Summer Son (2 page)

“Early meeting,” she said and yawned widely. “Well, it was supposed to start at seven, but they called to let me know it’s been delayed to ten. Bastards.”

I was sure I heard her words, although my senses were full of the smell of coffee, blocking out anything else.

“Coffee?” I croaked.

She gave me a steady glare. “Have you been pulling all-nighters again?”

“No,” I said, and it wasn’t exactly a lie.

The two takeaway cups were huge, packed with enough caffeine to push me into wakefulness. I took the first scalding sip and groaned with pleasure.

“Well, you look like shit, Ellis,” Meg said as she started on her own drink and split the paper bag that contained the rest of our breakfast.

“So do you.”

Meg was one of the few people I let into my home and my life on a regular basis. She was a colleague too, sending a lot of work my way from the international advertising agency she worked for. All my fears about combining work and friendship had melted away when I started working with Meg. She was professional to a fault, terrifyingly organized, and incredibly specific as to her wants and needs. It meant we were always on the same page, and I delivered on time, again and again.

In my darkest hours I had wondered whether I could ever turn straight for her. There could be no doubt she was exactly the sort of person I’d want to raise a child with. Why she was single was a constant source of bafflement. Sure, she didn’t possess
Vogue
-worthy looks, but not many people did.

I could only guess that men were intimidated by her personality—big and open and startlingly honest. It would take a man with a lot of balls to deal with a lifelong feminist, activist, and badass like Meg. She didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about her and wore her curves with pride, her tattoos with vanity, and her untamable auburn curls in a mane around her face.

I loved her something fierce.

I bit into a
pain au chocolat
and groaned again. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, her mouth full of pastry. “Where’s the kid? I wanna smooch him.”

I nodded toward the living room, where Harrison was set up on a blanket with some toys, listening to the Beatles. Meg left her coffee on the counter and went to sit next to him, pulled my son onto her lap, and pressed a big kiss to his head.

It was my chance to lean back for a moment and let her be the adult in charge. She was Harrison’s godmother and one of the few people outside my family I was happy to leave him with. The plan for the day included a trip to the grocery store, which would take ages, and possibly stopping in to see my mom on the way home.

A visit to my mother meant the inevitability of listening to her “I told you so” lecture, something I’d grown depressingly familiar with in the past few months. She meant well but had never understood my sexuality or why I felt the need to get married and have a child. There had been endless “It won’t work out, Ellis” conversations before the wedding, which had been replaced by the endless “I told you sos” since the divorce.

But a quick visit would stop her constant phone calls asking when she’d see her grandson again, so it was a small price to pay, really.

If I could get Harrison to take a nap in the afternoon, then I could maybe get another hour of work done, meaning an extra hour of sleep. Or we could both just take a nap. It was wishful thinking—Harrison had never been a good daytime sleeper.

“So, I came over to ask you something,” Meg said from the floor, where she was distracting Harrison with a bunch of brightly colored keys.

“Go on.”

“Everyone’s going out the weekend after next. Come out with us.”

I sighed deeply. This wasn’t the offer of another job that I had been expecting, and sort of hoping for. Money was tight, as always. “I can’t, Meg. You know that.”

“Please, El. There’s going to be loads of people there. It’ll be fun.”

“Will loads of people include Oliver?” I asked.

“No.” She looked offended. “I wouldn’t invite both of you. You should know that.”

I shrugged. “He was your friend first.”

It had to be one of the worst things in my postdivorce life: not knowing who was still my friend and who was exclusively Oliver’s now. After making the mistake once already, I wasn’t excited to get burned again.

“He stopped being my friend when he left you and Harrison,” Meg said gently. “I haven’t seen him in forever. To be honest, I don’t think he wants to show his face around us.”

“Good.” There was no spite in my words. Oliver could go to hell as far as I was concerned.

“So come out,” Meg said, giving me a winning smile. “You can get a sitter for one night—”

“I’m not letting a stranger take care of my son.”

“Then send him to your mom’s. For one night, it won’t kill him. Plus, I’m sure she’d love to have him.” No one suggested taking him to Oliver, and for that, I was grateful. Then she pulled out the big guns. “It’s my birthday, El.”

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, Meg….”

“It’s fine,” she said, quick to reassure me. “You’ve had more important things on your mind than remembering.”

I shook my head. “I’m such a horrible friend.”

“You’re not pulling that feeling-sorry-for-yourself bullshit with me, El,” she said. “It really doesn’t suit you. Come out. Zane will be there.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

“Shit, I forgot you didn’t meet him yet!” Meg gave me a slow, knowing smile. “I bet the two of you will get along just great.”

“You’re not setting me up with some other guy,” I said. “I’ve only been divorced ten minutes.”

“It’s been three months, Ellis.”

I waved her words away.

“Same difference. So, you’ll come?”

“I’m seeing my mom later. I’ll mention it to her, see what she says.”

“Awesome. Text me,” she said, putting Harrison back down on the blanket and then rising to smooth out the wrinkles in her elegant blue dress. “I’ve got work to do.”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek before letting her out of the apartment. I’d been blindsided by Meg Carpenter once again, not that I should be surprised by that anymore. She was surprisingly good at it.

I took the rest of the coffee and pastry over to the living area and curled up on the couch to watch Harrison play for a few minutes before we both had a bath and got ready for the day.

“Well, little dude,” I said softly, “looks like Daddy’s going out partying.”

Harrison laughed and threw a plastic brick at me.

