“What was I thinking?” Heather ranted while she helped Sara close the dance studio for the night. “I fell for the smile and dimples…from both of them. Oh my God, I don’t even like kids!”
“Please! You love kids! You’re amazing with Cooper and I know you love him like your own!” Sara fired back, amused by her sisters anxiety.
“I have to love him, he’s family. Plus he’s super cute and looks like me,” She mused.
“You loved kids until New York. Hell, you loved St. Helena, teaching dance, and everything else you seem to hate now. C’mon, when are you going to let New York live in the past and give it a real shot here?”
“When I’m ready to accept that I’ll never live my dream and be satisfied with being a no one,” Heather deadpanned in brutal honesty.
Sara stood still, surprised and saddened by her sister’s words, “Is that what you really think? Honey, dreams change all the time, I’m proof of that. My life turned out anything but what I thought it was going to be. Sometimes that’s the point, Sis.”
Distracted by a loud obnoxious song, a children’s song no less, Heather turned to see what was going on directly behind her. Many of her students were standing on the sidewalk, overjoyed by the source of the musical headache…an ice cream truck. You wouldn’t find this on the streets of New York City, she thought.
A crotchety old man, Mr. Moretti, stood in the window, ordering the kids to stand single file, and find their manners or no gelato. To her surprise, they complied…how did he do that, she wondered?
“Hey, can you cut the music? Trying to talk here. You got their attention, let’s at least turn it down will ya? Geez, more small town crap.” Heather’s tone and crass attitude surprised even her. He was just an old man, selling ice cream.
“Excuse me, Miss. Can you take down the sign on your dance joint there, ma’am? Bit of an eye sore and well…it appears you just had their attention.” He scanned his hand in front of the line of dancers he was referring to.
“Well, no. If I take down the sign, new dancers won’t know where to find us!” Heather replied, appalled by the audacity of his request. Sara just laughed.
“Exactly, Miss. Such is why I leave the music running, so they can find me. Now if you move down the block, instead of standing right in front of the speaker, I’m certain you’ll find it easier to hear yourself talk.” He smiled and nodded, excusing her from the discussion. “I’ll never understand this generation…young people…hmfff.”
Heather made a dramatic turn, walking opposite the ice cream, or gelato truck as noted on the side, Sara snickering as they walked. Heather returned to her thoughts, picking up where she left off with her sister.
Was there still a dream come true out there for Heather? Was this really just a setback, waiting to reinvent her in a new and improved light with the life she was meant to have? Heather wasn’t sure, but her sister certainly did well for herself despite tragic obstacles that sent her in every which direction.
Maybe that was Heather’s destiny too. Maybe this was just a stepping stone to what she was destined to do and her dream was still alive and well, waiting for her to catch up. And maybe, just maybe, Clay was part of how to get there.
“C’mon. Come upstairs and help me find something to wear. What the hell do you wear to dinner when a kids around anyway? Pretty sure the sexy boob display I had picked is no longer appropriate! Yoga pants? Put the assets on display without corrupting the child?”
Sara linked arms with her sister, and pulled her around the corner to the steps leading to her loft apartment, “Sounds like a plan…”
***
Spaghetti dinner with Doc and the little one the night before, went as well as could be expected – Heather didn’t hate it. She actually enjoyed it albeit reluctantly. Tommy was a cute kid, and his dad even cuter with him. This wasn’t what she signed up for though, definitely more than a fling with a kid involved, but it wasn’t awful and there was something sweet about Clay being a dad.
She wasn’t sold on other kids though, especially today while helping her friend, Harper Owens teach her Sprouting Picasso class to the three to six year olds at her shop. The Fashion Flower, St. Helena’s one-stop, all things kid store where Harper was manager and resident artist, hosting several art related classes a week. Today was all things paint, glitter, and glue and anything else that you could toss at a canvas. First an ice cream gelato truck with annoying music and a mean old man, now snot nosed kids and all things sticky and messy…she was noticing a pattern. Kids just weren’t her thing.
“Thanks for helping out, Heather. You’re a lifesaver! This is a two-man job and Becky getting sick made this a survival of the fittest kind of gig until you got here.” Harper joked, relieved her friend was able to fill in.
“I don’t know, Harper, the kids seem pretty mellow. You’re a rock star at this! You’re like super woman with this stuff,” Heather admitted, looking around the class, each student engrossed in the canvases resting on their art easels, calm as can be.
“Oh, Heather, Heather, Heather…” Harper said, shaking her head at her naïve friend, “it’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see with this crowd. Look again. Quiet means there’s trouble.”
“Excuse me?” Confused by Harpers admission, Heather scanned the crowd of runts again, “I don’t see any…”
Harper giggled, “Boom, you found it, didn’t you?”
“You have got to be kidding me! Is he eating…oh my God, that’s…glitter!” Heather said in disgust.
“That means he’s already eaten the glue, man he’s good!”
“Ate glue? What? Why?” Heather followed Harper to the group at the back corner table. Cooper and Tommy were among the group and Heather hoped and prayed, the only two tykes she liked weren’t part of the glitter and glue crew.
