keep it professional - r. taylor

36

~July 1985~

Madeline quickly hurried over to my side, grabbing the back of my pants leg tightly. After shutting the door behind him, I took the bouquet of flowers from Roger's hand, ushering him inside. "Sorry to come over unannounced like this."

"No, it's totally fine."

"All the memories flooded back of everything you had to go through to get me home, so I just wanted to thank you again for all that. And then on my way over, I saw a little flower shop opening up, so I thought they would be a nice touch to the house."

"Oh wow. Since when did you become an interior designer?"

"Just a pastime of mine." Both sharing a quick laugh, Roger kneeled down to face Madeline's height. "And who is this?"

I looked down at her, trying to inch her out from behind my leg but she wouldn't budge. She wasn't the biggest fan of meeting new people quite yet, and being thrown into this situation was probably frightening for her. She looked up towards me for some kind of reassurance or help.

"This... is Madeline. She's Kathleen's daughter."

"Ah. Well hello Madeline, I'm Roger. It's lovely to meet you."

"Don't you want to say hello to Roger?" She buried her face in my leg, moving her head side to side frivolously. "She's a little shy" I whispered to him, not wanting her to overhear me. "But I'm sure you'll warm up to her at some point."

"Hopefully." From the kitchen, I could hear the timer buzzing rather loudly. Madeline loosened her grip, now yanking my pants and pointing towards the kitchen. She was so terrified of Roger, she had now resorted to not speaking.

"Oh, the cupcakes! Madeline, why don't you head into the kitchen and turn off the alarm?" As she ran off, I stood back up to face Roger. "Well, thank you for the flowers. I do think they'll fit in perfectly here."

"I knew it!"

The second a new idea popped into my head, I knew it wasn't a good idea. But it somehow made its way out of my mouth. "Do you maybe want to stay...? You know, try a cupcake? You went to all this trouble to get me the flowers, I feel like I should pay you back somehow."

"Are you sure Madeline would like that?"

"Most likely not. But once we take the cupcakes out of the oven, she'll be way more focused on those than on you."

"Yeah, alright. I have been craving some kind of a pastry today."

"Then you're in luck." We made our way back into the kitchen, finding Madeline hunched over the frosting bowl, scooping it out with her bare hands. "Madeline!"

Not even trying to make herself look innocent, she simply turned towards us and began giggling to herself. Grabbing all the ingredients to re-make the frosting, I also grabbed a few towels to wipe down her face.

---

Just as I had predicted, all we had to do was warm Madeline up to Roger. It did take her a while, not wanting to answer any question he asked, or turning towards me to answer for her. But after a while, the two of them were holding their own conversations while I was off to the side. I actually felt kind of left out from time to time, mainly when they would make some kind of a joke at my expense.

We had finally let the cupcakes cool down enough to begin frosting, and each grabbed our own to start. "So, how was breakfast?"

"Eh, it was alright. Kind of difficult to hold any conversation considering most of us don't really remember what happened last night."