Page 40 of Dirty Rotten Cheating Husband

He was a red-headed kid with a bounty of freckles, a boy around 10, although I didn’t know kids well enough to be able to tell.

“Why are you wearing all those dumb-looking pink ribbons?” he asked.

I glanced down at myself. Clementine was working on my costume, but she had insisted that I wear the ribbons for it so I could “get comfortable with them.”

It didn’t matter what she made me wear. I would do the entire play in a chicken costume if it meant Clementine forgave me.

“What the fuck else should a Fairy Frogmother wear?” I asked irritably, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to be saying the word ‘fuck’ in front of kids.

He seemed to be digesting this.

“I guess that makes sense. I’m not used to seeing a guy who looks like you wearing pink ribbons.”

“Big guys like me can wear anything we want,” I said. “What’s important is how we act.”

Fuck, I wish I’d been smart enough to take my own advice.

Smart enough to realize that my job wasn’t the most important thing in the world. Clementine was. It was extremely shitty and unpleasant to realize what an asshole I had been.

“My name is Dennis,” the kid said. “Can you guess why I have to do this crappy play?”

“Why?” I asked, my hands moving automatically to fix the branches of this goddamn Enchanted Tree. They were always falling off, but Clementine said it was a special work of art that had been donated by the mayor’s wife, so we unfortunately were not able to just dump it in the garbage bin as it so richly deserved.

“I set one of the school buildings on fire,” he said.

“OK,” I said, not exactly sure how to respond.

“It felt good at the time,” Dennis said reflectively, taking a bag of sour candy from his pocket and shoving several in his mouth. “But I did feel a little guilty when I saw how upset the art teacher was to have some of her, like, paintings damaged.”

“Hm,” I said. “I guess I know how that feels. But all we can do now is not be jackasses going forward.”

Fuck. I remembered again I wasn’t supposed to be cursing around small children.

But it seemed to make an impression on Dennis.

He didn’t say anything, but he bent down to pick up another branch and stuck it back in its slot. A few more kids started to help.

Working together, we put all the branches back on the Enchanted Tree. Then we stood together and looked at it.

“It’s just going to fall down again,” Dennis said in a disgruntled tone.

“Then we’ll put it back up again,” I said.

It was kind of a lame answer, but the kids nodded like I’d said something profound.

When Clementine came back over they were practicing their lines as I tried to rig something to keep the Enchanted Forest upright.

“How’s it going?” Clementine asked, her cute little voice sounding triumphant. “Enjoying yourself? Have you been set on fire yet?”

“Why no,” I chuckled. “They’re not so bad, really. I think they’ll do fine for the play. Is there a toolbox or anything here so I can try to fix these tree branches? I don’t want them falling down on the kids.”

“In here,” she said, and she pulled a key from her pocket as she led me down a darkened hallway.

Oh, fuck, the things I wanted to take her down a dark hallway and do. Getting down on my knees between her thighs would be just the first step.

“Just you wait,” she said through gritted teeth. “I am going to wear you down.”

“No, love,” I said, bending down so my voice was low in her ear. “You won’t. Nothing you could do could drive me away.”

---