Silt, Denver Cereal Volume 8 (5 page)

“
Women bring their kids to
European Parliament meetings. Premieres are a part of my work,”
Valerie said. “Why can’t I bring her there?”

“
Good point,” he said.
“I’ll make some calls.”

“
Jen’s on the other line,”
Valerie said. “I’m going to tell her the same thing.”

“
Go ahead,” he said. “My
phone’s already ringing.”

When he hung up, Valerie smiled. She was
going to turn this thing around. If they were going to watch her,
stalk her, she was going to use that attention to help other
mothers.

Valerie kissed Jackie. Jackie should be able
to bring her children to work. Her work places should support
families. Her own mother had made this a reality at Lipson
Construction. Valerie was going to do her part to help make it a
reality for Jackie and the rest of the world.

Nodding to herself, she clicked over to talk
to Jen.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday night—7:03 p.m.

Honey opened her eyes. Not sure where she
was, she pushed her way to sitting.

“
How are you?” MJ asked.
He was sitting in an armchair by the bed. He looked like he’d been
reading a book.

“
Where are we?” Honey
asked.

“
Our new bedroom,” MJ
smiled.

“
It’s very posh,” Honey
said. “Where’s . . .”

MJ lifted his arms to show Maggie sleeping
on his lap between his knees.

“
The LC’s Dad told me
about this position,” MJ said. “He said it was the only way they
could get their twins to sleep. She’s been out for a while. Do you
want to try to feed her?”

“
I didn’t think I could
breast feed because of all the meds I’m on,” Honey said.

“
You can’t,” MJ
said.

“
Did you decide which
formula to give the baby without me?” Honey’s voice rose with
indignation.

“
No,” MJ shook his head.
“We didn’t decide. So I figured we’d breastfeed.”

“
But I can’t breast feed,”
Honey said.

“
Sandy and Valerie filled
up our freezer with extra breast milk,” MJ said. “They both brought
some by this evening after dinner.”

“
They did?” Honey blinked
back her tears of gratitude. “That’s . . . I
mean . . .”

“
Sandy said not to fuss
about it,” MJ said. “You were family and they wanted to help our
Maggie have her best start in life. Plus, Valerie said they’ll meet
you tonight at 2:30 a.m. for a moonlight feeding.”

“
Wow,” Honey
said.

“
I’m a little jealous.” MJ
smiled.

“
How long have I been
asleep?” Honey looked around.

“
Since right after we got
back from the hospital,” MJ said. “I wanted you to sleep because
having a baby is a big deal.”

“
Are you saying the baby’s
a big deal because you have to go back to work?” Honey
asked.

“
No,” MJ said. “I’m off
for at least six weeks. I can stay off for up to six months, but I
have to tell the LC midway if we need more time. They aren’t going
to replace me or they’re hoping not to. Anyway, she said we have a
lot of work to do from Yvonne’s notebooks. We’ll be in town for a
while. I’d just be going back and forth to the Federal Center or
Buckley.”

Honey smiled, and he returned her smile.

“
How has Maggie been?”
Honey asked.

“
I think she misses you.”
MJ picked up the sleeping infant and laid her in Honey’s lap. “I’ll
get a bottle.”

Honey looked down at the tiny baby in her
lap. The only babies she had been around were the ones in the
family. Mack was big when he was born. He had clear white skin,
bright blue eyes, a round face, and black hair. Everyone thought he
was gorgeous. Jackie had a kind of European air to her. She had
Mike’s thick, dark hair and Valerie’s darker skin tone. Her eyes
had already started to darken to hazel. In the last month or so,
Rachel had just started to look like a regular baby. Rachel might
still not have any hair, but she had the prettiest smile. Of
course, Honey had seen her little sisters, but she never really
looked at them like she had with Mack or Jackie. She’d never
kangarooed a baby before Rachel.

Little Maggie didn’t look like any of them.
She was small like Rachel. She had a tiny tuft of reddish hair. Her
skin was almost translucent white. She became red all over when she
cried or squirmed.

