I arrive at Ayla’s school just as another car that’s almost identical to mine pulls into the only parking space the right size for my van. I don’t even have it in me to sigh. 

Circling the block, I find another spot about five minutes’ walk from the school’s front gate. Or, five minutes’ walk for me, rather. I’ll have to quarter my stride length to keep Ayla from having to run to keep up with me.

I check the time on my watch as I lock the car door.

Only 3 hours until my date.

I’ll definitely be cutting it much closer than I prefer to. 

It’s hard to make myself walk at a more or less moderate pace, but it’s better to avoid attention or…minimize it.

I tower above every mother in the parking lot by a minimum of 5 inches, and most of them have their hair tied back into lopsided ponytails and buns to compliment their sneakers and yoga pants. With my pencil skirt and stilettos, not to mention the big hair, I’m sure I look ostentatious, at best.

Why do I need a different costume to blend in everywhere I go?

At the office, anything less feminine and/or stylish would make everyone uncomfortable. Between Monica and Mrs. Green with their peep-toe heels, and Tiffany’s jackets with padded shoulders, we’re a careful coalescence of girl power and trendy propaganda.

I’m not even sure I own yoga pants.

I try to hunch slightly, though not enough to make it obvious that I’m hunching, as I scan the crowded classroom for Ayla. It’s harder than it should be to find a little girl in a pink glittery tutu.

Apparently, that describes about fifty percent of the students being herded together by a small group of exhausted before-and-after teachers, but Ayla is the one by the desk kicking the ground for some undefined reason, as the young ginger behind the desk sits with her head in her hands like she’s trying disappear.

If only that were an option.

Fighting my first impulse to grab my tutu-wearing toddler and leave without talking to anyone, I walk over to the ginger, who is ready to hand Ayla over to me before I even show her the note authorizing me to take Ayla home.

Ayla is still scuffing her shoes against the floor repeatedly, making a squeaking sound that seems much louder than it should be, but when she sees me, she lowers her head quickly and comes over to grab my hand. 

“Enjoy the rest of your day, Princess Ayla,” the teacher smiles wearily, but rather than replying Ayla hides behind my leg.

I know that’s not the polite thing to do, but I’m not going to push her.

I remember…

She’s probably burned out. 

I know I shouldn’t appreciate this silence, but I’m not trying to push myself either.

Right now, even trying to speak is too much for me, and I know I should conserve my energy for tonight, or I won’t be much of a date for Mr. Giang.

We round the street corner in about ten minutes, and the car comes into sight. I try to quicken my pace just slightly, but Ayla keeps dragging her feet, and I have to stop to let her catch up to me again. As she does, she volunteers out of nowhere, “I had a bad day.”

I imagine a sigh, but my lips stay sealed as I force myself to take a slow breath.

I should have asked her how her day was. That was my fault.

I’m not doing very well at this whole thing today.

Trying to cover up my faux pas, I ask as quickly and attentively as I can, “Why was it bad?”

Ayla is ready to respond the instant I ask, looking up at me with an expression too somber for someone her age as she squints her eyes against the light, “Nobody likes me.”

Um…

My mouth opens and closes again, and I put my hand slowly to my hair trying to remember something I heard somewhere that might be the right thing to say in this scenario.

I could search my mental catalogs all day if I had a mind to, but I definitely don’t have anything delicate preprogrammed, just…

Come on, think. What do you say to a little girl in situations like this?

It’s your own fault.

.

Probably not that.

“That’s probably not true,” I offer instead, though I probably should have left off the ‘probably.’

“You just haven’t met the people who like you yet.”

The suggestion sounds weightless, even to me. Or maybe it’s just to me. There’s no reason for a little girl like Ayla to doubt herself, talkative and bubbly as she is. But she insists.

“It is true. Everybody acts like I’m an icky bug!”

That sounds too familiar.

But it doesn’t make sense. 

I study her out of the corner of my eye as she starts scratching at a shiny spot on the asphalt with her shoe, but I can't pick out anything that makes her look different from the crowd of other children that I just escaped.

