Page 29 of Caught By the Chief of Staff

“Why?” she asks, scrunching her brow while she works out the pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit. She’s just like her dad that way.

“Just to be safe,” I answer a little too quickly. “This isn’t the best neighborhood. I’ll be done in a second.”

“Okay,” she says, eyeing me suspiciously before taking my keys and climbing in the car. I breathe a small sigh of relief when I hear the locks click and then toss the groceries in the back as fast as I can.

I knock on the window, signaling for her to unlock the doors, which she does with a “You’re so weird” muttered just loud enough for me to hear. I slide behind the wheel and quickly relock the doors before taking my keys from her.

I drive to the Golden Dragon, a restaurant Rachel and I found and fell in love with when we first moved here, largely because of their crispy wonton noodles and red eggroll sauce they give you in massive quantities with your order. I take a few more turns than were necessary, and I know Rachel notices. She could do this drive in her sleep if she wasn’t only eight years old.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Where are you going?” she asks me.

“To the Golden Dragon.”

“But why are you going this way?”

“Oh, I just thought I’d try something different,” I lie.

“Oh okay.”

I pull into the parking lot and cut the engine. Rachel and I jump out of the car right as it begins to rain, even though it was sunny two minutes ago. Weather on the east coast is so weird. I may never get used to it.

She grabs my hand in the parking lot like she does in every lot, and I secretly love that she still does. I hate and love equally every rite of passage she meets. We race into the restaurant where we are greeted with smiles and hugs by the owners, an older Chinese couple who have adopted Rachel and me. I wonder if Rick is treated the same here or if he’s just another patron.

I slip her my credit card while her son, who has been asking me out for over a month now, carries our bags out from the kitchen for us. Rachel and I take them quickly, and I make excuses about groceries in the trunk, so he won’t ask me out again. He’s good-looking and funny and so sweet. But I am so still in love with my ex-husband. Maybe my life would be easier if I just dated someone like Aaron, but that’s not fair to him, to me, to Rick. So I will just be alone until Rick moves on.

We grab our bags of takeout and rush back out to the parking lot where we climb in and buckle up. I start the car and we head home. Rush hour hasn’t quite started yet, so the roads are not very busy, and it doesn’t take us long before we’re pulling into the garage.

“Why don’t you go inside and pick a movie while I get these groceries?” I ask her. “And take dinner in with you and put it on the coffee table.”

“Okay, Mom!”

I grab as many bags as I can from the trunk and follow her inside before dumping them all on the island in the kitchen. I head back out to the garage and grab the last load. When I get into the kitchen, the groceries from the first load have already been put away, and I can hear my daughter puttering around upstairs.

I finish tossing the pizzas and ice cream in the freezer before running upstairs to change into a pair of yoga leggings and a tank top. When I make it back downstairs, Rachel is dressed in her own brand of comfort clothes—a pair of running shorts and an old oversized T-shirt she stole from the back of my closet. It’s faded gray from too many washes, but you can still see the bold letters across the front that spell out NAVY. She had jacked it from me, and I had stolen it from her father. The irony is not lost on me.

“What’s all this?” I ask when I see her laying out a feast fit for a king. “There’s no way we’ll eat all this. Did we get someone else’s order?”

“Uhh…” she hedges just as there’s a knock at the front door.

“I wonder who that could be.”

“I… uhh… I kind of invited Dad,” she admits, and I look back at her, noticing the table is covered with not only our favorites but Rick’s too. “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad,” I say just as Rick lets himself in.

“Everybody decent?” he calls out.

“Yeah,” I answer. “We’re right here.”

“I see that,” he says. “I thought this was dinner. Is someone dying?”

“Very funny.” I roll my eyes.

“Oh, God,” he whispers before eyeing me nervously and then his daughter like she’s a live bomb. “Did she uhh…. Did she start?”