“Do you know how long it’s been since you acted like this?”
“Like what?
“Like the world isn’t ending. Like maybe you know how to smile. Like maybe you are—dare I say it?—happy?”
Planting my hands on the desk, I sigh. “You’re acting like a girl.”
“Nah, I think you just have pussy on the brain.”
I wait, telling myself to stop talking, but go ahead and do it anyway. “Damn right I do.”
Peck fist pumps around the lobby, doing the little dance he does at Crave that promptly gets him ejected. I usually find it completely juvenile but today it’s entertaining.
The door opens and old man Dave comes in. Peck almost runs into him in a variation of the Moonwalk, making Dave’s face light up like the sun.
“Well, what’s happening in here?” he chuckles. “I haven’t seen this much activity in this place in years.”
“Peck’s about to lose his job,” I joke, coming around the corner. “How are you, Dave?”
“Good, good.” He places a hand on the wall and braces himself. “Can one of you run out and check my oil? Damn light keeps coming on and I tried to check it this morning but didn’t have any oil at the house anyway. Ended up burning my arm on the radiator.”
“I got it.” Peck pats Dave on the shoulder and disappears into the parking lot.
“Need a seat?” I ask, dragging the chair from the desk around for him to sit. He falls into it with a thankful sigh. “How’re things other than the oil?”
“Not bad. The wife had a good morning. We talked a few minutes about a dog we had back in the seventies,” he laughs. “She can’t remember me most times and doesn’t remember Noodles, the dog we’ve had since Nellie died. But she remembers Nellie, a Reagan-era Pomeranian. So funny what people remember, isn’t it?”
“I guess we remember the good times, right?” I offer. “Maybe Nellie was her favorite?”
“Oh, she was. Just like that girl in here is yours.” He looks around the lobby and then back at me. “Where is she?”
“Who?”
“The cute one. Purple hair. Sweet as can be. You know who I mean,” he cackles, patting my leg. “The one you can’t take your eyes off of. I see you watching her. Even if I didn’t, this whole place is changed in a way that only a woman can do.”
I open my mouth to protest, to say his crazy assumption is as false as a three-dollar bill, but there’s no use. He’s been around enough to see through bullshit.
Taking a deep, battered breath, my arms tired from holding Sienna against the wall last night as I made her squirt all over me, I look at Dave. “She’s not in this morning.”
“But she’s still here, right? Still working for ya?”
“Yeah. For now.”
“Let me ask you a question, son. Are you in love with her?”
“What kind of question is that?” I snort, rising to my feet and putting distance between us.
“An important one.”
“I haven’t known her long enough to be in love with her.”
I think back to how long we’ve known each other, how many days since she hit Daisy with the bat. It all becomes a tangled mess as her face keeps popping through the mental calendar, making me smile.
“Love isn’t confined to time.” He waits to continue until I look up. “Just like if someone passes, like your mother and father, that doesn’t mean your love stops. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“It goes on,” he says, his arms moving through the air to illustrate his point. “Love starts the same way. People say love at first sight isn’t real. How could it be? How could you love someone before you ever say a word?”
“It’s bullshit,” I say without the oomph behind it that would’ve told him, and me, that I believed that.
“Not when you get all scientific,” he says, cringing as he readjusts himself on the chair. “Let’s think of it this way—do you make a choice to love Nana? Or Blaire? Or even Peck? Even if you got mad at them, and I suppose you do from time to time, do you have to choose to love them?”
“No. They’re my family.”
“Exactly. That kind of love is born inside you. You’re born with an energy that connects to someone else’s, and for reasons we will never understand, you’re brought together and it isn’t a choice anymore. That’s true love.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, forcing a swallow.
“I do. True love isn’t something you pick; it’s something the universe picks for you. It’s like you’re born knowing this woman can cook your sausage patties the way you like, will humor your Thursday night poker games, and will stand by your side as you fight whatever life throws you just because you’re you. For no other reason. That,” he says, jabbing a finger my way, “is true love.”