“Is this going to be weird?” Ryan asks bleakly.
“How much weirder can it be?”
Ryan untangles his shirt, pale shoulders hunched for modesty. After he puts it on, they sit, side by side.
“Should we check on Connor?” Ryan asks.
“I don’t want to wake him.” But after a moment, as if the baby knows his services are required, from down the hall and behind the closed door comes a string of babble.
She’s happy to see him sitting up in the room’s dimness, turning toward her, eyes bright as he raises his arms. Out in the living room, he torques his body, reaches for Ryan.
“Oh, he loves me!” Ryan takes him onto his lap. Baby and boy regard each other with broad grins, and though she knows it’s absurd, knows that when it comes down to it, Connor prefers her to anyone else on the planet, she still feels a stab of betrayal. He’s never been like this with Lizette, and Lizette has never shown much interest in him.
She needs to see her. “Listen, why don’t we go into town?” She makes her voice light and flirty. A plan is forming in her mind. They’ll go to Lizette’s—she isn’t due to move for another couple days—just friends casually stopping by to say hello. Angel’s mistake was being too available, and Angel needs to demonstrate that she is desired. Lizette will glean what has transpired between Angel and Ryan, and if she doesn’t, Angel will tell her, and when Lizette truly understands what she is about to lose, she’ll come back to her.
“Hey, yeah!” says Ryan, his normal voice restored, the awkwardness behind them. “I’ll take you guys to dinner.” He flushes. “Not, like, a date. Unless . . . ?” He trails off. “Have you even left the house, since, you know, your grandma?”
“No,” she admits, aware that, although this is the truth, she is making use of it. “Sure, okay. Can we go to Lotaburger?” Lotaburger is quick, and it’s right around the corner from Lizette’s. Angel feels empty and light, as if she is shaping her own life, and she feels powerful, too, because somehow Ryan thinks this is his idea.
“Yes! It’ll be so fun!”
“And then I want you to meet my friend.”
“Really?” Ryan’s eyes are shining.
Angel dismisses the pang of guilt. “You guys will like each other.”
She buttons Connor into his puffy winter jacket and checks the supplies in the diaper bag, which Ryan takes from her hands. Outside, he cranes to watch as Angel straps the car seat into the back of his minivan. “Oh, I get it, you put the belt through that thing?”
While Ryan drives, Angel texts Lizette. You home? Can we stop by to say hi? It’s just another in the long series of unanswered texts.
At the restaurant, Ryan wets napkins under the water spigot on the soda machine, then scrubs dried ketchup from the table like an old lady. When they call his number, he retrieves the tray and arranges the table with warm paper-wrapped packages and baskets of fries and sweating cups of soda.
Lizette still hasn’t answered. The smell of fries and cooked meat is delicious, and the inside of the restaurant is cheery, strung with limp Christmas garlands, but Angel doesn’t think she can eat a bite. “I’m really not hungry.” She’s nervous now, afraid her plan won’t work. She’s afraid to see Lizette.
“Well.” He nudges a burger closer to her. “In case you change your mind.” Pointing at a cheeseburger, he says, “This one is for Connor. The green chile is on the side.”
On her lap, Connor strains toward it, but she pushes it out of his reach. “You got him a hamburger? He’s seven months old. He eats, like, a pinch of bread, maybe. An arrowroot cookie. I brought his pears in the bag.”
“Oh.” Ryan bites his lip.