“When does James pick up the kids?” Callie grabs Christopher before he climbs up the steps to the balance beam and barrels over Max as she walks across it. I could cringe, but it wouldn’t be the first time he knocked her off.
I take her little hand and help her walk slowly, while Callie wrestles with Christopher on the stairs. Again.
“Tomorrow after school.”
“You ok with him taking Max?”
That is the million-dollar question. Now that she’s officially three, he gets the same visitation as he does with the others—first, third, and fifth weekend of the month.
It’s been hard letting the older two go with him for their visits. Not because I think he’s a bad dad. He’s not. He’s not as attentive as I’d like, but he’s not abusive or anything. It goes against my nature as their mother to be away from them this much. Sending Max away, too, makes it that much harder.
“I’m not thrilled, but there’s nothing I can do about it, ya know? I’m trying not to think too much about it.” Max gets to the end of the beam and I help her jump down to the floor, pride radiating off her face. “Fiona is old enough that she can report to me if anything goes wrong. And she knows how to make basic sandwiches if Home Wrecker Barbie forgets to feed them.”
Callie finally lets Christopher go and he runs across the beam as fast as he can. He trips with just a few feet left to run and tumbles to the ground. Not one adult in the gym even blinks twice. We’re all used to his rough and tumble ways. Sure enough, almost as soon as he hits the floor, he’s on his feet, racing to a springboard and jumping onto a few stacked-up mats. Max races behind him and, somehow, they end up falling in a heap on top of the springboard.
We meander our way across the room, careful not to get too far away from the kids.
“I hate him,” Callie grumbles. “He’s such a jerk and of course he married the worst woman in the entire world. I understand how hard it is to raise kids with a deadbeat dad. But I feel like that’s better than all this fake shit they do.”
“I know. He was such a distant parent when we were married that you know they’re eventually going to dump out of my kids’ lives at some point. Why put them through all the back and forth now?”
“That’s easy. To shove their psychotic relationship in your face.”
I roll my eyes. “You think they’ll ever figure out that I genuinely don’t care that they’re together? That if they were hit by a bus tomorrow the only tears I would shed would be for the sad looks on my kids’ faces?”
“They’re never going to understand that, my friend. They’re delusional enough to think none of us see through their games.”
It’s true. Yes, the betrayal still stings. But any emotion I have towards either of them is gone.
“Mama, Mama!” Max yells from a few feet away. I turn my attention in her direction as she does a forward roll down the cheese-shaped mat. She lands with a flop on her back, spread out like a starfish, but we clap for her improvement anyway—she didn’t roll sideways off the mat this time.
As we clap, I feel him come up behind us before he even says anything.
“Hey, uh, Callie?”
I can’t help but feel a little jealous that he addresses her first. It’s ridiculous, but sometimes I wish a hot guy would be interested in me. Even if it never goes anywhere.
“Oh, hey Greg,” she says with a smile. “We didn’t see you before. Did you get here late?”
“Yeah, my ex decided Peyton was too sick to come today.”
The three of us look over at the young girl happily throwing a scarf in the air and catching it.
“Uh. yeah. She looks really under the weather,” I retort.
“She made a miraculous recovery, right? But hey… did you see where Christopher is?” He points to the bars, and we watch as Tarzan shimmies his way up the side to the high bar.
“Hell…” she mutters and stomps away, yelling, “Christopher! You get down from there right now. We’ve talked about this!”
I laugh under my breath.
“I have no idea how she keeps up with him,” Greg remarks.
“She doesn’t.” Callie stands underneath Christopher, grasping at his feet as he hangs on to the high bar for dear life and flails his legs to get her way from him. If I hadn’t seen this happen a million times before, I’d question her ability to contain him.
Oh, who am I kidding. I’d be laughing at her and thanking my lucky stars it wasn’t me.
“She baby-proofed pretty much her entire house the minute he started walking,” I tell him.
Callie finally gets a good grasp of Christopher and yanks him down, the force throwing them both to the mat. Greg and I both laugh.
“I really wish I would remember to have my camera rolling at all times when they’re around.”