“Danielle?” Harper started with one of the girls, hoping to get an honest answer. “Want to tell me why the glue and glitter are going in your belly instead of on the canvas?”
A little boy next to Danielle laughed when Danielle’s eyes dropped to the floor, so he answered for her, “Unicorn poop!”
Hand to mouth, Heather gasped in shock, horror strewn across her face. “What did you say? Tell me you didn’t just say that?!”
The group giggled, gaining the attention of the other kids at surrounding tables. Harper joined them, fully aware of what the kids were trying to accomplish, deciding to let Heather find out on her own…since she asked.
Danielle’s glance met Heather’s eyes, her rosy cheeks revealing her embarrassment, “We’re making Unicorn poop because Unicorn’s poop glitter and, and, you have to eat the glue.”
“Eat the…” Heather looked at Harper who shrugged her shoulders, holding back a laugh, “glue doesn’t make Unicorn poop. Glue is just…glue.”
Tommy tugged at Heather’s shirt, trying to get her attention, “Miss. Heather, you eat the glue so the glitter sticks, but I don’t eat it and Coop doesn’t eat it. My dad said it’s only good for a tummy ache and not good for Unicorn poop.”
“I think I’m still missing something here. You all really ate glue and glitter?” she scanned the table, noting sparkly lips all around, with the exceptions being Tommy and Cooper. These kids were really eating the glitter! Ewww!
“Um, Miss.Heather? If you eat the glue first, the glitter sticks. So when you poop, it sparkles – Unicorn poop!”
“Surely you know that you don’t need to eat glue for glitter to stick to your…” palm to face, Heather realized what she was saying, and quickly diverted the conversation as she was not about to discuss Unicorn poop, or poop of any kind for that matter, with the six and unders. “Look, you can’t eat glue, and you can’t eat glitter. It’s gross. Really gross, and Tommy is right. You’re just going to get belly aches.”
The little boy next to Danielle chimed in again, crossing his arms, not satisfied with such an absolute, “Then how do we get Unicorn poop?”
“Are you for…” Heather turned to Harper again, redirecting her question to her, “Are they for real? Like this is real? They really want…that? I can’t even believe I’m…”
Heather let out a deep sigh, closing her eyes as she collected her cool, trying to find a solution and way out of this conversation. Never in her wildest dreams did she see Unicorn poop conversations as part of her life’s resume. None the less, here she was and she needed a solution. Glancing around the table, at the various supplies, she had access to. There had to be an answer among the Crayola crowd and their safety scissor gear.
Her face lit up, an idea. She wasn’t sure if this was brilliant or completely absurd, but it remedied the immediate need for Unicorn…stuff. She grabbed a container of playdoh from the center of the table, pulling out one of the tot sized chairs and taking a seat. The Crayola crowd began to circle her table, skeptical of the pile she was placing in front of her.
“Purple! Perfect!” She said, opening the first can, “and pink! Hey, kid…hand me that yellow one!”
Opening each can, she scooped the bright squishy dough, setting them on the table in front of her. Digging in to the last container, an air pocket combined with sliding the clay like matter out of the plastic made an awkward gas like sound.
“Miss. Heather farted!” The group of littles was lost to laughter.
Tommy’s hands went to his hips, and he puffed out his chest, ready to defend her ghastly honor. “That’s not a fart! She’s a lady…it’s a toot!”
Being the dutiful nephew, Cooper joined his best friend. “Yeah! My Aunt Heather just toots a lot! Be nice, Charlie!”
“Whoa, whoa, boys, thanks, but I got this,” she said to her two tiny heroes, before addressing the group. “Drop the toot and fart talk, got it? You’re actin’ like a bunch of monkeys. You want Unicorn poop, or not?”
With a quick cheer from the crowd of kids, she nodded her head and went to work. Grabbing a small handful of playdoh, from each color, she worked them together before rolling them in the bowl of glitter, working it in. “Now, when it’s all pretty and sparkly, you have to make it a shape. Hearts! Unicorns…well, they do you know…hearts!”
Wiping her hands over the bowl, she took to her feet confidently resting her hands on her hips, proud of her glitter hearts. “Now you guys don’t have to eat glue and glitter…this is the real deal, gang!”
Harper clapped her hands for her friend as she walked off, ready to clean up for the day and ready the kids for parent pick-up.
An hour later, Tommy was the only child left due to Clay’s last appointment running late. He walked in to see Heather squatting down to Tommy’s level, helping him with his jacket zipper.
“Miss. Heather?” he asked.
“What’s up, Tomster?” she replied, ruffling his dark hair.
“I didn’t like it when Charlie said that about your farts.” Heather snickered at Clay’s reaction to the F word, “cause you are the best teacher of ever and I like being Tomster.”
“Well, thanks, Tomster. You were pretty awesome too. Thanks for having my back, buddy.”
Her own sparkly heart melted when he wrapped his tiny arms around her neck, and gave her a squeeze. The real kicker was the sweet little kiss he planted on her cheek. She was falling for the kid as much as his dad.
Clay was thinking to himself that he needed to stop at the bakery on the way home, so Tommy could get two of everything.