Little Wonders

by Kate Rorick

  In the end, she decided on something very simple.

  This year’s table. #thankful

  Her thumb hovered over the post button. She closed her eyes.

  And when she opened them, the picture was right there, on her feed.

  Her breath froze in her lungs. She couldn’t move. She didn’t even blink, as she watched her phone.

  For what felt like hours. It burned in her hand. And then, it happened.

  A comment notification.

  “Love it!” from an interior designer she knew from conferences.

  Then a like popped up. And another.

  Nothing extreme, nothing callous or mean. Just . . . people appreciating her perfect table.

  Quinn’s entire body relaxed.

  Ham called out to her from the playroom doorway. He was wearing his special lab coat that she’d had monogrammed with his name, and his green plastic stethoscope. “Mommy! Do you have an ouchy?”

  She put the phone in her pocket, and moved briskly out of the dining room. “Oh yes, my, erm . . . elbow has a boo-boo, Dr. Hamilton. Can you help me?”

  Stuart and Hamilton smiled up at her as she entered the room.

  Yes, maybe they had finally, finally come out on the other side.

  Little Wonders Preschool December Newsletter

  Hello, WONDER-ful parents!

  Ho Ho Happy Holidays! Welcome to that most magical time of the year—the winter season at Little Wonders! Also known as the month you really should have saved all your sick days up for, because these kids are off more days than they are on. Our little ones are all so excited for the arrival of Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa Solstice whatever the hell you celebrate the end of the year that you no doubt are enjoying the fruits of their crafting labors. We know there’s glitter everywhere. Take it up with Santa. And to that end, we would like to remind you all that each room has an art supplies closet that they would love help restocking! We want money. Construction paper, glue sticks, safety scissors—ask your individual teachers what they need to help keep our kids in paper snowflakes and cotton ball snowmen! Seriously, a Target gift card will go a lot further than cleaning all the Play Doh out of your craft drawer. We know you are looking for a way to give back to our teachers this time of year, and anything would be appreciated. GIFT. CARDS. If you’re not giving your teachers and teacher assistants heartfelt handwritten notes with gift cards inside them, how do you look yourself in the mirror every morning?

  And what would the holidays be without a holiday party? After the success of our splendid and uneventful, thank god Thanksgiving Pageant, our new Parent Association president Shanna Stone has decided to make this year’s Snowflake Breakfast something truly special. If you are not up to date on the presidential transition we witnessed at the last Parent Association meeting, I have the minutes. So we are once again looking for parent volunteers! Come get your volunteer hours in at the most spectacular, cozy, delightful event of the year! Seriously, it’s the end of the calendar year, and if you’re short on your hours you’re SOL after this. We need organizers, decorators, setup/breakdown, cleaning crew, people to call for donations, and everything in between! Oh, yeah. This is basically everything you do at your own house. So, it’ll be super fun to do it at the school, right? No wonder we have to force people to sign up for these things.

  The Snowflake Breakfast will be held on Friday, December 18th from 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM. Santa will be in attendance, yes, with a real beard as will his photographer elves.

  Please note that the school will be closed for the winter holidays from December 21st through January 4th. So we hope to see you at the Snowflake Breakfast before we all settle in for our long winter’s nap! Two weeks. Two weeks at home. With your child. And no one else.

  Together in Parenting!

  Suzy Breakman-Kang

  Little Wonders Parent Association Secretary

  Chapter Eight

  For Daisy, December wasn’t complete without a big trip to the movies. Something you buy tickets for in advance and plan drinks and dinner around. Maybe something you even wait in line for several weeks to be one of the first to see.

  While Daisy didn’t have weeks to sit in line to be the first person to see a movie anymore, she did have Grandpa Bob babysitting for Carrie, a planned evening out in the city, and two tickets to the new Star Wars movie in her pocket.

  Daisy had earned this night out. She’d been planning it since she learned the release date of the film. Obviously, her plans required adjustment when they ended up moving to Needleton, but she’d still had this date blocked off on her and Rob’s shared calendar for months.

