01

“It’s an octagon. Okto means eight.”

My brows raised at Mattie’s confident statement as he leaned over the table and pointed the tip of his pencil to each side of the polygon on Rose’s coloring book, counting them out loud.

Rose scrunched up her little nose as she followed Mattie’s finger during his count. She peered up at him, her brown eyes big with curiosity. “Is that why the okthopus has eight arms ?”

Mattie smiled and nodded. “Yes. That’s one reason they gave it that name.”

The little girl nodded solemnly, as if digesting that bit of information and filing it away with grave intent.

Everything’s strange and fascinating in the eyes of a child. They see the world without the filter of painful experiences. I sometimes envy that.

I couldn’t help the smile on my face as I watched the two resume their coloring.

It was several days later and I was baby-sitting both kids.

Martin had to go out of town for the weekend to see a new specialist in Seattle and Aimee had a graveyard shift at the hospital.

I rounded up the kids and took them back with me to the condo where I set them up to bunk with each other in one of the guest bedrooms that had two twin beds.

The two of them were now sprawled on the floor, dressed in their pajamas and hunched over their coloring and sketch books. I was sitting on the couch and reading through the request letters of the two-hundred-plus charities vying for the Championettes’ assistance.

Yes, that many.

The Society wasn’t a charity in itself really. It was originally patterned from a sort-of gentlewomen’s group, ergo, socialites who had time and monetary resources at their disposal. They started endorsing charity groups until it eventually became the main thing the Society was known for.

Hundreds of requests come to the Society but they only picked one to add to the three they constantly did every year—the Art Foundation, the Children’s Hospital, and the St. Bartholomew Youth Home (for children who couldn’t stay in foster care).

The privilege to become the fourth and biggest charity fundraiser the Society did each year was much coveted, and it was up to the board to select among the requests the one that would best benefit from it so long as they met certain qualifiers—they needed to be high-profile and high-class.

Which is bloody ironic if they’re supposed to be a charity.

During our first meeting yesterday, I’d argued that the shiny gloss on a charity group shouldn’t be a consideration but most members insisted that the Society needed to maintain a certain image in order to keep attracting the same deep-pocketed benefactors.

Apparently, some of the benefactors only felt inclined to donate if they could get a nice, glitzy gala out of it that would put their faces on the society pages.

I had to bite my tongue down, along with the stinging comment it was about to deliver. I reminded myself that they had a point, even if I disagreed with it, and that not everyone had the same motivation.

When I decided to take on the co-chairmanship for the Championettes, I’d sworn things were going to change. It was an admirable resolve but it wasn’t until yesterday’s meeting that I realized some changes were going to be slower than others.

Thus, screening through a huge stack of prettily-worded, scented-papered requests for this year’s winner.

At Rose’s frustrated whimper, I glanced up again and saw her pouting at her coloring book.

“I went over the line,” she muttered, her shoulders slumping, her dark brown curls bouncing on her shoulders as her chin fell. “And I c-can’t erase it.”

I lowered the stack of paper and reached out to pat the little girl’s hand. “It’s alright, princess. It happens.”

“But I want it to be p-perfect !”

Don’t we all ? Perfection seems to be the desired dress size we all strive to fit into, no matter how tight or uncomfortable.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Mattie said, picking up the magenta crayon Rose had been using. “It can be better instead.”

Rose and I watched in silent fascination as the boy followed the curved stray streak outside of the octagon and repeated the curly pattern until it completely surrounded the polygon.

He handed the crayon to Rose who tentatively took it. “There. It was an octagon before and now it’s a flower, which is much better, don’t you think ? Now you can color it more.”

There was a sheen of what suspiciously looked like happy tears in the little girl’s eyes as she nodded and smiled back at Mattie who was grinning at her.

If I didn’t believe in puppy love, I do now. I think Mattie just became some girl’s prince in her own fairytale.

“Thank you,” Rose said as she turned back to her coloring book and started filling the space in the petals that Mattie had drawn.

Mattie watched her for a few seconds before a faint smile crossed his face again and he turned his attention back to his sketchbook—one that had verses and lyric stanzas scribbled on the edges next to some kind of landscape drawing.

Damn these Maxfield men—they just have to be prince charmings and white knights and noble kings.

“Charlotte ? I’m home.”

Speaking of my prince charming.

“Over here, babe,” I called out to him, twisting around my seat to smile at Brandon as he sauntered into the living room, tossing his suit jacket to a nearby chair.

I quickly appraised him and noticed the overgrown stubble on his face, the dark circles under his eyes and the taut line of his jaw.