The Mommy Quest

by Lori Handeland

  Oh, yeah, for the peace and quiet.

  Her doorbell chose that minute to ring and Stella rubbed her eyes.

  So far that was working out real well.

  STELLA CONSIDERED IGNORING the doorbell, half afraid she’d find Dean on her stoop, and she didn’t want to talk to him.

  But the bell rang again, and she heard a woman’s voice shouting her name. Stella opened the door and Linda and Laura spilled into the room.

  “We come bringing food and wine,” Linda said, holding both aloft.

  “Housewarming!” Laura announced, and shut the door behind her.

  “But I’m not—”

  Stella stopped just short of saying she wasn’t staying. They knew that. They were being friendly, and the gesture was so unexpected, so welcome, her eyes got misty.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” Linda asked. “Is this a bad time?”

  “No.” Stella swiped at her eyes. “I was just—”

  “What?” Laura asked, taking the wine from Linda and making short work of the cork.

  She glanced back and forth between the two women. “Lonely.”

  Laura came back with a glass for each of them and held hers aloft in a toast. “Not anymore.”

  They ate cheese and crackers, some popcorn, then opened another bottle of wine. Though Laura had been married since high school and had older children, Linda was divorced, with a younger one, and Stella had never been married and had no child at all, as sometimes happens with women, they fit.

  By the time Linda and Laura left, the three women had the basis of a solid friendship. Stella didn’t feel lonely anymore. She could easily imagine herself calling them on the phone, or communicating with them via e-mail once she returned to L.A. If she ever did.

  It had been so long since she’d made new friends, since she’d made good friends, Stella drifted around her apartment, tidying up, and did a little twirly dance.

  She was starting to like it here.

  TIM STAYED AWAKE UNTIL his dad came to pick him up at the big house. He wanted to know if he had a new mommy or if he needed to keep lookin’.

  “How was the date, son?” Grampa John asked.

  “Women,” Dean muttered. “They make no sense.”

  Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.

  Tim got out of bed and crept to the open window so he could hear Grampa and Dad better as they sat on the porch.

  “I don’t think women are required to make sense,” Grampa said.

  “They should be.”

  “And who’s gonna make ’em?”

  His dad sighed. “Good point.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “What didn’t?”

  “Mmm,” Grampa murmured. “No second date?”

  “No way. She can’t wait to get out of Gainsville.”

  Tim frowned. Why would anyone want to leave?

  “That’s a problem you’re gonna have. Lifers are already married. Transplants don’t stay.”

  “Why?”

  “Got me,” Grampa said. “What’s not to love?”

  “I need to talk to Tim.”

  Tim ducked below the windowsill.

  “I gave the kid the pig. Talk about it to me.”

  “Huh? Oh! Not about that. If Mom didn’t have a stroke about it, I guess I can’t.”

  “I wonder how Tim got it into his head that he wanted a pet pig.”

  “Probably my fault. I said pigs were my favorite animals. I meant for lunch.”

  Tim winced. He knew pigs became pork and cows beef and sheeps mutton, but he didn’t like to think about it. If he did, he’d never eat again. Besides, if he was going to be a farmer, when he was done quarterbacking in the NFL, he had to get over his attachment to a food group.

  “If you don’t want to talk about Wilbur, then what do you want to talk to him about?” Grampa asked.

  Tim leaned forward. If he knew ahead of time what he was in trouble for, he might be able to work out an excuse.

  “I can’t have the kid walking up to every woman in Gainsville and asking them if they want to be his mommy.”

  Grampa chuckled. “That’s how he got you to be his daddy.”

  “Which was fine. But I don’t want to go on a dating spree. I’m just not good at it.”

  “The kid needs a mother, Dean.”

  “Why? He’s got me, and Mom and you, and Kim and Brian and Zsa-Zsa. What’s the problem?”

  “Maybe you should ask him?”

  “I thought I was doing a good job.”

  “You are.”

  “I thought I’d be enough for him.”

  “He’s a little boy. Nothing’s ever enough.”

  “You think that’s it? You think maybe he’ll get over this mommy obsession?”

  “I think it’s a mommy quest. Just like you were the daddy quest.”

  “Hell,” Dad muttered.

  “Yeah,” Grampa said, and he seemed to be laughing, or trying not to.

  “When that kid makes up his mind—”

  “You’re toast.”

  “I don’t want to marry some woman just to give him a mom.”

  “And you shouldn’t,” Grampa said.

  “Tell Tim that.”

  “He knows. He wants you to be happy.”

  “Good luck,” Dad muttered.

  “Why don’t you say what’s really bothering you, son? Stella’s back in town.”

  Tim frowned. Stella? Wasn’t that Ms. O’Connell’s first name?

  “Why would Stella being back in town bother me?” Yeah, why? Tim thought.

  “You think we didn’t know about the two of you?”

  “Know what?” Dad asked, but his voice sounded weird.

  “She was over here a lot that last semester. I know she tutored you in math, but she kept coming even in the summer.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not as slow as I act,” Grampa said. “You two had something going on. And if I don’t miss my guess, you wouldn’t mind getting it on again.”

