“Sweetheart.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“What brought you to Miami?”
“It has palm trees and pretty colored buildings and it’s warm.”
I pause, bringing a finger to my temple.
“Were there any other reasons?”
“Yes, one more.”
“Can you tell Daddy what the other reason is, angel?”
“To find out what happened to my daddy, Daddy.”
“What do you mean?”
I lean in closer trying to control my anticipation but my suddenly bouncy toe under the table is doing its best to give me away.
“My mommy and my daddy used to live in Miami, but my daddy went crazy and my mommy left before I knew him.”
“And now you’re trying to find him?”
“Mommy said he died, but I’m not sure if mommy’s telling the truth or not. I think mommy hates his guts so she just told me that so I’d quit talking about him.”
“Where’s your mommy now?”
“She’s an angel.”
I was getting in over my head way too fast, and I wasn’t qualified to go down this route, nor was it ethical to ask her questions like these when she was in this state. Maybe she wouldn’t want to share this kind of information if she was the feisty Scarlett I knew, and not the little girl that was sitting next to me.
“I don’t know my daddy. His name isn’t on my birth certificate so all I know is that he used to live here and mommy says he’s dead. But I don’t trust her. Mommy liked to fib sometimes, especially about daddy.”
“Okay, princess,” I say, needing to end this as I watched her draw a tiara around the elephant’s head before she busts out in giggles. “That’s enough. We can talk about something else.”
“Good because talking about mommy makes me tired. I had to make all the decisions for both of us before she took too many of her bedtime pills and didn’t wake up.”
Way too much information, but I was having a hard time getting her to stop talking while managing my rage. How could a parent do that, especially when they’d been blessed with such a little angel?
She was my beauty, and I was to be her beast, but this was no Disney flick. This was real. This was as intricate as one of Lena Little’s books on Amazon, a resource I’d picked up last night as I tried to better understand the dynamic that was happening between us.
As I watch her color it suddenly hits me that her art was a way to have the childhood she missed out on before. Anything at anytime and anyplace was her canvas. The ingredients to a masterpiece wasn’t the paint or the brushes or the pencils or the tools of whatever medium she chose to express herself in. The tool was her little space. And when she was in her little space she had fire in her eyes, passion in her soul, and love in her heart.
“Are you afraid of spoiling me?” she asks, and I’m glad we’re off the topic of her childhood, or lack thereof, and back to the present.
But what I’m not happy about is the seemingly nosy guests at the table a good fifteen feet from ours.
I requested, and was given, the V.I.P. table, but although it’s apart from the rest of the guests, it’s in the same room.
“As you’ve seen, I’m quite capable of handling spoiled little girls,” I reply, keeping my attention on who’s important.
She giggles at my reply.
“Yes, Daddy. Yes, you are.”
“That’s it,” a man at the table I was just noticing says as he throws his napkin down on his plate and abruptly stands, his chair tumbling over backwards. “This is sick,” he says looking right at me.
“What’s? Sick,” I snarl, my nostrils flaring as I bare my teeth.
“Daddy and little girl? What’s wrong with you two? You should be in jail for that pedo b.s.” He turns back to his table. “Let’s get outta here, baby,” he says to his female companion.
“Stop right there,” I command, recognizing this guy from TV. I’ve seen him playing professional football before, and he’s about to see my wrath.
I move toward his table, locking my eyes on his as I prepare to teach this idiot a lesson.
“You call your woman baby but it’s sick when I call mine little girl. I think that’s what scientists call failed logic, and if you fail to get outta my face in the next ten seconds this Daddy is gonna give you a spanking for acting all ornery in public, little boy,” I say, loud enough so some of the other tables who were eyeing us up strangely can here. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise to the entire restaurant.
“That’s it old man,” he says turning toward me.
I crack my neck and roll up my sleeves and as he takes another step I push my sleeves farther up my arms, glad that he’s the aggressor so when he winds up on the street on his face I’m not gonna get hauled out of here for aggravated assault. Not that it would have bothered me, but no way I’m leaving Scarlett here in her current little state.
He charges at me just like a football player would as if he’s trying to move a blocker, but this block head doesn’t realize all the force he’s created can easily work against him, as I wrap him up in a headlock and pivot on the ball of my foot, turning him toward the exit.
But then I pause, squeezing tighter as he struggles, but without oxygen going to his pea sized brain that’s not going to last long.
I maneuver him back so he’s facing my table.
“You see that woman? My woman.”
“Let me go,” he gurgles, his face turning redder by the second.
“I don’t want you looking at her, thinking about her, or whispering about her, or us, ever again.
