Page 13 of Say Yes to the Hot Mess
“Now,” he says, and he’s no longer talking directly in my ear. “Your dependent? The name and age.”
I roll my eyes halfheartedly, clinging to this return to normalcy. “You can call him a child. That’s what normal people say.”
“Dependents aren’t always children. But fine,” he says, his voice perfectly professional. “The name and age of yourchild.”
“Archer Orion Ellis,” I say.
“Got it. Archer Orion,” he says. “Age?” he adds.
“Two months,” I respond.
“All right” is his answer, and for some reason I picture him nodding. “So zero years old.”
I wince as I shift and bump against the shelves behind me—I can tell that bruise on my back is already blossoming. “No,” I say. “He’s not zero. He’s two months.”
There’s a pause before I hear, “Right. So…zero.”
“Two months—”
“Is your baby one year old yet, or is he not?” Mr. Anthony interrupts.
I roll my eyes. “I showed you a picture. He’s obviously not one yet.”
“Then he’s zero.” His stupid voice is perfectly reasonable, and it makes me irrationally annoyed.
“By that logic, a one-month-old baby and an eleven-month-old baby are the same age,” I say, frowning up at him in the dark.
“Not the same age, no,” he says. “But both are zero years old. I just need his age in years, Miss Ellis. I’m going to put down zero.”
“Fine,” I say, gritting my teeth, because there’s no point in arguing about this anymore. I just want to go home.
“Thank you. That’s all I need; let’s leave the closet.”
I hear the click of the door, and then I’m bathed in light again. Dexter steps out, making his way immediately to his desk.
I sigh. There’s nothing else for it; I have to go out there. So I stand up straighter, trying to appear calm and collected, but that just pushes my chest out further—not a difficult feat, because if you think pregnancy boobs are big, you’ve never experienced breastfeeding boobs—and nobody needs to see that right now, especially the man on the other side of this door. So I resume my normal stature, take a deep breath, and exit the closet, smoothing my hands over my shirt.
Mystainedshirt, I notice for the first time when I emerge into the light office. Great. Just…really great.
I look to Mr. Anthony, whose arms are folded over his chest, an expectant look on his face as he sits there behind his desk. Before he can say anything, I hold up my hand.
“Do you have all the information you need?”
He hesitates, then nods once.
“Great. I truly do not have an explanation for that”—I gesture over my shoulder to the closet—“so please don’t ask. I’ll be going now.”
He raises one brow but doesn’t comment, and I swear the corner of his lips tips into an amused little smile.
My humiliation knows no bounds. None. The limit does not exist. But I know it will just be worse if I punch that smile off his face, so I leave without another word, pausing only to glare at the closet door that looks so much like the room’s exit. Not sure whose idea it was to put those two identical doors right next to each other, but I’d like to havewordswith them.
Still, I don’t say anything. I just flee the scene of the crime, never looking back—not even when I hear what sounds like a little chuckle coming from the man I already can’t stand.
Twenty minutes later, that chuckle is still echoing in my mind. “Archer,” I say, groaning as I run one hand over my face. I’ve just picked him up from Uncle Frank’s, where he stayed while I ran up to the Sunset Horizons offices, located in the community center. “It was horrible. It was just really,reallyembarrassing. I walked into his closet and then had a full conversation with himinside. A conversation about you, actually. He thinks you’re zero.” I shake my head. “Once you get older we can dispense with all the month counting. Nobody says ‘My child is thirty-six months.’ But months are the standard unit of measurement for babies your age.”
Archer doesn’t answer, of course. He just continues to stare up at me, his big, dark eyes wide and all-seeing. Then he starts to whimper, and I sigh.
“You hungry?” I ask him.
