by M. E. Carter
“Well, she’s sweet. You do a great job with her.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t have plans already today. Surely you’re not the only single dad you know.”
Christopher runs by us, yelling, this time with Max hot on his heels. I have no idea what they’re running to or from, but I know the backyard is Christopher-proofed, so I don’t pay much attention.
“Yeah, well, it seems my ex got custody of all our friends in the divorce so I had nothing better to do. Plus, I enjoy hanging out with you guys. I was glad for the text.” I watch for any sign that he’s upset by not being with his old friends today, but there’s nothing except a hint of playfulness to his tone. It makes sense though. Do I really miss any of the people James used to make us hang out with? Not at all. They were all a bunch of self-absorbed jerks. I guess I was so used to dealing with James all the time I didn’t notice.
All of the sudden, it hits me how late I am. I’m supposed to be playing co-hostess. “Oh, shit! I’m sorry. Do you want a drink?” I offer. “I didn’t even think to ask you. Callie’s going to kill me.”
He laughs. “It’s ok. Actually, I could go for a drink. Do you know what she has?”
“I’m guessing there’s a variety of juice boxes in the cooler. Let me figure out where she set everything up.” I look around trying to find any sign of beverages, or even our hostess. “I need to see what Callie needs me to do.”
“How about this… you go check in with her and I’ll find you after I figure out where the juice is and offer it to the guests. Deal?”
My shoulders relax as he jumps in to help. “Deal.”
He turns to walk away and I bite my lip, trying not to smile so big that I split my face in half. I’m trying really hard not to believe that Callie’s assessment is true and that Greg is interested in me. He’s perfect; I know it would be a total let down if it ended up that we were misinterpreting the whole thing.
Once again, I push my attraction to him aside for my reality. We’re friends and that’s fantastic. He’s a great guy. A perfect, beautiful, Adonis of a guy….
“Callie!” After walking around the yard for several minutes, I finally find her. “I’m sorry we’re late. Stupid Dr. Wassman was running behind… Ooh! You got hot dogs!”
“Of course I did,” she snaps, fighting with the bag to get it open. Apparently, the “easy-open” package isn’t as easy as she thought. She looks frustrated, so I take the bag from her. Mostly, it’s to make sure my lunch doesn’t get splattered all over the grass, but I pretend it’s to be helpful.
“Why are you standing by the grill anyway?” I ask, as I easily pull the tabs apart. “Where’s Ben?”
She huffs and blows her bangs out of her face. “He’s supposed to be manning the grill, but it ran out of propane because he didn’t check it yesterday when I told him to.” She waves her hands around, clearly upset by his inability to plan ahead.
I look down longingly at the hot dogs in my hand. “How long until he gets back?”
“Oh, he’s back already. Just finished installing it.” She tries to turn the grill on and take a step back. I’ve seen this before in a movie or something. That sucker is about to blow her hair back if she’s not careful.
“Have you ever turned on a grill before?”
“No. But I use the stove all the time.”
“Um….”
“I got you apple juice, I hope that’s ok.” Greg pops up out of nowhere and I’ve never been so grateful.
“Thank god you’re here. Do you know how to turn on a grill?” I quickly point in Callie’s direction.
He looks confused until he sees her struggling and shoves his own juice box at me to hold as he jumps in to pro-actively rescue her. “Oh shit, Callie, let me get that.”
She backs off and I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank goodness he got here in time. I spent way too much time on this make-up job to have soot blown all over it.
“Thanks, Greg. Ben will be back in a second. He went to put the empty propane tank in the garage, we’re running behind with lunch now,” she sighs. “The kids are about to get restless.”
We all look up to see Christopher hanging on for dear life as he sits on top of his new tackle dummy, Max and friends running into it making it move.
“Too late,” I remark.
“Fucking hell,” she grumbles and stalks away. “Christopher! Get down from there! I don’t want to get you stitches for your birthday!” Turning around quickly, she addresses me. “Elena, can you grab the plates off the counter and condiments and stuff while I deal with my devil child?”
