02: At First Sight

VIV

Two years was a lot of time to become an entirely different person.

Truth be told, even a month would do if you were as determined as I was when I walked into my bank the morning after I delivered Xavier, shivering and more than a little bit ragged from having spent the night at a homeless shelter, but otherwise resolved.

I knew that time was of the essence, and Willa would act swiftly to try and lock up all of my assets—so I requested a transfer of half of it into my best friend Kaleb’s account, before withdrawing the other half, effectively draining every single penny from it as my despair from the night before crystalized into a cold, hard rage when I saw that the money would not be enough to live comfortably off.

I was angry at my father and his wife, angry that they would throw me out to the wolves without a thought for the baby I was now responsible for. I was angry that the sun still rose, and things continued as if my whole life hadn’t been thrown out the window. I was angry at the world.

Looking back now I would have acted differently, waited to hear my father denounce me on his own, kicked up a storm with the media at the thought that a hospital would kick a woman who’d just delivered out in the cold merely hours after the most harrowing experience of her life. But as I mentioned earlier, two years was a lot of time to become somebody new, and with my money and baby intact I let myself disappear, taking it a day at a time as I reverted back to the use of my mother’s maiden name.

The only person I was still in contact with was Kaleb, and even then I only called him using payphones. The last time we spoke, a little over three months ago, he’d let slip the fact that my father constantly asked him about me, a fact that brought tears to my eyes until I realized that even if he hadn’t wanted to throw me away, he’d never raised a finger to protect me from Willa.

That in itself was unforgivable, and it mattered little whether he missed me or if feelings of guilt had begun to eat away at his conscience. He was still with her, end of story.

I hung up, and haven’t had the heart to call Kaleb back ever since.

New York was as far away from my old life as it got, and working at Zeppelins gave me a sense of security that went beyond blissful anonymity. The owners—Beatrice and Jorge Garcia—a couple in their seventies, had taken one look at my fake ID, called it the worst job they’d seen in their lives, and hired me on the spot before lifting a bewildered Xavier from my arms and telling me to get to work.

The pay was good, better than anything I could hope for working at any other fast-food chain, and came with unexpected perks like free daycare. Also, I got to keep my tips.

It was a small price to smile at the men who came in, nod attentively as they complained about work or their families, and ignore the fact that their eyes never moved beyond the vicinity of my chest, as long as I was assured of a tremendous tip.

Most were harmless, middle aged, and generally content with the prospect of a pretty girl hanging on to their every word. One or two got a bit grabby on occasion. But it was him, the dark-eyed hulk of a man who sometimes came in at the end of my shift, it was him I found myself inexplicably fascinated with.

Okay, that was a lie. I was entirely aware of the reason behind my preoccupation with him. He was utterly, brutally gorgeous, and moved with an animal grace that I found difficult to look away from. Also, he tipped so outrageously that at first I’d thought he had a problem counting money until he looked me directly in the eye and said to keep four hundred dollars worth of change.

Of course I wasn’t going to stare a gift horse in the mouth.

After we received news of Ian, Xavier’s father, going missing in action on his tour of Afghanistan, I’d found the thought of having another man affect me impossible to consider. And yet I found myself hopelessly enthralled by this stranger whose name I didn’t even know.

The bell at the entrance chimed as it announced the entrance of a patron and I looked up from the table I was wiping down, heart in my throat even as I offered a ready grin, which died down as soon as I saw it wasn’t the stranger.

Four days had passed since his last visit, and I hated that I was so attuned to his presence that I’d even counted down the days since I saw him. Even Freddy, the grizzled old veteran who single handedly ran the kitchen, had noticed the longing looks I kept throwing at the door, manifesting each new customer that entered to be him with a force that surprised even myself.

I tethered on the edge of what was quickly turning into an unhealthy obsession and realized I would need to take several steps back if I wanted to come out unscathed. Perhaps he’d been a visiting fitness instructor or businessman, and had returned home to what I imagined was a happy marriage, disappearing out of my life just as quickly as he entered it.

I shook off the sense of prickling unease and gave myself over to the task of wiping down the tables.

Even if I had a chance in hell with him though, I realized I wouldn’t be able to take it because between my job, Xavier, and evening classes I’d just enrolled in at the community college, I had nothing of myself left to offer up in a relationship.

Within minutes I had finished, poured out the dirty water and wrung the rag dry. Taylor, who was set to take over from me, arrived on time today so I had no reason to stick around.

She was pretty, with a smattering of freckles that ran across the bridge of her nose, and we made small talk as I folded up my apron while she donned hers on and then bid each other farewell as I headed up the stairs to the second floor, where the Garcia’s lived, as Zeppelins doubled as a diner and their home.

I knocked, and at the same time Xavier let out a delighted peal of laughter that made me smile. From my side of the door I heard Jorge’s attempted baby speak as he informed my two-year-old that his mother had come for him, much to his delight as he broke into unintelligible cries that barely resembled mama, repeated over and over again.

I picked up the sound of feet shuffling, and then the doorjamb let out a click and it slid open slowly to reveal a slightly disheveled Beatrice, whose dress looked stained with something that looked suspiciously like baby puke, but I only had eyes for my child, who went wild at the sight of me.

I cut a path to him and scooped his soft body up in my arms, dipping my face into the crook of his neck and taking a whiff of his addictive, clean baby scent. Before Xavier, I hadn't thought it possible to love another human being like this, so pure, so entirely consuming.

In our first few months of displacement I had been plagued by dream after dream of stumbling over his cold, lifeless body. I’d wake up with a gasp, eyes searching him out in the darkness of the room and not looking away until I was sure of the rise and fall of his small chest, at which point I would promptly give into the urge to shed a few tears of relief. Against the odds he was alive, and thriving.

“I’m sure he was a handful,” I said apologetically when I looked up as once more my eyes fixated on the stain that ran down Beatrice’s dress.

“Nonsense,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, and Jorge threw an arm over her shoulder. “He’s an angel, I won’t hear anything else.”

I apologized again, but they refused to accept and my baby sucked contentedly on his thumb as he watched the scene unfold before him, the little monster.

Shortly after I was on my way out, but not before Beatrice pressed a foil wrapped plate into my hand, which I received gratefully. Jorge headed out first, so that by the time I arrived downstairs he’d rolled out Xavier’s stroller, into which I deposited my child, who blinked up blearily at me before letting out a gummy yawn.

Taylor, excusing herself from a group of customers, came over to gush over him for a few short seconds until Jorge shooed her back to work. For what must’ve been the billionth time in our relationship I thanked him, he cut me off in the no-nonsense manner I’d come to associate with him.

“Stop it, honestly. You’re doing us a favor, because we never had kids, much less grandkids.”

The sadness in his voice was palpable, but he shook it off in an instant and leaned over, murmuring a few unintelligible sentences to Xavier before pulling me into a grandfatherly hug as he bid me farewell, telling me to stay safe.

The cheap suburban apartment I lived in was a few blocks away from Zeppelins, so it wasn’t a long walk.

As I pushed the stroller to the entrance a chime rang out, announcing the arrival of another new customer, and because I wasn’t expecting him I froze, becoming a deer caught in headlights as my gaze locked with that of the handsome stranger, who I’d spent the past few days hopelessly pining after, just when he strode in.