40
A common Saturday starts with a check of her phone. She wills her eyes to focus and pulls the screen up close to her face looking for a text message from Nichols. Is she meeting me here, am I meeting her at her place, half-way, at the community center?
"What are we doing?," she sends to Nicky via text.
"Wanna just meet there? Slow start this AM," she reads the reply.
Nicky prefers the late Friday night or early Saturday morning meetings as she feels weekends are when people jones for their addiction, the hardest. Sometimes it helps to hear other people struggle more than herself, other times she feels the playing field is even. When Alex arrives, Nichols raises a paper coffee cup that she already got for her friend and hands it to her while the brunette takes a seat.
"How ya doin?," she asks Nicky, while she takes a sip.
"Mm'alright. You?"
"A little better. Everything's still strained, you know, same shit," she says taking another sip of her coffee.
"S'like our church confession Vause."
Their meeting starts, they re-direct their attention to the person who's sharing, and leave an hour later feeling a stronger sense of motivation.
"I just don't know what to say to him."
"Why don't you just do something with him, and see if he talks to you. Or just make small talk."
Once they get home, Alex opens the laptop and sets in on her legs that are bent on the couch. Nicky fills Piper in on Alex's idea to take him to a baseball game and see if they can smooth over some of the tension that's wafting through their apartment.
Thirty minutes later, she takes a deep breath and gets up from the couch. She leans against his open doorway, gently knocking on his door, interrupting his game.
His hand is clenched around the joystick of her old Atari system, he starts yelling as the "sky" is filled with more aliens until he's defeated. His wrist relaxes as he hands the controller to Alex, "can you just get past this level?"
Duh, her expression reads as she takes the controller. She fires vigorously at the aliens so they dont have a chance to build up, the way Jamie had let them. Less than three minutes later she hands him back the controller. She lifts up slightly from her seat and pulls some papers from her back pocket. "Wanna go?"
"Well, I need to take her to dance class," Piper says to Nicky as she picks up the scattered coffee mugs and napkins from their living room table.
"You gonna walk?," Nicky asks her.
"Nah, not enough time. I can give you a ride to the station if you want?"
"Right behind ya," she says standing up. She takes note at how quiet the back of the apartment is, and assumes all is going well between the two brunettes.
"Harper let's go," Piper calls out to her.
When Nicky gets into the passenger seat Harper asks, "aunt Nicky are you coming to my dance class?"
"I... do you want me to?"
She nods, "you can watch me!"
Nicky pulls down the sun visor and wrinkles her forehead when she sees how clumpy her mascara is and frowns while she tries to gently minimize the dry dark blobs.
"Harper, aunt Nicky might have other plans. I'll be watching you though."
"Yeah Harper, can't you see I'm busy?," she says widening her eyes and continues grooming.
"Chapman, I've got nothing else going on. Clearly."
"So can you come?"
"Yes," she laughs, "I'm more than available."
"Why do you always call her Chapman?"
Piper naturally grips the steering wheel tighter at her daughter's inquiry. Her friend calls her Chapman all the time, it's been the norm for over a decade, she never thinks twice about it, but can't help the reaction now that her daughter's asking why.
"Because that's her name," Nicky answers her.
"But you don't call me Vauseman."
The wild haired woman, turns around to look back at her Harper, "I could," she says sardonically, "do you want me to?"
"No-ah," the shorter wild haired young lady replies back to her with sass, making her aunt laugh, "Nichols."
"Quick witted smart ass," Nicky mumbles to Piper. "One hundred percent Vauseman," she turns back to the second grader as if taking a dig.
"Yeah right. Harper did you know your middle name is Nicole because of your aunt Nicky?"
She tries to make eye contact with her mother, but cant reach her neck around the headrest. She looks at Nicky, "your name is Nicole?," she asks her with fascination.
"Mmmm."
Harper's face is almost immediately taken over by a huge smile, making her aunt laugh once again. "What about Harper?," she pressed her mother for more tidbits of why she's called what she's called.
"From your aunt Polly and the author of one of the most wonderful, beautifully written books in the whole world."
She picks at pink tights that mask the legs that swing happily in the back seat of their car.
Throughout her class, every fifteen minutes or so, she checks to see if her mom and her aunt are still watching. Nicky waves every time, while Piper swirls her finger around telling her to pay attention. When her class breaks for water, the waiting area loses it's tranquility and is replaced by the excited chattering gossip of twenty young girls.
"This is Miss Chessie," Harper tells her aunt over the noise. The slender woman looks down at the woman Harper's talking to. She stands up, "Nicky," she says somewhat amused by Harper's cuteness while she introduces two of her favorite people to each other.
