Mina, however, acted as though he had been mortally wounded. She grabbed the brooch, slung it across the table, pulled the baby into her own arms, and began rocking him back and forth, and wait for it… crying! Even the baby wasn’t crying. Well, that is until he heard his mom, and then he joined in with the full exuberance of two very, very, very healthy lungs.
I must have looked like a fool, with my mouth hanging open. Jeremy knew I’d been holding the baby, and immediately jumped in my face, asking me what I’d done! His harshness so stunned me that I didn’t answer. I just sat there looking at him, like some kind of idiot.
Mina, at this point, allowed her tears to wane. (I say “allowed,” because she turned the water works off so quickly that I got the distinct impression that she could control them at will.)
Grabbing a diaper bag on the floor on the other side of her chair while tightly clinging to Greg, Junior, Mina pulled out baby wipes, a tube of Vaseline, cotton swabs, a dry washcloth, a pre-dampened washcloth, and a pacifier, which she called a “binky.” Over the next five minutes, she all but performed major surgery on the infant. And, all the while, she was softly moaning with dampened eyes.
The drama notwithstanding, I felt badly for her. I asked if I could help her somehow, but she refused. Not unkindly, but refused nonetheless.
Grampy, I know that you at some time in your life read (or saw the movie) Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Do you remember how it took several seconds for the transformation from one of his alter egos to the other? Well, I’m here to tell you that what he did in several seconds, Mina did “in the twinkling of an eye.”
From moaning, crying, and generally enduring “tragedy,” while everyone else at the table ignored her (and me) completely, she immediately took on a bright sunshiny smile, completely reaching her eyes, and handed the baby right back to me. I guess she was employing kind of a “get right back on the horse” approach.
Fortunately, I had already grabbed across the table and secured my mom’s brooch, but threw it in my purse, which still resided on the floor next to me. I had looked down at my dress in the vicinity of where the brooch had resided, to see the stain boldly sitting there mocking me. There would be nothing now to hide the brownish dried up goo stain.
Chapter 12
Truth be told, Grampy, I did not want to hold that infant again. I just wanted to eat my dinner (if I could), which now set on the table before me. When the waiter had replaced our two meals, I didn’t know, but the wafting of its aroma was making my neck glands ache. I just wanted a bite so bad. Wasn’t sure I could chew it, what with my tooth aching, but I wanted to at least try.
I loosened one hand from the baby, and reached for my fork. Before my hand and the fork could forge an alliance, Mina in no uncertain terms told me that if I wanted to hold the infant, I needed to use both hands. I wanted to scream at her that I didn’t want to hold him… I had never wanted to hold him… nor, did I know of a time in the future that I would ever want to hold him. But instead, I dropped my fork, and resumed a two-handed holding of the baby, smiling at Mina as though holding him was the fulfillment of my life’s dreams.
I scanned the table at that point. Every single person (other than myself) was engaged in dining. Mina, her mom (Medina?... I don’t think that’s right), and Marcy talked and laughed while “yum-yumming” over each bite of food. Greg, Jeremy and Greg’s father-in law (whose name had already escaped me), sat throwing super-sized portions of food into their mouths, telling long tall tales, and laughing boisterously. And me… I had become the designated evening’s “babysitter.”
Hey, let’s face it, Grampy, the evening was already ruined, so I just succumbed to enduring the role I’d been given. I rocked and talked quietly to the infant, all the while looking around the table, desperately hoping someone would soon take the child, allowing me to at least try to eat my manicotti, even if my jaw was swollen and incredibly hurtful. I probably wasn’t going to be able to eat at all, but I so wanted at least the opportunity to try.
Grampy, I’ve never taken care of a baby before, so I really truly had no idea what I was- or was not supposed to be doing to keep the baby pacified during my official stint of duty. I just rocked it back and forth, and jostled it up and down, anything I could think of to do that would keep it from that whimpering thing it was going through.
Wrong!
Whatever I was doing was totally and completely wrong! And, little Junior let me know in the most astute way possible. He turned his head toward me, looked me directly in the eye, and proceeded to puke… (Mina called it “spitting up,” but come on!) It was tantamount to the erupting of the Yellowstone National Park volcanos.
I had dripping globs of unidentifiable ooze covering a good third of my dress… my formerly beautiful Valentine’s Day Party dress. My now “unworthy of anything less than burning” Valentine’s Day Party dress. I almost tossed the baby at Mina, jumped to my feet, and instinctively shook myself like a dog, trying to shed the gooey nastiness that covered me.
