Never Met a Stranger

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gavin helps Evie get dressed, but it’s more than a little difficult because every few moments, she shrieks in his ear, “Don’t look!” or “You’re peeking!” Even once her underwear’s in place, she still doesn’t want him looking at her. “I’m in my panties!” she cries. “You promised not to look!”

Absently, he wonders if the neighbors in the apartment below his can hear her and, if so, what they might possibly be thinking. The way she says every word—half-laughter, half-scream—will have Child Protection Services knocking down the door any moment. “Evie, please,” Gavin cautions. “Use your inside voice.”

“I am inside!” she squeals.

A dull throb has started behind his right eye, and each exclamation she makes sends the spike of pain further into his brain. He just has to hold it together until Monday morning. Then he can trade in her dramatics for those of his students.

Maybe he should cancel his Monday classes.

In the end he settles for keeping his eyes shut tight and holding out her clothes so she can step into them one at a time. The tights get snagged on her toes, and she squirms on the floor amid giggles as he tries to straighten them out. It’s like trying to dress a cat, all legs and claws, hissing and cries, wriggling against all Gavin’s attempts. Finally he pulls off the tights and balls them up in one fist, tossing them with the wet pair. “Okay, forget it. We’ll wear something else.”

“But Dadddd-dee,” Evie cries, “this is my favorite dress! I don’t want to wear any other.”

“You can wear pants,” Gavin says, pushing himself up off the damp floor of the bathroom.

Here come the tears again, hot, fat drops right on cue. “I don’t like pants! Princesses don’t wear pants!”

“Princesses don’t throw tantrums, either,” he points out. “Have you ever seen a princess cry?”

Evie sniffles as she tries to think. The only princesses she knows are of the Disney variety, and Gavin’s seen all the animated movies enough times to know there isn’t a crying princess in any of them. Except maybe…

“Belle cried,” Evie says. “And Jasmine, and Sleeping Beauty, and Ariel, and—”

“All right, never mind.” Maybe he doesn’t know his Disney movies as well as he thinks. “They weren’t upset about what they had to wear, though.”

Evie wipes her cheeks; her eyes are dry now. “Cinderella was! She had a pretty dress the mice made her and then her evil stepsisters tore it all to pieces…” To show him, she tugs at the front of her dress, playfully tearing it to shreds.

“Okay, enough!” Taking Evie by the shoulders, Gavin steers her out into the hallway. “Daddy needs to use the bathroom now. You’ve been in here too long already. So go sit in the living room and watch TV.”

“Mommy says I can’t wear a dress if I don’t wear legs underneath!” Evie cries.

Gavin points to her bare legs. “You have them, see? Right there.”

“My legs are on the floor!” Evie protests.

He has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “You’ll be fine,” he promises. “Just sit like a lady, okay?”

“I don’t want to be a lady,” she grumbles.

Switching gears, Gavin tries, “Then sit like a princess, can you do that?”

Her eyes widen with delight as her face lights up. “How’s a princess sit?”

“Legs together—these legs.” He points again at her legs, then turns his finger onto the tights left on the floor. “Not those. Ankles crossed. Smooth down your dress and keep your back straight. Like a princess.”

Evie’s posture suddenly improves as she straightens up. “Like this?”

“Yes, exactly.” Gavin tries to guide her into the hallway, but she stands her ground. “Come on, baby. I need to get ready if we’re going out.”

“Where are we going?” she asks brightly. Before he can answer, she squeals. “Oh! The movies, right? Am I right? You said yesterday we could go, right?”

“After lunch,” Gavin says. “And that won’t be until after I take a shower. So go watch some TV and let me get ready…”

She races down the hall towards the living room, her laughter trailing behind like a fading echo. With a sigh of relief, Gavin closes the bathroom door and leans back against it. At last, a few moments’ worth of peace and quiet.

Then the TV blares to life in the other room, and he has to open the door to shout, “Not so loud!”

When he shuts the door again, he hears a familiar ping! from his iPhone. A new e-mail, from the student he stood up. How about a lunch date instead? she wrote. Noodles at noon work for you? I really need direction b4 I start the paper.

She didn’t sign the message, so he still isn’t sure what her name might be. And noon is cutting it close; the movie he promised Evie starts at 1:30 halfway across town, in the opposite direction of the college. He should really say no—his daughter is his first priority this weekend—but helping students comes part and parcel with being a professor. And the paper is due Wednesday. If he says he can’t make it, then he only has himself to blame if her work isn’t up to par.

I can meet at 11:30, he writes back. I’ll have my daughter with me, so we’ll have to keep it brief. Write out any questions you have ahead of time so we can review them. I can’t stay longer than an hour.

Then he sets the phone aside and cleans up the toothpaste off the counter. He strips out of the clothes he slept in and tucks them into the hamper, adding Evie’s discarded tights and dress in with the rest of his laundry. Leaning into the tub, he turns on the faucet and the showerhead flares to life like a serpent spitting down on him—he forgot to turn off the shower before turning off the water when Evie was in the tub. The stopper is still in the drain, too.

Quickly he steps into the tub and pulls the shower curtain closed behind him. With his toe, he pulls out the stopper. The water around his ankles starts to swirl down the drain. He raises his face into the hot spray and sighs, content, as the headache and the hassle of the morning rinse away.

Less than five minutes later, when his hair is lathered full of shampoo, the spray turns cold. Between her bath and her shower, Evie must’ve used all the hot water. “Damn it,” Gavin curses, washing away the soap as fast as he can, before the shower turns to ice.

Is it too late to start the day over again?