Mom Over Miami Part 11

"What did I do?"

Jacqui shut her eyes. "Perhaps-"

Hannah licked her lips.

Jacqui cut herself off with a broad, slas.h.i.+ng motion through the air between them.

Hannah cleared her throat.

"Hannah, I-" Jacqui pressed her lips together. She held her index finger over her mouth as if it took that measure of control to prevent a regrettable outburst on her part.

"What?"

"Excuse me a moment, would you please?" Jacqui spun on her heel to leave. Every last thing about her, from the soft click of the heels of her turquoise loafers to the swish of the dark curls at the back of her head, told of tightly reined-in fury.

But why? Clearly Jacqui had wanted the Lemongra.s.s shade all along.

"I wanted to be accommodating," Hannah told Tessa as she scooped her up from the baby seat.

A door slammed down the hallway.

Hannah jumped.

It opened again with a whoosh of air.

Crisp, clipped footsteps came toward her, then stopped cold.

The singing halted midphrase. Just "'Rise and s.h.i.+ne and give G.o.d-'"

Then nothing.

A quiet commotion next door followed, rapid-fire murmurings.

Hannah bristled. She clenched her jaw. "If I weren't the world's most accommodating person to work with, why would I even be here this afternoon? Much less have hauled you and Sam along? He only has another week until school starts-we should be out doing something fun."

Tessa gurgled and slapped her hand lightly on Hannah's cheek.

"Don't you start in on me, young lady." Hannah smiled and kissed the pudgy pink fingers. "At this point you and Sam are the only people in the whole world I know who without a doubt still think I am not a total disaster. And I'm not too sure about Sam."

"Not too sure about me about what?"

"Not too sure if you saw that steam coming out of Mrs. Lafferty's ears or not." She motioned to the side of her head and hissed to lighten the moment.

Sam tiptoed fully into the room, whispering, "She sure is mad."

"Sssssss." Hannah drew more invisible heat waves in the air shooting from her ear and laughed, but inside she felt anything but jovial. Tears stung the rims of her eyes. She chewed her lower lip to keep from sniffling.

"Why is Mrs. Lafferty so mad?"

"Because..." Hannah had gotten herself into this because she couldn't tell these sisters what she really thought. Did she dare share that unbecoming little tidbit with Sam? She gazed into his earnest, sympathetic eyes. "Oh, honey, I can't say for sure why someone else feels what they feel. Or even if if they feel what I feel they feel." they feel what I feel they feel."

"I feel dizzy." He put his hand to his head and wobbled his way down to sit on the floor.

Hannah laughed. "Okay, let me try again. What I think happened is that Mrs. Lafferty thought I was not putting enough thought into her project. So I thought I'd try to make her happy by telling her what I thought she thought I ought to think was the right choice."

He scratched the tip of his nose with the back of his hand. "You thought she thought you thought what?"

"It doesn't matter what I thought, Sam. The end result is that I tried to think of how to please someone else by telling them what I thought would make them happy so they would think better of me, and now I'm sunk."

She sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Awww." Sam wiggle-walked on his knees over to put his arms around her legs. "Don't be sad."

"I'm sorry, Sam. I should never have dragged you and Tessa in here today to quibble over k.u.mquat, Canary or Lemongra.s.s."

"Huh?"

"Paint colors," she explained, pointing to the squares lying on the floor.

"They all look yellow to me."

You want to see yellow? You should look at the streak down my back. Hannah withheld the comment. Sam didn't need to hear her insecurities spilled out for a laugh.

Listen to yourself. Payt and Aunt Phiz's words echoed in her mind.

And she had heeded them. She had listened, really listened.

She had spoken to herself and in the same instant caught it and paused. If it wasn't the kind of thing fit to say to Sam, why would she consider it suitable to say to herself, about herself?

Somewhere in that convoluted reasoning, the seed of change had just been planted.

She knew it even as she knew she had no idea how to nurture it. Only that she must nurture it. For her children's sake. For her own.

She would start doing that by stopping this nonsense with Jacqui. Now.

"What do you think, kids? Do you have an opinion about what color we should paint the toddler room?"

"You know they all look the same to me." He got to his feet, plucked up the pieces of paper and offered them to the baby. "But why are you asking Tessa?"

"Well, of the three of us, she'll spend the most time in here." Hannah swiped her thumb over her daughter's damp chin. "What do you say, sweetie? Shall we see which one you drool on the most and go with it?"

