The Chronicles of Marr-nia (Short Stories Starring Barbara Marr) (2 page)

Then there was Amber.
 
She was two points under the national average on her pre-reading skills test so the tutor was imperative – otherwise, she could be left behind eating the dust of millions of gifted kindergartners out there tearing through Harry Potter.

And I had my organic cooking class, “Cook Healthy, Raise Healthy Kids.”
 
Twice a week I barely made it to class on time to learn the value of feeding my children chemical-free foods rich in nutrients.
 
I thought my new dishes were quite yummy, but the girls . . . they weren’t so enamored.
 
Once, I caught Amber sneaking over to her friend Penny’s house for hot dogs and macaroni and cheese.

There were just so many things to know in this parenting game – so many things I had to do right, or it would all go wrong and they’d end up as homeless, cancer-ridden drug addicts begging for pennies on the corner of
Despair Street
and
Loser Lane
.

“Mommy!
 
Callie called me an itchy shoe!”

I opened my eyes to find Amber two inches from my face.

“
Shichimenchou
you dope.
 
Not itchy shoe.”
 
Callie joined Bethany and me for a sit-down at the kitchen table, her bent posture and grim face indicating her teenage displeasure with the world in general.
 
A sophomore in high school, she loved confusing us all with foreign vocabulary words, courtesy her new favorite class, Japanese I.

“Translation please.”
 
I rubbed my temples.
 
Hulk wanted out.

“
Turkey
.
 
I called her a turkey.
 
She stole my new purse and put bugs in it.”

Amber’s saucer eyes signified her innocence.
 
“Not bugs – butterflies.
 
At least they’ll be butterflies one day.
 
Probaally
.”

“Okay, quiet everybody.
 
I need a minute to think.
 
I’m helping
Bethany
with her homework.
 
Then if we
hightail
it, we can still catch thirty minutes of ballet.”

“I have homework too!” Amber crawled up in my lap and started poking my nose with her chubby little fingers.

“You are such a little freak show,” Callie sneered.

“I’m supposed to count something in nature, so I
chosed
to count the freckles on Mommy’s face.
 
Now I need to start over.
 
You broke my consummation.”

“Concentration, dip brain.”

“Mommy!”

My blood pressure was escalating second by second.
 
I didn’t want Hulk to show himself, but I didn’t know if I could stop him.
 
“Callie.
 
Please, let her count.”

As Amber slowly and meticulously touched and counted brown spots on my face, I watched hers.
 
Her clear, perfect skin was just beginning to be speckled by the dots she inherited from me.
 
Her bright, blue eyes shimmered as if they radiated light of their own.
 
Her pink, pouty lips were perfect by all accounts.
 
I marveled at her sweet, warm breath on my face – still a child’s breath, untouched by the ravages of time.
 
I realized that it had been weeks, maybe even months, God forbid years, since I’d really looked at my sweet baby.
 
A wave of calm blew through me and for a moment, Hulk receded.

“ .
. . fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five . . . Fifty-five!
 
You have fifty-five freckles on your face.”
 
Amber leaned back, smiling proudly at her accomplishment.
 
I pulled her in and kissed a soft cheek, then hugged her tight.

Callie sat across from me, her face propped up by her hand.
 
No smile on her clear, lovely face, no sense of joy.

Bethany
, a thing of beauty in her own right, was next to me glowering under a dark cloud of annoyance.
 
She wanted an answer to her survey question.

What had I done to my children?
 
To me?
 
To our family?
 
In my frantic need to do everything “right” and make their lives perfect, we had all ceased to be happy.
 
We were scurrying around like rats in a maze, living by someone else’s rules.
 
And nothing was perfect.

I looked at my watch.
 
If we jumped in the car that very minute and I ignored all posted speed limits, we could make it to ballet and still get thirty dollars’ worth of lesson.
 
I could still proudly tell the doctor that the girls get exercise every week and announce to neighboring mothers that my girls have never missed a ballet lesson at the Elite Academy of Dance.
 
Ever.
 
Hulk would have to appear to make that happen, and the girls would go to bed miserable, having seen Mom at her worst.
 
Again.

Or . . . in what can only be described as a flash of brilliance, I got a better idea.

“Girls,” I announced.
 
“Change of plans.”

“What does that mean?” asked Amber.

“We’re scrapping ballet.
 
Callie, be the sweetheart I know you can be and get the picnic blanket out of the upstairs closet.”

She raised an eyebrow.
 
“We’re going on a picnic?”

“Of sorts.”

Bethany
did not look pleased.
 
“I need to get this homework done.”

“This is your homework.
 
Trust me.
 
You’ll love it.
 
And everyone bring pillows.
 
Lots of pillows.”

Amber
was liking
this game.
 
“Can I wear my pajamas?”

“Wear whatever you want.
 
Meet me at the front door in five minutes.”

While the girls padded around the house collecting blankets and pillows and changing out of leotards, I grabbed a few items of my own and snuck them into a large brown paper bag.
 
A
Ziplock
baggie finished off my list of necessary items.

