I grabbed my plastic cup off the floor and stood up. “I’m going to get a refill,” I mumbled as I headed for the basement steps. I walked up to the kitchen to pour myself another drink. A strong one. I needed it.

I was standing at the counter, with my back to the basement steps, when I heard someone coming up. Too embarrassed to face anyone in the harsh lights of the kitchen, I drank my Kool-Aid right there at the counter without turning around.

I heard the footsteps, slow and deliberate, come up behind me, and then a hand on my ass encouraged me to turn around and face my mystery make-out man. So I did.

Ben. Ben Ogea stood before me. I was too afraid to look up at his face, but I knew it was him from the Jim Morrison quote on his t-shirt. “This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.”

I looked down at his black Chuck Taylor shoes. Someone had used an ink pen to draw chemical symbols on the white part of the shoes. Ben was the smartest guy in our class. He was a year younger than us because he’d skipped the second grade. But he wasn’t one of those geeky pocket protector carrying kind of smart people who made everyone else around him feel stupid. He made getting a 4.0 look cool.

Ben didn’t usually hang out with us and I couldn’t remember us ever having had a conversation in the past. But I knew who he was. Everybody did.

I glanced up at him shyly while still keeping my head down. He smiled. Jim Morrison had a strange life, and Ben Ogea had a wicked smile, wicked sexy. I returned his smile with a shy one of my own. Then he put his finger up to his mouth and… and he licked it. Uhhh… what?

With a hand on each one of my hips, he leaned down and kissed me one last time. Then he walked backwards away from me until he reached the stairs, before he turned and walked out the back door.

We never spoke to each other that night. And we never spoke after it. But I’d wanted to finish what we’d started ever since.

Friday, October 31, 2014

7:47 A.M.

“I guess we have two Elsas in first grade today,” Ben said when they arrived at our corner. Lucie and Olive were both wearing the exact same turquoise store-bought costume.

I knew there would be a whole lot more than two Elsas in the first grade, and in every other grade, but I didn’t correct him.

“I like your braid,” Olive said to Lucie. Her own dark hair was in a high ponytail. “My daddy doesn’t know how to braid.”

I looked up at Ben and he shrugged ruefully.

I looked at my watch. We had a few minutes to spare. “Do you want a braid like Lucie’s?” I asked Olive.

She nodded shyly.

I knelt down on the sidewalk and pulled a brush from my purse. She stood still as I quickly braided her hair over to the side like Lucie’s.

A few minutes earlier I’d felt like I failure when I couldn’t get Lucie’s crown braid to look red-carpet-ready. The way Olive looked at me when I finished with her braid, it made me feel like a hero instead.

Ben looked at me the same way and I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t give my belly the squirmies.

“Thanks,” he muttered when we continued walking. “I watched some videos online, but my fingers just don’t coordinate right.”

He had actually tried to learn how to braid? I didn’t personally know any other single fathers with young daughters, but I didn’t imagine most of them braided hair.

I didn’t reply. I just smiled and nodded and hoped he had no idea how I’d woken up this morning.

I wasn’t sure if Ben remembered Lights Out, but I suspected he didn’t. He’d never called me by my name, which made me believe he didn’t know it. I wasn’t sure he knew we went to high school together at all. I seriously doubted he remembered a twenty-minute make-out session from fifteen years ago. You could bet your ass I wouldn’t ever ask him either.

“You guys going to the Hurrah tonight?” he asked.

The Merriam Elementary School’s annual Halloween Hurrah was a fundraising event held every Halloween evening after trick-or-treating. It was a night of games and food and costume contests. Last year’s Hurrah had been tons of fun, and I’d been looking forward to going again. I’d be a lying shit if I said I hadn’t wondered if Ben and Olive would be there, too. And I may have fantasized about being accidentally locked in a dark closet with him, but the fantasy was always ruined when I wondered who was watching our kids while we had some fun in the dark. Oh, the troubles of being a single parent.

“Yes,” I answered. The girls were skipping together about four feet ahead of us. They had become fast friends when we started these walks together. “We’ll be there after trick-or-treating. You guys going?”

He put a hand to his chin and rubbed his beard. I’d never had a thing for bearded men before. When the look started to come back in style, I’d had my reservations about it. But he pulled off the beard about as well as Justin Timberlake did. And that was really, really well.

“Yeah, I was planning on it. Are you trick-or-treating close by?”

This was already like four sentences past our norm. He must have been feeling extra chatty today. “We live on Orchard. We usually do about three blocks up and down. It’s a good street. Lots of full-size candy bars usually.”

“Oh. Full size. That’s impressive,” he said, and rubbed his beard again. “Hey, um, maybe the girls would like to trick-or-treat together?” It was a suggestion, but he said it like it was a question.

He probably had a date and wanted me to take Olive with us so he didn’t need to look for a babysitter. Whatever. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t like I really had a chance with the guy anyway. I wasn’t even sure I wanted a chance.

I’d thought about it, dating. A lot. But it had been so many years since I’d been with anyone but Will, and I didn’t think I was ready for that. I thought that might be the reason I’d developed a crush on someone so far out of my league — because I knew there was no chance of anything coming of it. For me, it was just a past time, just a crush, a reason to do my hair and put on some makeup before school once a week. That was it.

“Sure,” I said. “Lucie will love that. I don’t mind taking Olive with us.”

“Oh, um, okay. I was thinking I could come, too. Do you mind taking me with you?”

He smiled at me then. It was a playful smile, the kind usually exchanged between people who knew each other, people who teased each other. Had we become friends somehow through all of these silent walks?

“Oh!” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Yeah. I just thought, I mean. I thought you maybe had something else to do.”

“Nothing other than trick-or-treating and bobbing for apples.”

I cringed and hoped he didn’t notice. Bobbing for apples, AKA bobbing for bacteria, was the most disgusting thing at the Halloween Hurrah. Dozens of people sticking their mouths into the same tub of water? During flu season no less? And people thought this was okay?

Ben lowered his voice and nodded his head toward Olive. “I only get her half the week. I won’t miss out on that time for anything.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. I mean, of course you wouldn’t.” Geez. Could I form a complete sentence sometime today? P.S. I was totally swooning right now over this doting-daddy. And he was totally forgiven for mentioning the bobbing of apples.

“So it’s set then,” he said. “We’ll take the girls trick-or-treating. Then we’ll head to the Hurrah together. Sound good?”

We? Was this a date? Or a playdate? Did he just ask me out? Was I ready for that? I knew Will wouldn’t want me to waste too much time being the girl with the dead husband. I knew he would have wanted me to move on much sooner if he had a choice.

“Sounds good. The corner of Orchard and Pine at five-thirty then?”

“Deal. But why don’t you give me your number in case I get lost?”