Triplets Make Five

“All clear back here!” Raven called from the back of the line, where she was joined by two burly security guards, a mandatory precaution, sanctioned by the school for all field trips and class outings.

“Stay close, and remember to look both ways before you cross the street,” I told my troops. I pushed all thoughts of Caleb and our undefined relationship and the headmaster’s warning out of my head, then I lead us out of the park and across the Central Park West crosswalk.

We were about halfway down the next block and I was just about to glance back again to check on my students, but before I got the chance I heard the familiar sound of Emmy squealing. I immediately twirled around and my eyes dart to Emmy’s spot in the line, but she wasn’t there anymore. There was an empty spot in the line where Emmy was supposed to be. Her partner was standing alone, hand empty, staring to the side.

I jerked my head in the direction that she was staring, and I was immediately relieved when my eyes find Emmy. Her nose is pressed onto the glass window of a small cafe.

“Look!” she squealed, hammering her little fist against the window, “It’s Uncle Caleb!”

I glanced through the window and sure enough, I see Caleb sat directly on the other side of the

glass. For a split second, my heart started to hammer in my chest, filling with the usual giddy excitement that I felt anytime I was near Caleb.

That excitement quickly dies when I saw that Caleb is sharing a table at the cafe with a woman. A busty, blonde, beautiful woman.

My mind couldn’t help but race back to all the gossip sites and tabloid stories I found on Google the other day. To the countless pictures of Caleb with blonde actresses and models and professional party girls. I felt my heart stutter in my chest, straining with strange, undefined shock.

Before I could fully process what I was witnessing, Emmy lurched towards the cafe doors, throwing them open and leapt into the restaurant. I glanced back at Raven who, through a look of wide-eyed horror, gave me an affirmative nod to follow Emmy inside.

I thought my heart might burst out of my chest from how hard it was pounding as I pulled open the cafe door and stepped inside.

Emmy had already made it across the cafe to Caleb, and she stood at the edge of his table with her arms wrapped around him in a hug. His eyes flicked up as I shuffled towards the table, and I saw the panic in his face. I wasn’t supposed to be here; we weren’t supposed to be here.

My eyes moved across the table, to his ‘date.’ I could see her better now than I could through the glass. Up close, I saw how the thick paint of her makeup looked garish and greasy, packed into the crevices of her face. I saw the dark brown roots sprouting up like specks of pepper sprinkled through her crunchy head of thin, brittle salon-blonde hair. I saw the strain of her bra, working overtime to hoist her giant fake tits up to her chin.

And somehow, even though she was hideous and fake and oozing with desperation, I felt somehow inadequate. Was this what Caleb wants? Because if it was, well, how could I ever compete? I did not have the caked on makeup, the fake blonde hair, the acrylic nails, the tits. And even though I found her repulsive, I felt suddenly self-conscious in my khaki pants and Bellamy Day sweater.

I was just plain old Daisy Wright. I was just the pre-school teacher from Brooklyn.

“What are you doing here?” Caleb asked Emmy, refusing to meet my eyes.

“We’re on a field trip,” I answered for her. “To the Natural History Museum. We were just walking past, when Emmy spotted you through the window--”

“You can come with us!” Emmy told Caleb joyfully.

“I wish I could,” he said, ruffling Emmy’s hair affectionately. “But I’ve got to work, kiddo.”

“This isn’t where you work!” Emmy frowned. I couldn’t help but feel a stab of loyal pride for the little girl, she had never been shy about calling someone out.

“This is a work meeting,” Caleb explained, then he gestures across the table to his ‘date.’ “Miss Jeffries here is a journalist from the New York Times, and she’s asking me some questions so that she can write an article about me.”

“You must be Emmy!” the woman beamed, stretching her shiny pink lips into a repulsive sneer of a smile. “My name is Jade! Your uncle has been telling me so much about you!”

Jade offered her hand for Emmy to shake, but Emmy just looked at it skeptically and frowned. Then she flung herself towards me, wrapping her arms around my legs and angling her chin up so she blinked at me with her giant, pleading eyes.

“Please make Uncle Caleb come with us,” she whispered loudly up at me.

“Uncle Caleb has to do grown-up stuff right now, Em,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder and hoping that she’d understand. That she wouldn’t feel as crushed as I do. “But you can tell him all about the museum when you go home tonight!”

“Will you be there too?” Emmy asked.

“Well, I…” I stammered, unsure of what to say. My eyes flicked up to Caleb, and I saw his jaw pressed together firmly as his eyes darted between Jade and me.

“Of course not, Emmy,” he said. “You know Miss Wright can’t come home with us.”

“Nuh-uh!” Emmy cried, frowning. “Daisy always comes over for dinner!”

Jade’s eyes lit up across the table.