0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. (4 page)

one small thing

Chapter 2

Rue

TALK about a few carrots short of a party platter….

I was standing there, Alice in hand, staring at the owl-eyed neighbor who was busily staring back at me like I was some sort of mildly perplexing alien life form. I thought I must be crazy myself for even thinking of asking what I was about to ask, but you see, I was at the end of my very, very long rope, and the weirdo in the Yoda T-shirt might actually be my only hope. I cursed Dusty for the fact that I could even make that joke to myself and understand it.

When I first brought Alice home I’d been optimistic, hopeful…

horrifyingly naive. Alice had managed to sleep through the night after a fashion, if one could call a total of three hours spread out over an entire night fashionable in the least. I know the bags under my eyes that first morning were the opposite of hot. I was happy, though, with my new little love, and sure I’d find the perfect and perfectly cheap place for her to rest while Dusty and I were at class.

Did I mention the part about being horrifyingly naive? I was soon to learn.

The first place I tried, Wee Care, was like a wall of noise. Stinky, sticky, vomity-smelling noise with a crust of aged apple juice and fossilized Cheerios. Alice burst into tears immediately, and the harried looking woman in a bright yellow Wee Care T-shirt looked at me like I

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Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

was about to topple her carefully constructed web of control. I wanted to tell her not to worry—she didn’t have any.

Toddlers were running the place like some miniature version of
Lord of the Flies
, complete with weapons made from blocks and tinker toys. One of them came at me, charging my knees and the pink pod that held my precious baby. I screamed and made a run for the front door, flip-flops sticking to squelchy dried puddles of juice. I let out a relieved sigh when we were outside breathing fresh air. The near-deafening roar of the highway was a lark song compared to the screeching we’d just escaped.

Talk about the bowels of hell.

The second place was far less terrifying. The children were playing organized games on the floor, and women in dignified, if somewhat matronly, khakis and polos were reading to them, or organizing the little munchkins in their dignified play. I felt myself breathing a bit deeper.
This is more like it.
The woman in charge of Kinder Share, however, looked at me like I’d looked at the screaming
Lord of the Flies
daycare—with her nose wrinkled as if I smelled bad.

(And I know I didn’t. You can’t go wrong with Viva La Juicy).
What
the hell’s her problem?

I really did try that day, to be the least
Rue
Rue I could be. I’d worn my most preppy pair of dark blue jeans, no chains, no extra hardware (I even took out my lip rings), nice flip-flops, a V-neck sweater… and
oh, shit
. I’d forgotten to take off my nail polish. It was a gorgeous, deep navy blue color named “Denim.” It looked fabulous, I had to say, but I could see the khaki monster looking at my hands down the bridge of her nose. Part of me felt like sitting on them. I wasn’t trying to hide who I was, but sometimes, when you need something, you’ve gotta blend in with the mundanes. That’s what I called them—

you know the type. Just like the bitch who was giving me the stink-eye: khaki and matching sweater set-wearing suburbotrons who drive BMW

station wagons and go to brunch at the golf club. Ugh. Mundanes. I hoped to never be one of them.

Well, I wasn’t going to be welcomed into their organized little munchkin-land either. That much was clear. Five minutes after I sat

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one small thing

down I was being ushered back out the front door amidst assurances they’d call me when a vacancy opened up in their program. Yeah, that would be about a half hour after never gonna freaking happen.

Two down, three more to go. I tried not to be depressed.
The next
one is going to be the perfect place for Alice. I know it will be. Might as
well make like Lee and press on.
I bolstered my spirits with a sixteen-ounce salted caramel latte, damn the calories for once, and even splurged on an almond biscotti while vowing to myself I’d do an extra half hour of Pilates as soon as I had a chance.

Place three wasn’t so bad, I supposed. I wasn’t compelled to look for roaches crawling out of the corners, and the woman gave me a sweet smile… when she told me they had a waiting list but could probably get Alice in by Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving? What was I
supposed to do until then—tie her on my back like Sacajawea and trek
to the salon every day?
A papoose would
never
go with my Dsquared button-ups.

