Mom Over Miami

by Annie Jones

  “I don’t know,” I said. “This is for a church and we follow the Commandment Thou Shall Not Kill.”

  The paint guy didn’t laugh, either.

  He just asked how many gallons I needed and in what color.

  Payt suggested yellow. Studies show that yellow energizes the mind and body. Think about that. A room filled with two- and three-year-olds, energized in mind and body. What do those studies find works best for inducing drowsiness?

  Aunt Phiz, in a call from Wileyville—where she is still staying because her baby brother is acting every bit the part and sopping up her attention like a biscuit in greasy gravy—says to use bold colors and geometric shapes. To stimulate creativity. Just what I need. Toddlers with the mental capacity to form complex escape plans using blocks and tippy cups.

  Nope. Much as I appreciate the well-considered suggestions, I have settled on the paint color that I think best suits the current situation.

  Eggshell.

  You know, as in what I am constantly walking on trying to please everyone?

  It’s perfect.

  —From “Nacho Mama’s House” column

  “What were we thinking here, Hannah?”

  We? She had heard of the royal “we.” And had worked with an old-style doctor or two who still insisted on walking into a patient’s room and asking, “How are we feeling today?” But coming from the mouth of their bright-eyed young minister in his fisherman’s knit sweater and custom-made-for-fall corduroy pants, it riled Hannah’s suspicions. Just who were “we” and what were “we” supposed to think?

  She found no answer in his broad face.

  “I’m thinking, Reverend Tappin…” She’d been thinking how much she missed Aunt Phiz. How even though school and friends took up more and more of Sam’s day, she didn’t seem to have more time in her day. And on top of that, she missed the kid. And Payt.

  He hadn’t said a word about Miami. She’d hoped to ask him this morning, but how could she with a houseful of boys in pajamas and boxes of colored cereal spilled on her table and all the moms about to converge on her house to pick up their boys? And with her commitment to come to the church and repaint…

  Oh. Paint. That was the topic at hand. She stepped back and took in the serene, calming neutrality of the blank wall. “We’re thinking…that it’s perfect?”

  “I’m thinking—” he tilted his head like a man trying to make sense of modern art “—that it looks exactly like it did before you started this renovation project two months ago.”

  “No. Not at all.” Easy fix. Just point out the obvious and get out of the way. “Before, the walls had this dingy, not-quite-white thing going.”

  “And now?”

  She swept her arm out with the grace of a practiced spokesmodel. “Eggshell.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Eggshell,” she reiterated, adding extra oomph to the motion of her outstretched arm.

  “You know, Hannah…”

  Not good. No one started good news off with “You know, Hannah…”

  “I’ve been doing some thinking myself.” He scratched his fingers through his short blond hair, leaving a rooster tail on top.

  “Oh?” She smoothed her hand along the top of her own head, hoping he’d pick up on the hint.

  “I have.” He didn’t exactly frown. But his expression did take on a decisive does-this-milk-taste-funny-to-you? quality. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate all your effort and hard work on behalf of the nursery program. But…”

  But?

  She swallowed and touched her chilled fingers to her throat. The man planned to fire her. For something that wasn’t technically her fault.

  Fired? From a volunteer position?

  Worse! From a volunteer position she had written about extensively in her weekly newspaper column! Taking rejection was one thing. She’d taken that all her life. In fact, she’d taken on far more rejection than she had actually received. All those imagined slights, the overblown reactions, the hurts borrowed against her ever-present fear that someone would not like her.

  But this…this would go too far. This she could not suppress with a shaky smile. Everyone would know about this.

  “I know it doesn’t look like much of an improvement, Reverend.” In fact, looking close now, she could see the product designed to kill the other paint colors had left a few ghosts behind. She turned her back to the wall. “But I was dealt circumstances beyond my control—that got beyond my control—that went entirely out of control—”

  “Don’t worry, dear.” He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “The first wedding I ever performed in this church? A world-exclusive Jacqui Lafferty and Cydney Snowden Technicolor extravaganza.”

  Her shoulders sank in relief, and she breathed out a sigh and an almost inaudible “Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  As an afterthought—and she did feel more than a little guilty that it didn’t spring to her mind sooner—she added, “But please don’t hold any hard feelings toward the ladies. I took the reins of this wild ride, and when I did, took on all the responsibility for the nursery and toddler department. I may have let this redecorating business get out of hand, but let me assure you that from now you can count on me to keep my ducks in a row.”

  “Ducks?” He jutted his square chin out. “Funny you should mention those.”

  Because you look just like one in that fluffy sweater, downy ruffle of blond hair and sticking your chin out like that? One blessing of the driving desire to make everybody love her—she didn’t say half the stuff that popped into her head.

  “Because what I’ve been thinking was not about ducks. More like how do you think you’d manage with doves?”

  “Doves?” she cooed.

  “And sheep?”

  “Sheep?” she bleated.

  “And camels?”

  “I’m sorry, but did you say—?”

  He nodded. “Camels.”

