Simply Irresistible

He looked back at his child. “My name is John.”

“I did it, John.”

“Yes, you did.”

She smiled. “I like you.”

“I like you, Lexie.”

She looked up at her kite. “Do you gots kids?”

Her question took him by surprise, and he waited a moment before answering, “Yes.” He wasn’t going to lie to her, but she wasn’t ready for the truth, and of course, he’d promised Georgeanne. “I had a little boy, but he died when he was a baby.”

“How?”

John glanced up at the kite. “Let out a little more string.” When Lexie did as he advised he said, “He was born too early.”

“Oh, what time?”

“What?” He looked into the small face so close to his.

“What time was he born?”

“About four o’clock in the morning.”

She nodded as if that answered everything. “Yep, too early. All the doctors are still asleep. I was born late.”

John smiled, impressed with her logic. She was obviously quite bright.

“What was his name?”

“Toby.” And he was your big brother.

“That’s a weird name.”

“I like it,” he said, feeling himself relax a bit for the first time since he’d driven into the park.

Lexie shrugged. “I want to have a baby, but my mommy says no.”

John carefully settled her more comfortably against his chest, and everything seemed to slip into place, like a smooth one-timer: slide, hit, score. He placed his hands on each side of the stick next to hers and relaxed a bit more. His chin touched her soft temple when he said, “Good, you’re too young to have a baby.”

Lexie giggled and shook her head. “Not me! My mom. I want my mom to have a baby.”

“And she said no, huh?”

“Yep, ‘cause she don’t got no husband, but she could get one if she just tried harder.”

“A husband?”

“Yep, and then she could have a baby, too. My mom said she went to the garden and pulled me up like a carrot, but that’s not true. Babies don’t come from a garden.”

“Where do they come from?”

She bumped his chin as she looked up at him. “Don’t you know?”

He’d known for a very long time. “Why don’t you tell me.”

She shrugged and returned her gaze to the kite. “Well, a man and a woman gets married, and then they go home and lie on the bed. They close their eyes really, really tight and think really, really hard. Then a baby goes into the mommy’s tummy.”

John laughed, he couldn’t help it. “Does your mom know that you think babies are conceived through telepathy?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” He’d heard or read somewhere that parents should talk to their children about sex at an early age. “Maybe you better tell your mom that you know babies aren’t grown in a garden.”

She thought for a few moments before she said, “No. My mommy likes to tell that story at night sometimes. But I did tell her that I’m too big to believe in the Easter Bunny.”

He tried to sound shocked. “You don’t believe in the Easter Bunny?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

She looked back at him as if he were stupid. “‘Cause rabbits gots little paws and can’t dye eggs.”

“Ah… that’s true.” Again he was impressed with her six-year-old logic. “Then I bet you’re too old to believe in Santa.”

She gasped, scandalized. “Santa is for real!”

He guessed the same reasoning that told her rabbits couldn’t dye eggs didn’t apply to flying reindeer, a fat man sliding down her chimney, or jolly little elves who lived to make toys three hundred-sixty-four days a year. “Let out some more of your kite string,” he said, then he just relaxed. He listened to her perpetual chatter and noticed little details about her. He watched the breeze toss her soft hair about her head, and he noticed the way she hunched her shoulders and raised her fingers to her lips whenever she giggled. And she giggled a lot. Her favorite subjects were obviously animals and babies. She had a flair for the dramatic, and was undoubtedly a hypochondriac.

“I skinned my knee,” she told him after reciting a long list of the injuries she’d suffered in the past few days. She pulled her dress up her skinny thighs, raised one leg out in front of her, and touched a finger to a neon green Band-Aid. “And see my toe,” she added, pointing to a pink Band-Aid visible beneath her plastic sandal. “Stubbed it at Amy’s. Do you have any ouchies?”

“Ouchies? Hmm…” He thought a moment, then came up with, “I cut my chin shaving this morning.”

Her eyes almost crossed as she looked at his chin.

“My mom gots a Band-Aid. She gots lots of Band-Aids in her purse. I could get one for you.”

He pictured himself with a neon pink bandage. “No. No, thanks,” he declined, and began to take note of Lexie’s other peculiarities, like the way she often said the word “gots” instead of “has” or “have.” He focused all of his attention on her and pretended that they were the only two people in the park. But of course, they weren’t, and it didn’t take long before two boys walked up to them. They looked about thirteen, and both wore baggy black shorts, big T-shirts, and baseball caps with the bills turned backward.

“Aren’t you John Kowalsky?”

“Sure am,” he said as he rose to his feet. Usually he didn’t mind the intrusion, especially by kids who liked to talk hockey. But today he would have preferred that no one approach him. He should have known better. After their last season, the Chinooks were bigger and more popular in the state than ever before. Next to Ken Griffey and Bill Gates, his was the most recognized face in the state of Washington, especially after those billboards he’d done for the Dairy Association.

His teammates had given him a whole shit load of razzing for the white milk mustache, and although he’d pretended otherwise, he had felt like a weenie whenever he’d driven by one of those billboards. But John had learned a long time ago not to take the whole celebrity-athlete thing too seriously.

“We saw you play against the Black Hawks,” said one of the boys, with a picture of a snowboarder on his T- shirt. “I loved the way you hip-checked Chelios at center ice. Man, he flew.”

John remembered that game, too. He’d received a minor penalty and a bruise the size of a cantaloupe. It had hurt like hell, but that was part of the game. Part of his job.

“I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it,” he said, and looked into their young eyes. The hero worship he saw there made him uncomfortable; it always did. “Do you play hockey?”

“Just street,” the other boy answered.

“Where?” He turned to Lexie and reached for her hand so that she wouldn’t feel left out.

“Over at the elementary school by my house. We get a whole bunch of guys together and play.”

As the two boys filled him in on their street hockey, he noticed a young woman walking straight toward them. Her jeans were so tight they looked painful, and her tank top didn’t reach her navel. John could detect a sexually aggressive rink bunny at fifty paces. They were always around. Waiting in a hotel lobby, outside the locker room, and positioned next to the team bus. Women eager to get it on with celebrities were easy to spot in a crowd. It was all in the way they walked and flipped their hair. It was the determined look in their eyes.

He hoped this woman would walk right on past.

She didn’t.

“David, your mom wants you,” she said as she stopped next to the two boys.

“Tell her in just a second.”