Say Never (8 page)

“You’re still here?”

“Yeah. Hi.” He takes a step toward me and puts his hand out. “I’m Matt. Matt Ryan. I live next door.”

“Congratulations,” I reply, then duck my head and continue to the sink. The Lab meanders over to me, his nails clacking on the tile floor, and starts enthusiastically sniffing my crotch. “Are you kidding?”

“Godiva, no,” Matt says firmly. The Lab immediately ceases his inspection of my girl parts and sits, leaning most of his weight against the cupboard.

“Are you sure he’s not your dog?”

“I’m sure. And it’s
she.
Godiva. She’s a good girl.”

Sitting up seems to take too much effort for Godiva. She starts to slide toward the floor, and as soon as she is horizontal, she rolls over and shows me her belly. If she thinks I’m going to scratch her, she’s got another thing coming.

“I think she likes you,” Matt says. I roll my eyes, then crouch to get at the cleaning supplies under the sink. However, Godiva is successfully blocking my access. I nudge her, and her tail starts thumping against the cupboard door, as though she thinks I’m petting her. Dumb dog. I shove at her again, but she’s dead weight and barely moves at all. I stand up and put my hands on my hips.

“Do you think you could call her over to you?” I ask, my voice tight. “I’ve got to clean up the mess before the puke hardens. Hardened puke is not easy to remove. Not that I have much experience with cleaning up puke, but I imagine it would be difficult.” Yes, I am talking nonsense, probably because the last thing I want to be doing is cleaning up puke. I wonder what Adam’s doing right at this moment. Not cleaning up puke, I’m betting.

“Oh, I cleaned the floor. I hope that’s okay.”

Is that okay? Is that okay? If I grabbed him and kissed him would that convey just how okay it is?

I nod my head up and down in that ‘I need meth’ kind of way. “Actually, it’s the best thing that’s happened to me all day. Thank you.”

He gives me an embarrassed grin. “Well, Godiva was going after it, so I just, you know, thought it might be a good idea…You’re welcome.”

I glance down at the dog. “I still need a trash bag, though. For my clothes.”

“Oh, right. Divey! Come on, girl.” The Lab instantly springs to her feet—a surprisingly spry move considering her size—and trots over to Matt. “Good girl. Yes, that’s a good girl!”

I open the cupboard and pull out a Hefty bag, then stand up and look over at Matt. He’s back in his chair, scratching the Lab’s chest, and she looks like she’s about to have a doggie orgasm. For some reason, I can’t drag my eyes away from him. It’s not simply that he’s handsome, which he is, but he seems so comfortable, so at ease.
After walking into a freaking asylum
and
cleaning up kid puke.
There has to be something seriously wrong with this guy.

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” I tell him honestly. “I mean, what with you walking in on…I don’t even know what to call that…a complete disaster?”

“It wasn’t that bad.” He shakes his head slowly, then grins. “Okay, it was a little bad. Actually, I was surprised, too. I mean, a strange man appeared in the doorway and you didn’t even flinch.”

“I live in New York,” I counter. “Strange men are always lurking in doorways.”

He laughs, a throaty chuckle, and I realize that I’m flirting with him. Which would be terrific if I were still wearing my Roberto Cavalli jeans that show off my ass really well.

“So, you’re Danny’s sister?”

“Sorry. Yes. I’m Meg.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Meg.”

I wish I could say the same!

I try to muster up an amiable smile, one that belies my misery, when I notice his eyes wander down to my boobs and go wide.
Typical.

Reflexively, I glance down and am horrified to see that I have unwittingly entered a wet t-shirt contest with myself. The damp white cotton of the tee is plastered to my breasts, leaving nothing to the imagination. I clasp the Hefty bag to my chest and utter a swift “Fuck!”

“Sorry,” Matt says, his face turning red, although I’m pretty sure not as red as mine.

“
You’re
sorry?” I sputter. “
I’m
sorry!”