  She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry as the desert. “I—I don’t know how I’d manage any of those. It would be like playing zookeeper.”

  “Or innkeeper,” he murmured, his smile breaking slowly.

  “Innkeeper?”

  “Or innkeeper’s wife, more precisely. It’s not mandatory, but we’ve found Innkeeper’s Wife is an ideal part to grant total access to the stage.”

  “The, uh, stage?”

  “The best vantage point to oversee things, you’d have to agree.”

  “I would?”

  “Without the demands of memorizing lines. I assume you wouldn’t want that?”

  “Demands? No, I prefer to avoid demands whenever possible.”

  “So, it’s the Innkeeper’s Wife, then?”

  “For?”

  “You, Hannah. That or Stable Man—Stable Person, I guess, in your case.”

  Stable Person. She supposed she should consider it a kind of compliment that someone would string those two words together to refer to her. Even if that person was using that string to tie her into knots! “Reverend Tappin, surely you’re not asking me to—”

  “Take charge of the children’s Christmas pageant. Yes, Hannah, it’s yours if you want it.”

  “But after the redecorating—the chaos, the confusion, the cost—only to end up looking just like it did before I started.” She flattened her hand against the shadow of an elephant’s face lurking beneath her meticulous Eggshell surface. “Don’t you think that shows…something?”

  “Indeed I do.”

  She exhaled in gratitude.

  “It shows that you can handle stressful situations.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And cope with childish behavior.”

  “Uh-uh!”

  He laughed, and with one fell swoop whisked his hair back into place. Unruffled. The word fit him at this moment in more ways than one as he said, “Hannah, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t want her? “Uh, thank you.”

>   “After all, Jacqui and Cydney are probably free.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance.

  No, he wouldn’t guilt her into rushing to the rescue.

  Not this time.

  Really.

  “I’d only make a mess of it.”

  “I seriously doubt that, Hannah, but if you don’t feel led to participate this year, we understand.”

  “We” again. Suddenly she got it. We—the church, her community, people who looked to her to pull her weight around this place.

  “I’m so sorry. But Sam and Tessa, you know, they need me.”

  “Of course.” He gave her a quick pat on the back, turned and in passing wrapped one knuckle on the freshly painted wall. “You’re right. This covered the old stuff perfectly. Great choice.”

  Don’t you dare.

  She clenched her jaw and watched the stout fellow striding down the hallway away from her.

  “The kids need me,” she called after him. “Everyone is counting on me. If I thought my family could spare me for the time it would take to do it up right, I’d go for it.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

  “Then do it.” Payt’s hand closed over her raised hand.

  “Wha—Payt!” She spun around and bumped heads with her sweet but sneaky hubby.

  “Ow.” He plastered his hand across his forehead.

  She did likewise. “Serves you right for creeping up the back stairs to scare me like that. What are you doing here?”

  “Arriving in the nick of time, apparently.”

  “To do what?”

  “To make sure you don’t miss out on doing whatever you were just shouting about.”

  “Running the Christmas pageant.”

  “Perfect.”

  “How so?”

  “Because you are bright, talented and great with kids.”

  “Oh, yeah, great with feeding them junk food and getting it all over the house and even getting part of the house in the junk food.”

  “Hannah…”

  “Yeah, yeah, listen to myself. I heard. Now you listen to me, Bartlett. I told Reverend Tappin I can’t do the pageant because I have to take care of my own kids.”

  “Then take care of them—and take them with you.”

  “Payt, I…” She let her voice trail off and she shook her head.

  “Give Sam a part.”

  She froze midshake.

  “Given the size of your talent pool, every kid in the church will have a part, right?”

  “I suppose they’d have to, except the babies like Tessa. Wait a minute, where is Tessa?”

  “Mrs. Tappin grabbed her from me the second I hit the door. Sam went over to Stilton’s. All kids accounted for, so you can take a break from worrying.”

  “Oh.” Take a break from worrying? Had the man lost his mind?

  “Put the kids out of your thoughts.”

  He was out of his mind.

  “And answer this one question for me.”

  “Answer a question? That I can do.”

  “This pageant thing, you wouldn’t start working on it right away, would you?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because I have a project I want you to start first.”

  “What?”

  “A second honeymoon.”

  “Miami!”

  “Yes! Mi—how’d you know that?”

  “Oh, Payt, sometimes you can be such a man.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you made these plans, and it never occurred to you that while you might be able to keep a secret from your wife, you could never keep one from your cleaning lady.”

  “You saw the notation on my desk.”

  “And it’s been killing me not to tackle you, hold you down and make you tell me about it.”

  “Really?” He arched an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll just keep the details to myself a little longer then.”

  She cuddled close to his side and kissed his cheek. “Behave now. We’re in church.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hands. “I’m the picture of chaste restraint. For now.” He winked. “So, what do you say? Do you want to go to Miami?”

  “Want to? Have to. All my life I’ve waited for this, for someone to come along and fly me away. But….”

  “No buts. Whatever your reservations, we’ll work them out.”