That process would make about as much sense to Hannah as Jacqui's did. Who cared if the room ended up with a greenish tint or a golden one?

The baby fisted her hands around two of the cards and let the third fall away.

It tumbled down and down and landed color side up.

"Bye bye, Lemongra.s.s," Hannah muttered.

"She's picking!" Sam hopped from one foot to the next.

"Okay, this is it, Tessa. k.u.mquat or Canary?"

The child squealed.

"k.u.mquat? Or Canary?" Hannah leaned closer.

Tessa stuck both arms out straight, waved them about for a moment, then poked one balled-up card into her mouth.

"We have a winner!" Hannah pulled the card away from Tessa.

The baby protested with a kick and a screech.

"Now she's mad, too."

"She'll get over it."

Hannah kissed the baby's head, inhaling the sweet scent of her fine curls.

Tessa quieted-a little.

"She'll get over it, and so will Jacqui. Tessa didn't have any business hanging on to that paint card. Just like Jacqui doesn't have any business hanging a paint color over my head."

"Was Mrs. Lafferty mad enough to pour paint on your head?

"Maybe, but you know what?"

He shook his head.

"I am not going to let her do it. I wouldn't let her actually do it and I refuse to let her do it metaphorically."

"Metawhatically?"

"Vocabulary lessons later, son. Right now I have a job to do." Hannah tweaked Sam's nose. "Your mommy is not not a wimp. She's an intelligent, capable person who can speak her own mind." a wimp. She's an intelligent, capable person who can speak her own mind."

"What does that mean?" Sam blinked up at her.

"It means we're done here today. Let's go enjoy the last days of summer." She nudged her son to get him going.

He hurried on ahead.

Hannah took one last look at the s...o...b..ry sample she'd slipped from Tessa's grasp, then wedged the corner of the card under the plastic light switch cover.

She flipped off the light in the toddler room, calling over her shoulder as she ushered her family out the door, "Canary!"

CHAPTER 9

Subject: Nacho Mama's House column To:

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat ta-dum. Ta-dum.

That's right. If my life were to have a theme song right now it would have to be the one they play to accompany plate spinners, jugglers and acrobats.

Plates-a-spinning big-time around here-figuratively and literally. But I am getting better at juggling Payt's, Sam's, Tessa's and my own schedules. And like some out-of-control acrobat, I have my share of tumbles. Of course, I still think I'd look ghastly in tights!

The cooking lessons forge on. And by that I mean the results look like I produced them in a forge not a kitchen. Pork roast isn't supposed to have the color and consistency of pig iron, is it?

Aunt Phiz's palate is proving more exotic than our small-town tastes around here. I didn't do a bad job with the eggplant Parmesan but Payt wouldn't have any part of it. Not until I likened it to fried green tomatoes-then he couldn't get enough.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject-breading! Why didn't anyone tell me about this minor miracle years ago? Flour, egg, bread crumbs.

The great equalizers.

Unfortunately breading does not work its magic on soccer kids' snacks. Have tried to get away from the nachos in favor of more healthy choices. Yesterday Aunt Phiz whipped up a batch of oatmeal cookies. I spent the rest of the afternoon making faces on them with raisins for eyes, apple slices for mouths and shredded carrots for hair.

They ate the cookies.

I think they fed the apple slices to the dog.

The shredded carrots are ground into my carpet.

The raisins?

Found some between the couch cus.h.i.+ons.

Some dropped down into the vase on the bookshelf.

And two stuffed inside the ears of Payt's bust of Dr. Albert Schweitzer.

It's hard to stay mad at the boys, though. They are really good kids, even if they are rotten soccer players. Sadly they haven't won another game yet. Am I a bad mother because I'm secretly a little bit relieved because this means I don't have to attempt another cake?

No cooking for me tonight, though. Aunt Phiz is watching the children and I am going on a real, live bona fide date-with my husband! He left a message on the phone for me to meet him at his office after hours so we could catch up together. Tres roman-tique, n'est-ce pas?

At last, one evening in my life I won't end up writing jokes about!

NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING "You asked me here to do what?" Hannah stood in the vacant waiting room looking at the top of her husband's lowered head through the opened frosted sliding-gla.s.s window.

He scrubbed his clean, blunt fingers through his shortly cropped hair, never lifting his gaze to her. "Start by emptying out the trash cans, then tackle the break room."