Chapter 2

I have a real job, one that doesn't automatically get the days off before Thanksgiving, but I'd already scheduled them for vacation days. I had no particular plan in mind when I did so.

I got up on Monday morning after sleeping an extra hour. First thing after relieving a night's bladder accumulation was to grab my iPhone and check email.

There's one. DanaWho01. I opened it.

"What does Dana's best friend do on the Monday before Thanksgiving?"

I noted that the timestamp was twenty minutes old. I thumbed a reply.

"What does Dana have in mind?"

The phone rang immediately in my hand. I looked. Mizz Lee.

"Yes, ma'am," I answered.

"Edward, I don't want Dana to be a bother to you..."

"Mizz Lee, you know better. If she can stand my nerditude, she's welcome to go anywhere I have to go today. I promise I won't hit the bars with 'er before two o'clock."

"Edward, don't you mess with me. You never hit the bars before. Are you SURE?"

"I'm sure. Mizz Lee, I'm the new thing in her life. The 'new' will wear off when she gets back in school and sees kids her own age."

"Perhaps you are right, Edward."

"Has she had breakfast?"

"Yes."

"I haven't, but if she wants to come over, I'll unlock the door and she can watch me toast some instant waffles. Gimme fifteen minutes to become presentable."

"She will be at your door in exactly fifteen minutes." She paused. "Edward, thank you."

"You're always welcome, Mizz Lee."

So, okay, I put on one of my nicer 'knocking about' ensembles, tugged the covers on my bed into some facsimile of 'made', fed the cat, unloaded the dishwasher and...

Knockknockknock.

I opened the door.

"Gramma thinks I'm a burden to you. Are you SURE I'm not?"

"Do you intend to be a burden?"

"No."

"Are you a demanding little brat?"

"I have never been described in that manner." Those grey eyes.

"Do you mind observing and participating in my eclectic activities of the day?"

"I do not, so long as they are not illegal or immoral. Fattening is okay."

"Fattening?"

"I can be bribed with a real chocolate malt. Gramma says there's a good place in town."

"That shall be an activity for mid-afternoon, that is, if I have not yet stowed your dismembered body parts in various dumpsters around town."

She regarded me with some coolness. "If you do that, know that you have seriously hampered what can be a wonderful friendship."

"Allow me to have breakfast, then."

"What're you having?"

"Toaster waffles."

"Do you know how to make REAL waffles?"

"I do indeed."

"Do you have the materials and equipment to make real waffles?"

"I do."

"Then tomorrow you should treat your best friend to real waffles."

I looked at her. She smiled.

"Seriously, Ed, I can imagine that cooking for one is a massive inconvenience. But if there are TWO of us, then a batch of waffles..."

"You're a nut. But – real maple syrup. Real butter. I'll leave a stick out overnight so it's soft and spreadable." And I realized that I'd just been manipulated rather masterfully.

She smiled. "That was easy, now, wasn't it? We have a plan. Now, eat your poor tired toaster waffles. Do you do coffee as well?"

"Yes."

"Where's your coffeemaker?"

"French press. Need to grind up some beans."

"Enough for two?"

"You drink coffee?"

"It's my bad habit. With Mom being like she was, coffee's mild. I could be into drugs and illicit sex..."

"Kinda harsh, ain't you?"

"You didn't know my mom," Dana said.

I did note the matter of fact tone she took in describing that situation.

She watched as I went through the routine of setting up to brew coffee, and I put a couple of waffles in the toaster. Dammit, Dana! I was all happy with my frozen waffles and NOW I'm looking at them and dreading the taste.

I ate my sad waffles then she watched with interest as I brewed and pressed us a couple cups of coffee.

She clasped the mug between her hands, hovered a pert little upturned nose over the rising vapors and breathed in. "Oh, man, this smells sooooo good!" She took a sip as I watched. She smacked her lips. "Tastes even better than it smells."

"Come, let's sit in the living room, Dana."

She sat on the sofa as I kicked back my recliner. DC walked in, looked at me, turned, and walked up to her, forming a fuzzy loaf at her side.

"My familiar," she said. "Familiar. That's a 'witch' thing."

"I know what a 'familiar' is, thank you. I read books 'n' stuff..."

She snorted a little laugh. "You're gonna be a lot of fun."

Okay, that statement hit me. I've never been characterized as 'fun' by anybody before. I had to smile.

"So what's your thing about waffles? Do you have childhood memories?"

"Ed, I'm fourteen. I'm still having 'childhood memories'. Gramma made some for me last summer when I spent that week with her."

"Your mom?"

"Oh, yeah ... no! Mom was good enough to leave me milk and cold cereal or toast, or I could do myself some eggs or something." She sighed. "I guess a cooked meal is a mark of stability to me."

"Then tomorrow morning will bring us the vestiges of stability, Padawan. So what do you want to do today?"

"Can we hit the library? I have nothing to read."

I motioned to the bookshelves on the opposite wall. "You're welcome to anything here. And ... wait..." I opened the drawer on the end table. "Here's a Kindle. I don't use it since I have my iPad. Have you ever used one?"

"I've seen 'em. Show me..."

I got up and sat next to her. I handed the Kindle to her. "Now..." and I ran her through the basics.

"These are YOUR books." She looked at me from close distance, those grey eyes serious above the freckles. "Is there anything here that I shouldn't see?"