At the front door, loaded down with pillows and blankets, the girls were waiting.
 
I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were concerned their mother might be one step away from Loony Bin Central.

I opened the
Ziplock
baggie and held it out.
 
“First, turn over all cell phones.”
 
Callie gave me her I’m-a-teenager-and-too-cool-for-this roll of the eyes, but slipped hers into the baggie anyway.

“Thank you.
 
Now, anything electronic that plays music or video games, adds, subtracts, multiplies, downloads an ‘app,’ or pretends to be a dog, cat or alien pet from a distant dying planet.”

The baggie filled to capacity as the girls pulled items from pockets I didn’t know existed.
 
I zipped it up and laid it aside.

“Now for the adventure.
 
Everyone out and follow me.”
 
I didn’t even wait for the questions and quizzical looks.
 
I picked up my mysterious brown paper bag and marched to the backyard.
 
The air was dry and warm.
 
Prime for what I had planned.

I loved my backyard.
 
The thick, green lawn stretched gracefully from the house until it met up with a line of trees that encircled the house.
 
It was a major selling point when we bought the house – a large yard for the kids to run and play, private for special family times and also wonderful for entertaining.
 
Yet we rarely even saw it anymore.
 
Howard mowed it religiously every Saturday, treated it with fertilizer and weed killer, and then forgot about it until the next weekend.
 
It was kind of sad, really.
 
So well-cared-for, yet oddly neglected.

The girls arrived slowly, very confused, but they arrived.

“Can you lay out the blanket, Callie?”

“This is our adventure?
 
The backyard?”
 

“Please – I really think you’ll like this.”

Reluctantly she laid out the used-once-only quilted picnic blanket.
 
I moved to the center, put down the bag and sat my rumpus down.

“Come on, girls.” I patted the blanket. “Sit.”

Bethany and Amber sat first, hugging their pillows, joined by Callie, who sat on hers and hugged her knees.
 
Ever so slowly, I pulled my surprise out of the paper bag.
 
The girls stared, wide-eyed.
 
They were speechless.

“What’s that?” Amber asked, breaking the awed silence.

“I know what those are – those are cheese balls,” answered
Bethany
.
 
“Ashley Masters gets them in her lunch every day.”

“Correct,” I said opening the large cellophane bag.
 
“These are cheese balls.
 
They’re made from over-processed corn-like products, artificial colors, artificial flavorings and MSG.
 
None of which is good for you and all of which probably causes cancer in laboratory rats if you feed them enough.
 
The beauty of the cheese ball is that it’s smaller than its cousin, the cheese curl, and therefore, pops effortlessly into the mouth, just so.”
 
I munched on the crunchy prize, savoring its junk-food goodness.

“And you’re going to let us eat them?”
Bethany
asked cautiously.

“Go for it.”

All three girls smiled and grabbed for the bag.
 
Within seconds, they looked like chipmunks, their cheeks bulging while they chewed.
 
I pulled out a second bag and joined them in the munch-a-thon.

After a few minutes, I passed around cans of soda.
 
“No junk food is complete without two thousand grams of sugar water to wash it down with.”
 
I gulped with pleasure.
 
“Isn’t this the life?”

“Where did you get this stuff?”
 
Cheese powder spewed from
Bethany
’s mouth as she spoke.

Sheepishly, I had to admit that I kept a stash of my favorite junk food hidden deep in my bedroom closet, partaking of the delicacies only after they were all asleep or at friends’ houses.
 
I thought the girls would be mad, but they just laughed.

“Is this supper?” Callie asked after a long swig on her drink.

“Sure.
 
Why not?”

She looked at me oddly,
then
smiled.
 
“Cool.”

“And what do we do after this?”
Bethany
asked.

“That’s the best part.
 
Nothing.
 
Absolutely nothing.”

Amber beamed.
 
“Boy,
Bethany
, I like your homework a whole lot.
 
I can’t wait until I’m a fourth grader.”

Without caring about the clock, we lay on our blanket, heads on our pillows, watching the sun filter through green tree leaves, sparkling and dancing as it sank in the western sky.
 
Yellows turned to
golds
, turned to blues turned to purples, and soon we were counting fire flies in the dark.
 
We talked about our dreams, about fairies and leprechauns, whether trees can feel pain, what life would be like if we never grew up, and if it was really true that cats and dogs only see in black and white.

We held hands, rubbed backs and took turns braiding each other’s hair.
 
I learned that
Bethany
had a crush on Max
Higgins,
Callie thought her Japanese teacher was “kind of cute” and very smart, and Amber thought boys were “icky.”
 
The girls admitted that they all hated ballet, but
Bethany
thought singing lessons would be fun.
 
We told stupid knock, knock jokes and laughed so hard that soda came out our noses.

If the phone rang, we never heard it.

If the Department of Homeland Security raised the terrorist threat level, we didn’t know.
 
We didn’t care.

Life was good.
 
Hulk was long gone.

And when
Bethany
turned in her homework assignment, she had only one answer to one survey question:
 
“My mom’s idea of the perfect day is eating cheese balls in our backyard until the sun goes down.”