Futures and Frosting (24 page)

“No!  I mean…I
don’t know.  I just would have liked for the effort to have been made.  Maybe
even a comment about us getting married or getting engaged at some point in the
future.  The fact that he hasn’t said one word about it in three months just
sucks,” I tell her.  “Every day I keep waiting for him to bring it up and every
day that goes by and he doesn’t, I get more upset.  What if he doesn’t think I
would make a good wife?  I know he loves me, but maybe he’s not IN love with
me.  The kind of love that makes you want to do everything in your power to
ensure you spend the rest of your life with that one special person.  Maybe I’m
not that special person for him.”

Jesus.  Talk
about depressing.  How does anyone even stand to be around me lately?  I’m a
disgusting, emotional, needy chick.  No wonder Carter doesn’t want me.

“It makes sense
I guess.  Look at all the years I spent hating the idea of marriage.  I thought
it was pointless and could only end in disaster.  Karma is biting me in the
ass.”

My mom walks
over to me and pulls me into her arms, my growing stomach acting as a stopper
to keep us from getting too close.

“Baby, any fool
can see that Carter is IN love with you.  Have you ever paid attention to that
boy when you walk into a room?  His whole face lights up.  And he’s constantly
touching you in some way.  A brush of his hand on your cheek, wrapping his arms
around your waist, kissing your shoulder...he does whatever he can to be close
and connected to you,” she says, pulling away so she can look at me.  “And
don’t give me that bullshit story about you hating the idea of marriage.”

I give her a
pointed look and laughed.

“Are you kidding
me?  You and Dad were married five times total.  FIVE TIMES!  When you know
your parents crashed and burned so many times, it’s kind of obvious that you’re
going to have the same luck,” I tell her.

“Oh, sweetie,
you are a jackass.  I love you, but you are dumber than a one legged duck in an
ass kicking contest when pigs fly,” she tells me.

“Am I supposed
to know what the fuck that means?  You either told me this was impossible or
called me a pig.”

My mom reaches
up and wipes a tear off of my cheek I don't even know is there.

“Marriage was
never for me.  I knew that early on but I chose to ignore it.  I never dreamed
of having a family or a house with a white picket fence and being a soccer
mom.  But then I had you and I knew I needed to try.  It just didn’t work for
me.  But your father?  He is definitely a marrying man, and he is a wonderful
husband.  The problem was never him.  It was the losers he married,” she says
with a smile.  “You may have always been afraid to try because of how you grew
up and what you believed, but that doesn’t mean it’s who you are.  You have
more of your father in you than you know.  You are already a better mother than
I ever was, and I guarantee that when Carter
does
pop the question, you
will be an amazing wife.”

For the first
time in my twenty-five years, my mother actually says something that made sense
and gave me pause.  And not the “What the fuck is she saying?” pause.

I had put up a
wall all my life to protect myself.  If I pretended like I didn’t really want
the American dream of a husband and kids, then eventually I would believe it
and no one would be able to hurt me.  Until Liz and Jim’s wedding, I didn’t
realize just how much I wanted that wall to crack.  Now that it had though, I
was right where I never wanted to be - scared, confused and upset.  I knew I
needed to get my emotions under control and stop acting like a crazy person.  I
needed to man up and talk to Carter.  I could feel the distance between us
growing every day that I continued to lie to him and explained away my
detachment and rocky emotions by saying they were all just because of the
pregnancy.  I had acted like a big baby all these months when all of it might
have been fixed by one little conversation.

After Gavin’s
party, I will make sure that we sat down and talked.

“What about
Carter’s family?  Are his parents still trying to recover from ceiling fan baseball?”
my mom asks with a laugh, changing the subject to something a little less
depressing.

“They’ve been
okay.  His mom actually sent me a big box of brand new baby clothes and a few
blankets.  His grandmother is the one I’m most surprised about.  She really
should want to kill me but she sent me something too, and I found out she
actually has a sense of humor.”

“Oh?  What was
it?” my mom asks.

“A onesie that
said ‘Too cute to play with your ugly ass kid’.”

~

“Why the hell
are those bitches over there giving me a dirty look?” Liz asks as she stares
down five mothers who have accompanied their sons to Gavin’s party.

