“Pie,” Sadie corrected. Rachel covered her mouth with her napkin and snorted with laughter. I kept my mouth from quirking up at the corner. I couldn’t laugh when she talked back. It would encourage her.
“Sadie, you know that’s not okay. Can you apologize and be nice, or do you need a few minutes to cool down in your room?”
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she sighed.
I could tell it was because she felt embarrassed in front of Rachel because her cheeks went pink, and she turned shy all at once. I felt like I needed to be serious, stricter in front of Rachel. I didn’t want her thinking my daughter was disrespectful or that I wanted her to have a smart mouth. I didn’t, in short, want Rachel to think badly of me. It was uncomfortable to realize that was what motivated me in the moment.
“So, Rachel, the end date of the job would be the week school begins pending my orders. It’s my busiest season, and I might need you to pick her up after school until sometime in September. It would only be after school until six. Three hours.”
“Well, at the end of August I’d have to take over operations of the diner full time. I don’t think you want Sadie hanging out there and doing homework in a booth while I work. So you’d probably need to make other arrangements for once school starts. The second week in August is when our college kids go back, and we have to scramble with scheduling to cover everything. That will be a tricky time for me. I’ve started the process on the loan, and I anticipate having the down payment by the third week in August by my calculations,” she said.
I looked at her, unused to anyone telling me no.
“Are you saying that after the first week in August you really can’t do this job?”
“No, I’m saying it’s going to be increasingly difficult at that point to manage both jobs. That isn’t your problem, it’s mine.”
“No, you can’t take her to the diner. I pay a sitter to give Sadie undivided attention, not to make her sit in a business unattended and bored.”
“I hadn’t planned to. But thank you for being clear,” she said, her cheeks blazing, her eyes snapping with indignation in a way that made me think she didn’t really want to thank me for telling her that. Despite how professional she was acting, how calm and friendly, her expression told the truth—that she was struggling to rein in a fiery spirit and wanted to tell me off.
“So you’re saying you can make the timeline work?” I said in what I hoped was a neutral tone.
“Yes. I’ll manage it. May through July will be clear sailing, and by August I’ll have arrangements in place.”
Part of me wanted to laugh. She was trying so hard to appear cool and collected, but she was still knifing me with those eyes. It was funny but a little thrilling as well to see that passion sparking off of her. I quickly tamped down on the fizz of interest I felt roll up my spine. This was my child’s new caregiver. Only practical exchange of information contact would be necessary, and that could be done mostly by text. The less I saw of Rachel, the better, evidently, I realized with a grim disappointment. Maybe I’d been looking forward to having her over for dinner, to seeing her, talking to her. That had to stop right this second.
“Going forward, I’ll make sure you have my cell number so you can text any questions as needed. When I’m logging, I can’t always get to my phone, so calling isn’t usually productive.”
“Right,” she said. “I expect you’ll tell me what I need to know, leave instructions, that kind of thing.”
“We have a cleaner who comes twice a week. She does the laundry and regular grocery shopping. Tuesday and Friday mornings, nine to noon.”
“Great,” she said. “Anyone else? Groundskeeper? Butler? Or just the housekeeper and nanny?” her eyes sparkled. She was teasing me. I cleared my throat.
“That’s all the household staff,” I said. “My other employees work for the logging business.”
“Daddy makes furnitures, too,” Sadie said.
“Furniture,” I corrected, “it means more than one.”
“Okay,” she shrugged.
“So you make furnitures?” she said, pointedly putting an s on the end, her grin cheeky. I wanted to smile back, but I didn’t. It would be too easy to smile at her, to flirt with her like this. Too easy to let her in.
“In my spare time, I started making some dollhouse furniture for Sadie. Then we made a birdhouse together. I did a few tables and a bookcase for friends. Orders started coming in. The epoxy resin pours are my favorite. I just did one for Noah in dark purple with a ribbon of orange.”
“Clemson fan?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “it turned out nice. It’s a counter height table and I’ve got stuff to make stools to go with it.”
“Sounds nice,” she said. “So what color did you make your doll furniture?” she asked Sadie.
“Not purple and orange,” she made a face and we laughed. “I like pink and yellow.”
“What about blue? It’s my favorite,” Rachel said.
“Blue is okay,” Sadie said, obviously feeling generous. If I had asked, she would’ve said it was yucky, so she was clearly trying to make a nice impression on Rachel. I took that as a good sign.
When I cleared the plates, Rachel got up to serve the pie. Sadie scrambled into the kitchen and asked if she could help. This was a key moment for me, and I watched closely to see how Rachel would react. Sadie hated being treated like a baby, and it would hurt her feelings if someone didn’t accept her help. I waited and practically held my breath, hoping Rachel
