by Various
“Let me get that door,” she said. With a familiar glint in her eye, she slipped from the bed. Just as his poor stomach muscles started to relax, Josie closed the bedroom door and they heard a loud thunk.
“What the hell was that?” Rob asked. He slid off the bed with the moderated panic of knowing it was either something or nothing.
When she swung the door back open, there stood Froggy with his small hand cradling his forehead. Their child possessed the uncanny ability to succumb to injury with only a stunned sense of wonder about it. He never cried in the face of physical pain.
Stunned, Josie gazed down at him, frozen in place. She must have pushed the door closed just as the poor little guy came around the corner to run into their bedroom.
With his three-year-old inability to pronounce his th, r, and t sounds, Froggy’s manner of expressing that the door had hit him in the head sounded something like, “Da doy hip me in da head,” but his meaning was obvious. His insistence on describing the event was for informational purposes only. Froggy informed. He did not complain.
“Angelfish, are you all right?” Josie cried, falling to her knees before him. “Mommy’s sorry. She didn’t see you there.”
Scooping the boy into his arms, Rob struggled to keep his tone jocular. “We’re going to have to put a bell on you, kiddo! Mommy and Daddy didn’t hear you coming.”
Though, on reflection, it made perfect sense that Froggy would seek them out when they were causing such a ruckus. He always had to know what people were laughing about, because he always worried they were laughing about him.
“Mommy is so, so sorry, sweety,” she repeated, kissing the little hand still propped against his forehead. “How about mommy gets us all bundled up and we go outside and make a snowman? How about that?”
Froggy reflected for a moment, removing his hand from his head to tap his finger against his lips. He had the look of a little professor as he replied, “Not snow man. Make a snow gigakiki!”
“Oh, a gigakiki,” Josie replied with a big nod.
When she shot Rob an amused glance, he set their son down and said, “I guess you’d better tell Mom what a gigakiki is. I don’t think she’s ever heard of it before.”
Josie pulled on a pair of fleece pants as Froggy explained, “A gigakiki is a big-big-big cat as big as the whole house.”
“Wow,” she chuckled, crawling into a long-sleeved top and sweater. “Sounds like it’s going to take a lot of snow to make one of those.”
“Yep,” Froggy replied. “A lot a lot.”
Scooping him up and carrying him over her shoulder like a bundle of firewood, she said, “Okay, let’s get your snowsuit on, young one.”
“Enjoy your play time,” Rob said, kissing her temple as she passed him by. “While you’re out there, you can start thinking if there’s anything special you want for Christmas dinner. I’d rather pick it up before the store get too-too packed.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Spinning on a dime, Josie nearly whacked Froggy’s head against the doorframe. She stepped away just in time, but it was a noticeable near miss. “Jeez,” she hissed, turning to look at Froggy, whose face was quite close to hers. “Sorry, my little one. Mommy’s got to take it easy, doesn’t she?”
“Mommy’s got to take it easy,” he repeated with a nod.
“Tell me what?” Rob asked.
“What?”
“What were you going to tell me about dinner?”
“Oh,” she replied, setting Froggy down. “Go find your hat and mitts, okay?”
He didn’t budge, of course, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Just that my sister invited us for Christmas dinner.”
With some trepidation, Rob inquired, “Which sister?”
“Oh. Adrianna.”
Froggy cheered, “Yes!” and turned side to side, punching the air in all directions. This was his happy dance. “I get to play with cousin Ben! I get to play with cousin Ben!”
Rob considered how much he looked forward to preparing Christmas dinner, leading up to the big day. Then he always resented the task when everybody else was spreading good cheer and he was stuck in the kitchen. “Actually, that sounds not half bad. Adrianna’s a great cook. Sweet of her to invite us.”
Her brown eyes sparkled with hints of gold as she shot him a grateful smile. “You go get some work done, cutie. We’ll get out of your hair for a while.”
Picking Froggy up again, she zoomed him like a rocket ship down the stairs and into the front hall, where her jacket and his snowsuit awaited them.
Chapter Two
“When are we going to Auntie’s?” Froggy asked, fidgeting endlessly as Josie pushed his little foot into the snowsuit.
“On Christmas,” she replied, kissing his button nose. “Are you excited? I’m excited.”
“I’m excited,” he repeated.
When she’d finished bundling him head to toe, she slipped on her jacket and opened the door to the Winter Wonderland that was their front yard. During the summer months, it was all burnt patches on the lawn, dandelions and crabgrass. Endless worry about which varieties of flora would survive in the shade of the maple tree. In the winter, Nature took care of all of that. She covered the lawn with a blanket of cashmere snow and there was nothing to worry about. It was lovely.
“Mommy,” Froggy said in a scolding sort of voice. “Where do you think you’re going with no hat?”
She tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it. His concern was adorable. Running her fingers through her mess of kinky curls, she replied, “Mommy’s hair is too sticky-up-y for a hat. How about she just wears ear warmers instead?”
“And mittens,” he insisted.
“And mittens,” she agreed. Of course, she couldn’t find a matching pair in the big box of winter gear. She settled on one bright pink ski glove and one black woolen mitten with a sprig of holly embroidered on the back.
When they’d found the perfect spot for a gigakiki and started to build it tail-first, Froggy asked, “How many days until Christmas?”
Josie counted them off on the fingers of her gloved hand, since she couldn’t see the ones inside her mitten. “Christmas Eve is tomorrow, and the next day is Christmas. How many days is that?”
They counted her fingers together. “One, two.”
Froggy shook with excitement. When he danced around the base of the gigakiki, shouting, “Two more days ‘til Christmas. Two more days ‘til Christmas,” Josie could feel his enthusiasm running through her body. With that reminiscence of childlike joy, she fell into the snow and flailed her arms and legs in the cool whiteness.
“Snow angels!” Froggy cried, running to join her. When they rose to examine their creations, he said, “It’s a mommy angel and a Froggy angel.”
“Yes it is,” she replied, casting her gaze over at the sidewalk as the neighbours from four doors down trudged by with their Saint Bernard. She nodded, but they didn’t say hello. They never did. If their household planned to enrage dog walkers with a giant snow cat, the least she could do was to clear a better path. “How about your mommy angel shovels some snow while you finish the gigakiki?”
He stared up at her for a moment, his lower lip hanging open a tad. Any other child would whine and complain. Froggy simply said, “Okay,” and picked up more snow to add to his giant cat.
Relieved by his cool reaction, Josie went into the garage to fetch a shovel. Is it strange, she asked herself as she cleared a path across sidewalk, that Kaz wants to stay for Christmas?
After all, it wasn’t like they were close buddies or anything. He was on her instant messenger list, along with about thirty other people. They only really scratched the surface any time they chatted online, and she only started chatting with him in the first place because her workday became insufferable around three in the afternoon. He always seemed to be online.
She froze in the middle of the sidewalk as another thought occurred to her: Does Rob think we’re having an affair?
<
br /> Josie looked at the individual pieces: old boyfriend, increased contact, a holiday invitation out of the blue, not to mention all the overtime she’d been putting in at work lately. If Rob was looking to mistrust her, the pieces certainly added up to adultery. Like I would ever! Kaz was a cute boy, but he never did make her bra boil over and her panties melt into a pool of passion. She didn’t even have sex with him when they were together. She was hardly going to start now.
“Mommy angel,” a familiar little voice called out from beside an ever-increasing snow cat.
“Yes, Froggy angel?”
Placing his hands on the hips of his snowsuit, he scolded, “You stopped working.”
She found it amusing how children committed to a task and expected the very same of the adults in their care.
“I’m sorry, little one,” she replied, trying very hard not to chuckle at his adorableness. When she got back to work, so did he.
But what was Kaz thinking, accepting an invitation only really offered out of a sense of pitying politeness. He seemed lonely. Not seemed. He said as much: he was lonely. Working and living alone as he did, he didn’t get much human interaction into his daily diet. That was a shame, because Kaz had some very interesting things to say whenever anybody gave him the opportunity. Unfortunately, he always seemed to draw in people with big mouths. She’d been one of those people when they first met. She only gave him a chance to speak in the first place because they were paired up in science lab and she thought—very misguidedly, as it turned out—she wasn’t any good with maths and sciences.
In fact, though their relationship hadn’t been hot and heavy, it was a turning point in Josie’s life. Kaz brought out her inner girl-geek, and helped her embrace a love of numbers that most young women repressed in want of fitting in. She was beyond indebted to him for that. It was Kaz who set her on the path to a thriving career in statistical analysis. Without the proceeds from that career, there was no way Rob would be able to stay home with Froggy and work at his first love. Her husband was a very talented artist and an expert illustrator, but his career didn’t exactly bring in the big bucks.
As she scraped at the impertinent ice beneath the snow, a long-lost voice behind her said, “Josie? Is that you?”
“Oh my god!” she cried, nearly jumping out of her snow boots as she turned to see who’d come up behind her. “Kaz! God, you scared me half to death.”
She could have sworn he used to have an accent, but he didn’t anymore. And he looked so… cool! There was no other word to describe his indie rock hairstyle and his weathered jeans and old cord jacket.
Wrapping her arms around the guy who looked nothing like he did in her memory, Josie rambled, “Don’t you dare team up with my son! You’re both quiet as Church mice; you’d drive us nuts.”
