Starting From Scratch (11 page)

mirror?” he asked, his voice dropping to a soft and gentle

nudge. “You’re a hottie, babe, and I bet she thinks so, too.”

I squirmed under his stare, felt my face heat up, and

shook my head again. “No, she’s just for looking.”

He somehow knew not to push, but his quick drop of

the subject clued me in to the fact that we’d revisit it later.

For the moment, though, I was happy to focus on

something else.  e idea of spending time with Elena

Walker scared the hell out of me for reasons of which I

had no understanding. Evidently, instead of a real, live,

incredibly attractive woman that I could talk to face to

face, I preferred an unknown entity whose only

information available to me was through an e-mail profile

that may or may not be telling me the truth.

ere was something seriously wrong with my logic.

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We worked in companionable silence for a few hours,

Anita, Tyrell and a couple other employees dropping by to

pay their compliments on my blackberry buckle. It was a

big hit and I looked forward to telling Grandma during

my visit on Wednesday.

During a lull in my design of a new restaurant logo, I

remembered Josh had taken some time off the previous

week.

“Hey, what’d you and Nina do on vacation?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” he replied, squinting at his

monitor and continuing to type even as he answered me.

“Caught a couple movies, saw her parents, went to a game,

visited her OB/GYN.”

I nodded as he spoke, listening but not carefully. A

couple minutes went by before what he’d said actually

registered in my brain. “Wait. What?”

“What what?” he said, still focused on his document.

“You said you visited Nina’s doctor. Why?”

“Well, they say that’s what a woman’s supposed to do

when she’s pregnant. Not that I’d know for sure since I’m a

big, macho guy and all, but that’s what I’ve heard.”

I blinked at him.

He lasted about fifteen seconds before he turned to

me with the most joyous expression on his face I could

ever remember seeing.

“Nina’s pregnant?” I asked, whispering for some

unknown reason.

He simply nodded.

I jumped up and threw myself at him with a squeal,

falling into his lap and hugging him with all my strength.

Tears sprang unexpectedly into my eyes as I held on to

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him. I knew how badly he wanted this and I was elated

that he was going to have it.

“I’m so happy for you, Joshie,” I said softly in his ear.

He responded by tightening his grip on me and

though I couldn’t see his face, I had the feeling he was as

choked up as I was.

Finally pulling away, I returned to my ergonomically

correct chair and took a seat, simply staring at him while

we each collected ourselves.

“How do you feel?” I asked him.

He gave a sarcastic chuckle as he answered. “Ecstatic.

Nervous. Elated. Relieved. And my personal favorite:

scared shitless.”

“I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure those are all

normal responses. How’s Nina?”

“e same, but without the scared shitless part.”

“Doubt it. Are you telling people?” I looked around

and lowered my voice a hair. “I mean, everything’s okay,

right?”

“So far, everything’s fine,” he said, and I let out an

unintentional sigh of relief. “We thought about keeping it

hush-hush for a while, but…” He shrugged as if he had no

choice. “We’re too damn happy about it. But I haven’t told

anybody here yet. I wanted to tell you first.”

“Aw.” Love swept over me. “I’m honored.”

We stared at each other, twin smiles on our faces, and

then I shooed him away. “Go! Go tell the others. Anita will

be so happy for you. And Tyrell will have tons of Daddy

Advice. Go!”

He jumped up and scampered down the hall to spread

his merry news. I could tell where in the office he was by

the sounds. Shrieks of joy from the reception area. Slaps on

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the back from Tyrell’s office. An idea came to me as I

listened, and I quickly typed out a couple of words in a

new document, then printed them in pink and blue. I cut

them out of the paper until I had a small piece about two

inches square. en I taped it to a toothpick so I had a tiny

little sign. Scurrying into the kitchen, I cut an enormous

piece of the blackberry buckle, brought it back to Josh’s

desk, and stuck the toothpick in it. I sat back and surveyed

my handiwork with a smile.

When Josh returned, he’d sit down and be faced with

the dessert and its sign.

For Daddy.

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CHAPTER TEN

“Seriously, they ate like starving refugees.” I sipped my

tea and smiled as I recalled the success of my blackberry

dessert. I’d made it the first time with Grandma and the

key had been gently folding the blackberries into the batter

at the last minute, being careful not to mush them into a

pretty purple sludge.

“And your berries stayed whole?” Grandma asked,

adding some cream to her own cup. We’d just finished a

wonderful lunch of cheese, crackers, hummus, and some

veggies.

She’d been studying me; I could feel her gaze on me.

Grandma didn’t say a whole lot, but nothing got by her,

not when I was a kid, and not when I was in my thirties.

“What’s bothering you today, Avery?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

“You think after thirty-four years I don’t know when

you’re lying to me?” It was a reproach, but its tone was

gentle and made me smile.

“I’m not lying because nothing’s bothering me. I’ve

just been thinking about…” I trailed off as I searched for

the right words. Grandma let me hunt without

interruption, sipping her tea and waiting me out. “It’s kind

of weird,” I told her. “I feel like I’m suddenly surrounded by

kids.”

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Her silvery eyebrows knit together. “What do you

mean?”

“Well, Josh is going to be a dad. I’ve got the tee-ball

team. Max keeps showing up in my back yard.  ey’re

everywhere.”

“at’s hardly everywhere, dear.”

I squinted at the telltale movement of her shoulders.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes.”

“anks.” I sipped my tea, annoyed at being found so

entertaining.