"Her name is Nicole," she tells her dance teacher, spreading the news, that as far as she's concerned, should be on the cover of every paper. Nicky grabs Harper's head, like she's the chosen prize that's won with the claw, and shakes it.
"Nice to meet you Nicole."
She raises her hand, "please, Nicky." She waves her hand around the room and leans in closer so they can hear each other better, "this is a lot of work!," she says at a chuckle, acknowledging how many students there are.
"It can be, but they're good. I think they all really enjoy it," she says assessing how many more still need to get water. "She's really picking up quickly," she says to Piper in regards of Harper's progress.
"Yeah?," she says and looks at Harper, "maybe. When she pays attention." Harper fights a fit of giggles and leans against Nicky's leg.
"C'mon girls, back in," Chessie says to the entire room. "Well, enjoy the second half," she says to Harper's fan box.
Throughout the second half of class, they both wonder how Alex and Jamie are doing together.
She grabs her jacket, and holds out a hooded sweatshirt for Jamie as he stands up from tying his sneaker. He just looks at her.
"You should take a sweatshirt," she tells him wiggling it out for him.
He takes it from her, but replaces it back on the coat rack, "I don't want one."
They step outside into the breezy, autumn air. She instinctually pulls her jacket tighter around her ribcage and runs her hands up and down her arms. If she's cold, then it must be freezing. She turns back to him, "wanna go back and grab it?"
"I don't need one. I think I know what I need!"
"Alright!," she tells him, while she crosses her arms and heads toward the train to Yankee Stadium.
While they're walking around the stadium to get to their section, she asks him if he wants a hot dog, each time they pass a new cart.
"Ma! You're driving me crazy. I'll just get one when the guy comes over by our seat."
After climbing over the legs of other fans, they finally settled into their seats among the Bleacher Creatures, his favorite section. After the first inning, a guy carrying the padded square bag of concessions walks by shouting, "hot dawgs, git yer hot dawgs hea."
He nods at her before she can even ask, she puts her arm up and throws the guy a peace sign. The man hands her two hot dogs,
"what, you don't want one?," Jamie asks her.
"Yeah?," she says handing her son one.
"I need two," he says as if she's insane to think one hot dog was going to sustain him the whole afternoon, "I'm a growing boy."
She hands him her hot dog and asks the guy for another one. She hands him a twenty, receiving no change. "Twenty dollars for the ass of the animal, I swear."
He wants to laugh, but he holds back and adds, "I'm gonna need ice cream later."
"James, it is freezing," she quips.
He shrugs his shoulders, "the one that comes in the hat," he clarifies while nodding, fully aware that he's being a brat. She's been walking on eggshells around him and he wants to see her get mad. Instead she looks over the crowd of heads, looking for someone who might be walking around with soft serve. She turns the other way and squints her eyes, trying to see or remember if they passed one of the booths that sold ice cream on the way to their seats.
He sees her searching and he shoves her arm, "stop," he whines.
"I thought you said you wanted ice cream?," she looks at him sadly confused.
"Why are we even here?"
"Can't I go with my son to a baseball game?," she says louder than a normal speaking voice causing a couple of people to turn around at the peanut gallery behind them. My son, she mouths to them all and points to him. He shrinks, slumping down deeper along the metal bench. "I... wanted us to have a nice day."
"You don't even like baseball."
"I like it just fine. I miss watching you play." The breeze blows by, the chill hangs in the air, he crosses his arms and leans forward onto his elbows. She knows he's cold, but he'll never admit it.
There's some silence between them for a while before he says, "remember you used to wear a catcher's mask when you practiced pitching for me in the park?" He can't help but laugh, Piper always called her Hannibal Lecter when she wore the mask.
"You couldn't control where you hit back then. It was a choice against vanity, an executive decision to protect my face." She watches him bounce his legs up and down, his hands still roam his arms.
"And how you tried to get the guy who worked at the batting cages to check the speed on the pitch machine," he starts cracking up, "because you were certain they were coming eighty miles per hour."
"They were fast! You were little."
"I was fine, you were the one screaming!," he shakes his head, "you hate baseball," he reiterates continuing to bounce his legs.
She can't stand it anymore, she takes off her jacket and puts it over his shoulders. He looks at the sleeve of her jacket that hangs in front of his chest, "I don't want it."
He starts to take it off, she puts her hand over his, "leave it alone." She removes her hand after a minute, he leaves her jacket in place, welcoming the warmth.
"Can you please look at me?"
