. I did that. And you’re still not happy.’
‘I wanted us to all have dinner together!’
‘And we would have, if you hadn’t left to go to the store. That was your choice.’
I dropped my hand from the doorknob, stepping back out of the porch light. From the sound of it, this was happening just inside, and the last thing I wanted was to walk into the middle of it.
‘I just wish…’ Heidi said, her voice cracking.
Then, nothing. The silence was almost unbearable, broken only when my dad said, ‘You just wish what.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just… I thought you’d want to spend more time with us.’