“You have such an aversion to children, Avery. How

come?”

I gave my shoulders a lazy lift, looking, I’m sure, every

bit the sulking teenager. I was certain Grandma knew full

well why I had “such an aversion.” She wanted to hear me

say it. “I just think too many people have kids without

thinking about it, without thinking about the responsibility

and effort that goes into raising them.”

“I agree with you,” she said simply.

“You do?”

“Of course. But just because your mother was a failure

at being a parent doesn’t mean you automatically will be as

well. For the record, I think you’d make a wonderful

mother. It’s precisely those hardships you had to endure

with your own parents that will make you a better one.”

I was mulling that over, basking in the glow of the

confidence my grandmother had in me (as well as her use

of the word “hardships”), when there was a knock on her

door. We blinked at each other for a second. “I’ll get it,” I

said, hopping up before she could think about it.

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Mr. Davidson was built like a lamp post, tall, thin, and

sort of bent forward at the top. e snow white of his hair

and the ice blue of his eyes were equally startling and I

always found myself doing a double take whenever we

were face to face.

“Well, hello there, Avery,” he said with his usual

friendly smile as he bent to kiss my cheek. He smelled like

Old Spice.

“Mr. Davidson, always nice to see you,” I said as I

stepped aside. “Come on in. What brings you by?”

He stepped in from the hall so I could shut the door

behind him. “I just came to make sure your grandmother

was feeling better today.”

“Feeling better?” I snapped my head around to meet

my grandma’s already guilty-looking gaze.

“She had a bit of a dizzy spell yesterday at lunch. I had

to help her back to her apartment. Her heart was racing.

Didn’t she tell you?” e trailing off of his voice clued me

in to the fact that, like most men, he realized far too late

that he’d stepped in it and would probably have hell to pay

later.

“Why, no,” I said, lacing my voice with artificial

sweetener as I narrowed my eyes at my grandmother. “No,

she didn’t tell me.”

Apparently, Grandma found her tea suddenly very

interesting. “It was nothing,” she muttered into it. “I just

had too much sugar or…got up too fast.”

At eighty-five years old, there wasn’t much my

grandmother
could
do too fast any more. I went to her and

squatted by her chair.

“How often does this happen?”

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“Avery, sweetie, it was nothing. Really.” She looked me

right in the eye and I searched for any deception as she

patted my hand.

“Maybe we should give Dr. Garber a shout,” I

suggested.

“No, we’re not going to bother her with something as

meaningless as a dizzy spell,” she informed me. “I have an

appointment scheduled for my regular check-up in a

couple weeks. I’ll go then.”

I wanted to argue with her, but Grandma was always a

tough nut to crack and if she said everything was fine and

she wasn’t going to call the doctor, then everything was

fine and she wasn’t going to call the doctor.

I sighed loudly when I stood up, just so she’d know I

was annoyed at her lack of concern. Mr. Davidson was sort

of shifting his weight from one foot to the other, obviously

uncertain what to say after opening his can of worms. I

gestured to my chair.

“Here, Mr. D. Sit. I’ve got to get back to work anyway.

Can I get you some tea?”

“No, no. I can’t stay.” But he made himself comfortable

and it was hard to miss the way Grandma’s face softened

when she looked at him.
Ah, young love,
I thought, and I

was glad she had somebody who looked at her the way he

did.

My windbreaker was on a hook behind the door and I

grabbed it, then returned to the table. “If the dizziness

happens again, I want you to promise you’ll call me,” I

ordered her before kissing her on the cheek.

She patted mine in return. “Yes, dear.”

“Don’t yes, dear me. I mean it.”

“Yes, dear.” She winked at me and I shook my head.

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“Don’t let her give you too hard a time, Mr. D. She’s a

handful.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said with a twinkle in those eyes.

I took my leave and left them to be alone. As I walked

to my car, it occurred to me how mind-bogglingly strange

it was to realize I was jealous of my own grandmother’s

budding romance with a man closing in on ninety.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

I smiled at the laptop as I sat at the kitchen table and

clicked send. Once Josh had helped me get started with

initial e-mails to the three women I’d chosen, it had moved

rather comfortably as we tested the waters with each other

for the rest of that week. I was now conversing with all

three of them, still on a somewhat superficial basis. No real

names yet, not many personal details, just small talk.

DrCutie and I had discussed movies for several days

and we seemed to have similar tastes, including most

Scorcese films and anything that featured Susan Sarandon.

LilMinx was all about political causes, which I found

admirable, but I was trying to find a way to steer things to

other subjects so I could learn more about her. Pinot72 was

witty as hell and had me laughing out loud on more than

one occasion. It occurred to me that it might be

approaching time to exchange photographs, but I wasn’t

sure how to bring it up. And I wasn’t ready.

e situation—meaning online dating…or in this

case, sort of
pre
-dating—was such an odd thing and I was

sure Grandma would find it all very tedious (yet amusing).

It was like dating foreplay. You could chat somebody up,

but you couldn’t really go too far without seeing a picture

because, callous as it might have sounded, physical

appearance
did
mean something for most people. It

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certainly did for me. I could find a woman to be

devastatingly charming on paper, but if she didn’t
look

attractive to me, that was it. We had to have physical

chemistry or all the chatting in the world would be

nothing but a waste of time.

e worst part of it, at least for me, was the matter of

self-confidence. Yes, I wanted the women I was chatting

with to be attractive to me. Of course I did. But worse, and