  It was her Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one.

  Sadly, Daisy hadn’t been able to go to opening night, as opening night was right before the Snowflake Breakfast, and Shanna might have had a nervous breakdown/murdered Daisy/binge-eaten all the olives in the greater New England area.

  In fact, Shanna had threatened to do all three things.

  “Daisy you cannot go to see a midnight movie in the city eight hours before the Snowflake Breakfast! We have to be there early to take delivery of Santa’s chair and the decorative full-size nutcrackers! And I need you to make sure Santa actually shows up—the agency promised me it wasn’t going to be a drunk and that he’d have a real beard, but then I spoke to Suzy and she said her office ordered a Santa from the same agency and it turned out he was drinking whiskey the whole time! Oh, I could kill you—please, please, just wait till after the breakfast, okay? I know Star Trek is your thing or whatever but it’ll still be playing in the theaters the week after, right? Where’s my spreadsheet of volunteers? I need to sit down . . . I think I might be having a panic attack—or, no, the baby is hungry. Can you slide me that jar of olives?”

  Shanna was just out of her first trimester now (as she was quick to remind everyone) and having “held it together” through the potentially tumultuous first trimester—wherein she did not display any of the morning sickness or uncomfortable symptoms that Daisy remembered with such clarity—she was entitled to indulge her unborn child in every demand it put upon her body.

  Basically, this involved a lot of sitting down (understandable), olives (cravings, totally made sense), and relying on Daisy to help out with the proverbial heavy lifting as much as possible.

  Which was actually not as much as Shanna would have liked. Because Daisy had managed to get a couple more shifts at the Cranberry Boutique.

  In the most depressing way possible.

  The color on the box said it was a “Caramel Brown”—she guessed that was pretty close to her natural hair color. It had been a while since she had last seen it. It took two boxes to completely kill off the electric blue but, in the end, caramel highlights swished through her hair. Maybe she could make this work, she decided.

  But when Carrie saw it, she cried.

  Carrie just wasn’t used to it, Daisy told herself. She was surprised by the abrupt change. She wasn’t the only one.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Rob had said.

  “You don’t like it,” Daisy replied.

  “No! No—don’t get me wrong, you look amazing. It’s . . . just so different from what I’m used to. But Aunt Patty doesn’t know what she’s talking about—it’s the holidays, they’re going to need all hands on deck anyway in the boutique.”

  “Working the front, making a commission—it’s a lot more money than just restocking and straightening out the books.”

  “We could rethink Carrie’s school?” he’d suggested. “Reduce her days, or take her out and reenroll next year, once we have the down payment?”

  This just exasperated Daisy. They’d talked circles around and around about school when they first moved to Needleton. And it had been Rob who insisted that Carrie attend Little Wonders, even though it took out a massive chunk of his salary. It was too good for Carrie, he’d argued then. And it meant that Daisy would have the time to figure out an East Coast version of her career
path, which he was adamant the move would not hamper.

  “She’s only three days a week now. And we wouldn’t get her in next year,” Daisy replied, trying to hide her annoyance. “Shanna says there’s a massive waitlist, and we only got in because of her and Jamie’s connections.”

  They talked further, of course—theorized, pitched a bunch of “what if” scenarios, but come the Monday after Thanksgiving, Daisy removed her piercing, found a deep red turtleneck that passed as festive, paired it with her most respectable pair of high-waisted trouser jeans, ankle boots, a banal black pea coat, and made her way to the Cranberry Boutique.

  But she put on her most massive pair of sunglasses, and with a small smile at the irony, tried to do her best Quinn Barrett walking down the hallways of Little Wonders imitation. She’d planned for a casual but firm entrance. She ended up closer to “hesitant mincing.”

  There was no one in the store.

  “Hello?” she’d called out, as the bell on the front door tinkled.