He cant. He keeps his eyes straight on the game. He doesn't want to need her, but he still does. She's such a pain in his ass, she's always there, she's almost always right, she's relatively reasonable. But when she's not there, and she's wrong and expects him to do as she says, not as she does, he struggles to see her as this other person.
"J,"... her voice questions, begging for him to look at her, but he doesn't. "Do you have any idea how much I love you?"
He speaks in a monotone voice, "why don't you love me even more and get me ice cream?"
Stunned, she stands up and walks out of the row. He doesn't turn his face to look at her but feels the heat from her body leave his side and can see her vanishing from the corner of his eye.
She returns half an hour later, wearing a Yankees hoodie, and holding a plastic navy blue mini- hat, full of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sprinkles.
She sits down next to him and hands him the ice cream.
His eyes widen, "mom! I wasn't serious! It's freezing out!"
She looks at him with disbelief.
"You don't have to buy me all this crap in order for me to know! Is this what you did with mom when you messed up? Try to buy her love?"
"No. Not intentionally anyway. I liked spoiling her."
"Don't try so hard. I hate you like this. I know you love me, you tell me all the time." He leans back eyeballing the hoodie shes wearing, and tries to refocus, he mumbles so only she can hear, "you've shown me, my whole life, okay?," he admits to her. "I just want you to act normally around me."
"A lot of things have changed," she tells him simply, "and I wish they hadn't."
"But they did. Just, don't act weird around me now. Weird-er."
She crosses her eyes at him momentarily until she can see him smile.
He looks at the hoodie again, "trade?"
"Nope," she says. "This is really comfortable," she says laughing as she removes the sweatshirt for him.
He stands up to put it on, he puts his hands in the pockets and faces her. She nods in approval. He sits back down and mumbles toward her, "gimme the fucking ice cream."
She laughs and gives him the half melted dessert in the plastic hat.
"I hate you," he says around a mouthful of ice cream.
"No you don't."
"No...I don't."
Toward the end of her class, the girls line up along the barre and are allowed to freestyle across the room one by one. They end most of their classes this way, literally letting their hair down, leaping, turning, breakdancing along the wooden floor.
"Her hair," Piper laughs out as her daughter's clips desperately try to hold back her now loose sweaty curls, from her eyes.
"I know right? Not a hair out of place," Nicky replies.
"What? It's everywhere, like it always is," she looks at Nicky curiously.
"Yeah... I was just kidding."
Piper slowly turns her head back to her child's class, noting how perfectly smoothed back, her daughter's dance teacher's hair is. As the girls are dismissed, the waiting room once again becomes pretty loud. Piper starts pulling things from Harper's bag to layer over her now sweaty dance clothes. Harper's dance teacher gives quick feedback to some inquiring parents before making it towards the space on the floor where Harper is sitting, trying to pull on her pants.
Piper starts pulling her hair back in a messy bun, when Harper says "I can do it." She rakes her hands through her hair many times, struggling to tie it in a hair elastic.
"What's the matter Harper?," her dance teacher crouches down to ask.
"We left the full bottle of hairspray at home," Piper jokes in reference to what they had to do to get it tamed to recital-level standards.
She shakes her head, "That was something else."
"Got any tips?," Nicky asks her, needing to say something to this woman, but not knowing what.
The dance teacher just smiles at her. She turns back to her student, who's laying on her back now, exhausted from getting her hair back up, "great job today Harper."
"Thanks Miss Chessie," she beams, proud to have pleased her dance teacher.
"Bye Miss Chessie," Nicky echoes.
Harper sticks her foot up, so Nicky can tie her shoe, while Piper starts with her daughter about asking someone if they can help her before shoving her foot in their face.
Her dance teacher walks back over to Nicky, "it's Francesca."
Nicky's hands stop working, she leans up from her curled position and looks over her shoulder. "Francesca," she says her breath almost catching in her throat.
Harper mouths it, breaking it down, Fran-ches-kuh. Harper looks at Nicky with an expression she hasn't seen her make before, "well I'm going to go to the bathroom before we head out," she stands up.
"Harper do you have to go?," Piper asks her, bending down to finish tying her daughter's shoes.
"No."
"You should try to sweetie," she insists.
"I don't have to go."
Nicky heads away, as she's the only person who has to pee at that exact moment.
"So, is she your sister?," Harper's dance teacher asks Piper.
"Nicky? No, she's just a really good friend."
"Oh, I thought maybe she was, because it's so similar... the hair," she says gesturing toward Harper.
Piper laughs, "no, that was just a lucky coincidence. The curls are on my side, one of those skip-a-generation, type of things."