“I’m guessing
it’s because the woman who brought her husband just noticed that he’s been
staring at your boobs that are spilling out of your shirt,” I tell her as I
finish cutting the cake and placing it on paper plates.

“Oh give me a
break.  One look at that guy and you can tell he’s wound up so tight that if I
blew him a kiss he’d probably bust a nut.  None of those women look like they
ever have sex unless it’s to procreate,” she complains.

“They probably
only do it in the missionary position with the lights off,” I add.

“I bet they
think doggy style is a type of line dance,” Liz says with a laugh, blowing the
husband a kiss.

I smack her hand
and give her the evil eye.

“Will you cut it
out?  I have to be around these mothers all the time at Gavin’s school.  Play
nice,” I warn her.

“Look!” she says
excitedly.  “That poor guy just adjusted his junk.  He totally came in his
pants.”

So far the party
has been a success.  The kids are yelling and running all over the shop now
that they are hopped up on sugar.  I had thought having them frost their own
cookies would be fun until they forgot about the cookies and started shoveling
frosting into their mouths by the handful.  Having Drew wrap up a bag of Pixy
Stix and a twenty ounce can of Mountain Dew as Gavin’s present doesn’t help
matters either.  He tears into the present and has half the candy and all the
Mountain Dew gone before I even notice.  By the time I get a hold of him, he
looks like he’s been snorting coke off of hookers.  His eyes are bloodshot, his
hair is a mess, and he has white powder all around his mouth.  When I see Drew
whisper in his ear right before Gavin runs up to me and yells, “I have tiger
blood running through my veins!” I know it's time to take the kid-crack away
from him

And of course I
get nothing but dirty looks from the world’s most perfect mothers.  They can’t
just drop their kids off and come back like normal parents who foam at the
mouth when they find out they’ll get a few hours of peace and quiet and make
their kids jump out of the moving vehicle at the curb before peeling off to get
a massage or go to the bar.  Oh no, they have to stand in the corner in their
perfect little clique, judging me with their pastel sweater sets, linen pants,
and string of pearls.  Drew has already told one of them he has a much better
pearl necklace he can give her later that night, hence the huddling in the
corner.  I think they really thought he was going to whip his dick out at a
children’s party and jerk off on one of their necks.  Actually, this is Drew
I’m talking about.  There's a distinct possibility he might do it.

They spend the
whole day looking put-out that they had to be here.  They turn their noses up
at my store-bought decorations and one even says, “Oh, so you didn’t do
centerpieces and table favors?  And I heard you say this wasn’t catered? 
That’s a shame.”  Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a party for a FIVE
YEAR OLD.  Not a fucking Bar Mitzvah.  I'm not decoupaging anything, using a
glue gun, or whittling an ice sculpture, and I sure as hell am not serving
lobster and filet.  I feed them pizza and hot dogs and fill goodie bags with
Play Doh and bubbles.  Where I come from, that’s how you celebrate a toddler’s
birthday.  I hold my tongue, though, because I don’t want to be
that woman
who got into a cat fight at her kid's birthday party.

I'm tired,
cranky, and on edge as it is because I haven’t talked to Carter yet.  He had
worked last night and we drove separately to the party so he could sleep.  If
another one of those uppity bitches says anything else to me, I'm not going to
be responsible for my actions.

Liz grabs two
plates of cake and leaves to take one over to Jim and antagonize the lone
father whose wife probably threatened his manhood if he didn’t come with her to
the party.

She probably
told him he wouldn’t get missionary birthday sex this year where he could rub
on top of her for thirty seconds while she was fully clothed.  Poor guy.

“Hey, how are
you feeling?” Carter asks as he comes up next to me and helps put forks on all
the plates with a slice of cake on them.  We've only said a few words to each
other in passing since he got here.  Both of us have been running around making
sure everyone was happy and the party was a success.  He had looked a little
horrified at first when he got here, having never experienced a little boy’s
birthday party before, but he quickly jumped right in, grabbed a can of Silly
String and began screaming and running around with the kids.

“I’m okay.  Just
tired,” I tell him.  I want to throw my arms around him and tell him I'm sorry
for being such a bitch lately, but I know it will make me cry and I'm not about
to do that in front of all these people.  He seems nervous standing here with
me and it makes me sad that I’ve done this to him.  Instead of wrapping his
arms around me and making a joke like he normally would, he keeps his distance,
probably afraid I will snap at him or burst into tears like I’ve done for three
months.