Maybe it’s because she’s the youngest? Kids can be mean about the pettiest things sometimes.

“What do you do when people don’t like you?” she asks randomly again. “How are you supposed to get them to be friends?”

Again, I don’t know what to say, and I almost shrug before remembering it could seem glib.

I’d try to give her some advice, though all the advice I’ve received was more like chastising, or some comfort, but the comfort I received was more like iodine. 

Nothing has ever really worked out for me, and though I wouldn’t be surprised if those were just the results of a user error, or of the user being a cosmic defect, I’m not confident enough to try to spread around what might be a faulty formula.

Other topics are so much less complicated than people. Somehow, even emptiness is complicated. I can break studies, books, and genres down into formulas, but people refuse to be broken down and remain fundamentally unclear.

I wish she’d change the subject. 

Go back to talking about the cartoon.

But she doesn’t, so I guess that means I have to answer her.

Wracking my brain for all the two cents I’ve received over the years, and all the ‘tips and tricks’ that I’ve gathered for myself over decades of fruitless attempts, I smile as casually as I can.

“Start up conversations with people about the things you have in common, or ask them about the things they’re interested in. Show them that you want to get to know them. Sometimes, people just don’t know you’re interested in being friends with them. You have to put yourself out there.”

I can’t believe I still remember that article verbatim. 

Ayla muses silently for a minute and then purses her lips with an expression that almost seems…judgemental? Maybe it’s skeptical. Either way, she stares up at me as I unlock the car.

‘Does that really work?” She emphasizes the question with a lift of her chin.

“Maybe sometimes, but not always,” I shake my head, hurrying her into her car seat and buckling her in, “You’ll just have to try and see.”

She sighs a little but somehow seems a bit less upset as she shrugs with a serious expression I’m sure she must have learned from an older relative. “Well, I guess it is what it is.”

“I guess so.”

I’m not sure what else to reply, so I just hope this doesn’t become a back-and-forth thing.

Since she reaches for the door handle the second she’s buckled in, I step back and let her swing her own door shut as I slide into the front seat. I glance back at her before I buckle, and there’s a distant look on her face as she watches two bigger kids, maybe fourth graders go whooping and hollering after each other down the sidewalk, backpacks bouncing.

Something about that seems familiar too.

“How did you make friends when you were my age, Miss Essence?”

Through the rearview mirror, I can see her intent expression, but I don’t have an answer to that question that wouldn’t bring even more.

The only ‘friends’ I can remember having as a kid were my mother’s friends’ kids, and that was too many degrees of separation for any of them to have any interest in me when their mothers weren’t watching over their shoulders.

Beth is the one Ayla should be going to for advice. But she’s too busy to play relational mentor for the socially awkward nowadays, not that it worked out very well when she tried to help me.

“You shouldn’t try to make friends the same way I did, Alya. You should make friends your way.”

Ayla opens her mouth but then shuts it again with a slight frown, caught between conflicting thoughts, but at least none of them make their way to her lips this time.

Hopefully, she’s nothing like me and never will be. 

My phone vibrates, and I slip it out of my skirt pocket as I put my keys in the ignition.

A text from Mr. Giang.

“We’re still on for dinner tonight, right? Do you have any allergies?”

I bite my lip and try to think up an answer that sounds less snippy than a simple, ‘Yes. No.’ 

Once that’s done, I pull up my Spotify playlist and turn it on at almost the lowest volume possible. 

Please, Jill Scott, and the rest of my featured R&B artists whose stage names escape me, work magic.

Sooth this pressure in my burning ears and head.

I just need to be able to get through the rest of the day without any calamities.

I glance back at the mirror occasionally, as I come to a stop at stop lights and signs, but Ayla’s head is turned toward the window.

I hope she’s daydreaming.

After about ten minutes have elapsed without any sign that she’s trying to communicate with me, I take one of my earbuds back out and I can hear her singing a song I’ve never heard before under her breath.

We are beautiful…

Oh. 

She’s nothing like me.