At that moment, the girls march into the kitchen in a single file line, chanting “Pizza” at the top of their lungs, followed by Tebow who is hollering something through his pacifier that doesn’t even remotely sound like the word pizza. The little procession stomps around the table like Nazis, their volume rising with every step.

“How about another Dora?” I call out over the din. None of them pays any attention to me.

“Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” say the girls.

“Mmilflew! Mmilflew! Mmilflew!” says my nephew.

Still clutching the trash bag against me, I look at Matt imploringly.

“Do you think you could call Domino’s while I, uh, take care of my clothes?” (Both the puke-covered clothes
and
the ones I’m wearing.)

“No problem,” he replies graciously, his cheeks still slightly pink.

“I don’t know where the number is!”

“No problem.” He holds up his Samsung Galaxy for me to see. Ah, a man after my own technologically robotic heart. “I’ll take care of it.”

I nod gratefully and hightail it to the back of the house. (All this rushing back and forth is almost as good as the treadmill. I can’t understand why all moms with young children aren’t absolutely skeletal.) Probably, I shouldn’t leave the girls and Tebow in the charge of a complete stranger, but Matt Ryan doesn’t strike me as a total psycho—and believe me I’ve met a few psychos in my time. Even dated a few, but that’s another story.

In the guest bathroom, I grab the offending clothes from where I left them, on the bathmat, and shove them into the Hefty sack. I peer into the shower to see my beloved Louboutin boots right where I left them, drying by the drain. They will never be the same, but I can’t bring myself to throw them away. After a brief contemplation, I grab the bathmat and stuff it in the trash bag, disregarding the fact that Caroline will be really pissed when she finds her precious rug missing, then tie the bag shut.

One glance in the bathroom mirror confirms my suspicions. I have been talking to a total hottie whilst looking like Who-Did-It-And-Ran. I see the reflection of the bed behind me with the detritus of my purse flung all over the comforter from Tebow’s earlier explorations. Suddenly, I remember my birth control pills and I practically leap to the bedside table where I hid them. Perched on the edge of the bed, I do a quick count and a little mental calculation and am relieved to discover that none of the pills are missing.

I hop up, grab the trash bag, and head for the master bedroom. I drop the sack, then do another, less hurried (though still disappointing) perusal of Caroline’s closet. I opt for a pair of jeans—the only pair that has a zipper as opposed to elastic—and a dark-chocolate brown long-sleeved knit sweater. Within seconds, I’ve discarded the sweats and the lurid tee and donned the jeans and sweater, which are both surprisingly comfortable despite the fact that neither possesses a legible label.

I take a few seconds to drag one of Caroline’s brushes through my hair (yup, my brushes are packed), knowing my reddish brown locks, which I so carefully straightened this morning before my flight, are about to curl up like Orphan-Freaking-Annie.

If I thought my sister-in-law had any makeup that wouldn’t make me break out in a rash, I’d put some on. But I don’t trust Wet n’ Wild purchased from the Rite Aid next door to the 7-Eleven. And anyway, there’s no reason for me to put on makeup. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone. But damn it, why didn’t I put my makeup case in my purse instead of my luggage? (Answer: because it weighs a ton, and who knew my luggage would end up in Zaïre?)

Trash bag in tow, I return to the kitchen. In the three minutes I was gone, Tebow has been strapped to a kitchen chair with plastic wrap. He has a pointy tinfoil hat on his head, and all six girls are dancing around him like a tribe of Pygmies, laughing and making screeching noises and poking at him with Expo markers that happen to be uncapped. Basically, he looks like the victim of an ancient Egyptian tagger.

“What are you doing?” I cry, throwing my hands up in the air.

“He likes it,” says McKenna, crossing her hands over her chest defensively. “Don’t you, TeeTee?”