By then I was getting fed up, discouraged, and ready to do what I did best and give up. Unfortunately, Alice wasn’t knitting, pottery class, Zumba, or even my last boyfriend. I
couldn’t
give her up, no matter how frustrated I got. I’d have to struggle through, two left feet and all, until she and I were right. And part of doing things right was finding her somewhere to stay during the day, even if the only thing I wanted to do at that point was find myself the closest DSW and go hog wild on cute new shoes. The way I was feeling, I’d have maxed out both cards.

It was late when I schlepped Alice and my own tired body up the stairs to my apartment. I felt like Jack crawling higher and higher up the beanstalk, hoping for redemption, only to find that reality at the top wasn’t any better than it had been way down below. I still had nowhere for Alice to go once I had to go back to class, and there was No. Way.

In.
Hell
. I was sending her back to that first dreadful place, no matter what I didn’t manage to find. She’d be diseased before the week was out.

Tomorrow
, I told myself.
It can all be solved tomorrow.

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Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

I fed and changed Alice and put her in her little bassinet, where she’d sleep soundly for the next hour or so at most. By the time all that was done, I had the energy for three bites of a blueberry bagel before I stripped, dragged on my sleep bottoms, and did a full on “timber” fall onto my bed. Before I even had the chance to roll over, I was out like Lance Bass. Probably snoring too.

So attractive.

The next day was as big a mess as the first one had been. And the one after. And the one after that. I was beginning to panic. I hated most of the daycares on sight, maybe even more than the cesspool of Wee Care, and true to form the only one that was reasonably priced (and not Alexander Fleming’s playground) told me they were at capacity until spring graduation.
Graduation?
The woman at the desk must have seen the confused look on my face, because she explained that graduation was when the current crop of kindergartners went to first grade and no longer needed daycare services. I snorted at the thought of having a graduation service for snot-nosed carpet monkeys, but then, with as gracious a smile as I could manage, I gathered up my baby and left.

When I got home, I sat on my couch and tried to think of everyone I knew. There was Dusty, of course, but he was with me all day at school, so that was out. Then there was Devon, my fellow bartender. He’d told me more than once he spent most of his day at the gym. From his continual string bean appearance, I guessed he spent more time watching the talent than doing any heavy lifting himself. I doubted whatever measly amount I could pay him would ever be enough for him to give up the happy hunting grounds on a daily basis. I had some neighbors I was pretty friendly with. George across the hall was a nice enough guy, but he worked crazier hours than I did. Next door to him was Lydia, and she
might
have been perfect for the job, if only Alice were a cat. (I swear there’s one like her in every building.) And then there was Gatorade guy—so called because of the crates of the noxious stuff he had delivered on a monthly basis, along with flats of ramen noodles, sugar cereal, and can after can of that pasta that was nearly fluorescent in its redness. The thought of all that sodium and high-fructose corn syrup alone was enough to make me shudder. I

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one small thing

didn’t know anything about him beyond what our landlord, Rick, had said, which was that he was a writer and a “pretty genuine guy,” and he’d seen him helping old lady Miller lug her groceries upstairs once.

He kept to himself to the extreme. I hadn’t been home when he moved in, and because I was gone a lot, I’d never even seen him. Not once in the nearly six months he’d been there.

He could be the craziest of crazies… a reclusive “quiet type” who kept body parts in his freezer. Or he could just be a nice guy who might like some extra money for having a sweet sleeping baby around while he typed away at his books. I mean, he couldn’t be all that bad, could he? Axe murderers didn’t help little old ladies with their groceries, did they? I didn’t think so. And I knew he would have had his credit checked before moving in, and his previous landlord called for a reference. The building’s rules were fairly strict, and Rick was a diligent landlord. He wouldn’t have approved Gatorade guy unless everything he’d checked had come back okay. The idea had merit, I had to say. At least enough for a meeting. And having a grandfatherly figure watching my little doll didn’t seem so bad (as long as he didn’t feed her any of his salty, sugary, growth-stunting mess). I tucked Alice into her little car seat and checked my hair in the mirror—hanging perfectly off to one side, thank you very much—then grabbed my keys and walked down the hall to Gatorade guy’s front door.