Francesca nods and looks back toward the closed bathroom door, before she speaks at a lower voice, "I don't mean to pry, but... what's her situation?"
Piper's eyes widen, she can't believe this, "I knew you couldn't care less about my lineage," she says pulling the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "Depends on who's asking."
Francesca looks into Piper's eyes. "For you?," she confirms.
The dance teacher sucks her teeth. Piper nods, "she might be single."
"She's looking for a princess," the youngest Vauseman/professional eavesdropper adds.
"Harper!," Piper turns and looks at her.
"What? She is."
"Go sit over there," she points to a chair a few feet away.
Francesca leans over the front desk and scribbles her cell on the back of a business card. "Can you just take this and see if she's interested?"
"Absolutely," she says receiving the card.
Piper squeezes Harper's hand on the sidewalk and raises her index to her mouth, telling her to keep quiet. Once they're on the road, Piper hands Nicky the card,
"her cell is on the back."
"You asked her for her number?!"
"She gave it to me. For you. And asked me about your situation."
"And I told her you wanted a princess!," Harper says from the back.
"You told her that?," she asks stunned that her niece remembered, "oh my God."
"Alex. Alex Vause," she tells the doorman and looks down at the floor, her relfection looks back at her from the marble tiling, as the man checks over a pre-approved list of expected visitors.
"I won't be on that list, can you let him know I'm here?"
Her fingers curl toward her wrist, she plays with the cuff of her brown leather jacket as she tries not to stare at the doorman on the phone. She hear's the "s's" of his whispers, he puts the phone over his shoulder, "Mr. Dolger doesn't think..."
"Look," she looks at his name tag, "Charles, I'm not leaving until I get to speak to him so if he'd like me to wait outside until he leaves for work in the morning, so be it. But why postpone the inevitable?"
He glares at her momentarily, she crosses her arms and pleads internally that this guy will not have her stake out, because she will.
"17 B Ms. Vause."
"Thank you," she says briefly coming to her toes as she squeezes the edge of the lobby table. She walks toward the elevator, the tap of her shoes echo throughout the large space. She hits the button for 17 and watches the door close. She runs her pointer under her bottom lip, ensuring her lipstick hadn't run. Get your shit together Alex, she says to herself in the mirrored wall of the elevator. She walks down the dimly lit carpeted hallway until she's in front of 17B. She presses the doorbell and almost immediately Lauren answers, "hi Alex," she says as she opens the door wide for her to come in.
"Hi sweetheart."
"Ms. Vause," Lauren's father comes to stand by his daughter in the entryway.
"Please, call me Alex."
"What can I do for you Alex?"
She peers at Lauren from the side of her eye and then looks back at him, silently asking him to have her leave. He points a finger toward the back of the apartment; the girl briefly looks at Alex before retreating behind one of the doors down the hall. He doesn't invite her to sit down, he doesn't ask if she wants anything to drink. His feet do not move from the spot where he stands, "what can I do for you?"
"My son," she breathes in and swallows, "he was very upset when Lauren told him you didn't want her spending time with him anymore. From what I understand, she was as well."
"It's not my job to keep my daughter pleased. It's my job to make sure she's safe and taken care of."
"Of course..."
"And I'd prefer that she stay away from people who have difficulties abiding by our laws."
"As would I for both of my children," she says slightly offended. "I have nothing to do with that anymore. Nor does my wife. We served our time, complied with probation, started over."
"Look, I'm not allowing her to hang out in the home of an ex-con," he says and starts to step forward to the door.
She moves slightly toward his outstretched arm, "the ex con's have been making sure your kid eats dinner once, sometimes twice a week. They've been making sure that she safely makes it back to your doorstep at night, that she gets advice on what dress she looks the prettiest in, when her father needs to spend all day and night at work."
He runs his tongue along the underside of his back teeth, "And I'm grateful for that..."
"I don't judge you, okay? I get that you bust your ass to make a comfortable life for her. But I've busted my ass to change who I am so I could look my kids in the eye and ask them to judge me for the person they know now, not the person I was. I'm asking you to do the same."
His eyes shut briefly, he breathes in easily.
"I'm sure being a lawyer, you've done a couple of things that don't exactly buy you an express ticket through the Pearly Gates."
He exhales with a scoff.
"I will not let him be punished for something that I did, something I did...twenty years ago. Our door will always be open for her, I hope you allow the same for my son." She takes a step back before pivoting to open their door.
"How do I know she'll be safe?"
Her face grimaces, "you don't? Just like you don't when she walks to school in the morning. You equip them with what you know and hope they follow the same precautions that you would when you leave your home."