  “She’s Tim’s principal.”

  “She’s an old flame, and a very nice-looking single woman.”

  “Who isn’t going to stay.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “As sure as I was the last time she left.”

  “But she came back. That has to mean something.”

  “She didn’t come back for me.”

  “Positive?”

  “Yes.”

  Tim tried to make sense of what he was hearing. His dad and Ms. O’Connell had gotten it on? Tim had an idea of what that meant, and it kind of made him sick in the stomach.

  But he could get over that if Ms. O’Connell made his dad happy. Tim had to find a lady who was a great mom and a good wife. Could Ms. O’Connell be her?

  Tim bit his lip and considered how he could figure such a thing out. It didn’t take him long to come up with an idea. Not only could he get his dad and Ms. O’Connell to spend more time together, but he could spend time with her and see if she was mommy material.

  All he had to do was stop tryin’ so hard to behave. Within a few days he’d have his own chair.

  Right in the principal’s office.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE the following week. Stella shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. She’d thought nothing ever happened at Gainsville Elementary. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Strangely, right in the middle of every scuffle, there was Tim Luchetti. What had gotten into the boy?

  On Monday morning there was an argument in gym class about the Bears and the Packers. Someone called Brett Favre a name that shall not be repeated, and Tim kicked the offending cretin in the shin.

  Monday lunch was the scene of a food fight, with Tim bearing the brunt and needing to be reclothed in donated items from head to toe.

  Tuesday morning Tim couldn’t sit still in math class and was sent to the office for walking around and around, disturbing others.

  Wednesday h
e got distracted after going to the bathroom, and his teacher found him, an hour later, playing basketball alone on the playground.

  By Thursday, when he “accidentally” tangled the hair of the girl who sat at the desk in front of him into the spokes of her chair so badly the ends had to be cut free, Tim was spending at least an hour a day in Stella’s office. Laura began to refer to the cherry-wood ladder-back in the corner as Tim’s Chair.

  “I think he might have a crush on you,” she said, before letting him in again.

  Too bad Stella couldn’t say “like father, like son.”

  Tim didn’t appear contrite, but then he never did. In truth, his crimes were minor. There were just so darned many of them.

  “Tim…” she began.

  “I know. Keep my hands to myself. But she always flips her hair on my desk. Hits me in the face, slides all over my paper. It’s annoying.”

  “I bet,” Stella agreed.

  Tim looked surprised.

  “But that doesn’t mean you can wrap Jenny’s hair around the chair eight hundred times.”

  “’Kay.”

  Stella stifled a smile. If only all her problem children could be half as cute and just as agreeable.

  “You gonna call my dad?” he asked.

  Each time he’d come in here this week he’d asked the same question. And every time she’d said the same thing.

  “Not yet.”

  Tim shrugged and sat on his chair. Stella probably should have called Dean when they reached basketball-on-the-playground day, but she hadn’t been able to. She didn’t want to see him. She wasn’t sure she could look into his eyes and not remember the sight of him with his mouth all over another woman.

  Stupid, but true. However, if Tim continued to act up, she’d have to swallow her unease and call Dean.

  “You need to behave, Tim.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Mmm,” she said, and went back to work.

  Her intercom buzzed. “Stella?”

  Laura had given up calling her Ms. O’Connell after two days, for which Stella was grateful. Since they’d shared wine, crackers and girl talk, Stella would have felt foolish being addressed that way by a friend.

  “Ms. Hornbe is sending down two boys. One called the other gay, then that one punched the other’s lights out to prove he wasn’t.”

  “All right.” Stella sighed. “What is it with all this gay stuff?”

  She’d had several kids sent in for using the word derogatorily and several more for taking offense to it.

  “I think kids are afraid,” Tim said.

  Stella blinked. “Of what?”

  “That they’re gay.”

  “A five-year-old is afraid of being gay?” She had a hard time believing that, but—

  “I don’t think they know what gay is yet,” Tim said, “but they hear the word and they can tell it isn’t a good thing—or that people don’t think it’s a good thing—but no one will tell ’em what it is, you know? So they get afraid.”

  Amazingly, that made sense.

  “What should I do about it?” she murmured.

  Stella wasn’t really asking Tim but thinking out loud. He answered, anyway.

  “You should tell ’em what the word means. Then they won’t be scared anymore.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “How come?”

  “That’s for their parents to tell them.”

  “Then make ’em do it.”

  Stella doubted she could make anyone do anything. However, Tim had a point. If the little kids who were throwing around the word so freely knew what it meant, knew the word had little to do with them, at least right now, maybe they wouldn’t use it so much. At any rate, asking their parents to explain things was not a bad idea.

  “You can return to class, Tim,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  He jumped off the chair. “I don’t want to see you in here again today.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Stella narrowed her eyes, but either Tim didn’t feel her glare on his retreating back, or he didn’t care. She didn’t think he tried, either, since he appeared at her door early the next morning.

  “What did I tell you?” she demanded.

  “That you didn’t want to see me in here yesterday. And you didn’t.” He sat in his chair.

