Mommy Tracked (13 page)

Anna glanced down at her son. He was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, pushing his trains around a wooden oval train track and occasionally announcing, “I love trains!
Toot, toot!
” Their pug, Potato, was sitting next to him, staring at Charlie’s bowl of Goldfish crackers with a hawkish interest.

Anna smiled at the familiar messy sight. She loved the chaos Charlie brought into their house. She loved the Duplo blocks strewn about the living room, the pajama top smelling of baby lotion and boy sleep discarded on the overstuffed chair, the turned-over sippy cup slowly leaking a puddle of milk onto the tile floor.

Charlie looked up and smiled at Anna, his face alight, and she could almost feel her love for him pouring out of her.

“He’s fine, thank God. The poison ivy didn’t affect him at all. He’s apparently immune.”

“That’s good. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t go out. Not tonight, not looking like this.”

“So call him and cancel.”

“Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? I can’t!”

“You’re starting to sound a little hysterical.”

“Well, I have an insane person’s haircut, and I’m covered with pink calamine lotion. There’s no way I can sit across the table from a man I’m that attracted to, while I scratch at myself. I can’t do it. It’s too mortifying to contemplate.”

“Aha! So you
are
attracted to him!”

“That’s so not the point. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me like this.”

Anna checked the saucepan—the stock was reducing, and the kitchen was filled with the earthy smell of the mushrooms.

“Why can’t you call him?” Grace asked patiently.

“I tried. I don’t have his home phone number, so I called his store and left a message with some dippy salesclerk he has working there. But he didn’t call back, not that I’m surprised. I gave the clerk my name and number, and she just said, ‘Okay, dude,’ and hung up. I don’t trust anyone who calls me
dude
to be capable of delivering a phone message,” Anna ranted.

“She’s probably in love with him herself and trying to sabotage your romance so she can have a crack at him,” Grace said darkly.

“Do you think it would be rude to just not open the door when he gets here? To pretend that I’m not home?”

“Yes. That would pretty much define rude.”

“But I can’t let him see me like this. It’ll scare him off.”

“I thought you weren’t interested in him. I thought you said you didn’t even want to go on this date.”

“You are not helping!”

“I’m sorry. Look. When he gets there, just open the door a crack and tell him you’re really sick and don’t want to infect him with your germs, and ask if you can reschedule the date.”

“Like when my hair grows out?”

“I told you not to let Jean Luc touch your hair when he’s upset. Once, when he was sulking over this teeny-tiny little pimple on his chin, he gave me a horrible hippie, center-part haircut. It was a nightmare. I looked like Mama Cass. I can’t imagine how bad he’d be in the middle of a breakup,” Grace said.

“Come over and look at my head.”

“Do you want me to? Maybe I can fix it.”

“No, that’s okay. I put some hair gel in it and pushed it back with a headband.” Anna sighed heavily. “I know it’s only hair, and it’s not the end of the world. It’s just…my head looks like it’s covered in pubic hair.”

Grace let out a shriek of laughter. “Pubic hair?”

“Yes! It’s short and frizzy. Pubic hair,” Anna repeated darkly. “I can’t let Noah see me like this. I just can’t. I’d better go. I have to call my mom and tell her I don’t need her to babysit tonight after all.”

The doorbell rang promptly at eight o’clock. Potato began to shriek as though Nazi storm troopers were invading the house. The small fawn pug skidded across the tile floor and threw herself against the door with a thud, barking wildly the whole time.

“Potato! Stop that!” Anna hissed, trying to ignore the nervous fluttering in her stomach.

For as much as she’d protested to Grace that she didn’t want to start dating anyone, there had been a definite spark between her and Noah. And a part of Anna—a larger part than she’d been aware of until just this moment—wanted to see what that meant.

Anna glanced in the direction of Charlie’s room, listening carefully. He was already tucked into his crib, fast asleep, and the doorbell and Potato’s yapping hadn’t seemed to wake him.

Right
, Anna thought, steeling herself as she walked to the door.
Time to get this over with.

She’d considered wearing her trusty baseball cap, but then thought it would be harder to pull off her flu excuse if Noah caught a glimpse of her. Sick people don’t walk around the house with a baseball cap on. Still, she’d carefully pinned back her crazy bangs and put on the one robe she owned that wasn’t covered in coffee stains. Just in case.

