“Thank you!” Abby lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “I hated that pen. It was ugly and it only made black. But I like Imma. She’s nice.”
Marc sat down at the conference table with Abby on his lap. “We can draw with these until Claire gets here. Make me a picture.”
“Of what?”
“Of the cupcakes you ate.”
“’Kay.” Abby started drawing.
She’d finished drawing what appeared to be two yellow blobs with black tops and some dots of red all over them when Claire walked in.
She glanced around the conference room, and her lips twitched.
“One superthick coloring book and a humongous box of crayons,” she announced, waving them in the air.
“Yay!” Abby bounced up and down on Marc’s lap. “Thank you.” A tiny terror, but always polite, Marc thought. That was one thing Aidan insisted on.
Eagerly, Abby took the coloring book and box of crayons. “You’re nice, too. What’s your name?”
“Claire.”
Abby’s face fell. “Daddy uses that word when he’s mad. He says, ‘Is that clear?’” On the last part, Abby lowered her voice to as deep a sound as she could muster in an attempt to imitate her father.
Without allowing herself to smile, Claire nodded. “My daddy used to say that a lot to me, too. The good news is, my name’s not Clear, it’s Claire. It rhymes with hair.”
“Oh.” Abby digested that. “Claire,” she repeated. “I like that name. And you have nice hair. It’s yellow and straight. Mine’s black and has waves like the ocean. That’s what Daddy says.”
“Your daddy is right. You have beautiful hair. Maybe we can brush it later—after we do some somersaults on my special mat. I have a room here with lots of mats and balls in it.”
“Really?” Abby’s eyes had grown round. “Can we go now?”
“Of course we can—under one condition.”
“What?”
“That we stop at the bathroom and get all washed up.”
“’Kay,” Abby said again.
“Great. Let’s go, then.” Claire held out her hand.
Jumping off Marc’s lap, Abby asked him, “It’s ’kay, right, Uncle Marc? Claire’s not a stranger, she’s your friend.”
“It’s absolutely ’kay,” Marc assured her. “Happy somersaulting.”
* * *
Marc was scrubbing the knobs on the equipment and there was a pile of brown paper towels on the floor beside him when Aidan and Casey walked in.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Aidan said, surveying the room.
There was an overturned chair, papers strewn everywhere and footprints on the expensive oval table. The wall above the tech table was smeared with chocolate, and there were crayons scattered on the table and on Casey’s tilted chair. Her monogrammed pen was a brown-frosting mess on the floor.
“You don’t need to ask,” Marc replied. “You already know. The miniature cyclone was here.”
Aidan turned to Casey. “I apologize. I’ll have a cleaning crew sent over immediately to restore this place to normal.”
Casey grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. I think your brother is doing a great job.”