Honey felt her heart swell with love.

Maggie was perfect.

Chapter Two Hundred and
Twenty-Four
Kiss

Monday morning—5:40 a.m.

After seeing Sam off, Delphie knelt at her
altar. Yesterday’s sun and activity put a glorious cap on what had
been a wonderful weekend. Delphie lit a candle in front of her
porcelain statue of Quan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of
Compassion.

The chapel was consecrated with love. Yvonne
and Rodney’s union had been reblessed. At dinner last night,
Tanesha had shared a photo of her parents standing in front of the
Eiffel Tower. They looked happy and in love.

Saturday marked the arrival of tiny
Margaret. Delphie smiled and lit a candle to the Hindu God Ganesha.
Maggie, as her parents called her, might be small but she surely
knew how to get what she wanted with her robust cries and charming
smiles. While she had none of Jackie’s innate old world elegance,
she had charmed everyone completely.

And yesterday’s Harvest Day had been
amazing. She lit the votive in front of the replica of a statue of
Demeter, the God of the Harvest. Alex and Max had arrived early to
help Delphie with her hives. They’d harvested more than a hundred
pounds of honey. Members of Alex’s team had spun and bottled
everything leaving Delphie with a closet full of honey bears.
Sandy’s kids and their friends had harvested the fruit from the
trees. While the little kids and adults picked the vegetables,
Mike, Jacob, and MJ made quick work of chopping the plants for the
compost pile, turning the beds, and putting the garden to rest.

And the tomatoes! On tomato duty, Valerie
had already made two pots of tomato sauce. She enlisted Jill’s help
in juicing. Sitting at the kitchen table, Jill kept the juicer
running late into the night. They had enough tomato juice and
tomato sauce to last most of the winter.

She knew that she was responsible for the
creation of this bounty. She had planted every seed, made sure it
was watered, enlisted help to pull every weed, made sure the soil
was ready, turned the compost, dug the holes, and still, she knew
in her very soul the bounty of love and babies and honey and
vegetables were a gift from the benevolence of something much
greater than herself.