Her heart was pounding when she reached the door. She pulled it open just a crack, only as far as the safety chain would allow, and peeked outside, trying to keep as much of her rash-covered face and insane hair out of view as possible. Potato, still huffing with outrage, stood on her hind legs and danced like a circus bear.

“Anna?” Noah leaned over to one side to peer through the crack at her. Anna jumped back before he could see her. “Is everything okay?”

“Hi! Yes, everything’s fine,” Anna said, too brightly, before remembering she was supposed to be sick. “Well…actually, no. It’s not fine. I’m sick.”

“What’s wrong?” Noah sounded concerned.

“Nothing too serious. I’m just running a fever, and I have a sore throat, and…um, the chills, and the sniffles,” Anna said, wondering if that was enough symptoms to sound contagious—or was it too many?

Oh, God
, she thought.
I sound like I’m making it up. Probably because I am making it up.
“It came on suddenly. I woke up feeling fine this morning. And then after lunch it just hit me. Wham!”

“Well, do you need anything?” Noah asked. “I could go get you some medicine.”

How sweet is he
, Anna thought, her resolve going mushy for a moment.

“Or maybe I could come in and fix you something to eat?” he continued.

“No!” Anna bellowed, before she got ahold of herself and remembered her fictitious sore throat. People with sore throats don’t shriek. She lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “I mean…no. Thanks. I’ll be fine. I have some cough medicine; that should do the trick.” Then, not remembering if she’d listed a cough as one of her phantom symptoms, began to fake-cough into her hand for effect.

“Oh…well. Okay,” Noah said.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “So,
so
sorry. I tried calling your store this morning to tell you. I left a message with your clerk. Didn’t she give it to you?”

“I thought you said you just started feeling bad this afternoon.”

“What?” Anna asked, feeling a stab of panic. What had she said?

“You said that you just started feeling sick this afternoon. So how would you have known this morning that you would need to cancel our date?”

Now Anna thought he sounded a little angry. She wanted to peek back out at him, but she was afraid that her calamine-covered face would repulse him, maybe even cause him to stumble over backward off the porch and then race off so fast, he’d leave a dust cloud behind him, like the cartoon Road Runner.

“Um,” she said. “I, um, wasn’t…really…feeling all that great yesterday, um, either….” Her voice trailed off guiltily.

Crap
, Anna thought.
This is why I don’t lie. I’ve always sucked at it, and I always end up getting caught.

“I brought you these flowers.”

A flash of an enormous bouquet of tropical blooms appeared in the door crack.

“That’s so nice,” Anna said, feeling even worse for her lies. She wanted to open the door, wanted to thank him properly, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. “Would you mind leaving them there by the door? I really don’t want to expose you to my germs.”

“Right.” Anna could hear a rustling as he propped the bouquet by the door. “Well, I guess I’ll just be going, then,” Noah said coldly.

“Oh. Okay. Bye,” Anna said. She peeked out the door and saw that Noah had descended the two front steps and was starting down the walk. But suddenly he turned.

“You know, if you didn’t want to go out with me, you should have just said so. You could have saved me the trouble of coming out here,” Noah said. Now he sounded hurt.

Anna cringed. She couldn’t let him leave thinking that she’d blown him off.

Anna fumbled with the chain, opened the door, and rushed onto the porch. Noah was already striding angrily down the walk, practically bristling with righteous indignation. Potato streaked down the front steps, chasing after him like a shameless hussy.

“Oh, no! Potato, get back here! Noah! Please wait,” she said.

Potato threw herself against Noah’s legs with a soft, furry thump, and Noah grunted and stopped. He peered down at the sausage-shaped dog, who was wiggling ecstatically by his feet, as though not sure what it was.

“It’s okay. Potato won’t bite. Well, unless you’re a jelly donut,” Anna said.

Noah looked back at Anna. “You named your dog Potato?”

“Long story,” Anna said. “Look, Noah…I can explain about tonight. I wasn’t blowing you off. At least not the way you think,” she said haltingly.