“Here. Now listen up…” I thrust the hot dogs at Greg and give him strict instructions. “I like mine medium rare. Make sure there are two of them. They’re my favorite.”
“Really?” He cocks his eyebrow at me.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Pervy. It’s a favorite American meal that I don’t indulge in often. The only thing I’m thinking of right now is getting that sucker in my belly.”
“Of course it is.” He smirks which makes me blush, which makes him smirk more, and it’s a whole big mess of smirking and blushing. I’m really confused by the time I get to the kitchen to start collecting supplies. But maybe it’s a good kind of confusion. It’s been a long time since I’ve had butterflies in my stomach. I forgot how nice they can feel.
The door swings open as I stack containers of condiments on a tray, and an exasperated Callie walks in. “Thank god you’re here,” she rants as she slams the door. “Did you see who came? My mother-in-law. My mother-in-law, Elena. The most passive aggressive person I’ve ever met and the sole reason for my husband’s inability to take a shit without texting me about where the toilet paper is.”
I giggle, grabbing a bunch of plastic forks and putting them in a red Solo cup. Later, I’ll lift it up and we’ll have a party.
No, we won’t. But now I’ll be humming that tune all day.
“She’s not that bad.”
“She is that bad.” Callie rips open a bag of chips and shoves a couple in her mouth. Wild eyed and hair disheveled, all she needs is a little bit of smeared black eye make-up and she’d look like a rabid animal. “When the propane tank went out ten minutes before people were supposed to get here, you know what she said?”
I shake my head and open packages of birthday napkins, arranging them on the tray to carry outside.
“She said, ‘Oh it’s ok, Benny. Things happen. You go on to the store and I’ll help Callie finish.’ Then the second he took off, she parked her ass in that lounger and hasn’t moved. Well, except when she needs a refill and demands I bring her a new martini.”
“There are martinis?” I exclaim. Nothing goes better with hot dogs than a dirty martini, extra olives.
“No. We ran out. Now I’m giving her diluted olive juice.”
“You are not,” I say with a laugh.
“Oh, yes I am. If she wants more vodka, she can take her happy ass to the store herself.” She takes a deep breath, having ranted enough to finally be able to relax, and plops down on a stool. “What happened at the doctor anyway? Is everything ok?”
“It was my yearly check up. He wanted to do blood work and of course they were running late. I’m really sorry, Callie. If I had known you were scrambling, I would have rescheduled.”
She waves me off and takes a sip of a random juice box sitting on the table. No wonder she never gets sick. Her immune system is constantly getting a work out. “Nah. It was fine. Thankfully Greg was the first one here, and he helped me get the piñata all set up. I couldn’t get the damn rope over the tree branch. I needed his height.”
Once again, I can’t help but feel a twinge of jealous at their obvious friendship. Not that we’re not friends, too. But Callie is the one people gravitate towards. This time, I wish our new friend gravitated towards me.
She narrows her eyes. “I knew it.”
I look around, trying to figure out what she knows. �
�What?”
“You have a thing for Greg.”
“I do not!” I say a little too quick and a little too loud. That’s always proof I’m lying. Callie knows that, and now she knows about my secret crush that is not so secret, I’ve been keeping it from myself until now, and none of this even makes sense anymore. Shit.
She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back. “You are a rotten, filthy liar. You have a crush on the man and don’t you deny it.”
“I’m not denying anything because we’re not having this conversation.” I stand up and grab the tray of supplies off the counter. “Today is about your son’s birthday, not about your delusions.”
She snorts and slowly peels herself off the chair, opening the door for me. “Whatever you say, but this conversation isn’t done.”
I swish past her, my knee-length flowy skirt flouncing around me. I make it two steps before I stop. “What the….”
Callie bumps into me from behind. “Hey… what… oh no. Oh no! Christopher, stop!”
He doesn’t even notice as he tears through all his presents, tossing all the cards and wrapping paper aside as he opens them all.