Humbled, she lit a stick of incense at the
feet of the statue of Saint Mary and said her thanks.

~~~~~~~~

Monday afternoon—2:45 p.m.

Charlie waited for Tink outside the front
entrance of East High School. They hadn’t agreed that he would meet
her after school, but he thought she might like it. After
yesterday, she was definitely his girlfriend. Or at least he
thought she was his girlfriend. Anyway, he knew they were coming
this way because Jake was picking them up for martial arts
practice.

He glanced at his watch. He only had a few
minutes before basketball practice, so he hoped she showed up soon.
His basketball coach made him run laps if he was late. He didn’t
care about running laps. He just hated the look on the team
captain’s face when Charlie screwed up. Charlie didn’t like that
guy. Charlie felt stupid for even thinking it, but he didn’t like
the way the team captain talked about girls or moms or women
teachers. The team captain didn’t like him because Charlie was a
better basketball player than he was. So Charlie figured they were
even.

He saw Sissy and Tink near
the door and waved. Sissy waved back. They waited until their
friend Wade,
no Wanda
, came out before walking toward him. Sissy had given Charlie
an entire lecture on Wanda, so he should know all about the
guy,
no girl
, but
he hadn’t been listening. He didn’t really care if Wade was Wanda
or whatever. He was just glad Wade,
no
Wanda
, had nice friends and a family who
supported him. Kids like Wanda didn’t do very well on the streets.
When they got close, he noticed that Wanda was actually starting to
look like a girl. As if he, no she, could read his mind, she gave
Charlie a pretty smile.

Tink ran up and kissed him on the lips. He
kissed her back.

For a breathless moment, nothing else
mattered. Then sound returned. Sissy was squawking about something.
Wanda was giggling.

Sissy cleared her throat and acted offended,
but she smiled. Sissy liked it that he was dating Tink.

“
I have basketball,”
Charlie said.

“
I have to go to
counseling,” Tink said. “Heather’s going with me today.”

“
How come?” Charlie
asked.

Tink shrugged.

“
She wants to help,” Sissy
said. “Heather is going to be Tink’s forever Mom and that’s what
Mom’s do.”

“
How would you know?”
Charlie asked.

“
That’s what Sandy does,”
Sissy said.

“
But
she . . .”

Charlie started to remind Sissy that Sandy
was their sister, but Tink waved to someone and he got distracted.
Auntie Heather waved back. He thought it was a little weird that
his Auntie was going to be his girlfriend’s forever Mom. But he
didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to jinx it, and he really liked
Auntie Heather. He waved to her too. Tink turned and kissed him
again before running to Heather’s car. He looked up to see the
basketball team captain sneering at him. The boy walked into
Charlie’s shoulder as he passed.

“
Hey!” Sissy
said.

The team captain gave her a cruel look and
continued into the school.

“
I don’t like that guy,”
Sissy said.

“
Yeah?” Charlie raised his
eyebrow to show her he felt the same way. “I’d better
go.”

He realized he hadn’t said anything to Wade,
no Wanda. So he smiled at her.

“
You look nice today,”
Charlie said.

He groaned internally. Now he sounded like
Nash. But Wanda smiled and looked less depressed so that was worth
it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jake pull up. Sissy and
Wanda got in his SUV.

Charlie went into the gym. His teammate
threw him the ball, and they began warming up. Charlie was all
business when it came to basketball. He and the other guy going to
online school always warmed up together. They worked out for a
while before the team captain and his crew joined them.

“
D’you hear On-Line here
is dating that slut?” the team captain asked.

“
I saw him wid his tongue
down da slut’s throat,” another boy said.

The idiots laughed. Charlie kept working the
drill.

“
Don’ wanna date that
girl,” the team captain said.

“
Seriously man,” a
different boy said. “That girl’s done everybody.”

“
Good to know you’re
virgins,” Charlie said. “Are you all virgins or just our team
captain here?”

“
Ooooh,” the crew of
idiots said, while they laughed.

“
Harsh On-Line, harsh,”
the team captain said. “I’d worry about what you say if I didn’t
know you can’t read.”

The crew of idiots laughed.

“
Nah dog, seriously,” one
of the boys said. “You don’ wanna date that girl.”

“
Yeah?” Charlie looked at
the boy. “Why?”

“’
Cuz she don’ nasty,” the
boy laughed. “Everybody knows.”

“
You mean like everyone
knows you’re a virgin?” Charlie asked.

“
I ain’t no virgin,” the
boy said. “Here I can prove it.”

The team captain and his boys stopped
working out. A look passed between them. The team captain sneered
at Charlie before nodding his head. The boy got out his fancy cell
phone.

“
Whaz your number?” the
boy asked.

Not thinking much about it, Charlie rattled
off the only cell phone number he knew by heart—Nash’s cell
phone.

“
Der,” the boy said. “You
watch dat and see if you wanna date dat slut. We’re doin’ you a
favor, dog.”

“
Yeah, a favor,” one of
the other boys said.

“
Hey!” Their basketball
coach looked up from his meeting. “What the hell is going
on?”

“
Coach, we’re trying to
help On-Line here,” the team captain said.

“
Why don’t you help
yourself to laps?” the Coach asked. “But only if you girls are done
talking.”

“
Yes Coach,” the boys
said.

Charlie followed the other boys out the door
to the track.

~~~~~~~~

Monday afternoon—3:12 p.m.

Nash looked up from his book when his cell
phone buzzed. He and Teddy were making quick work of their homework
before martial arts class. Mr. Colin had been on them about
finishing their homework and getting good grades.

“
Ninjas get good grades,”
Mr. Colin always said.

Nash and Teddy were on track to becoming
ninjas except for the fact that they didn’t always get good grades.
Teddy was living at his Auntie Alex’s house this week, so Nash just
went there after school. Nash’s cell phone buzzed again.