Susan Smith - Out at Night

Does Daddy like you?

She found the hair conditioner and went back into the bedroom.

Katie lay sprawled on her stomach, next to the open suitcase, shorts and a ruffled top a pale pink against her glowing skin. “How am I getting home?”

Grace sat next to her and worked a dollop of conditioner into her hair. “I’m glad you got dressed. That’s good. You’ll fly with Daddy and then stay in his house.”

Katie yanked up her head in surprise and Grace gently tipped it forward again. “He has a house?”

“Daddy bought a place almost right next to ours, so you’ll spend Monday night there, and then I’ll pick you up after school Tuesday.”

“He lives in San Diego in Point Loma?” Her voice was astonished.

“Not too far away. He bought it when he found out about you. He wants very much to get to know you and be a real daddy.”

Katie sucked in a breath, her head still bent. Her curls were damp ringlets against her scalp. “He is a real daddy,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “He’s mine.”

Grace nodded. “Yes, honey. He is.” The bullet now was burrowing, worming its way up toward her heart. It was one of those time-release ones, guaranteed to keep chewing up her insides for some time to come. She wondered what it would take to get rid of it.

“All done.” She carried the conditioner into the bathroom, found what she was looking for and returned.

Katie sat with her knees up, her face down, protecting herself.

“Sunscreen.” Grace put it on the dresser. “Even if Daddy forgets. Don’t you forget.” The bottle was bright orange and had a cartoon of a fish on it.

“Mommy.” Katie’s voice was muffled, forced. “Did you just forget?”

“Forget.” Grace looked around the room, her eyes settling on the open suitcase, mentally reviewing the contents. It was a jumbled mess.

“I think I packed everything.” She closed the lid and zipped it. “If I forgot something, bring it back with you, okay?”

“No, silly, that I had a daddy .”

Katie raised her eyes and looked at her. Her eyes were wide, dark brown, fathomless.

Katie’s aim was much surer than Mac’s. It was a direct hit.

Grace felt the aftershock first, the trembling as her body braced for a blow that had already come, and then she felt the pain coursing through her. It was hot, electric, a wire that stung with recriminations and truth.

Grace had tried to leave Mac behind for good. What she hadn’t factored in was how much that decision would cost Katie.

“Am I interrupting something?” Mac stood in the doorway, a hopeful look on his face, the parent at the fence, the one on the outside.

There was a split second when Grace could have said something, fixed whatever it was between her and Katie, a single word and everything would have been okay, but in that blinding moment of time, Katie turned toward the sound of his voice. Grace had always reached out to Katie, instinctively, joyously, but now she stalled, free-falling, unable to move. She stared at Katie and for the first time felt the awkwardness of not reaching out, embracing her, and in that instant she lost her standing as a mother. Not with Katie, perhaps, but with herself.

“He’s here. That’s what I came to tell you.”

Katie turned to take a look out the window. Officer Epsten sat in an idling golf cart. Katie trotted for the door.

Grace made a small sound.

“Wait,” Mac said. “Give your mom a hug.”

Katie came limply into her arms, her body angled away. Grace felt an elbow. Katie squirmed free, leaving behind the familiar scents of new-mown grass and lemon.

Grace swallowed. She felt faint and afraid. “My cell doesn’t have an international connection. I’ll call you from a landline when I get in.”

“Sure,” Mac said, his hand touching Katie’s curls.

Grace walked the two of them out the wide door and to the golf cart. Mac stowed the suitcase in the back.

Epsten eased the cart forward along the bumpy path and Grace grabbed hold of the frame to steady herself, and by the time she angled her body around to take a look behind her, they were gone.

Grace drove past the shop, circled the block, and found a place to park on Newport Avenue. It was two blocks from the boardwalk in Ocean Beach in San Diego, not far from the YMCA youth hostel. She walked past a row of antique shops.

The sky was a paler blue than the one she’d left behind in the Bahamas. Mixed in with the sharp smell of the sea was the odor of dirt and sweat and grimy cement.

A group of glossy-haired teens stood panhandling in front of the grilled door. They looked at her and scattered, starting a game of bocci ball farther down the street as she opened the door and went inside.

Helix yipped and clattered over on his fake leg, tail wagging joyously, and Jeanne looked up from her work. A fan shot a current of cold air across Grace’s body.

The shop was empty except for a fragile-looking woman in the chair wearing shorts, a tank top, and headphones the size of Egg McMuffins. Her eyes were closed and her mouth had dropped slightly open. She was sleeping.

“You’re back early. I wasn’t expecting you until Monday. Where’s your sidekick?” Jeanne put down her needle and reached for a new color. The beginning of a unicorn glistened on the client’s left calf.

“Hey, buddy.” Grace bent to Helix and scratched him behind his ears and he licked her face and woofed. “You sent Mac down there. To find us.”

Jeanne sorted colors, held up one to the light, put it down. “The light in here is for shit. Turn on the lamp, okay?”

Grace clicked on a standing lamp and positioned the light. Jeanne’s hair was a startling shade of red. Age had wrinkled the rose tattoo on her arm so that it looked wilted, the petals convoluted.

“You gave me directions to the beach you said you went to.”

“As a precautionary measure, Jeanne. Not so Mac could fly down there.”

Jeanne looked at her sharply. “You are talking about Mac McGuire, the hero in this deal, right?” She picked up a bottle of eggshell blue ink and squirted it into a cup.

“Is Jeanne feeding you?” Grace rubbed Helix’s belly.

He groaned and wriggled. He was a mongrel mix, black and white, with a fake leg that spasmed in the air like a Rockette executing a tricky high kick.

Jeanne rolled the calf gently and held it steady as she positioned the needle, delicately stippling the skin. The woman flinched slightly and Jeanne swabbed the calf with an antiseptic pad. “What’s going on?”

Grace swallowed, suddenly close to tears. “Why does something have to be going on?”

Jeanne stared at her over her glasses and went back to work.

“Can she hear us?”

“She’s listening to the Dead full blast. I’d be surprised if she could hear anything after this.” She shrugged in the direction of a chair. “Sit.”

Grace pulled a chair over from another workstation and positioned it so that she was facing Jeanne over the legs of the client. They were skinny legs—a kid’s—and Grace wondered if Jeanne had carded her before starting. The girl didn’t look old enough to be making a choice that lasted a lifetime, but then again, Grace knew age hadn’t protected her from doing things that cost. Were still costing.

She clasped her hands between her knees. “Can you keep Helix until Tuesday?”

Jeanne shot her a measured look, bent over the calf and inked in a shadow along the unicorn’s legs, so that the animal looked as if it were springing off the skin in a three-dimensional leap.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

Jeanne put down the needle and swabbed the skin. It was pink around the fresh needle marks. She tossed the pad into the trash.