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That was probably the ugliest dinosaur toy Karen had ever seen in her entire life. Yet, somehow, it was almost impossible to not look at it.
The train was crowded as always, she was lucky to find a seat at all. As soon as the woman sat next to her, trapping her between her small body and the window, Karen saw it, under the seat, it’s green and blue tail, right next to her shoe. Picking it up, she frowned at the ugly thing. There was an eye missing, and someone had sewn a button to replace it.
“Excuse me”, she tapped the guy sitting in front of her on the shoulder. “Is this yours?”
He looked at her hand and shook his head. Looking around, Karen saw no kids on the car. Nobody was looking around and the stuffed animal was too big to fit in anybody’s purse of bag or briefcase.
She decided to leave it where she found it. But, go figure, when she climbed the subway stairs to walk home, she had the unattractive little thing in her left hand, hoping that maybe the owner would see it with her and claim it.
It was ugly, but it belonged to someone. Judging by the button eye, the faded color and the name “Lisa” written on the tag, it was loved. She couldn’t just leave it there.
It sat by the bowl where she threw her keys for two days before she saw the flyer, inside that same car with the ten year old movie poster nobody ever bothered to change.
“Have you seen my best friend?” it said, above a cropped picture of a kid holding it. It even offered a fifty dollar reward. Yes, it was very loved.
Karen felt immediately bad and good at the same time. Poor kid must be missing her toy. Good news is she could give it back to her. Taking her phone from her pocket, Karen saved the two numbers the flyer displayed, one for a Maria, another for a Frank, presumably the kid’s parents.
“Hi, is this Maria?” she asked when a woman picked up.
“Yes, who is this?”
“My name is Karen, I found a stuffed dinosaur on the subway the other day-”
“Oh, you have him?”
Karen wasn’t a mother, but she recognized the relief on the woman’s voice.
“I do. I’d love to return him.”
They made an appointment for the next day, a Saturday, in the coffee shop on the corner of the subway entrance by 42nd street.
When she walked in, she spotted them immediately. A little girl of about six years old, sitting on a table with a woman, both blonde, both wearing jeans, the kid - Lisa - wearing a flowery summer dress over it and the woman - Maria, the mom - wearing the red and black plaid shirt she said she would wear, over a white tank top. Their Adidas’ matched, which Karen thought was cute.
“Maria?” she called when she approached the table. The woman looked up and offered a polite smile.
“Karen?”
“Yes. And you must be Lisa.”
The girl nodded, face full of anticipation.
“Well, I have someone here just dying to see you.”
Without much more suspense, Karen produced the Bloomingdale’s bag she had put the thing in, and presented it to Lisa. The girl sucked in a breath at the sight of her toy, her face breaking into a huge smile - a bottom tooth missing - and let out a loud “Eugene!” to which her mother shushed her, but without really meaning it. She was smiling as the girl hugged her ugly little friend.
“What do you say, honey?”
“Thank you!” Lisa beamed up at her and Karen offered a very sincere ‘you’re welcome’. “He smells good!”
“Yeah, he rolled around on the subway floor a bit. I thought he might want to clean up a bit to meet with you again, so I gave him a baby wipe bath.”
“Honestly, you’re saving my life here”, Maria said.
“I’m glad I can help.”
“Mo-om! Give her the reward!”
“Oh, no, no, please!” Karen jumped before Maria could even think.
“It was part of the deal”, the woman smiled at her.
“No, please, I insist, it was my pleasure looking after this little guy. Eugene, is it?”
They made conversation while their coffee order got ready and Lisa told her all about Eugene, who was an explorer and a rock star.
“He lost his eye in the battle of Hogwarts”, she said, pointing at the button replacing the right eye. “But my dad patched him up just in time.”
Maria got their coffees - she insisted in paying for Karen’s - and Lisa’s pink lemonade and they all made their way to the exit.
“Mom, dad’s gonna be so relieved we found him!”
“Yeah, he is. He’s a klutz, my ex-husband”, Maria said to Karen. “He was the one who dropped it. He was bringing some of the kid’s stuff back from his place, got there without it, you should have seen the chaos.”
Karen made a sympathetic grimace. At the corner, Lisa hugged and thanked her again, she said it was her pleasure and they parted ways.
“Eugene”, she mused, nursing on her coffee, thinking that Lisa is a very interesting kid.
.:.
“Hi, Karen!”
She was barely awake, waiting in line to order her latte. She certainly wasn’t ready to hear her name in such an excited, high pitched voice this early on a Tuesday.
Looking at her right, she saw Lisa standing there next to her.
“Lisa, hi!” she greeted. “How are you?”
“I’m fine! I’m going to school. We had to stop to get my dad’s coffee, first, otherwise he can’t tell left from right. That’s what he says anyway.”
What a little chatterbox.
“That’s him right there. Daddy!” she shouted towards a man who leaned against a wall, waiting for his order, looking at his phone. He stood up straight, startled, and looked around.
“Baby, what are you-” he looked towards them, eying Karen quickly, than moving towards them. “I told you not to wander off!”
“I didn’t, I’m talking to my friend. This is Karen! She found Eugene!”
His expression changed, his brows shot up and he looked at her face again.
