Rumor Has It

Part 1

Bradley couldn't believe he had made it this far. Sometimes there had been days where he wished this had never happened and his life was different, but this wasn't one of those days.

Lea was a great kid and everything had pointed towards a great future together with the three of them as a family for a while. He was standing in the shade of a tall tree, waiting outside the private elementary school and clinging to the car keys in his hand. Lea could come out by herself, he wasn't going to be that parent that couldn't be patient enough to wait.

But standing here and looking at all the other parents made Bradley wonder where the last six years had gone. So much had changed. Those six years ago, he and Irina had been a team and then everything had turned on what they had built. She had stopped trusting him at work and accused him of having more interest in the actresses he worked with than he really did. It had all built up and crashed quickly after Lea had been born.

He didn't think that Lea remembered much of the time before Irina and him had broken up. They shared custody of the girl and he could tell it wasn't very easy on her. It had taken so many arguments to even agree to live in the same city to make school life easier for their daughter. Now Bradley knew he had to start getting used to this, but for some reason he felt like this was all too soon. Irina had found someone new and he wasn't sure if that was something he should be doing as well.

A big crowd of kids poured from the open school doors and he craned his neck trying to spot his daughter among them. He was surprised to see Lea come out of the building with another girl. She was always a little shy around new people, so he wasn't expecting her to make friends this early. Bradley watched her wave a friendly goodbye to the little girl and then she bounced towards him with a large smile on her face.

"Daddy, you're here!"

"Of course I am, I promised. Did you have a good first day at school?"

"Yes. It was okay. We made name tags. And I made a friend."

"Oh?"

"She has the same shoes," the girl explained and straightened her leg, showing off the new sneakers he had bought her for school. She was growing too fast, he could barely keep up.

"So you said Hi?"

"Yes. And I sit next to her now."

"That's fair, that's a pretty good reason to be friends. What's her name?"

"Emily."

He racked his brain for names he knew and parents he had met at the first parent-teacher meeting. This was a private school that was on the expensive side and he knew a few other parents, but the name didn't ring a bell. He searched for the other girl in the crowd of children and spotted her taking a young woman's hand.

"Is that her mom picking her up over there?"

"No, that's Ashley. Ashley is..." the little girl frowned and played with her braided hair, "...she picks her up. Her mom won't come to school."

"Then maybe Ashley is her nanny. Do you remember, the way Erica used to be your nanny a few years ago. When you were only this big" he grinned and gestured to a height a head shorter than Lea was now.

"Maybe," she nodded, "and she doesn't have a dad." 

They got into the car and Lea talked excitedly about the day she had had. She wouldn't stop talking about the teacher, wanting more homework than they had been given and Bradley felt like this was a new phase in both their lives and he wasn't so sure he was ready for all of this yet.

"I'm hungry," she finally whined when they were almost home. This was something he was better at and he knew his mother had kept their lunch warm after the short first day. He was between projects and had more time on his hands, which was rare. Very often Gloria would take over because his schedule was too busy and too irregular. Another thing he felt guilty about. He always missed his daughter when he was out of the house and it was worse now with her slowly growing into her own little life.

*

He was sitting in the garden next to his mother, the sun burning a little too hard, when Lea strolled up next to him, gripping at the chair sneakily.

"Daddy, can Emily come over and play?"

Bradley had expected the question already and he smiled as he looked at her, recognizing a bit of himself in her every time she got excited about something. "If her mom allows it, sure. But not during the week, honey. Does Saturday sound good?"

"Uh-huh" the little girl replied thoughtfully, playing with the sleeve of his shirt by folding it up further his arm.

"So you'll ask her tomorrow if she wants to come over and play on Saturday?"

"I will." She nodded.

"We'll talk to her nanny after school then and make sure it's okay with her."

Unlike Bradley, his mother wasn't surprised at all that Lea had made a friend already.

"She's grown so much more extroverted and talkative over the summer. You haven't been around enough with your last movie taking up all this time," she said and Bradley sighed. They had just finished the last movie and it really had taken a toll on his time and patience, leaving him tired and stressed.

How could he even consider dating again when he couldn't even do his job and find enough time for Lea? He wasn't the best parent in the world, but he would always do his best. Maybe he could find a new project that would let him get home more regularly or even work from their home sometimes.