"No. Remember? Friends don't lie to each other. So, no. Well, maybe some steamy parts in some of the stories, but no porn or anything like that. What do YOU like to read?"

"Everything."

"Do you have a Kindle account on Amazon?"

"No."

"Let's set you up one. Then we'll register this Kindle to you and you can buy your own books."

"I don't have money."

"I'm sure that your gramma will give you an allowance. And since you're just getting started, I think there's going to be a little credit in your name on Amazon."

"They do that?"

"No, but I do."

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah. Encouraging you to read? Probably a good thing."

"Then take me to the library. And thank you for the Kindle."

"Library doesn't open until nine-thirty," I said. "What else do you have in mind?"

She was scrolling though her new Kindle. "Do I have to wipe this thing? You have a lot of books here. I wanna read some of 'em, I'm sure."

"Then ... Dana, if you haven't noticed, I'm kind of different. A nerd, I guess. Most of that stuff's SF."

"Science fiction? Or speculative fiction? Duh."

"Duh?"

"Ed, I know about you. I've paid attention every time I've been here. I already KNOW what kind of books you have. What kind of music." Giggle. "I looked at your history on NetFlix. I know about you. And I asked Gramma, too, you know."

"I didn't know I was being scrutinized."

Giggle. "You betcha. Do you honestly think that my gramma is going to let me go spend time with some random dude that she doesn't trust? Besides, your vocabulary includes 'scrutinized'."

There's that little smile. Just a smile. Says something. Or not.

"So if I KNOW, then don't you derive that I have basis for my choices?" She paused, looked into my eyes. "About books, I mean."

"Okay. You win."

"So let's see what you read most recently," she said.

"Let me show you how to do that."

"No, you watch. Let me figure it out on my own." Giggle. "Unless I might find something..."

"You won't find anything."

She turned sideways, watched my face. "Because you hide things well?"

"Nope. Because I have nothing to hide."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. And what do you know about things I might hide, anyway?"

"Let's just say I've seen things lying around the house, living with Mom. DVD's. Magazines..."

"That ain't me, babe. I am not ruled by my baser instincts."

She looked at me. Little smile. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. Still."

"You really are as nice a guy as Gramma says?"

"I try to be. Are you a nice girl?"

"I'm fourteen..."

"I know fourteen year olds with babies," I said.

"I am NOT subject to that sort of tragedy."

My turn to look. What is she telling me?

"Ed, I'm a good girl. Good girls have good lives, meet good people, have friends that they aren't required to dispense drugs or sex or money to keep around."

"Okay," I said. "You sound mad at me."

"Oh, nooooo, Ed. I LIKE you."

"Really?"

She smiled. "Yes. Really. I'm sorry if I got off track. You've been nice to me. I love my Kindle. It's YOUR Kindle, though. Your books." She smiled. "And you're taking me to the library."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I know how to show a girl a good time."

"It's what I asked for. It IS a good time."

So we went to the library. She spent some time looking at the music they had available for checkout. "C'mere!" she hissed.

I walked over. She was holding a CD of Mozart symphonies.

"Got it," I said.

"What about this one?"

"Vivaldi. Got it."

"And this Mozart?"

"Yep. On my iTunes account."

"Gee, Ed ... What are we doing here, then?"

"Little brown-haired cutie wanted to go to the library," I said.

Her eyes flashed to mine. "Cutie?"

"Cutie. I have a cute friend."

"I'm a girl. Girlfriend." She picked another CD. "Rimsky-Korsakov."

"I know that one. Don't have it."

"Let's bring it home and listen..."

"Let's kill some time, then have lunch and THEN if you still wanna go home, we'll go."

"Okay," she smiled. "Whatcha want for lunch?"

"I dunno. How about YOU choose?"

"D'ya know a good hamburger joint? Not fast food. REAL hamburgers."

"As a matter of fact, I do. And where'd you get to be such a foodie?"

"Watching TV."

"Oh, okay..."

We checked out our CD from the library and got in my car.

"Show me where you work," she said. "Since we're killin' time."

"Okay." I drove us off to familiar environs. "There it is. Impressive, isn't it?"

"It's a refinery."

"You're pretty smart for a sweet young thing," I laughed.

"True." She smiled smugly.

I smiled back at her. "I have a nice, clean, safe job out there. Lots of dangerous stuff, and I don't have to mess with it."

"You know all about computers and things," she said.

"Computers. Software. Networks. It's what I do."

"I wish I had a computer,"

"You don't have one? You never said..."

"Nope. Wasn't something Mom was gonna provide..."

"I have one you can have."

"That's a lot of money, Ed. I can't take that..."

"I bought a new one. I kept the old one as a spare. It just sits there, and it's yours now."

"I won't have to borrow Gramma's," she smiled.

"Just promise me you'll be careful when you use it. There's all sorts of stuff on the Internet, and some of it is really bad."

"I know about it."

"How do you know?"

"They tell us all the time at school. Bullying. People who tell you things so they can get you away to do sex and stuff."

"Yeah. All that."

"I'll be careful." Her hand brushed my arm. "We can email each other. And Skype..."

"Why would we want to Skype, Dana? You live right across the breezeway from me?"

"At night, silly," she said. "I can see you and tell you good night. And you can tell me good night. Like friends." Giggle. And you're a boy and I'm a girl, so..."

"So?"

"You're my boyfriend."

"Don't tell anybody that, Dana. You're too young to be my girlfriend."