Everyone’s eyes were glued to me. Each face appeared to be in some kind of suspended animation. And, apparently it was because they didn’t know how to react to my current condition. I looked down past my damp dress to my feet when I felt something wet hit them, to see a full “serving” of whatever had previously been in the infant’s stomach slide from the top of my foot, down between the toes, and settle on the inside sole of my left sandal.
Ok, Grampy, this is the one-million-dollar question. Are you ready?
How did I respond to the regurgitated baby stomach goo that was at that moment sloshing between my toes?
Yes, you’re right, Grampy! You win! I guess I’ll just have to owe you the money. I’m running a little short this week.
I began gagging. Not just a touch, but multi-repeated gagging. My fear was that if it didn’t stop quickly, it would be followed by, shall we say… “offerings of substance.”
Yanking my sandals (now both missing a blue stone each, and… one of them coated with “spit up” that I didn’t know how to remove from its surface), I unceremoniously ran from the table, not even excusing myself. Reaching the rest room, I dropped both sandals in one of the sinks, side-stepped to the toilet, and vomited what little was in me. After the substance had been expunged from my stomach, I gagged a couple more times, but nothing more than dry heaves.
I walked barefoot over to the love seat I’d sat in earlier that evening. Only this time, my grief over the evening’s disastrous theme was beyond the shedding of tears. I slumped low, hugged myself around my waist and stared. At what? I don’t know. I can’t remember. I’m not sure I was looking at anything. But, I do remember what was almost like a slow motion replay of the whole day, before Jeremy’s arrival to pick me up, and continuing until that very moment.
I wanted this date to end so desperately and would have done almost anything to coerce Jeremy into taking me home. But, I felt pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen. The evening wasn’t going to end until Jeremy said it would end.
Almost in a stupor, I rose from the love seat. By the time I’d walked the steps to the sink holding my sandals, I was unable to decide what my course of action should be. Should I wash my sandals out first, or should my foul-baby-spit-up smelling dress be the priority.
The decision made, I selected three or four paper towels, dampened them, squirted them with liquid soap from the available dispenser and began scrubbing my dress from below my breasts (deal with it, Grampy!) and ending about six inches below the waist. Although no spit up remained, the dress (dry clean only!) bore water stains (and some strange puckering in general) everywhere I had lathered and rinsed it. Taking dry paper towels, I blotted the excess water off it.
With nothing in my mind but the absurdity of my extreme carefulness in trying to dry the bodice (did I think that would restore it to its former pristine condition?), I broke out into a fit of laughter. It must have, after several minutes, turned into a maniacal squeal, because a little g
irl of perhaps eight years opened the door, took one look at me, used her hands to cover her ears, and ran back out, all the while yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” Already in an emotionally unreliable state, her reaction tickled me further, which, of course, made me laugh even harder. I was shaking so violently from my cackling, that I had to go sit again in the love seat, returning to the self-hugging posture, only this time I began weaving to and fro.
Chapter 13
When I finally returned to the table, all eyes widened and jaws dropped. For the first time, I was seeing myself in their eyes.
Starting from the bottom, and working up…
My feet were bare, damp and the hurt toe had apparently gotten wet again in the bathroom, because it was bleeding, not voluminous amounts, more of a light glaze over its surface.
My sandals were buckled together and I carried them like a purse, over one arm.
My dress was obviously wet and water-spotted in an area that boasted an area of one foot square. The only wavering from that area was a large circle around my left bosom, where I’d also had to wash “baby puke” from its surface.
Above the bosom saturation was the brown smudge that had first been hidden beneath my mom’s brooch (the one you gave Grandma on that anniversary a number of years back), but now stood brazenly uncovered and questionable looking.
Somehow while I’d been hanging over the sink washing out my sandals, a long, thick loose strand of my hair had escaped and the right side fell into the sink. It swam around several inches deep in the sink water, and now was straight and damp. I’d hooked the thick strand behind my ear, but it kept slipping out of position and hanging limply and damply on my cheek. After re-positioning it several times, I gave up and just let it go where it went.
And the piece de resistance…
After all these hours since the mint-vs-tooth fight, the winner was declared: The mint. The whole side of my face was swollen to the extent that I appeared to have a walloping case of the mumps. (Wasn’t that a contagious disease eradicated back in the fifties, I think?)