  “Hello!” came Elaine’s voice from the back of the shop. She came forward, all scarves and perfectly streaked gray hair. Her scarf today seemed to consume her—it was decidedly Christmassy, a green and red plaid shot through with gold, and tied in the most intricate knot this side of a gentleman’s cravat. “I’m sorry, you caught me still getting ready. We’re not quite open yet.”

  “I know . . . I’m not late, am I?” Daisy said as she took off the massive sunglasses and her heavy pea coat.

  A frown crossed Elaine’s face, then, as she stepped closer—her eyebrows went up as her jaw went down. “Daisy?” she asked, incredulous. “Is that you?”

  Fifteen minutes later, Daisy was behind the register, opening up the store, and working the sales floor. And by the end of the day, she was scheduled for shifts every day Carrie was in school.

  Cosplay, she told herself. This was just cosplay. She was playing the character of Daisy, a young Needleton mom and wife, who picked up retail shifts for a little “fun money.” Not Daisy the weird, nerdy girl who desperately needed to make some cash so they could put together a down payment for their very own home.

  This Cosplay Daisy knew all the latest trends and designers. She knew what a good silk scarf could do for an outfit. She knew that your sister was just going to love that cashmere sweater, and just how adorable your six-year-old grandson would look in that polo shirt with a whale insignia on the breast pocket.

  And when she got home, she was herself again. Sure, her hair was a different color, but she could change into a Chewbacca Is My Copilot shirt and d20 patterned leggings and Cosplay Daisy would disappear.

  But Cosplay Daisy kept popping up in the oddest places. Target (so many more “can I help yous” from the red-shirted employees), the grocery store (someone ma’amed her. Ma’amed her). And the Snowflake Breakfast.

  Daisy had gotten there early, taken delivery of the life-size nutcrackers and Santa’s chair, smelled Santa’s breath to make sure he was sober and ran his name through the sex offenders’ registry. All was checking out, except the beard.

  His beard was red. Not white. Not even gray. Red.

  Shanna had been apoplectic. “I am calling the agency! I specifically said white beard—this guy couldn’t even be bothered to dye it???”

  Privately Daisy agreed. They could have put Grandpa Bob in a red suit and he would have had the time of his life, she’d whispered to Rob after it was all said and done. But this guy seemed so over being Santa—like he’d reached his limit of being peed on, cried on, pulled, or hugged that he was just phoning it in. He’d hoed his last ho.

  While Shanna was off making that phone call, and hopefully getting 10 percent or so knocked off Santa’s rate, Daisy was at the door, greeting people and directing volunteers from the list that Shanna had handed to her.

  “Hi—we haven’t met,” said a volunteer, as he came to the door. “I’m Elia’s dad? I signed up to bring pastries.” He wielded a pink pastry box.

  “Um, actually we have met,” she replied. “Daisy Stone—Carrie’s mom?”

  She read surprise on his face, then his eyes flicked from her hair to her face (to where her septum ring used to be) and to where the barest hint of her tattooed arms peeked out at her wrist.

  She realized then she was in Cosplay Daisy’s clothes—headed to the Cranberry Boutique after the breakfast was over.

  He blustered for a minute about how she looked different—good! but different—and then looked ridiculously relieved when she pointed him to the refreshments table.

  It was only then that she looked at the paper and saw that Shanna had written in big bold letters: DO NOT LET ELIA’S DAD BRING PASTRIES. NONORGANIC!!!

  The rest of the Snowflake breakfast went . . . fine. Most people were really worn down by the holidays—and it was a week before they would even have the holidays. The parents mingled, coffee was drunk, and the pastries riddled with nonorganic ingredients were quietly disposed of. The kids came in with their classes one at a time, Red Beard Santa did his duty, photos were taken, gifts asked for, and toddlers cried and screamed and peed.

  All the while Shanna moved through the room, talking to all the parents, directing the volunteers—giving directions and saying things like “Aces!” and “Thumbs up!” It was part of a strategy she had read about, she’d told Daisy: leading through positivity.

  It mostly looked like Shanna was exhausting herself trying to make something perfect that was meant to be low-key and fun.

