Free Playmate by Kit Reed

Playmate
    Look at them, Karin
Fowler thinks, two round heads bent in the sunlight. Adorable.
Danny, her testy three year old, is playing nicely for once,
squatting happily in the sandbox with his new best friend.
    Denny, she thinks the
child's name is. Sounds like Denny, but with that lisp, it's hard
to tell. So what if he lisps, he's really sweet. And so easy to get
along with! No matter how horrible Danny is, he can't seem to scare
this one off the way he does every other sorry excuse for a
playmate.
    Denny, is it? Could
his name be Danny too? Not likely, it's just too coincidental. It's
enough that they look alike. The difference is that Karin's Danny
is, OK, difficult, while Denny/whoever, the neighbors' child, is
perfect. If he comes over often enough, maybe some of it will rub
off on Danny here. She thinks Denny's mom could probably teach her
a thing or two about parenting, but hey. She's a working mom. It's
enough to throw the ball or make brownies with the boys, life is
too short to go knocking on other mothers' doors. Besides. The last
thing a careerist like Karin needs is advice from some candy faced
professional mom. Perhaps if you were around long enough to
exercise a little discipline ...
    So what if the woman
does do it better? Denny always knocks politely and comes in
smiling, amazing manners for somebody a narrow notch above toddler.
It's as if he tries to stay small, so she won't trip over him and
send him home. Doesn't fight, always shares. Never cries even when
Danny bops him. Trots off to the toilet without being reminded and
if there's a problem over a toy, Denny laughs and hands it
over.
    Karin never has to
worry about what they are doing when he gives her that ravishing
smile and the two of them trot off into Danny's room. At the end of
the day every single toy will be shut back in the toy chest and all
Danny's stuffed animals will be back on the shelves, staring at her
with military precision.
    Unlike her own
personal dirt tornado, Denny always has a clean face, shining hair,
cute OshKosh overalls and coordinated Tshirts, no food stains that
Karin can see. Ever. It's clear the child's mother takes good care
of him. Right , she thinks with a twinge of guilt. Like
he's a fulltime job .
    And if she's never met
her? Hey. People keep to themselves here in Cadogan Hills. Nice
neighborhood, there are some lovely people here. But. Sometimes
Karin thinks it would take a quake or an explosion to make them
open the regulation white drapes in their uniform picture windows
and a firebomb to bring them out of their front doors. Cadogan
Hills is so exclusive that except for a couple she met at preschool
and cute Denny here, she hasn't seen any of her neighbors up close.
Oh, chronic gardeners wave as you drive by in the nightly attempt
to find your own house, but you'd better not stop to talk. After
all, you haven't been introduced. And she hears children playing at
twilight sometimes but she never sees them.
    A gated community was
never Karin's idea of a good time – up market, manicured "homes"
and yuppie neighbors cut from the same social cloth – but she
understood what big Dan was buying when he moved them in. "Life's
too short to deal with downscale neighbors," he told her. "We both
work too hard to waste time hunting suitable friends for our
kid."
    So what if it's
lonely? Dan is right. With everything going on at the ad agency,
Karin's hard pressed to get in all her mothering before work and
early evenings, when she drags herself home so tired that she's
walking on her knuckles. She's spread too thin to check out every
little friend Danny tries to make. During the week, Blanca copes.
Even though Blanca is from Ecuador and not too good at English,
she's terrific. Danny adores her, which is both necessary and a
source of jealousy. She cooks, cleans, manages play dates; she
carpools to the community preschool where Danny is supposed to get
socialized. Which is what the Fowlers are paying the five K for,
according