Georgeanne hooked her leather bag over her shoulder. “I don’t really know. I know she’s a little confused about her last name now that it’s Kowalsky. She has a hard time spelling it, but other than that, she doesn’t say much.”
“She doesn’t talk about him?”
For several weeks after Lexie had learned that John was her father, she’d been cold and distant toward Georgeanne. Georgeanne had tried to explain why she’d lied, and Lexie had listened quietly. Then she’d directed all of her anger at her mother, hurting them both before letting it go. Their lives would never be the same. But for the most part, she was the same little girl now that she’d been before she’d learned of John. Although there were also times when she was unusually quiet.
Georgeanne didn’t have to ask her what she was thinking, she just knew. “I’ve told her John was coming to pick her up for a visit tonight. She didn’t say much about it, just asked when he’d bring her back home.”
Lexie returned from the bathroom and the three of them walked from the studio toward the front entrance of the building. “Guess what, Charles.”
“What?”
“I’m in the first grade. My teacher’s name is Mrs. Berger. Like hamburger without the ham. I like her ‘cause she’s nice and ’cause she gots a gerbil in our classroom. He’s brown and white and has little tiny ears. Everyone named him Stimpy. I wanted to name him Pongo, but I didn’t get to.” She kept up a steady stream of chatter all the way through the building and out into the parking lot. But in the car on the drive home, she was very quiet. Georgeanne tried to talk to her, but she was clearly distracted.
From a block away, Georgeanne noticed John’s Range Rover parked in front of her house. She saw him sitting on her front porch, his feet apart and his forearms resting on his thighs. She pulled her car into the driveway and glanced over at the passenger seat. Lexie stared straight ahead at the garage door and sucked her top lip between her teeth. Her little hands tightly gripped the clipboard Charles had given her so she could write down her ideas for future shows. On the paper she’d drawn several misshaped cats and dogs and had written the words “pet sho.”
“Are you nervous?” she asked her daughter, feeling her own butterflies take flight.
Lexie shrugged.
“If you don’t want to go, I don’t think he’ll make you,” Georgeanne said, hoping she spoke the truth.
Lexie was silent for a while before she asked, “Do you think he likes me?”
Georgeanne’s throat constricted. Lexie, who was always so sure of herself, always so sure that everyone just automatically loved her, wasn’t so sure of her daddy. “Of course he likes you. He liked you the very first time he saw you.”
“Oh,” was all she said.
Together they got out of the car and moved up the sidewalk. From behind her big black sunglasses, Georgeanne watched him stand. He looked casual and at ease in a pair of beige twill pants, white T-shirt, and plaid dress shirt left unbuttoned and untucked. His dark hair had been cut shorter than the last time she’d seen him; the front fell in spikes over his forehead. His gaze was riveted on his daughter.
“Hey there, Lexie.”
She looked down at her clipboard, suddenly engrossed. “Hi.”
“What have you been up to since the last time I saw you?”
“Nothin‘.”
“How’s first grade?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “Okay.”
“Do you like your teacher?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Berger.”
The tension was almost tangible. Lexie was friendlier to the mailman than she was to her own father, and they both knew it. John lifted his gaze to Georgeanne, his blue eyes accusing. Georgeanne bristled. She might not like him, but she hadn’t said one word against him-well, not within Lexie’s hearing anyway. Just because she wasn’t willing to lie down and let him walk all over her anymore didn’t mean she would try to influence Lexie in any way. She was surprised by Lexie’s uncharacteristic bout of shyness, but she knew the reason. The cause for her reserve stood in front of her like a big, muscular giant, and she didn’t know how to behave around him now.
“Why don’t you tell John about your gerbil,” she suggested, introducing the subject of Lexie’s most recent fixation.
“We gots a gerbil.”
“Where?”
“School.”