I am the
biggest bitch in the entire world.

I turn to face
him, knowing I need to say something to clear the air even if it's just to tell
him I love him, when one of the she-wolves stalked over and interrupts us.

“Excuse me, but
I think you should know that your son just said a bad word,” she informs me
haughtily with her hands on her hips.

Son of a
bitch.  This is so not what I need right now.

“I’m sorry. 
What did he say?” I ask.

I wonder if
she’s too appalled to say whatever the word is out loud.  She’s probably going
to spell the word for me, and I’m going to have no choice but to point and
laugh at her.  F-U-C-K, A-S-S, S-H-I-T…what's it gonna be?  Hopefully she knows
how to spell bad words or this is going to be a whole new level of awesome.

Drew comes up to
us and the woman looks at his shirt that says “Have you seen my perfect man
ass?” and huffs in irritation.

“What’s the
dillio, folks?” he asks, taking a bite out of a cookie and spitting crumbs as
he talks.

“I was just
telling Claire that Gavin said a bad word in front of my son,” she explains
again.

“We’re really
sorry,” Carter reiterates.

“So what did he
say?  Cocksucker, thundercunt, fuckholes, ballsactitties? Drew asks in all
seriousness.

Under normal
circumstances I would have probably smacked him in the arm for this, but the
shock on Mother Theresa’s face across from me is satisfaction enough.  I put my
hand over my mouth to cover up my giggle.

She sputters and
gasps a few times before she finally replies angrily.  “For your information,
he said the word c-r-a-p.”

The three of us
stand there looking at her funny.

“Well?  Aren’t
you going to do something about that?” she asks when no one says or does
anything.

“I’m sorry, did
you just spell the word
crap
?” Drew asks in confusion.

“Yes, that’s the
word Gavin said,” she tells him.

Drew starts
laughing.  Loud, gut busting laughs.

“Oh my God!  You
totally had me going there for a minute,” Drew tells her between laughs.  “I
really thought G-man was going to be in trouble.”

The other
mothers must have heard the commotion and walk over to join our small group.

“I should have
known you wouldn’t do anything about it.  I mean, it’s obvious you don’t know
the first thing about being a good parent.  The parenting skills you have shown
are appalling.  Letting your child run amok, talking like a veteran trucker or
a sailor.  Real people do not talk this way to each other.  The amount of times
I’ve heard the word v-a-g-i-n-a alone is shocking.  If this whole display was a
story I was reading, it would be a disappointing ‘did not finish’ for me.”

Oh no she
DIDN’T!

I stand there
for a few minutes with my mouth hanging open in shock while the other Stepford
mothers get on the “you’re a shitty parent” bandwagon and nod their
agreements.  These women are real pieces of work.  I mean, I would totally talk
about you behind your back, but I’d never be that mean and bitchy to your face
or say something to hurt your feelings.

Until now.

You bitches
messed with the wrong pregnant woman.

“Oh, I’m sorry. 
I didn’t realize you cornered the market on perfect parenting.  Isn’t that your
son sitting on the floor over there eating his boogers and naming his farts? 
Real genius you’ve got on your hands there.  And you,” I say, turning to one of
the other ones.  “Your kid told me when he got here that he wasn’t allowed to
eat processed sugar, white flower, red dye number five, or watch Spongebob
because it was too violent.  Isn’t he the one sitting on the chair by the door
rocking back and forth chanting ‘I hate humans’?  My child may be mouthy, and
he may say inappropriate things from time to time, but I am a damn good
mother.  I just found out today my son scored higher on his kindergarten
testing than all of your little fuckwits put together.  He may watch Spongebob,
he may eat sugar, and he may pick up on phrases the adults around him say, but
I can guarantee you that when he’s older, you won’t find a human head in his
freezer like little Johnny over there who’s been banging his head against the
glass for an hour because he’s in shock from having a piece of cake for the
first time in his life.  And for your information, real people
do
actually talk like this.  Really cool people who have awesome friends don’t
have giant sticks up their asses like you obviously do.”