“Oh!” Poor guy. He really did need his coffee. “The hero!”
With a curious expression, Karen squinted her eyes at him, but offered a polite smile.
“Karen, you don’t even know!” Lisa said, sighing, and proceeded to tell her about an all new adventure, where Eugene had saved a boat full of babies in the middle of the Red Sea, which cost him a toe. “Honestly. I didn’t even know dinosaurs had toes. Did you?”
“I did not. Full of surprises, this Eugene.”
“Yeah.”
“Next!” said the lady at the cashier, and Karen moved up to place her order. Another woman shouted “Frank!” and Lisa’s father moved to get his coffee.
“Hey, thanks for returning him”, he offered before taking Lisa’s hand. “Honestly, you saved my life. Her mother was about to kill me.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Bye, Karen!” Lisa waved.
“Bye, Lisa! Give my best to Eugene! And your mom!”
She smiled at the waving kid and her dad, who nodded politely, and turned back around to wait for her coffee as they exited the coffee shop full of decaffeinated adults.
.:.
“You know, you’ve become quite a hit with my kid”, came a voice from her left as she sat on the window bench, reading the paper, on the same coffee shop.
She lifted her brows and blinked.
“Lisa’s dad, right?”
The man smiled and offered his hand.
“Frank.”
“Karen”, she offered, noticing that he looked way better than the first time she saw him.
“Oh, believe me, I know”, he said. “All I’ve been hearing is ‘Karen this’ and ‘Karen that’. You saved my life along with Eugene’s when you picked him up that day.”
She chuckled. This guy is handsome. And charming. Which he was not a week or so ago.
“Listen, let me apologise for that day, I was a bit of a mess.”
Hmm. Self aware, too. Nice.
“Were you?”
He nodded, pointing to the vacant stool next to hers. “Do you mind?” She shook her head and he sat down, placing his own coffee on the counter. “You see, I got school duty that week, which is not my regular thing. I usually pick them up and take them to swimming and soccer, after school. I’m not really used to the morning schedule.”
“Them?”
He told her they had another kid, a boy, Frank Jr.
“Can I buy your next one?” he asked, when she finished her beverage. “As a thank you and way to make up for bad first impressions?”
‘Ex-husband’, Maria had said. No ring in sight. Cute kid, rugged charm and a stare that could raise her temperature a degree or two.
Maybe she should give the guy a chance to change her mind about him.
“Sure.”
.:.
They almost didn’t make it past the door.
It banged shut and he was on her again, still, in the dark, all hands and lips and teeth, turning around and walking further until she hit her back against the hallway wall.
“Where am I going?” he asked against her mouth, lifting her shirt from her while her hands tried to do the same with his.
With her bottom lip between her teeth and a smile bleeding through, she tilted her head to the right, enjoying the path of his mouth around her face, and took a step towards the same direction and pulled him while walking back, through the dark, towards her bedroom.
First impressions be damned.
.:.
She woke up with her phone pinging repeatedly, non-stop, pingpingpingping.
Marci. She hates it when she does that. A bunch of messages, one or two words at a time.
“Karen. Karen. Karen”, they read. “Wake up. I need a favor. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”
Sighing, she picked the phone up and called her friend. She needed a fluff piece written for one of her clients. Something, Karen observed, that could easily have been said later. No need for this urgency.
When she placed the phone down again, the heavy arm she had clung to with such force last night came and wrapped itself around her waist, pulling her against the strong, bulky body, and she breathed out slowly, closing her eyes, enjoying the lips on her shoulder, the base of her neck, higher, under her ear, her cheek, a hand on her chin turning her face towards him, lips finding hers.
“I don’t wanna go to work”, he said, moving to lie on his back again, tugging on her leg, and Karen was all too happy to help him, sitting up, throwing a leg over him, settling on top of him, sighing at how good it felt already. “Let’s stay here all day”, he proposed, removing covers from between them, big hands roaming, gripping, pulling, trying to guide.
“I don’t know”, she said, teasing, reaching for that little packet inside the bedside table drawer. “Who knows how many lost toys are waiting for me in the subway. Maybe I’ll pick up another hot dad.”
His laughter made her smile big, but it didn’t last very long. Soon, he was frowning, breathing out, closing his eyes, serious, watching, sitting up when her phone went off again, that arm tight around her, keeping her from moving away from him, kissing her neck, moving so good, she would stay. God, she would stay for as long as he asked, there was nothing that could take her from this bed so soon. Not after the long month she had been wondering, wishing and delaying this.
Later, after calling in sick, after a warm shower taken by two, after a breakfast taken with sweet coffee and sweeter kisses, after going back to bed and staying there until they were both hungry again, she walked out of her apartment, hand in hand with Frank, so he could go home and change. Maybe pack a bag for tonight, that he would most definitely spend at her place.
Frank didn’t have the kids this week. He planned on using those seven days on some very grown up play time. Karen was very on board with that plan.
On the subway, he had his arm around her as she rested her head on his chest, and she smiled at that flyer. “Have you seen my best friend?”, still stuck to the subway wall.
On their way out, she stopped to take it off, folding it and putting it in her pocket while Frank pulled her by the hand.