“Don’t call him that!” I say, remembering my childhood name for urine.
Buddy, I have to make teetee!
But when I look closely at my nephew, I see that he is giggling madly, despite the fact that his face is a rainbow of dry erase ink.
Jesus, I hope that comes off.

I realize that cardigan man and the dog are conspicuously absent. I’d be conspicuously absent too, if it were up to me.

I cross to the back door, yank it open, and toss the trash bag out onto the concrete patio. Then I turn to face the mayhem and clear my throat in preparation for some serious stern voice.

“Just stop it, okay? STOP!” The girls freeze in their tracks, six markers suspended in mid-air. “McKenna,” I say, taking the pen from her clammy grasp. “Where is Mr. Ryan and Godiva?”

“Pizza!” she hollers, and the girls echo her. “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

It takes all of my restraint to keep from throttling her. “Yes. Pizza. It will be here soon.”

“Yup. That’s what Mister Ryan said,” McKenna agrees. “He left you a note.”

A note? She nods toward the counter next to the fridge where a small square piece of paper is tucked against the phone. I head for it, and the girls assume this is an invitation to continue with their satanic ritual.

“No!” I grab the note, then return to the table and swoop Tebow into my arms and away from the rabid beasts. He hollers in protest, his pacifier shooting from his mouth and smacking me in the eye.

“Youch!” Tears stream from my right eye as I try to read the note with the one good eye I have left.

Delivery was an hour behind, so I went to pick up the pizzas. Took Godiva with me—thought there was enough commotion going on without her.

Just then, the phone rings. I cross back to the counter to answer it, still carrying Tebow. As I lift the receiver, I sniff the air and realize that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. If the state of Denmark were my nephew’s diaper.

“Hel—”

Before I can complete the single-word greeting, my sister-in-law starts yelling at me through the phone line.

“What’s wrong? Is everything okay? What’s going on? Are the kids all right? Let me talk to McKenna!”

Bitch.
“Hi, Caroline. I’m fine, thanks, how are you doing?”

“With
you
looking after Tebow and McKenna? How do you think I am?”

I hate her.

“You’re welcome, sister dear. It’s my pleasure to come all this way to take care of
your
kids.”

“Give me a break, Meg. You don’t want to be there any more than I want to be stuck in here.”

“And yet, here I am. The least you can do is say ‘thank you.’”

There is a pause on the line. “Thank you,” Caroline says finally, her voice tight, and I can only imagine how hard that was for her to say.

I glance over at the table and see that in the absence of my nephew, the girls are all drawing on each other. If my arms weren’t full of toddler, I’d slap my forehead. At least they’re so focused on decorating themselves in kindergarten hieroglyphics that they’re barely making noise. And by ‘barely,’ I mean the kitchen no longer sounds like a football stadium during the Super Bowl.

“What’s going on there? Why didn’t you answer the phone? I called about a half an hour ago.”

In my mind, I rewind the last thirty minutes of my life (and what a banner thirty minutes they have been!). Likely, Caroline called during the air raid siren. Can’t really explain to my sister-in-law that I almost burned the house down, now can I?

“I was in the shower,” I lie.

“What?!? How did you manage to take a shower with seven children in the house? I can barely shower with just my two.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” I say drily.

“Very funny. I’m serious!”

“The kids were fine, Caroline. They were watching Dora.”

“You put on the TV? Oh, God. I knew it.”

What the hell’s wrong with the TV?
“It’s a very entertaining show. And educational, too.”
How many piña coladas can you drink tonight? Uno, dos, tres, quatro!
I hear her sigh over the phone line. “Look, Caroline, it was for exactly twenty-two minutes. Twenty-two minutes of television is not going to rot their brains.” Of course, they’ll be watching a lot more than twenty-two minutes when Auntie Meg is on duty. But I needn’t share that at the moment.

“I want to talk to McKenna,” she demands. “I want to hear my daughter’s voice.”

“She’s a little busy right now.” God, the stink in Tebow’s pants is starting to make me dizzy. “And I have to go.”