“Can I go?”
“School, Evelyn Jameson Foster. You have school.”
She crosses her arms and huffs. “I’m telling Grandma you three named me. She’s going to be so mad at you.”
As soon as she’s out of ear shot, I let out a laugh. Tattling on me to my parents has become her favorite thing to do. “Mommy didn’t give me bacon, didn’t buy the right toothpaste, gave me a turkey sandwich when I asked for ham”… the list goes on and on, and each day my mother asks why I’m making my daughter’s life so hard. Of course, Mom knows her little princess is just being a dramatic almost six-year-old.
After I drop Evelyn off at school, which consisted of me walking her in and helping her hang her backpack, I’m finally pulling into a small diner outside of Prineville. It’s an old soda fountain with a white and black checkered floor and red vinyl seats. Dhara waves to me from the booth she’s secured for us.
“Sorry, I’m late. Evelyn didn’t want to go to school.”
“Can you blame her? The last day of school is the worst. You know it’s over once the bell rings, but the bell takes forever to get to that point. Then you say goodbye to your friends, and there’s always one that doesn’t come back because they move. School is torture,” she says. She eyes me over the top of her mug as I give her my best “what the hell are you talking about” look.
“Did you have a conversation with her this morning or something? It’s like the two of you are in cahoots to give me a headache.”
“Nah, I would never.” Except she would and often has. Still I love her like family. We spend the next few minutes looking over the menu and place our order when the waitress stops by to check on us.
“So, how is he?”
“Logan? He’s okay. He can’t tell me where he is, but he says he’s safe.”
Dhara leans toward me. “You know damn well I’m not talking about Logan, Jamie. How is he?”
I sigh but before I can say anything the waitress is back with a cup of coffee for me. I wrap my hands around the base even though I’m not cold, the hot ceramic gives my mind something else to think about other than Ajay.
“What’s going on?”
“Don’t know. His texts are vague when he responds. Calls are cut short because he always seems to call right before he’s going on stage, going to bed or about to eat.”
“And you’re letting him get away with this?”
I glance at her to see her smirking. “As if I control him.”
“You do, you just have to assert yourself, Jamie.”
“I’m trying, Dhara. It’s hard. Like he said, he has this whole other life, and that life is crazy busy. He lives on a tour bus, at least for another few weeks, and he’s pretty much controlled by his manager. When we do talk, things seem good between us. He doesn’t really ask about Evelyn and if he hears her calling for me, he suddenly has to go.”
“Do you think he doesn’t want kids?”
I shake my head. “No, I think he’s afraid that he’s taking time away from her. He never had parents that gave a shit and I think this is his way of showing that he does. I don’t know. It’s frustrating. He’s frustrating,” I sigh heavily. “I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m falling hard for him.”
“Well you were already there. You just buried your feelings.”
The waitress comes back with our breakfast: An omelet for Dhara and pancakes with fruit topping for me.
“The other day, I caught myself when I was filling out a form for work. I checked married instead of single and it felt good to do that.”
“You know,” she says in between bites, “I wonder what kind of tax implications there are. You’ve both been filing as single.”
“I hope for my sake, none. Alth
ough I should probably ask Fletcher about it, see if he can refer me to someone he trusts. There’s no way I can pay back the earned income credits I’ve received since Evelyn was born. Honestly, I hope no one figures it out.”
“That would be best,” she says in agreement. “So, back to Ajay. What do you want from him?”