“Ben! Ben, where are you? Are you even paying attention…?” She stalks over to her husband, clearly irritated that he didn’t stop his son from digging into the gifts before Callie had her camera ready to go or could figure out who brought what gift. In all honestly, I have to side with Ben this time. There’s no way to keep Christopher contained. All it took was one brightly colored package to catch his eye and it was over.
“Heads up.” Greg sidles up next to me. “We have an injury.”
Sure enough, Max is snuggled up in his arms, sniffling. A sudden wave of grief hits me. Not because I miss James. I really don’t. It’s more because of the life I had planned for and didn’t get. It’s the loss of the dreams I had. In an ideal world, Max would be snuggling with her father, not my crush.
But I’m grateful for Greg. He has a knack for recognizing when a child needs a man’s influence, and he’s willing to jump in and be that for them. It takes the sting out of a situation that could make me turn bitter. I really appreciate that about him.
Taking Max from him, she wraps her little arms around my neck. “What happened, sweet girl?”
“Cwistopher hit me,” she sniffles.
“Oh no.” I gently rub her back. “That wasn’t very nice. Why did he hit you?”
She sits up in my arms and gives me a serious look. “Cause he said I can’t have a pwesent. I wanna pwesent, Mommy.”
“Baby, those are Christopher’s presents for his birthday. You already had your birthday, remember?” She nods, her big eyes still looking tearful. “Christopher didn’t get any presents on your birthday. Today is his turn.”
She nods again and lays her head on my shoulder for a few more minutes. Greg, of course, starts unloading all the supplies onto the table next to the burned hot dogs, not a medium rare in the bunch. Dammit. I knew that would happen as soon as Ben took back over the grill.
“Okay,” I finally say and put Max down on the ground. “Why don’t you go play for a minute while I make your lunch, ok?”
Max takes off running, not looking back. Well that moment of trauma ended quickly.
“Amazing how fast they recover, isn’t it?” Greg’s pulling the plastic seals off the top of all the condiments. Every time he licks his thumb, I can’t help but have a dirty thought about other things he can lick.
Focus, Elena.
“It must be nice to be a child, when all your problems are made better by a hug from your mom or dad.”
“Very true. By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you. That’s a nice drum set you got Christopher. Callie’s never going to forgive you for that one.”
I grimace. “I’m hoping our card got lost in the mayhem and she won’t know it was me.”
“Oh no,” he chuckles. “She saw you walk in with the biggest box. Unless you can put it together and dispose of the cardboard before she sees it, you’re screwed.”
“Eh. I’m not that worried.” Glancing up at him, I put on my best conspirator face. “Last year she got Maura a bead set for Christmas. Beads. I’m still vacuuming those things up every day. It’s like they multiply. She totally deserves this.”
“Mama, I’m hungry.” Speaking of the devil, Maura tugs on my skirt.
I take that as my cue that it’s time for these kids to eat. Callie has her hands full, so I make the executive decision to get this party started.
“Ok, baby, let’s get you a hot dog.”
Within seconds, a pack of hungry children comes racing at us. Greg and I handle it like champs, while all the other parents sit around and drink. Seriously, do none of these kids have allergies that need to be addressed? We feed all the little beasts before they starve to death. Or at least this is how dire they want us to believe the situation is.
Callie eventually stalks back over, dragging a black garbage bag full of wrapping paper behind her. “Welp, I guess present time is over. You guys fed everyone?”
“Yeah.” Suddenly Greg looks really unsure of himself. “Um… that’s ok, right?”
“I don’t even care anymore,” she discloses. “From the time that propane tank ran out, it was all downhill from there. Thank goodness we still have the piñata…” We all look over to see that Christopher has yanked the piñata off the tree and is beating it with a baseball bat. Callie sighs. “There goes that idea.” She drops the bag of trash on the ground and turns towards the house. “I’m grabbing the cake. Maybe that one thing will turn out right.”
I turn back to Greg. “Sometimes I feel bad for her. She tries really hard.”