“Is that funny videos show still on TV?” he asks. “You could probably win serious money by putting together some sort of montage of them.”
“I was thinking more like a YouTube channel.”
“That could work.” I smile at him and notice he’s smiling back at me. And not just a friendly smirk when he glances my direction. He’s really looking at me and grinning. Like Peyton could fall off that weird rock wall thing or get stuck in a hula hoop and he wouldn’t even notice because he’s looking at me.
I get a weird sensation of butterflies in my stomach. Part nervous. Part excited. And a significant part of me that doesn’t want to get my hopes up, especially since, once again, I didn’t plan to talk to a hot guy and I’m wearing yoga pants and a stained t-shirt. I need to get a grip.
“How much longer do we have in class?” Callie puffs out, as she drags Christopher behind her. I mean “drags” in a very literal sense. He’s made himself dead weight behind her and refuses to stand up.
I look at the clock. “We’ve still got twenty minutes.”
She strains as she makes one last effort to lug Christopher to the mat and drops him on the floor. “We doing lunch when we’re done?”
“I assumed. Don’t we always do lunch?”
“Yes, but this one is extra-hyper today. I’m not sure… Christopher!” she calls out as he starts running back towards the bar. “Good god, will this child ever listen to me?”
“Christopher, stop!” Greg yells after him. And whatdoyouknow… the little shit stops and turns around. “Your mother said stop. Come back here please.”
Callie and I watch with our mouths wide open in disbelief, as Christopher walks right over to Greg who squats down in front of the tot. “Your mother said you can’t go on that high bar. Do you understand?” Christopher nods. “Good. Now you can walk over and swing on the low bar. But if you try to climb to the top, you will sit against the wall until your mom says you can get up. Do you understand me?” Christopher nods again. This time Greg smiles at him. “Good job, bud. Give me five, right here.” Christopher slaps his hand, a smile on his face. “Remember what I said…walk to that low bar.”
“Holy. Shit,” Callie whispers, as we watch Christopher calmly walk exactly where Greg told him to go. “Are you some kind of magician? No, you’re a witch, right? Or warlock. Isn’t that what they call a guy witch?”
Greg bends down and picks up Peyton, who pops her thumb in her mouth and lays her head on his shoulder. “Nah. Sometimes little boys just respond better to men.”
“He doesn’t listen to my husband.”
“Your husband doesn’t talk to him unless he’s disciplining him,” I remind her.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t respond to your husband, but there’s a lot of different research on the topic.” Greg absentmindedly rubs Peyton’s back, and I can’t help another twinge of jealousy. Not because I want my back rubbed, but because I know James doesn’t do that with my kids. “Some people think it has something to do with testosterone responding to testosterone. But there’s also some research that shows a lot of boys hear lower toned voices better, which typically is a man’s voice versus a woman’s voice.”
“Well, whatever the reason, if you can get my kid to respond and obey, you and I are going to become great friends,” Callie says with a wink and a smile. “Would you like to join us for lunch again today?”
I swear Greg looks over at me when he answers. “Count me in.”
Forty-five minutes later, we’re at our favorite post-gym restaurant… McDonalds. The kids are, once again, taking over the playscape. And we are, once again, munching on their forgotten Happy Meals.
“Have you put together your birthday list for your mom yet?” Callie knows my mom refuses to buy birthday or Christmas presents anymore if she doesn’t have a list of exact colors, sizes and brands. I suspect it’s from hearing my brother bitch one too many times about not getting the right thing, so she gave up. I guess it’s nice that we always get what we want. But I like surprises, too.
“Your birthday is coming up?” Greg asks as he licks ketchup off his thumb. I have no idea why I noticed that, but it was actually kind of sexy.
Oh boy. I’ve hit a new low.
“It’s not for a couple of weeks.”
“Oh. Do you have big plans?” he asks.
“Not really. I guess birthdays were never really that big of a deal in our house. Now Christmas, we do up Christmas like you’ve never seen. But birthdays mean celebrating that my parents had sex.”
Apparently, he wasn’t expecting that response, because he chokes on his drink.