"It's not good enough," he states to her, parent to parent.
"No, it's not is it? So you slightly stalk them, now and then, and you let them know they can call you with anything."
He looks at her curiously.
"And when they screw it up, you throw them a fiesta in front of the girl they like, and hope they never do it again."
He laughs, "yeah she told me about all of that."
She smirks, "I didn't make the best decisions. But I'm not a bad mom. My son," she pauses, guiltily, "he had no idea."
Lauren's father nods, his lips pull into a straight line, in slight remorse for being the reason her son now knew.
"It's not part of our lives anymore."
He lays on his stomach, the side of his cheek presses against the seat of their couch, his cell phone buzzes on the table, Lauren.
"Hey," he reads, and turns onto his side, he keeps his phone angled into the couch. A moment later it buzzes again, "U there?"
"Yeah," he waits a minute, before adds his thought-felt addition, "hi."
"Guess what?"
"?"
"Wow, first message in 3 weeks. Could u try to be excited to talk to me?"
"Sorry, ::jazz hands:: lol"
"Idiot. lol. My dad said it would be okay if we hang out."
"What? Really?," he texts and sits upright.
"Your mom came by."
"Alex," she texts a moment later to clarify which one. He knows, as Piper's been doing whatever it is moms do around the house.
As he's leaving school the next day he normally turns left to head to the fields for practice, but he sees Lauren standing just slightly over to the right. She sees him coming and cant help but smile. After a second of awkwardness, she pulls him into a hug.
"It's good to see you."
"I've seen you. I saw you playing soccer a few times here and there, are you going now?," she says looking at him in his soccer stuff.
"You could've come over and said hi."
"You were pretty pissed last time I talked to you."
"I'm sorry, I wasn't mad at you."
"But you yelled at me."
"I shouldn't have called your father those names, I'm real sorry about that. I was upset thinking it couldn't be true but..."
"I know. I get it, there had to be something right?"
His eyebrow lifts.
"Cause they're great! So there had to be something messed up about them right?"
"You and great," he says back to her.
They find themselves walking away from school and toward his apartment.
"Vauseman you coming to practice?," his friend Joey calls from about fifteen feet away.
No answer, as it's requiring his full attention to actually hear what shes saying versus getting lost in the few new freckles across the bridge of her nose.
He offers her his hand, she quickly takes it, he notes how good it feels to feel her fingers intertwine with his own.
"Earth to Vauseman...," his friend Joey calls out to him with a couple of their other teammates cracking up that he's dazed.
"Tell coach I had to go home or something, cover for me."
They stop at the pizzeria along the way, "how many do you want?," he asks her.
"One," she says and grabs onto the counter.
"Can I get three slices, and...," he turns to her, "what do you want to drink?"
"I'll just get a cup of water."
"What do you want?," he asks her again.
"Jamie it's okay."
"Lauren."
"A cherry soda."
"...and a cherry soda and a root beer."
They step into his house, "ah," she says as he closes the front door, "seriously always smells so good in here."
The apartment is quiet, they go into his room, he flips on the tv. When he turns around, she's standing still.
"You can, like, sit down," he says with nervous laughter.
He sits in the corner of his bed and turns his side light on. She sits down and leans up against his wall.
He gets up and turns his main light off, and sits back down next to her. She leans into his side, her head rests against his shoulder. He puts his arm around her.
"I missed you," she tells him.
He leans down, adjusting until they're laying down. He keeps his arm around her, "I missed you too."
He kisses her softly. When she pulls back, he opens his eyes.
"What's the matter?," he asks her.
"Are we...?," she starts.
He immediately becomes nervous, as she doesn't know where she's about to take this. "Am I... am I still your girlfriend?"
He tries not to laugh, "you don't hafta ask." He touches her gently in reassurance.
"You never asked me, like officially."
"I didn't know I was supposed to?"
She looks down and places her palm on his chest.
"I mean you are, if you want to be?"
She nods, he presses his forehead against hers, before kissing her again.
The amount of time that has passed is unclear, when his front door closes and he hears Piper, "Jamie?"
He bolts out of the bed, hits his main light on and lands on the floor in precisely 1.62 seconds flat. He turns to Lauren, and motions at her frantically to get off his bed.
As soon as she's on the floor, Harper walks in, "Lauren!," she says excitedly and gives her a hug.
Piper is not far behind her, when she sees her son and Lauren sitting on the floor, the news is on, their backpacks are by the front door. She can't help but notice his wrinkled comforter and the lingering, double head shaped imprint in his pillow.