“Yeah,” he says like he’s distracted. He’s looking at me and he’s got that weird look on his face again. It finally bugs me enough, I have to ask.
“What? Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“What?” He startles, like I snapped him out of a daydream or something. “I’m sorry, I just… you have really pretty eyes.”
“Oh… I… Um….” I stumble over my words. That’s not at all what I was expecting. “I, uh, had a makeover the other day. The lady, Kristi, she taught me how to play up my eyes. I’m sure that’s what you’re seeing.”
“No, that’s not it. I didn’t even realize you had a makeover.” I swear my heart kicks up a notch when he says that. “I noticed your eyes before. I think the outside light makes them brighter. They’re beautiful.”
My breath catches. Are we having a moment? I’m not sure what to do or what to say. Thankfully, Callie chooses that moment to set the square red cake down on the table next to us.
“So far so good,” she grumbles and then yells, “Christopher! Let’s have cake!”
He comes running as my mind continues to reel over the exchange.
Maybe Callie’s right, I think as we all sing “Happy Birthday”. Maybe Greg gravitates to her as a friend and to me as… more than a friend. Is that possible?
As the song winds down, and it’s time to blow out the candles, I refocus on the situation at hand. Participating in this party until Callie and I are alone to over-analyze the entire situation over a bottle of wine. First… I’ll have dessert.
I look up just in time for Christopher to take a deep breath…
And sneeze all over the cake.
The gym smells like sweat and feet and chalk and air freshener. And it brings back wonderful memories of my childhood.
I spent ages ten through seventeen in this same gym, either on a mat or a bar or a beam or a springboard, for at least ten hours a week. Because being a competitive gymnast is practically a job in itself, even when your bedtime is eight o’clock.
The equipment is all updated, but the set-up is exactly the same, and part of me longs for the good old days. And the tiny little body I had back then.
I have no idea how my mother kept up with my gymnastics schedule, particularly when I was in high school and didn’t only compete for the cl
ub, but also for the school team. That added extra hours of practice, which meant extra drivetime, to our schedule.
Fortunately for me, Fiona has never taken a class before. One hour a week shouldn’t kill me on mileage. I’m saving that free oil change I earned at Quickie Oil when I completed the punch card last month for when I really need it.
Fiona grips my hand a little tighter as we approach the front desk. She’s just like me in some ways. We talk big, but in a new situation, we can get really shy.
“Hi, my daughter Fiona is here for the beginner’s class.”
The woman behind the desk grabs her binder and begins flipping through it. She’s petite with a short dark bob and wide smile. “Is this your first time, Fiona?”
My girl nods and tries to hide behind me, one lopsided pigtail peeking out.
“Well, you’re going to have lots of fun today.” She gives her a wink and Fiona looks up at me, her eyes filled with excitement. My mother was right. I should have done this a long time ago.
“Ok, let’s see… Fiona, Fiona, Fiona Monroe, right? Looks like you are going to be with Coach Zach.” She stands up and leans over the desk to point across the gym. “You see all those cubbyholes over there? Take your shoes off and put them in one like all the other kids are doing. The coaches will call for your class in just a couple of minutes. Sound good?”
“Sounds really good, right?” I exaggerate my own excitement, hoping to help stave off some of Fi’s nervousness. She bites her lip, but she nods. I take that as a good sign.
We wind our way through the maze of hyper children in bright leotards, most of them bouncing, plenty of them cartwheeling, and a few of them doing the splits in the middle of the waiting room. Poor kids. They can see the trampolines, rings, and foam pits… it’s all right in front of their wide little eyes… and no one will open the gate to let them in and run free. I get it. I feel that way right before they open the doors at Target during Black Friday every year.
“I’m scared, Mom,” Fiona whispers. “I don’t know anyone.”
I sit down on a bench by the wall and grab her hands so she’ll look at me. “I know. But you’re about to make a bunch of friends who all love gymnastics like you do. Just follow what the other kids do first when you get in there. You’re gonna warm up before you learn any new tricks anyway, ok?”