  And when the whole thing was done, Daisy was exhausted, too. But she still had her shift at the boutique, and what got her through both was the thought of her dinner-and-a-movie plans for that night. Time spent alone! With her husband! And no small child! An after-dinner snack of a bucket of popcorn and the chest-tingling trumpet blare of the opening notes of the Star Wars theme were in her future.

  So much so that she didn’t want her future to wait—so after work, she quickly grabbed Carrie from Little Wonders, handed her off to Grandpa Bob with the promise of ice cream and a movie night of her own, swiped on some lip gloss, and headed out the door to catch a train into Boston.

  As she walked through the streets of the city, the cold didn’t bother her—even though it was freaking frigid. (How did people live like this? Another check in LA’s column, being able to feel her toes.) She felt alive in a way she hadn’t in ages. The thrum of the city—even a freezing one like this one—gave her life. People bustled. Lights popped. New and interesting things were in shop windows. As she moved across a bridge into Cambridge, she found herself treading on more familiar turf.

  There, amid the twinkly Christmas lights strung around Harvard Square, was a tattoo parlor—its neon lights red and green for the occasion. There were an alarming number of Red Sox and Harvard logos in their offerings, but otherwise it had some glorious art.

  She passed by kids who looked like they went to Hogwarts, in long scarves, laughing with kids who had mermaid hair colors, Goth makeup, and metallic Doc Martens.

  Down the street was an alternative bookstore, teeming with gift ideas in the window for your favorite nerd: urban fantasy own-voices novels, stacks and stacks of cooperative tabletop games from indie game makers, and clothing styled with the latest deep-dive memes. Daisy couldn’t help but smirk at the vintage Frak Off shirt hiding behind a couple of Lying Cat tees.

  She almost wandered into the alt bookstore . . . but then, she saw it: across the way—a comics shop, about the width of a hallway. So small, it barely had a front window. But in that window?

  A Dungeons & Dragons: Shadowplague trade paperback.

  She could spot it from a thousand paces. She had her own copy of the graphic novel, of course. Well-read and dog-eared, and sitting in a box somewhere in Grandpa Bob’s garage. The first original D&D comic in ages, she had devoured it when it came out while she was in college.

  But to see on the cover the familiar art of the characters on their quest . . . it was like seeing an old friend.

 
; She was inside the little comics shop before she realized she had crossed the street. If possible, it was narrower inside than it was outside—like an anti-TARDIS—with a long row of bins on one wall stuffed to overflowing with comics, an island of more bins down the middle, and a long, high glass counter dominating the other side. Inside the glass counter were myriad dusty collectibles, from role-playing miniatures to some Funko Pop Avengers to a surprising Bart Simpson collection.

  A dinky bell rang as the door shut behind her, which, after her last few months of retail experience, should have set the salespeople into motion.

  Not here though.

  A single employee lounged behind the counter, his head buried in a horror comic that Daisy didn’t recognize. When he finally did glance up, Daisy noted that he could have been thirty or fifty, she was unable to tell behind his massive beard and thick glasses. His shirt said something in Klingon. His eyes grazed Daisy behind thick glasses before returning to his book.

  “Can I help you with anything?” he said in a monotone.

  “No—just looking,” she said.

  “Hrmph,” he said as he settled back down into his horror comic.

  Daisy’s eyebrows went up. Back in LA, when she went into comics shops or bookstores, she could count on getting sucked into a conversation for at least an hour.

  But this guy couldn’t even look up. Didn’t he know it was the holiday season in retail land? Maybe he wasn’t in a festive mood.

  “What are you reading?” she tried brightly.

  The guy sighed deeply. “Infidel.”

  “Oh. I haven’t heard of it.”

  “No kidding, lady,” he murmured under his breath.

  Daisy’s face fell. Oh, she got it now. He was That Guy.

  That Guy was the one at the con who started off the Q&A segment with “Actually, I have more of a comment than a question . . .”