Free Looking for Laura by Judith Arnold

dead,” Rosie reminded her. “How can he still have friends?”
    How, indeed? The philandering creep didn’t deserve friends. And if Todd maintained that he was still Paul’s friend, then he was a creep, too.
    Lacking an answer, she dug another animal cracker from the box in her tote and handed it to Rosie. She took a cracker for herself, too.
    Rosie chomped onto the cracker and grinned. She was wearing her purple cloche with the floppy pink silk flower on it—she adored it, and Sally didn’t mind her wearing it even when it didn’t match the occasion or the rest of Rosie’s outfit, which today consisted of blue overalls, a chestnut-brown turtleneck and her lime-green sneakers with sparkly laces. Sally always let Rosie choose her outfits, and Rosie possessed a bizarre sense of color and style. Paul used to hate her getups: “Damnit, Sally—it’s Easter Sunday! She can’t wear pink jeans and a yellow polo shirt to church!”
    That was last year’s Easter. This year, Sally had taken Rosie to the Unitarian church, which she preferred to the staid Methodist church Paul used to insist they attend on the two holidays a year they felt obliged to honor organized religion. Sally liked the Unitarian church because the minister’s husband was both black and Jewish, which seemed to sum up what God was all about to Sally.
    Ironically, this year, Rosie had chosen to wear a dress for Easter—along with her purple hat.
    â€œHere’s his building,” Sally said, leading Rosie up the porch steps to the door labeled 27. She rang the bell and waited.
    â€œWhy are we going here?” Rosie asked again, peering up at her.
    If Sally put her off with another animal cracker, she was going to get suspicious. She was no fool. She knew when her mother was trying to silence her. “I need to talk to this man.”
    â€œAbout Daddy?”
    â€œAbout something he has that belonged to Daddy and now belongs to me,” Sally said, pressing the doorbell button again.
    This time, the door swung inward, offering Sally an eyeful of Todd Sloane’s chest. He filled the doorway, tall and lanky in a pair of old jeans and a shirt that was untucked and hanging open.
    He had quite a chest. Sally could see only a narrow swath of it, framed by the edges of his shirt, but that swath was sleek with muscle. The skin was golden, and a dusting of dark hair spread across the upper portion.The lower portion, she noticed, was punctuated by an innie belly button.
    She forced her gaze up from that belly button, past the contours of his rib cage to his throat, his chin, shadowed by a day’s growth of beard, his hair damp and curling, and finally his mouth, which curved markedly downward. He was not happy to see her.
    â€œI’d like the letters back,” she said, figuring the sooner she got them, the sooner she and Rosie could flee from Mondo Condo and go back to her house with its bright orange door. Imagine what would happen if someone tried to paint his front door orange. The Conformity Police would storm the place, slap on the cuffs and charge the resident with the high crime of imagination.
    â€œNo,” Todd said.
    â€œMommy says you’re my daddy’s friend,” Rosie declared, peering up at him.
    He stared down at her, his expression filled with pity. Sally wanted to slap him. How dared he pity her daughter? Rosie didn’t deserve anything remotely like pity. She was a goddess. A noisy, lively, rambunctious goddess, and if she missed her father, it was only because he hadn’t betrayed her the way he’d betrayed Sally.
    â€œI was your father’s friend,” Todd confirmed. “You’ve met me before. Don’t you remember?”
    â€œNope. How come your shirt isn’t buttoned?”
    He shot Sally a quick look that said, Your kid needs manners . Sally only smiled.
    Grudgingly, he stepped back and waved them inside. Once they were