Lex and Lu (22 page)

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Seddon,” Lu replied. “Perhaps you could explain what is going on, without being cryptic,”

Lex almost smiled.

“Certainly. It appears that Nina has been, what’s the proper American word, ‘fleecing’ some students of their money.”

Both Lex and Lu reacted. Lex felt the eyebrow go up, and Lu flinched slightly.

“At first, I didn’t really understand and I thought the offense was more serious. But after learning of Mr. Pellitteri’s involvement in her life, it has diminished in gravity.”

Sperm donor, thought Lex. That’s about the extent of my involvement. But he needed for Mr. Seddon to spell it out for him.

“Mr. Seddon, maybe you should just tell us what happened,” Lex said, reiterating Lu’s earlier request.

“Nina has been peddling some of your possessions for cash.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lu said at the same time that Lex said, “What?”

“From what I have gathered from some of the students and a couple of the parents who have called me, Nina has taken some of your things—T-shirts, wristbands, socks—and sold them to your adoring fans. Like I said earlier, I thought it much more serious before I realized that she was your daughter.”

No one said anything for a moment. Lu recovered first.

“Nina has profited from her father’s name?” she said, trying to clarify it for herself.

“Yes. This is what I have pieced together. Some of our students are huge football fans, as I am sure you know. As the season started up, they began talking about it. At one point, Nina told them that you,” he looked at Lex, “were her father. But they didn’t believe her. So she retrieved an old jersey from your house and brought it in to prove her claim. There was a validation, which I only found out later. My computer-science teacher told me that the students looked up pictures of you on the Internet to indeed verify that the jersey belonged to you. Once they believed her, they wanted stuff. So, the jersey, the first article to sell, went for cheap. But then the prices started to go up. One wristband was signed and went for, I think, twelve pounds.”

Lex leaned back in his chair, remembering when Nina had asked him to sign the wristband. She said she wanted to take it home with her so she’d have something of his. And he’d bought it. Hook. Line. Sinker.

Lu looked at him and he nodded his head. Shaking her head, she looked back at Mr. Seddon.

“Of course Nina will return all of the money.”

“Yes, well apparently the students are reluctant to give back the merchandise.”

“They can keep it,” Lex offered. “She’ll still return the money.”

“Very well,” Mr. Seddon said. “Mr. Pellitteri, Miss Knight, I know that there have been a lot of changes in Nina’s life recently. And she is so pleasant that I’m sure everyone was secure in the knowledge that she was just adapting. But it seems that she is not as comfortable as she appears.” He paused. “I am not here to tell you how to parent. I am a parent myself and I often long for a manual to raise my own children. But perhaps you may want to talk to Nina and help her through this tumultuous time.”

“She has had a rough seven months,” Lu remarked. “We are on our way home for a couple of days. I will make sure that we spend some time talking about this.”

Lex said nothing. He had nothing to contribute, once again. He felt like an ass. He made them move here. And not at any point had he considered how it might affect his daughter. He’d been so caught up in his hurt and the betrayal he felt that he’d come up with a plan that worked for him. Maybe she’d have been better off not knowing about him.

Lu was furious. Once Mr. Seddon released them to collect Nina, Lex followed her from the office. She couldn’t believe that her nine-year-old daughter had been stealing from her father and selling his things. A small part of her couldn’t believe Lex was so well-known that kids wanted to buy items of his clothing. She was embarrassed that her parenting skills were being questioned by the headmaster and that Lex was exonerated because he hadn’t been involved. She could admit that she felt she deserved most of the blame, but it still burned her up that he got to be the good guy.

She glanced back at him, but his eyes were downcast, so she avoided direct contact. Even through the haze of anger, she could appreciate his beauty. His hair was much longer than at the funeral. Even though it looked like it needed to be cut, it worked for him. No surprise there. Everything worked for Lex Pellitteri. She could tell he’d just come from practice because his fresh, clean scent had bombarded her senses in the office. He hadn’t shaved yet today. Dressed in worn jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, he oozed sex appeal. That she could be checking him out at this most inappropriate time seemed to send her anger to another level.

She finally found herself in front of Nina. Careful to maintain her daughter’s dignity, even though she wanted to grab her by the ear and pull her out of the school, she merely said, “Let’s go.”

Her clipped voice and stern tone were not lost on her daughter. Looking up, Nina stood to precede them out of the main office. When they reached the parking lot, their division as a family seemed to hit each of them. Suddenly they all stopped, not sure how to move from this place to the next. More than any event in the last several months, this pause in their movement stood out to Lu as the epitome of their lives. Three people. One man, one woman, one child—intimately connected without a tie to hold them together. How could Lu have thought that Nina could handle this when she herself had been avoiding it?

“See you at the house?” she said, not wanting to issue an invitation but not willing to let him get out of this either.

Lex continued to look anywhere but at her.

“Sure,” he answered. Turning away from them, he walked toward his car.

“I don’t want to take the train,” Nina whined.

“I don’t really care what you want,” snapped Lu.

Lu knew the moment Lex remembered that she didn’t have a car. Turning, he walked back toward them. “Sorry. My car’s over here.”

Lu really didn’t want to be in the car with him. The proximity would be stifling, but the quicker they got home to figure all this out, the better. The car ride was as bad as Lu thought it would be. No one spoke, each wrapped up in their own thoughts. As they traversed the London streets, Lu felt the anger from earlier in the day continue to beat at her. While she knew that they needed to deal with this specific issue, she also saw this for the opportunity that it was. Lex needed to step up and she intended to tell him that. When they pulled up to her building, Lex stopped the car to let them out.