Callie begins banging on his back. “You ok there? Didn’t expect our girl to be so blunt?”
He shakes his head back and forth. “Nope,” he coughs out.
I shrug with a smile. “Sorry.” No, I’m not. “I guess once you hit thirty, no one really pays attention to your birthday anymore,” I say once he’s pulled himself back together.
Callie points at me with a fry. “No, you don’t pay attention to your birthday anymore because you don’t like drawing that much attention to yourself.” The fry flops around as she keeps talking. “Some of us, on the other hand, want to do it up big every year. Cakes and streamers and a giant sign that reads ‘Happy Birthday, Calixta’ in twinkly lights.” She throws her arms out wide in exaggeration and half the fry flies off. It lands on the floor right in front of Max who promptly snags it up and eats it before running to the colorful stairs again.
We’re such a classy bunch.
“Calixta, huh?” Greg says, still whacking his chest. “You ever read The Storm?”
Callie’s eyes widen and her jaw drops open in delight. “By Kate Chopin?”
He nods and smiles.
“Ohmygod, my mother did a paper on it in college. She was fascinated by it. Said it was a revolutionary book for a woman to write in 1898.” She smacks him on his arm. “I can’t believe you knew that!”
“My mother was a college professor. Taught all kinds of literature classes so the bookshelves were stocked.”
A squeal rings out and we all turn simultaneously to stare at the playscape. When no one starts wailing, it’s an unspoken determination that no one is bleeding or dead and we return to our conversation.
“Anyway,” Greg continues, “when I was nine or ten, my mom wouldn’t let me go to a friend’s house or ride my bike or something until I finished reading a book. It was this ongoing argument she and I used to have.” He pops another fry in his mouth and takes a quick sip of his drink. Seriously. How does a man make a beard look sexy?
“I was determined that I would show her,” he says with mock indignation. “So, I grabbed the shortest book I could find.” He nods again with an ornery smile. “My mom was pissed when she realized what I had read.”
Callie howls with laughter and Greg keeps munching, with an ornery smile on his face.
I look back and forth between them, trying to ignore the weird jealous feelings that have popped up now that they have an inside joke.
“Um, hi,” I blurt out. “Anyone want to explain why that’s funny?”
Callie wipes a tear from her eye. “The entire book, actually, I wouldn’t even call it a book. It’s more like an essay. But it’s about a woman who is married with children and has an affair.”
“Very, very torrid,” Greg says.
“Not torrid at all,” Callie disputes.
“Torrid to a nine-year-old boy.”
Callie looks at me and changes her answer. “Very, very torrid.”
“How many times are you guys gonna say torrid?” I jest.
“Until it confuses our brains and loses all meaning.” Callie doesn’t miss a beat. She can go on like this for hours.
“Pretty sure I’m already there.” I wipe my hands on a napkin and lean my elbows on the table. “But what I want to know, Greg, is how many times you read the book for the name to have stuck with you.”
A slight blush covers the apples of his cheeks and he ducks his head, still snacking. “A few.”
“A few?”
He wipes his own hands and throws the napkin on the table. “Let’s just say when I moved away to college, Mom found it under my bed. Dog-eared to a certain page.”
Callie and I both laugh this time.
“That’s such a guy thing,” Callie giggles.
“Get ready,” Greg says as he turns to look at the kids again, Max and Christopher rolling down the slide. I can’t tell which limbs belong to which kids. “I can tell you right now, you’re going to find a lot of porn on that kid’s devices when he’s in high school.”
Callie grimaces. “He better not. The minute I find out he’s been looking at nudie pics, I refuse to do his laundry anymore.”
“What do those two things have to do with each other?” I ask.
She points another floppy fry at me. “I have a brother. I know what crusty socks mean they’ve been doing.”
Greg chokes on his drink again and Callie reaches over to hit him on the back again. “You really need to get used to the things we sometimes say.”
“No kidding,” he chokes out the words, as he bangs a fist on his chest, face turning bright red from all the pounding going on. “You two are determined to kill me.”
I smirk. He really has no idea how crazy we can get. But I have a feeling he’s going to find out.