The sight that greeted me was probably the opposite of what I expected. Instead of the expected older, cardiganed, grandpa type, I saw a guy, probably not much older than me, if at all, wearing a T-shirt that featured a lightsaber-bearing Yoda and a quote that said: “A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force.” He blinked surprisedly at me with eyes that I noticed were big and brown and not lacking in pretty, curly eyelashes, even if they were covered by an unkempt mop of brown waves.

“Hi there,” I said, trying my best to look friendly. He just stared wordlessly. “Hi,” I repeated, sticking out my free hand. “I’m Rue. I live next door.”

He started babbling about remorse and ruefully, and he was about to say “rue the day” when I interrupted what could be a never-ending

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Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

list of vocabulary words and idioms. I had to stop him, so I gave him my full name. Rufus. God, I hated it. I could see him testing my name out silently with his mouth. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

“O-oh. I’m Erik. Erik, uh, Van Nuys. Do you want to come in?” The guy looked harmless enough—a bit tightly wound but harmless—

so I nodded and followed him into what had to be the oddest and most precise apartment I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see tape lines peeking out from under the couches and chairs so he’d know if they moved a centimeter in the wrong direction.

He gestured for me to sit. The couch had a view of an admittedly great flat screen and some very straightly hung
Star Wars
prints.

Apparently the guy was a fan. I placed Alice next to me on the couch and waited. He’d disappeared around the corner to what I imagined was his kitchen, if his place was a mirror of mine. He reappeared with two glasses of neon yellow sludge that I could only assume was lemon-lime Gatorade (since I’d seen the stuff waiting in piles in the hallway). I hadn’t had any in years, but I didn’t want to be impolite and refuse. It was sweet, after all, for him to offer me a drink—a bit awkward and old-fashioned, but sweet just the same.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile, and reached for the glass. I took an experimental sip. It really wasn’t too bad, I supposed. Kind of like watered-down sweet-and-sour mixer. Erik smiled at me hesitantly and sat in a somewhat worn-looking leather armchair that sat at a perfect kitty corner to the couch. I hoped his somewhat sad furniture and lack of anything that looked very homey meant he could use some money.

Gator—I mean Erik, looked nervous but curious, so I took a deep breath and decided to forge on. There was no reason to hesitate.

“So, Erik. I have a question for you….”

Erik

WHEN I rejoined Rue in the living room and handed him a glass of Gatorade, I had no idea what to expect. He thanked me and smiled, and

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one small thing

despite the strangeness of the situation, I felt myself returning it with a hesitant one of my own. Wondering what it was he wanted, I settled into my chair and waited for him to say something.

None of my other neighbors had come over to visit, which was fine by me. I’d never been very good at small talk, even with my own family. When I was younger, I’d stayed quiet mostly because of my uncontrollable stutter. People heard me stumble and trip over my words, and they got impatient, assumed I was slow or stupid. No one ever wanted to let me finish. They cut in and tried to complete my sentences or dismissed me as an idiot out of hand. But I wasn’t stupid.

Not even close. It just took me a bit longer to process things. I had to sift through the words in my head until I found the right ones, the ones that would roll off my tongue with the least amount of difficulty.

But I’d dealt with so much crap in school, from both my classmates and teachers, I’d eventually learned to keep my mouth shut unless it was absolutely necessary. When I did speak, it was always slowly, to try to keep the stuttering down to a minimum. I’d never been able to rid myself of it completely, not even with years of speech therapy and the confidence-building activities my parents had forced me into, like karate and Cub Scouts. I hadn’t liked the Scouts at all, but I’d loved the karate. I never had to say much in that class, and in spite of my aversion to being touched by strangers, I’d excelled. That is, until one of the boys from my middle school enrolled and made it his life’s mission to torment me in any way he could. It drove me to quit eventually, and my parents hadn’t been able to talk me into joining another dojo. Once the experience had been tainted for me, there was no going back.