“I’ll park and be up,” he told her.

Without responding, she grabbed Nina’s hand and crossed the street. When they entered the apartment, Lu, who could only deal with one thing at a time, walked Nina to her room.

“You are to stay here until I tell you to come out.”

“Time-out is for babies,” Nina replied defiantly.

Lu glared at her, but kept her voice calm and level. “The only activity you are allowed to engage in for now is to read. If I come back and you are doing anything else, it will be reflected in your punishment.”

“I’ll just go live with Dad!” Nina yelled as tears pooled in her eyes.

Great, thought Lu. This is a threat I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. Maturity and maternal wisdom flew out the window as Lu responded, “You do that. I’m sure that will work out very well. You can learn how to be a good daughter and he can learn how to be a dad!”

Horror dawned on Nina’s face and she crumbled to her bed as she yelled, “I hate you!”

Lu slammed her door. She moved down the hall and stopped, leaning on the wall. Real mature, she thought. She lightly banged her head against the wall. “Fuck,” she whispered. What kind of haze had she been living in? How did she not see that Nina was struggling with all of this? “Mother of the year candidate I’m not,” she muttered.

At the knock on her door, she heaved herself away from the wall. Depositing her purse, which she hadn’t released when they walked in, she moved slowly toward the door. Complete-bitch mode took over. Pulling open the door, she glared at Lex. For the first time since the Sunday-school room, blue eyes met green. What Lu saw surprised her. The green eyes, which were usually so full of merriment, were lifeless and dull. Empathy filled her. Then out of nowhere, the anger that had been absent over the last several months blossomed into a prickly thorn that burst the bubble of empathy. “Ready to start acting like a father?” she snapped.

“Yeah right, Lu. I’ll get right on that. Although somehow I think you’d be just as pissed if I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she fired back as she stepped away from the door so that he could come in.

“Exactly what I said. I’m not mincing words. How am I supposed to be a father to a child whose existence I didn’t even know about? She’s nine years old. I’m supposed to just barge into her life and start acting like her father? How do I do that?”

“I didn’t know how to do it either. But I’ve figured it out!” Lex continued to stand on the other side of the threshold, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to come in her home. Lu noticed his reticence. “Are you coming in or not?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he hurled at her.

“Let me make the decision for you,” she said as she attempted to shut the door.

“Well, you seem to be good at making decisions for me, don’t you?”

Horrified, Lu stopped. The push and pull of her emotions made her feel like a ping-pong ball being volleyed back and forth. She wanted to get away from him, but she knew she needed to do something so that they could be parents to Nina. If she let him or pushed him away now, any hope of an amicable association would be lost.

Pulling the door wider, Lu signaled him that she wanted him to enter. When he still stood in the doorway, she buckled, “Please come in, Lex.” When he entered, she murmured, “What are you, a fucking vampire that needs to be invited in?”

Despite himself, he smiled slightly, but as he was entering the apartment, she didn’t see it. Taking quick note of the surroundings, he could feel Lu’s influence all around him. They’d only been here for four months, but it seemed like a home. Lex walked over toward the kitchen and sat on a bar stool. Lu strolled into the kitchen, attempting to disguise her nervousness. She stood on the other side of the bar, leaning against the kitchen counter, facing him. As she looked at him, she was struck by his stillness, in his body and especially in his eyes. No sparkling mischief lurked in the beautiful green depths, and it made her sad.

“So, I am assuming Nina’s never really gotten into trouble before,” he said, seeking confirmation.

“No.”

“It was bloody brilliant, wasn’t it?” he asked with a sad smile.

She smiled back. “Yes, it was. Completely diabolical. What nine-year-old comes up with a plan like that?”

“One with your brains.”

“And your mischievous nature.”

“Ha. I couldn’t have come up with that. Where did she even think of that?”

“We won’t know until we talk to her.”

He nodded. Then, in a totally Lex move, he rubbed his hands over his face, got up from the chair and started to move.

“There are a couple of issues we need to discuss with her and I think we need to be on the same page before we have this conversation.”

“Makes sense.” He looked around, “Where is she?”

“In her room. I sent her there when we got home. Right before she told me she hated me and that she’d just go live with you.”

Nodding his head again in understanding, he asked, “Never had her say that to you before, huh?”

“True. Never had a father to compete with.”

Taken aback, Lex stopped moving. “Is that what we’re doing?”

Lu slowly shook her head. “No. We’re not. I’m not really sure what you are doing with her.”

He sighed. “Me either. I have no idea what to do. I am lost here, Lu. I don’t feel like I have any right to correct her or give her advice. She hasn’t done anything blatant, but there are things that I want to be able to say and I don’t feel comfortable saying it. I feel like her uncle, not her father.”

For some reason, the thought that Lex might struggle had never even entered her mind. He was Lex. Everything came easy for him. He could charm anyone. And she’d seen Nina after her visits. He’d charmed her too. So what was the problem?

“The best thing for you to do right now is to continue to spend time getting to know her. Once you’re more comfortable with each other, it will come naturally.”

“I hope you’re right, because after my last couple of visits with her, I’m thinking it’s too late to be her father.”

“Lex, it’s never too late.”

“If you were in my position, you might think otherwise.”

“This is the first time in your life that you’ve had to work at something,” Lu nipped at him, some parts sympathetic, some part pissed.

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t have to work at soccer,” he replied, frustration building.

“Exactly. Think about how much time you’ve spent playing soccer. And multiply it. You have to go through this process if you want to be her father.”