“Josie,” he repeated as she released him from her gentle hug. Glancing down at her mismatched mittens, he said, “You look better than ever.”
She bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling too widely. “Shut up,” she giggled, pushing him away like high school girl. “No I don’t.”
Josie couldn’t get over how great he looked. He’d been such a nerd in school. Now he was the kind of guy she’d definitely go up to in a club… if she weren’t happily married, of course.
“That’s weird,” he said, brushing snow out of her hair.
“Oh, we were making snow angels.”
“No, I mean our hair colour,” he replied, lifting the strap of his backpack.
“Oh yeah. We used to both have black hair, now we both have orangey highlights. But I guess that’s the style, right?”
“Right,” he said with a bashful smile. “You always were the practical one.”
“Hardly,” she chuckled as Froggy approached. He circled once around Josie’s legs before she stopped him by setting her hand on his head. “I’d like you to meet a little someone. This is my son Ewan.”
“No, tell him Froggy,” he said in a loud whisper.
As Kaz sank to his knees, she relented, “I’m sorry. We named him Ewan, but he prefers to be called Froggy.”
Once he was at eye level with the boy, Kaz said, “It’s great to meet you, Froggy. My parents named me Kazuhiro, but I like it better when people call me Kaz. That means you and I have something in common, and that means we can be friends.”
Froggy smiled, but looked quickly up at Josie for confirmation. She and Rob were vigilant about the don’t talk to strangers rule. Smiling back at her son, she confirmed, “My friend Kaz is going to stay with us over Christmas. Now, I’m just going to run into the house for a sec. Why don’t you show our guest the gigakiki?”
As she skirted past Kaz, she noticed the wheeled suitcase he’d been dragging behind him. “Oh, let me take that into the house for you.”
“That’s okay, Jos,” he replied. Just like Rob, he called her Jos.
She gulped hard, snatching the handle away from him. “Don’t be silly. I’m going into the house. I insist.”
With a gushing smile, he agreed.
Pulling his suitcase up the driveway, Josie perched her shovel against the garage door, and carried the big bag into the house. The second she’d closed the door, she dropped it and ran to the front window. “Rob,” she called out in the loudest whisper she could muster. She didn’t want to risk Kaz hearing, even from outside. “Rob, come here for a sec.”
Rob came in from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “What’s up?”
“He’s here,” she said, pointing out the window to the hot guy helping Froggy build a bigger, better, and more realistic gigakiki. “Kaz is here already.”
“That’s Kaz? I thought you said he was a lonely nerd.”
“Well, he was,” she said. The look on her husband’s face said he obviously didn’t believe her. “He was. God, if he looked like that back in the day, do you think I would have dumped him? Anyway,” she went on without letting Rob get a word in. “What he looks like isn’t the point. The point is that he’s here. Now. I wasn’t expecting him until tomorrow afternoon.”
“You mean he showed up early? That was pretty rude of the dude.” Rob twisted the tea towel and slapped it against his hand like a riding crop. Putting on an accent, he joked, “Ve have vays of dealing viss his sort.”
Josie couldn’t help laughing as her husband pranced about the family room like a German dominatrix. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Zat is vy you love me.”
Though she turned her attention out to the front yard, she could still see Rob wielding his dishtowel-whip in the reflection of the bay window. It was getting dark outside.
“You totally distracted me,” she said, trying to shake the image out of her head. “I think I told Kaz to come anytime, and he was welcome to help us decorate the tree tomorrow. I worded it like that.”
“Open to interpretation,” Rob stated. When he snapped his whip again, it hit their framed Waterhouse print, knocking it off-kilter. He looked at her with the sheepish expression even Froggy had outgrown. Chuckling nervously, he set the picture frame straight, and then took his tea towel back to the kitchen. “Time to put this thing away, I guess.”
As she opened the front door to call Kaz and Froggy inside, Rob hissed, “Oh Shit!”
She ran to the kitchen only to find him staring with despair into a big pot on the stove.
“I forgot I was making hot chocolate. The real kind, with cocoa and milk.”
“Oh,” Josie replied, one eye on the door as her son led her old boyfriend in from the cold. “I’m sure it’ll be fine if you give it a stir.”
A panicked surge raced through her as she realized Kaz and Rob would soon be in the same room together. The image of her husband and her high school sweetheart duking it out in a sumo ring flashed before her eyes, and she gasped for air. I really haven’t thought this out, have I?
“It might be salvageable,” Rob called from the kitchen.
“Good. Great,” she replied absently.
“Honey,” she said, bolting upright with Froggy’s boots in hand.
They both turned. With the male gaze resting squarely on Josie, she suddenly felt like her clubhouse was full of boys.
“Rob, this is Kaz,” she introduced, though they probably would have figured out who was who. “Kaz, Rob.”
