It Takes Three. Teresa Southwick

night, so if I want to play with one I’m gonna hafta find another one, and maybe a snake, too, this time.”

      Jenna’s eyes widened with distaste at the mention of reptiles, as Jake frowned and looked down at his daughter. “Alex. No snakes,” he said firmly. “I mean it. Snakes can be poisonous. And so can some frogs, for that matter.”

      Alex sighed loudly. Tilting her head to one side, she sized up her daddy and decided, against all odds, to try again. She put her hands out to her sides and balanced herself on one foot. “You could always buy me one that’s not poisonous,” she suggested hopefully.

      “No.” Jake’s mouth was set, his attention only on his daughter.

      “Why not?” Alex challenged, her chin shooting out pugnaciously once again.

      “Because I don’t like snakes,” Jake explained.

      Neither did Jenna. In fact, she shuddered just thinking about them.

      “You might if you had one,” Alex countered optimistically.

      Jake’s expression remained firm and unyielding. “Well, we’ll never know, because we’re never getting one. And I explained to you why we had to let Mr. Frog go—he is a wild frog and wild frogs belong in nature. Mr. Frog would have died if we had kept him in captivity too long.”

      “What other kind of pets do you have?” Jenna asked, guiding Alex over to her long, cozy sofa.

      Alex sighed and looked all the more dejected and disappointed. “I don’t got any.”

      Jenna shot Jake a look. Given Alex’s obvious love of animals, this was a surprise. “We just moved from a high-rise in Dallas,” Jake explained. “The building did not allow pets. I’ve been hoping to rectify that, now that we’ve moved to the ranch. I just haven’t had time.”

      “Ah.” Jenna got out her sketch pad and seated herself on the sofa next to Alex. That sounded better. To her, not necessarily to Alex. Jenna began to sketch a simple, princess-style dress with a pinafore. Ignoring Jake entirely, she smiled down at Alex. “What kind of pet would you like to have, if you had your choice?”

      Alex pushed the brim of her cowgirl hat out of her eyes and rested her chin on her hand. She crossed her blue-jeans-covered legs. “Maybe a zebra or a bear cub.”

      “I think kittens and puppies make better pets,” Jenna said.

      “How come?” Alex asked.

      Jenna smiled. “Because they’re soft and fluffy and fun to cuddle and they’re meant to be indoors.”

      “Maybe I’ll get a kitten then,” Alex said after a thoughtful pause. “Or a puppy. Maybe both.” Her eyes lit up enthusiastically as she drew a yo-yo from one pocket and a cap gun from the other.

      “That might be possible, if you cooperate and start wearing dresses again, when I ask you to wear a dress,” Jake said.

      Alex slid off the sofa and fired her cap gun at the ceiling. Loud pops and acrid smoke permeated the air. “Maybe you should get me a kitty and a puppy first and then I’ll see if I feel like wearing a dress,” Alex countered.

      Jake confiscated the cap gun and shook his head. “Behave first.”

      Alex shook her head. The stare down between parent and child continued. “I don’t hafta wear dresses at school,” Alex said finally, when she realized her daddy wasn’t any more likely to give in than she was.

      “No, you don’t,” Jake said calmly. “But you could wear a dress if you wanted to wear one. And what’s more you’d look very pretty if you did.” He gave her a gentle, coaxing smile.

      Alex made a face and with a loud sigh flounced back over to sit beside Jenna. “I don’t want to look pretty.” She leaned over to see how Jenna’s sketch was progressing.

      “How do you want to look?” Jenna asked as her pencil flew across the page.

      “So right now.”

      “You can look ‘so right now’ in a dress,” Jake said enthusiastically.

      Alex glared at Jake.

      “Can’t you, Jenna?” Jake said, looking to Jenna for moral support.

      Jenna shrugged and refused to take sides. “Depends on the dress,” she said. Pausing, she looked at Alex, who had gone back to playing with her yo-yo. “What’s your favorite color crayon?” Jenna asked.

      That, Alex had to think about. “Red,” she said.

      “What else?” Jenna prodded, making a few notes to herself on the side of her page.

      “Blue.”

      “Dark blue or light blue?”

      “Both.”

      “What about green?”

      “It’s okay,” Alex replied seriously, “but I like blue and red better.”

      “Okay. What grade are you going to be in next year?”

      “First. I went to kindergarten last year.”

      “Did you learn about letters and numbers?”

      Alex nodded vigorously. “I can sing the alphabet song.” She paused to demonstrate. “And I can count to twenty!” She demonstrated again.

      “All right! Way to go!” Jenna enthused, and won a shy smile from Alex that made her smile in turn. “Did you draw pictures?”

      “Mmm-hmm.”

      Jenna finished the sketch and then filled it in with Alex’s favorite colors. “What was your favorite thing to draw?” she asked.

      Alex furrowed her brow. “Kitties and puppies. And one time I drawed a kite and a big tree with lotsa leaves.”

      Jenna nodded. Clearly, she and Alex were on the same page now. “I want to show you something in the storeroom.” Indicating Alex and Jake should follow, Jenna rose and went to the back of the store, where there were bolts of fabric. She pulled down three different shades of blue. “Which of these do you like best?” she asked Alex. “The dark blue, the medium blue or the light blue?”

      Alex touched each of the three bolts of fabric. “I like the one that looks like blue jeans.”

      “Ah yes, indigo. Okay. Now…what about these reds? Scarlet, fire-engine or rose?”

      “Fire-engine.”

      “Good choice.” Jenna went back out to the showroom. She sat down, picked up her sketch pad and colored pencils and added the hues Alex had just selected. “Well, what do you think?”

      Alex looked down at the short blue-denim jumper and fire-engine-red blouse. The jumper was adorned with kittens and puppies and letters of the alphabet, and paired with red cowgirl boots and a saucy blue cowgirl hat. “Now, granted, this is a dress, but it’s not your average dress,” Jenna said. “’Cause the jumper—the blue part here—is going to be made out of blue denim and looks more like overalls, except of course it’s not. And I’ve got you wearing boots instead of black patentleather shoes. Do you think you could wear something like this?”

      For a second, Jenna thought Alex was going to shout a resounding yes or a Texas-sized Yee-ha! But her delight faded as soon as it appeared, replaced by a pout as big as the Lone Star State. “No. No dresses. Not even ones with kitties and puppies on ’em. Daddy, I want to go now.”

      Jake knelt down in front of his daughter. He shot Jenna a brief grateful glance then turned back to Alexandra. “Alex, we talked about this. You have to have a few dresses now, like it or not.”

      “No.” Alex dug in even more stubbornly. She folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t. I want to go home now. And I know you got to go to work. Can you please have Clara take me back to the ranch?”

      “Honey—”