Chapter 2

I
WASN
’
T
afraid to admit that I was a bit terrified about going out again. Well, I admitted it to Harrison, who was the only person around to listen, and he didn’t judge at all.

Before we got married and Harrison came along, Oliver and I used to go out all the time. We had a huge group of friends, and they were all artists and performers and writers like us, creative types, and it was good being able to surround myself with like-minded people.

With every breakup it’s inevitable that you lose some friends, retain others, and some will split their allegiance firmly down the middle. There wasn’t any way of knowing ahead of time which side of the fence someone sat on—mine or his—and no one was prepared to announce it publicly. Instead, you were forced to deal with ignored texts, unanswered phone calls, then the humiliation of being unfriended on Facebook.

With nothing new to wear—spare cash was in short supply, especially for frivolous things like clothes—I pulled on an old, soft Henley, a pair of khakis, and a pair of beat-up old Timberland boots. It wasn’t exactly the height of fashion, but it would do.

I tried to tame my hair, a task that had eluded me since forever, and splashed on a bit of cologne. That was something else that went out the window once Harrison came along and I heard that babies don’t like strong smells.

“Will I do?” I asked him. His response was a string of babbled nonwords and a burp. Excellent.

Wallet, phone, keys in my pocket, Harrison’s diaper bag over my shoulder and the little man himself in my arms because I didn’t want to put him in the stroller, and I was all set. He was getting heavy now, but not too heavy that I couldn’t carry him the short distance to my mom’s.

“Are you going on a date?” she demanded as soon as she opened the door and surveyed my outfit.

“Christ, Mom, no. It’s Meg’s birthday. We’re all meeting in one of those hippy cafes you so despise.”

Her lip curled, and she held her hands out for my son. I carefully handed him over, then shut the door behind myself so I could set up the travel crib in the spare bedroom.

Mom didn’t need me now that she had her grandson. I could hear her chattering away to him as I made my way upstairs. The spare room was the space that used to be my brother’s room when we were growing up, although Leo had moved out the same time I had, when I was twenty-five and he was twenty-three. These days it was decorated in a neutral pale blue, a stark contrast to all the band posters that had graced the walls during our youth.

It didn’t take long to set the crib up. It was fairly simple to do, and I transferred the small stuffed dinosaur to the corner. Rory had been Harrison’s nighttime companion since the day he was born, and even though he didn’t have much of an attachment to the toy yet, I certainly did.

“Okay, I’m outta here,” I called as I jumped the last three stairs, as I always had, and strode through to the living room. Harrison was set up in front of the TV with a baby cookie, and I had to remind myself that not everyone had the same ideals as me. TV wouldn’t kill him, nor would cookies, and getting into an argument with my mom for exposing him to both would be counterproductive.

Instead I leaned down, pressed a hundred tiny kisses all over my son’s face and head, then his belly to make him laugh, wiped his face out of habit, and smoothed his hair before walking away. He rarely, if ever, stayed away for the whole night, and I knew there was a strong possibility I’d end up letting myself into the house in the middle of the night and sleeping on the floor next to his crib. My mom didn’t mind. Or if she did, she’d never mentioned it.

“Thanks,” I said to my mom, but she held a hand up before I could launch into a speech of groveling gratefulness.

“Anytime,” she said. “Seriously, Ellis. Hiding away isn’t doing either of you any good.”

I nodded.

“Have a good time. Be safe, be good, and if you come home tonight, try not to wake anyone up.”

I smiled and nodded again, silently pressed a kiss to her cheek, and left before I was given the familiar lecture from my teenage years. I recognized the start of it and was keen to escape before she got to the “no drugs, no sex, don’t get too drunk, don’t get into an unlicensed cab….”

The cafe was on the other side of Brooklyn from my mom’s place, but I had left early, so there was time for me to walk over. Having time to myself to just walk and breathe on my own was just as rare as a night out without the baby.

My mom had lived in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn all her life in the house she inherited after her parents passed away. We were distantly Irish American, although over the years any trace of my family’s heritage had been lost in the melting pot that was New York. I’d been born and raised in the city with my younger brother and had longed for the countryside as a child, desperate to be able to play outside without my mother watching us like a hawk, constantly worried for our safety.

Even when I’d gotten older and had the choice to move away, I’d stayed close to my mother and brother, who would never leave the city. I still dreamed, these days, of taking my son away from the noise and the hustle of city life. Maybe when he was older. Maybe when I didn’t rely so much on the people around me to hold me together.

The air was still slightly warm, warm enough for me to push the sleeves of my shirt up to the elbows. I stuck my headphones into my phone and put on some obnoxiously loud music, and the walk took less time than I’d anticipated.

The cafe, as we called it, was a bakery by day that turned into a boutique restaurant at night. I’d always thought the best time to go there was some point in between. After five, any of the food from the day was sold off at half price, but you could get it with a beer instead of a coffee. It was artsy, as everything in this part of the city was, with a big red counter, and a cast of staff with varying degrees of extreme hairstyles, facial piercings, and tattoos, all of whom were part-time employees and worked as something else when they weren’t waiting tables.

The best part about it, though, was that I’d never once gone there with Oliver. It had been around for years, but Meg had taken me there while I was in the middle of the splitting-up process and in dire need of a break.

I pushed open the red door, which jingled cheerfully from the bell attached to it, and headed straight for the counter to see what food was left. Thinking back, I wasn’t quite sure when I’d eaten last—probably the slice of rye toast I’d had for breakfast while attempting to get Harrison to eat his own.

“Hello, gorgeous,” I said, leaning over the counter to give Naema a kiss on the cheek. “How are you?”