• • • •
Correct me if I’m wrong here, Grampy. But, wouldn’t you have thought Jeremy would admit defeat by now, if not his… mine?! Should he not have seen that in the contest between Manicotti Kisses events versus me… I had lost and simply needed someone to take me elsewhere so that I could lick my wounds?! Wasn’t it time to thank everyone for a most eventful and unforgettable evening, and simply go home?!
And yet… two more assaults waited. Would the horror never end?!
Grampy, of this whole story, this is the part you truly are not, nor ever will believe!
• • • •
Because not one sound came from a single person’s mouth when I returned to the table, the lull seemed almost “the quiet before the storm.” Everyone felt uneasy, and unsure of what should happen next.
So, Jeremy, not being one to allow a wasted opportunity, slowly walked to me, and escorted me the rest of the way back to the table. Not to my assigned seat, just to the table’s end where no one was seated.
Dropping my arm, he faced me dead on, and turned me slightly so that I faced him.
Slowly and with deliberation he slid down onto one knee. No! He is not…!
Looking up to me, and through his heavily teared eyes, he opened his lips to speak.
“Jeremy, what you doing?” I whispered to him. I would have looked around to the others , but I was too embarrassed by the circumstances and my appearance.
Opening a small red box he pulled from his jacket pocket, he smiled up at me. I refused to look at its contents, but kept my pleading eyes on him. Jeremy, no! Please no! Not now! Not this way! Please, Jeremy! Please!
I held my breath, hoping above hope that he’d stop. I don’t think there was any way he could do it without embarrassing himself… and me, I guess.
I continued holding my breath as the next words left his mouth.
“I didn’t get a chance to ask your dad for your hand, but I promise I’ll ask him as soon as they get back from this weekend. I know he’ll say yes, so all that’s needed is to ask you…” What?! You never asked my sweet Daddy for my hand?! You never bothered to get his blessing?! No! No! No! No! No!
“Marissa, will you marry me?”
I think these will cover what I was feeling (in random order)… Anger, confusion, dismay, sadness, horror, with a side of… “What???!!!”
My answer, Grampy?
“Jeremy, Marissa is your ex-girlfriend. My name is Kelsey.”
A Word About Chili Dog Hugs
Kelsey was proposed to in a nightmare event that was doomed from before the evening started. The events that premiered in the morning, which were something of a pre-cursor to the horrific “rest of the story,” just kept negatively unfolding as the day progressed, and didn’t stop until the very words of Jeremy’s proposal were spoken, in front of a whole table of people Kelsey didn’t even know.
How she handled his proposal, and subsequently what she chose to share with her Grampy post-marriage proposal, is even more amazing than the proposal itself. Especially when Kelsey reflects on all the yellow- and even red flags she saw during the time Jeremy and she were dating.
Ultimately Kelsey asks her late Grampy (more of a moaning of the spirit than an actual question) what she should do next. Should she forgive and forget and move forward in her relationship with Jeremy? Should she forgive and forget, but realize that she and Jeremy can never marry? Or, should she take Grampy’s advice (as difficult as it would be)? After all, he may be gone, but his writings about he and Grandma, and decisions he made with regard to their relationship, were possibly still relevant today. Or were they?!
ANTICIPATED RELEASE: FALL 2018
If You Enjoyed This…
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About the Author
Sheila and her husband Daniel have lived the last thirty-plus years in their dream home, the one they built together in two acres of woods in North Carolina. Tall, tall trees that stretch up five or more stories to the sky surround their home. Wildlife is all around them, and they revel in it.
Their daughter, DanniLaii, and her husband, Carl, live only five miles away, so they get to have wonderful times together, and on a pretty regular basis. Sheila and her daughter are practically joined at the hip, and spend inordinate amounts of time lunching, shopping, and laughing together.
Originally a public high school teacher, Sheila gave herself an "early retirement" and now is engaged with writing contemporary Christian fiction and creating Christmas romance plans for husbands and wives, in addition to designing marriage certificates and marriage vow renewal certificates.
Trying to expand her culinary skills, Sheila weekly pulls one or two recipes from online and is surprising herself, her husband, and her family with countless new and exciting dishes. She has chosen to obliterate from her mind altogether those dishes that bombed. Rather like a coping mechanism.
Sheila always has two or three books in progress at any given time, so her hope is that her readers will enjoy her "long, tall tales" so much that they'll return over and over to keep grabbing another one.
To read more about this author and her writings, and participate in any of the upcoming offers, visit her at www.sheilaholmes.com.
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Manicotti Kisses Page 6