  Miami. Just like the paint she’d used to cover up the mess and mistakes she’d allowed to happen in this room, this trip would help her create a clean slate.

  “Hannah? Hannah, what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking…” She threw her arms around her husband and said, “I think it’s perfect.”

  She sniffled and blinked the tears from her eyes just as she noticed the faint outline of Noah’s Ark beneath the coat of Eggshell.

  15

  Subject: Nacho Mama’s House column

  To: Features@Wileyvillenews.com

  Sam is on a mission,

  The dog is under the bed.

  Tessa is in the laundry basket.

  And I’m in over my head.

  La la.

  No, not really. I haven’t actually gone off the deep end—yet. But the Christmas pageant planning committee doesn’t meet for another two weeks, so give me time!

  That’s not a complaint. Or a prediction. In fact, for the first time in quite a while, I can honestly say that getting dragged into another responsibility I’ll likely mess up has definitely had some positive effects.

  For one thing, it’s Christmastime in the Bartlett household. Too early for most reasonable people, I realize, though you’d never know it by the store displays of trees and plastic light-up yard figures! But how can I complain when my son, who until now had a pretty shaky grasp on the miracle of Christ’s birth, suddenly started practicing all the parts of the Nativity story that might be played by a little boy equipped with a terry-cloth head covering and his father’s striped bathrobe?

  Moreover, Sam wants to include the whole household in this newfound wonder, from Squirrelly Girl (thus the hiding, because fawn-colored greyhounds are just one sweat jacket—properly stuffed and cinched on to form a hump—away from looking like perfect camels, you know) to Tessa. Yes, my lavender-colored laundry basket is now a makeshift manger bed.

  I guess the cliché should embarrass me but there really is nothing like seeing Christmas through a child’s eyes. My child’s eyes.

  Sappy, huh?

  Well, we’re all allowed our moments. Especially around this place, where nothing seems to hold that sweet sentiment for long.

  NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Hannah reached down into the laundry basket to retrieve something black-and-white and dripping in baby drool. “Sam, did you give your little sister a dog toy to chew on?”

  “Yes!” he called from inside Payt’s walk-in closet, where he’d gone to plumb the depths for a silk necktie. Silk neckties, he informed her, make awesome sashes.

  “Squirrelly’s toy is the only thing that’ll quiet her down!” he hollered loud and clear.

  He had a point. Even now the baby, who moments ago had lain there contentedly gnawing on the rubber toy made to look like a rolled-up newspaper, coughed and sputtered like an outboard motor gearing up to roar.

  “She has teething rings in the freezer. Please go get one for me. I’ve tried three times now to go out and get the mail and something always—”

  R-r-r-r-ring!

  “Interrupts me,” she muttered under her breath. Dog chew tucked under her arm, she headed for the phone.

  “Here. I’m done with this for now.” Sam swept by in a blur, pausing only long enough to shove Payt’s bathrobe into her arms and to hold up a red silk tie. “If that’s Payt on the phone, will you ask him if I can use this for my next costume?”

  “Shepherds didn’t wear ties,” she shouted after him. Unable to dash to the closet to hang it up, and glad for the comfort of some
thing of Payt’s around her, she shrugged the robe over her then she reached for the receiver.

  “I’m working on a wise-guy costume now.”

  “Wise men,” she corrected. “And I’ll ask him, but he may not be in a very good mood.”

  “Aww, you can cheer him up. You cheer everyone up.”

  Her hand froze over the phone. That was the nicest thing anyone had said to her today. Today? She could hardly remember the last time anyone had taken time to share a kind word about her efforts. Just: Here you go, Hannah. We know you won’t mind, and off they go.

  How corny did it make her feel that a simple You can cheer him up. You cheer everyone up got to her?

  Cornier than a whole case of nacho chips. But she didn’t care.

  Hannah swallowed to push down the emotion welling up from her chest. Now all she had to do was live up to the compliment. Cheery.

  Right.

  R-r-r-r-ring.

  Oh, why not? It probably was Payt. They’d waited for him to return her call all afternoon long. She gave her hair a shake, inched her chin up and answered the phone at last. “Nacho Mama’s house, the big cheese speaking.”

  “Hannah? Is that you?”

  “Um, Jacqui?”

  “And Cydney—patched from my line. Just like a real-live big-business conference call!” the other sister piped in. “Have you got a minute?”

  A howl of utter frustration rose from Tessa in the other room. But before Hannah could beg off to go and see about her child, Sam’s helpfulness genes kicked in full force. Helpfulness with a little self-serving-brownie-point-grabbing-ness thrown in for good measure.

  “I’ll take this freezing cold teething thing—carried in my own bare hands, which are also freezing now, but I don’t mind—to Tessa, so you can keep talking on the phone!” He went up on tiptoe as he passed, to aim his booming voice directly at the mouthpiece.

  Hannah shut her eyes, but not before she glimpsed the grin that all but screamed—Now Payt can’t help but say yes to my borrowing his tie.

  She moved her lips into what she hoped looked more smile than grimace and motioned for the boy to hurry on.