Hearts and Llamas (3 page)

I feel myself breaking out in a cold sweat as
I scan the room. I want to get down on my knees and weep at his
teacher's feet. Instead, I stand up on a chair and shout at the top
of my lungs.

"HEEEEEEEEEY! Sit down and be quiet or no one
gets a cupcake!"

The kids stare at me for a minute, then
everyone scrambles to their seats, everyone except for one little
girl who stands directly across from me on the other side of the
room. I step down off of the chair and stare at her. She is a tiny
little thing with the most amazing head of hair I've ever seen on a
ten-year old. It's full of natural curls and it hangs down to the
middle of her back. She's impeccably dressed in a Valentine-themed
outfit: a red long-sleeved shirt with pink and white hearts on it,
a matching skirt, and red glittery shoes. The whole outfit is
finished off with a cute little red bow in her hair.

"Hey, Mom!" Gavin greets me as he runs up to
my side while the rest of his class, sans miss fashion plate over
there, settles in their seats.

"Hey there! Who's the chick over there by the
window staring at us?" I ask him as I pull the juice boxes out of
the bag and take the foil off of the tray of cupcakes.

"Oh, that's Brooklyn," he says before running
back to his desk.

I stop with my hand in midair over the top of
the cupcakes, turn my head back over to the corner of the room, and
then stand up straighter. We glare at each other for a few minutes,
and I swear to God the room suddenly gets deathly quiet and I can
hear that weird whistling song that always plays in those old
westerns when two cowboys are getting ready for a gun fight at the
O.K. Corral.

It's going down, and it's going down right
the fuck now. I don't care if there is a room full of witnesses.
This slut is getting a piece of my mind.

I square my body towards her and wiggle the
fingers of my hands as they hang down at my sides, wishing I wore
worn my gun belt. Wishing I
had
a gun belt.

Little Skankasaurus Rex over there tilts her
head from side to side, cracking her neck, as we stared each other
down. No one in the classroom moves and all eyes are on the two of
us. I'm pretty sure I see tumbleweed roll by, but it might have
just been a wad of paper one of the kids had thrown. Whatever.

"Mom! What are you doing?" Gavin whispers
loudly as he runs back up to me. "You're supposed to be passing out
the cupcakes."

"Hey, remember when I used to ask you all the
time when you were little who you wanted to marry when you grew up
and you would always say, 'I just want to marry my mommy'?" I ask
him without taking my eyes off of Fourth Grade Floozy.

"Um, sure. Whatever. Can we have the cupcakes
now?" he asks, growing impatient with me.

"You still want to marry Mommy, right?" The
desperation is clear in my voice.

"Mom, you know that's illegal, right?
Seriously, we're hungry. Give us the sugar and no one gets hurt,"
Gavin threatens.

"You should go back to your seat, Son. Go
back to your seat and cover your eyes. As a matter of fact, cover
your ears too," I inform him distractedly.

I take a step in
Brooklyn's
direction.
Just thinking her name makes me cringe. Her parents had named her
after a city known for housing the Russian mafia and call girls.
Not to mention dirty. Dirty, little Brooklyn. It's a nice place to
visit, but no one wants to live there. I bet you it says that under
her name on her birth certificate.

She takes a step in my direction as well, and
before I know it, she's skipping across the room towards me at
lightning-fast speed, barreling into the front of me and wrapping
her arms around my waist, squeezing on for dear life. I stand there
with a look of horror on my face as I stare at the top of her head,
unable to move.

Finally, she pulls away from me and beams at
me with a huge smile on her face.

"Hi there, Mrs. Ellis! I'm so excited to
finally meet you! You're so pretty! And I love your shirt! Wow,
you're really young! You don't have any wrinkles on your face like
my mom does! I love your hair! When I grow up, I want to look just
like you!"

Is this some new form of warfare? Kill the
enemy with kindness? Her skills are no match for mine. NO MATCH!
And she speaks in nothing but exclamations. I don't know whether to
challenge her to a cage fighting match or braid her hair.

"Your son is really nice. And really cute!
But you probably know that already," Brooklyn continued.

"Eeeew, gross," Gavin mutters next to me.

I reach out blindly for him and fling my arm
around his shoulder, pulling him into my side in a crushing
one-armed hug.

"He is cute, isn't he?" I tell Brooklyn. "And
he's such a good boy. So nice and polite and did you know he told
me he's going to marry me when he grows up?"

Gavin lets out a gasp and whines in a loud
whisper.

"Mooooooooom! Cut it out!"

Brooklyn claps her hands together in glee.
"Oh my gosh! That is the sweetest thing EVER! You are the best mom
in the world. He talks about you all the time," she explains.

I'm totally going to cry. Right here in the
middle of this fourth grade class. I am going to curl up in the
fetal position sucking my thumb and sobbing like a baby.

I takes me about ten minutes to compose
myself, but I manage to do it as well as pass out the cupcakes and
juice. Oh, and I tell Brooklyn she can call the house anytime she
likes.

"Alright, I hope this makes up for the fact
that I tried to act like Liz and Jim this Valentine's Day. Open
your eyes," Carter tells me later that evening after the dishes
from dinner have been cleared.

I slowly open my eyes and on the table in
front of me is a vase full of a dozen long-stemmed pink roses, my
favorite, and a thin box wrapped with a red bow on top. I quickly
tear into the box, lift the lid, and my breath catches in my throat
as I look at what's inside.

"Where did you find this?" I whisper, trying
to hold back the tears I can feel pooling in my eyes.

"I found it at your dad's. I told him what
was going on with girls suddenly calling the house, and he pulled
out a box of things from when you and Gavin used to live with him,"
Carter explains as he scoots his chair closer to mine and rests his
chin on my shoulder so we can both look at the eight-by-ten frame
in my hands.

Back when Gavin was around four, right before
I found Carter again, he and I used to have weddings at night after
his bath. It was a huge production. He would come into the living
room, tell me it was time for our wedding, and then we'd stand up
in the middle of the room, exchange gifts (which usually consisted
of two stuffed animals that we traded), and say our vows.

"Mommy, do you wanna marry me?"

"I do!"

"And I wanna marry you, so yay! We're
married! Let's go on a honeymoon to the kitchen and have pop and
cookies!"

I had no idea my dad took a picture of one of
our
weddings.
In the frame, Carter blew up a profile picture
of Gavin, in a pair of Spider Man pajamas, and me, in a t-shirt and
yoga pants, standing in my dad's living room facing each other,
holding hands. How had I ever thought for one minute that Carter
didn't know me or that he wouldn't pick out the most amazing
Valentine's Day gift ever?

"Carter, this is amazing!" I tell him as I
take my eyes off of the picture from what seems like so many years
ago to look at the man I love.

He takes my face in his hands and places a
gentle kiss on my lips.

"Happy Valentine's Day, baby. No matter what,
Gavin will always be your little boy. The first woman he ever asked
to marry him. Even when he's in fifth grade and those little
bitches pull out the big guns and start getting boob jobs and
vaginal rejuvenation surgeries."

***