Page 14 of Mornings By the Linden Tree
“Valeria, you have coloring books on the shelf,” I said with a wave of my hand to the brand-new children’s bookshelf sitting by the sliding door. She nodded, her eyes dewy, her bare feet tucked under her bottom as she sat among a dozen stuffed bunnies. The rabbits were for emotional support, I assumed. “Why would you color all over this book?”
“It has kitties,” she explained as she hugged a yellow bunny close. It was the same shade as her summer nightie from Mama Puddles, a lovely little shop here in Boston that specialized in high-end children’s clothing.
I looked down at the photo of a wooden mask of a lion she had scribbled over with a purple crayon and sighed. I closed the book with a snap.
“From here on out, you are to color only in your books,” I explained as I tucked the book on the highest shelf of my walnut wall shelving unit. The same one that held my television, stereo system, and countless small statuaries as well as my vinyl record collection. “Do you understand?”
“Even if they has kitties?” she asked through the long, floppy ear of her yellow bunny.
“Yes, even if they has…it has kitties.” I made a mental note to lock up the crayons when I left the room, then promptly left the room to make breakfast without locking up the damn crayons. I jogged back to find the box and stashed it with the ruined coffee table book before returning to the kitchen.
Valeria bounced in behind me, singing to herself before climbing up onto the bench of the breakfast nook. She carefully placed the yellow bunny beside her in the booster seat she refused to sit in.
“Can we have dip the eggs and toast?”
I chuckled as I made coffee. “Yes, we can have sunny-side up eggs and toast.”
“With jam?”
“Yes, with jam.”
Pleased with the menu, Valeria sat beside her bunny, sipping her milk as I fried some eggs and toasted some white bread. The meal was peaceful, thankfully. She finished before me, so I told her to go watch television while I loaded the dishwasher. Mrs. Polkowski was not due in over the weekend, so keeping things clean fell to me, a task I had at one time found easy but now found to be less easy due to a certain someone in a yellow nightie.
“Uncle Wes, the top hat man is in the park!!” Valeria yelled at the top of her lungs. “Can we go see him, please?!”
I didn’t plan to visit the Common today. I’d thought about taking her to the Children’s Museum for the morning and then spending the rest of the day at the aquarium with a meal out at one of the finer restaurants by the wharf. A whole day out. Maybe if she were utterly exhausted when I placed her in her bed tonight, she would sleep there all night. I was quickly running out of ideas as to how to keep her sleep peaceful.
Still, and this was a bad sign, I would not mind seeing Lennon again. I knew he was not the sort of man whom I generally would be drawn to, yet there was something about him that drew me toward him. Perhaps he was just a sign I was truly frazzled as I would never have deigned to flirt with a man who wore clothes from a blind clown’s closet. Not that I was flirting. No, no, that was not what I was doing. Lennon was flirting. I was not a coquet. Prick teasing was not my way as it involved acting like a flighty bit of fluff.
“We can go for a little bit,” I called out as I slid a yolk-covered sippy cup onto a peg among the other glassware.
“Yay!!” echoed through the house. “I want to wear the prettiest clothes ever.”
I heard her thunder upstairs. After a fast wipe of my fingers on the dishtowel, I jogged up after her to ensure she didn’t wreak havoc on her closet. Wrinkled clothes were not acceptable in public, so we had to press a little shirt and leggings combo with rabbits to wear out. When we hit the Common, she ran to the group on blankets, fell to her knees, and ground in some lovely grass stains on her freshly ironed white leggings. I ran a hand over my face in exasperation as I caught Lennon’s eye. I nodded, then spread out a blanket at the back of the gathering, taking my ward by the hand to remove her from a blanket with a family wedidn’t know. Mona and Penny were right by the base of the old tree, so we settled beside them.
“You look very dapper,” Mona commented as I sat primly on my black-and-red tartan throw I’d purchased in Scotland four years ago. A week-long golfing trip with a friend of my other partners. Lovely place, well-kept greens, overlooking a dark loch. I played miserably.
“Thank you. We’re making a day of it outside,” I replied, feeling rather good that I had tidied up today. Not because I was going to see someone who was now bouncing about like a drunken goat singing about a sneezing kangaroo. Not at all. I simply wished to look like the Wesley of old, so I’d pulled on some plaid trousers, a vest, and a short-sleeved white shirt. No tie as it was the weekend. And a Saturday that should have beenmyday, but I suspected days spent on only Wesley were like the dodo. Extinct.
“That’s wonderful. They’ve just added a new display all about starfish at the aquarium. I think she’ll love it.” Mona handed me a cookie after giving one to both the girls. I reminded Valeria to thank her, which she did around a mouthful of oatmeal raisin. I nibbled mine, determined to get back on track with not only my diet but also the rest of my madcap life. Perhaps I could even return to work part time if I could find a daycare center. But that all hinged on getting Valeria more settled and working out her trauma.
“I’ll be sure to enquire about it,” I replied politely as Lennon frogged about with his guitar and his gloriously stupid top hat.
He played a nice mix of newer songs and old classics. I even found myself humming along to “Bingo,” which had been one of Aida’s favorites when she was young. It was astounding how often I thought of my sister when I looked at her daughter. Other than the physical similarities of the rich tan skin, black hair, and deep brown eyes, they had the same exuberance for life. Theworld was a place for them to explore. Somehow, my sister’s joy over the simple things had withered away to be replaced by melancholy and despair. Well, not somehow. I knew all about mental illness and how it was linked to drug abuse. The last numbers I saw stated that over 50 percent of drug abusers have at least one serious mental health illness. So given Aida’s rough childhood and her genetics, her falling into drug use wasn’t all that shocking. It was desperately sad, though.
I snapped out of my fugue when Lennon plopped down beside me, his face damp with sweat, his smile as bright as the sun overhead.
“Hey, you,” he said to Valeria and Penny, who gushed all over him as if he were some famous entertainer and not just a quirky gay man in outlandish clothes working for tips. “Did you enjoy the show?”
The girls jabbered at him as people with strollers or grasping tiny hands stopped as they left to say thank you and hand him money. He shoved the greenbacks into the pockets of his saggy overalls as he chatted merrily with the girls. He had painted some freckles on his face today, tiny cinnamon dots that did not detract from his good looks at all, and I was not a fan of freckles for the most part. It seemed everything looked good on Lennon Cole. Even his silly hat seemed to add to his charm. I found myself staring and quickly glanced at Mona.
“So, what are you girls doing today?” he asked as Mona stared at me as if I had sprouted not only another head but a horn on my forehead.
“We’re going to the ’quarum to see a shark! You should come with us so when you sing the baby shark song, you know what his daddy shark looks like in person!” Valeria said as she and Penny stood hand-in-hand. Both were gaga over Lennon, it seemed.
My brain skidded out of control at the thought of spending all day with a man dressed like a farmer who had inhaled too much corn fumes.
Corn fumes?