  “Are you trying to get in trouble, Tim?”

  “Me?”

  He presented her with his wide-eyed Howdy Doody face and folded his hands in his lap. He hadn’t answered her question, but she let it pass.

  “What did you do this time?”

  “Spit in the fish tank.”

  “Why?”

  “They like it! Fish come after spit. Then you can see ’em better. But Mrs. Neville isn’t from here. She doesn’t know stuff. She didn’t believe me.”

  “I’m from here, and I didn’t know that.”

  Tim shrugged. “Maybe it’s a guy thing.”

  “I’d say.”

  He jumped off his chair and crossed to her desk, glancing at the notes on her blotter. “What have you been doing since yesterday?”

  She lifted her brows. “You want me to tell you who got in trouble?”

  “Nah. I know that already. I wondered what you were gonna do about stuff.”

  “Why?”

  “To tell you the truth, Ms. O’Connell—” he heaved an exaggerated sigh “—you’re not doin’ so good.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  “You never did this before, did you?”

  “I was a principal. I am a principal.”

  “Of little kids?”

  “Well, no.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “How to handle stuff.”

  “What’s there to get? A kid screws up, I punish him or her.”

  “There’s more to stuff than screwin’up. Like Jess.”

  “Who?”

  “Jessica Flanders.”

  “The girl who won’t do her homework?”

  “Not won’t. Can’t. Her mom and dad made Mrs. Little skip her a grade.”

  Stella rarely agreed to children skipping a level. Even if they were intelligent enough, their social skills were usually sadly lacking, which only made for deeper problems. Nowadays most schools had a gifted and talented program so all children would feel challenged while remaining in their age group.

  “That’s inappropriate,” Stella said.

  “Okay.” Tim answered in a voice that clearly revealed he had no idea what she was talking about. “Jess should be in my grade. She doesn’t get anything that’s goin’ on in her class. She cries in the bathroom at lunchtime.”

  “Oh, no,” Stella murmured.

  “Yeah. So she shouldn’t be punished.” His expression became considering. “Maybe you could ground her parents.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice? But I doubt it. I will talk to them.” Stella made a note. She glanced at Tim, bit her lip, then gave a mental shrug. She could use the help. “Anything else?”

  “Mickey Malfre.”

  “Little kid, big mouth. Likes to run with scissors.”

  “That’s him.”

  “He can’t stay quiet in class.”

  “I think he needs a pill.”

  Stella frowned. “What kind of pill?”

  “The kind I get, except with Mickey, he might need two.”

  “You think he’s got ADHD?”

  “He’s got somethin’,” Tim muttered.

  “No one’s tested him?”

  “I dunno. But he doesn’t take a chill pill. All of us kids who take them come to see Mrs. Benedict at lunch.”

  A school nurse had handled the dispensing of medications back when the budget had included one.

  Now the county health nurse stopped by a few days a month. Which meant Laura got to give out the chill pi
lls at lunchtime.

  Stella made a note to speak with Mickey’s teacher, who could in turn speak with his parents. ADHD often slipped through the cracks because it was hard to diagnose in younger children. The earmarks of the disease—lack of attention and inability to focus—were all too common in those under five.

  “Any other disasters in the making?” she asked. “Nope. Just remember that little kids don’t know they’re screwin’ up. They don’t mean to. Not yet, anyway.”

  Stella had been treating the little kids like the big ones—as if they knew and completely understood the rules and were therefore breaking them on purpose just to see if they could. They probably weren’t.

  She contemplated Tim. Except, maybe, for this one. He stared at her from between his overly long bangs. “You gonna call my dad?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. Just don’t spit in the fish tank anymore.”

  Tim sighed and shuffled away, feet dragging, head hanging, then he slammed the door behind him.

  A week ago, Stella would have gone after any kid who’d done that and read him the riot act. But if she’d learned one thing, it was that the force of closing a door was in direct proportion to the age of a child. The younger they were, the harder they slammed.

  So why did it seem as if that particular slam had been aimed at her?

  Maybe she did need to talk to Dean.

  DEAN WHEELED into the school parking lot, caught sight of a bunch of people on the soccer field at the far end and cut straight across to park near the grass.

  Tonight was Tim’s first football game.

  His parents were right behind him. Kim, Brian and Zsa-Zsa were coming, too. He only hoped all those people wouldn’t make Tim so nervous he didn’t pay attention to the game.

  Dean jumped out of his car, trotted across the empty space and took a position on the sidelines with the other parents. He never knew what to say to them.

  He’d come into the parenting universe late, dragging along a child he’d never diapered. They’d gone through everything from the beginning, and just like most other areas of his life, Dean didn’t fit in.

  The day was perfect for a peewee football game. Bright and sunny, with just enough chill so the kids wouldn’t get overheated in their gear.

  The other team looked huge. Or maybe that was just because Tim looked so small. Even wearing shoulder pads, knee pads, thigh pads, hip pads, a butt pad and forearm pads, Tim probably weighed sixty pounds. Dean already regretted allowing Tim to play, and they hadn’t even kicked off yet.