Noah paused, but then shrugged and started back up the walk. Potato pranced along at his feet and looked adoringly up at him. Feeling self-conscious, Anna wrapped her robe tighter around her and then crossed her arms, gripping her waist. When Noah reached her and looked at her for the first time, the anger suddenly disappeared from his face.

“Oh, good God!” he exclaimed, visibly starting. “What happened to your face?”

Great. Just great. Just what every girl wants to hear on a first date
, Anna thought. This was why she’d sworn off blind dates back in her pre-Brad days. She’d always dreaded the possibility of being met with a fleeting look of disappointment. Actually, this was worse than disappointment. Noah was peering up at her as though she’d sprouted a second head.

“Poison ivy,” Anna said shortly, immediately regretting her decision to not let Noah leave mad. Anger was vastly preferable to out-and-out repulsion. “It’s on my face and my arms and—well, everywhere.”

Noah seemed to be working to regain control of his emotions. “Oh…that’s…wow, that really sucks.”

Anna sighed and lifted her hands to hide the rash from his view. “Please don’t look at me. I know it’s awful.”

“No, it’s not that bad,” Noah said. He was a bad liar too. “Really, it’s not. So is that the reason why you canceled dinner?”

Anna nodded. “I’m sorry I lied,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “But I couldn’t go out in public looking like this.”

“That’s okay.” Noah laughed ruefully. “At least you weren’t just blowing me off. And it’s really not that bad.”

“Yes, it is. It’s awful.” But Anna looked up reluctantly and lowered her hands from her face. She scratched absentmindedly at a particularly itchy patch on her right arm.

“No, it’s really not.”

Is that the third or fourth time he’s said that?
Anna wondered, and she remembered reading an article about how when people lie, they tend to repeat themselves. Which meant…disaster.
Well, try to look on the bright side. At least now I won’t have to tell him about my whole nondating policy. It’s not like I’m ever going to hear from him again after this.

But then Noah surprised the hell out of her when he said, “Look, have you had dinner yet?”

“No. I was just going to scramble some eggs or something.”

“Why don’t I go pick up a pizza and we’ll eat here?”

Huh? Isn’t this the part where he’s supposed to make his excuses and hightail it out of here, never to be seen again?
Anna looked at him doubtfully. “That’s sweet, but…honestly, I really don’t want you to see me looking like this either.”

“Hey, I can handle a little rash.”

“I don’t know…”

“I’ll tell you what. We can eat outside, if you like.” Noah looked at the postage-stamp-size front yard. “We’ll have a picnic out here in the dark.”

“Well. Okay. But let’s eat in the backyard. I have a little table and chairs out there,” Anna said. She knew this wasn’t a great idea, that this was no way to have their first date. But at the same time—and this was the kicker—she didn’t
want
him to go. Especially since he was sticking around even after being confronted by a rash-covered date. It must mean that her gut instinct was right: he really
was
a nice guy.

“Great. I think I saw a pizzeria back around the corner.”

“That’s right. Angelo’s. It’s excellent,” Anna said.

“High praise from a restaurant critic. I’ll be back as soon as it’s ready,” Noah said, turning to go. But then he stopped and glanced back at her, his eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Did you do something to your hair? It looks…different.”

The pizza was delicious, especially when accompanied by Anna’s mushroom pâté, which, Noah pronounced, was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. They ate out on the back deck, which was lit only by the citronella candles Anna kept out to ward off mosquitoes. She was hoping that the flattering effect of candlelight would extend to rash-covered skin.

Anna had found a dusty bottle of red wine in her pantry and mounded the pâté on a plate with an accompaniment of rosemary crackers while she was waiting for Noah to return with the pizza. She’d also hurriedly changed out of her robe and into her favorite jeans and a coral cotton sweater and made sure that her bangs were still secured by the barrettes. Unfortunately, the gel she’d put in her hair to slick it back had also made it crunchy and just a tad sticky, but still. It was better than the crazy bangs.

And by the time Anna and Noah downed a few slices of pizza and made a respectable dent in the bottle of wine, Anna had stopped thinking about her hair. Hell, they’d been so busy talking and laughing, she’d even forgotten to scratch herself. In fact, Noah was so charming, smart, and funny that Anna—who firmly did
not
believe in the Prince Charming myth—was trying to figure out what was wrong with him. All men had something wrong with them. It was a law of nature.