My Stupid Girl

by Smith, Aurora

"Lucy!" A girl yelled from across the parking lot. We both looked around to spot the owner of the voice and Lucy started to bounce again, patting my arm in excitement.

  “Jennika!” She squealed. A feisty, small girl with deep brown skin and a halo of thick dark hair hurried up to us. I recognized her from school. Michelle called her and Lucy the "Cutie Patooties." Michelle always said it like an old lady would say it, and it always kind of fit.

  “Girl, where have you been? Shelby is sick and can’t do Kid’s Church; we have been trying to call you.” Jennika looked at me briefly as she was breathlessly delivering the Kid’s Church emergency news. I saw her eyebrows go up when she finally registered who I was. I copied her facial expression perfectly and she cracked a smile.

  “Oh no! I had my phone ringer off.” Lucy glanced at me sideways and asked, “So, David, do you like kids?” Jennika laughed. I was loving this girl. She was a good fit for Lucy. But the kid thing worried me a little. Both girls looked guilty as they waited for my answer. Not reassuring. Two gorgeous, high-spirited girls staring at you, looking guilty equals trouble.

  “I like them more than adults…” I answered slowly.

  “Good, because it looks like we are teaching a class of about twenty four-year-old kids right now.” She beamed at me like this was great news. I gave her the fake smile and thumbs up again. This time she just laughed at me. I realized, as we continued walking, that I didn’t even have a say in this. It was done. Bring on the kid parade.

  “Oh, Jen,” Lucy stopped me in my tracks, and her friend stopped too, “this is David.” She was looking at me while she introduced us.

  “That’s what I figured,” Jennika said, smiling as she reached out her hand. “Hi David.” I took her hand, shook it quickly, and then buried the free hand back in my pocket.

  “Lucy has told me all about you,” she continued as we started walking again.

  “She doesn’t know all that much about me,” I said. “That year I spent in the circus, for example.”

  “Well, then I guess she just talks about you a lot.” Jennika grinned again. I couldn’t help it, I smiled back at her. A little. Despite her beautiful, striking features and bracing confidence, she made me feel comfortable, which was impressive. I liked Lucy a lot but I was just getting to the point where she didn’t make me want to hide in a storm bunker whenever I thought about her.

  “Jennika is my best friend in the whole world.” Lucy told me what was already pretty obvious, squeezing our linked arms closer to her body.

  “If I had been at the lake that day you wouldn’t have had to rescue her!” Jennika shook her head, a fierce protective look in her eyes.

  “I’m glad you weren’t there then,” I said. She laughed, thinking I was kidding. Which I wasn’t. Honestly this was getting ridiculous; I was becoming the master of cheesy lines. God help me.

  “Luc, you better get in there, all the parents are trying to drop their kids off.” Jennika turned around and led the way to the front of the church, us following. The nice thing about hurrying was that I didn’t have to nod to anyone anymore. We walked into a large church; it wasn’t a typical church building like I had been expecting with dried flowers and pews. There were large pictures on the walls of different people, no one I recognized. One picture was of a woman laughing and it had the word “joy” underneath. Another showed a man drinking coffee, it said “Faith.” I wasn’t sure how it correlated but they were cool. The church was very modern with green and brown painted walls and a black carpet that had gray speckles in it. The sanctuary (that’s what Lucy called it ) was to the left. We went to the right and opened the doors to a big room with tons of happy little faces. These kids were beautiful I had to admit it, it was like all the attractive people in Montana got together in this church and procreated.

  “Miss Lucy,” the kids all yelled as we walked into the room. They rushed her and completely overtook her. They were hanging on her neck and trying to swing from her arms. One little boy with brown curly hair and matching eyes turned around and looked at me. He pointed right at me.

  “Are you a girl?” he said, pointing to my earrings. “My mom said only girls have earrings.” I laughed. The kid was cute, I couldn’t deny it.

  “I am a boy," I said bending down so I was at his level.

  “Prove it,” he said seriously.

  “Well…” I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but then I was interrupted.

  “Alright kids, go sit down at the table.” A strong, deep voice said, behind me. I turned around and standing next to a kid's bright blue table was none other than Mike. I groaned.

  “I thought you were doing the class,” I said accusingly to Lucy.

  “I am,” she replied, looking around the class. “Oh, don’t worry about that.” She noticed that Mike was there. “There are always three people who take care of the kids. A teacher, a helper and a player.” She looked up at me and smiled. “I'm a teacher, but these are Shelby’s helpers and players, I don’t usually work with them. This isn’t my week to teach Kids church.” It made sense, but I didn’t like it.

  “What am I going to be?” I asked, looking at all the little kids.

  “What do you want to be?”

  “Helper," I said, thinking that a player might be a bit of a stretch for me.

  “K, then you're going to be with Rachel.” Lucy pointed to a girl that was facing the wall, she was taking paint out of a plastic tub that was labeled “paint“.

  “You want me to walk over there and start…helping?” I said, putting my hands in my pockets, again.

  “I know this is weird for you.” Lucy put her hands on my shoulders and gave me a sympathetic look. “But I had to help, I couldn’t say no when they needed me. If you really don’t want to do this then take the car and come pick me up at 11:30.” She smiled at me in a way that made me feel like if I did choose to leave, she wouldn’t hold it against me. I looked over at Mike who was busily hushing the kids, and I could tell he was trying not to notice us.

  “I’ll stay,” I said determinedly. I wasn’t leaving them alone in a room together with a bunch of adorable toddlers. I walked over to Rachel and cleared my throat.

  “Can I, um, help with anything?” I said to her back. She turned around and I just about dropped dead. Standing in front of me was the most beautiful person I had ever seen in my life. Don’t get me wrong, Lucy was the most amazing, breathtaking person I had ever known. But that was the point, I knew her. Lucy was flawed, but confident and that is what made her so beautiful. This girl had no flaws on her that I could tell.

  “Hi," she said giving me a little scowl, looking me up and down. I said nothing to her, I don’t think. I can't remember.

  “Yes, count the kids and take out all the white construction paper we need." She turned around and went back to taking out the paint. I could have taken out the paint in about 3 seconds but for some reason she was still working on it. I counted seventeen children, counted out seventeen pieces of white paper and put them down on the counter. I didn’t say anything, just stood behind her, hoping with all my might that she didn’t turn around and talk to me again. She took out some spongy paint brushes and lined them up in a neat row next to the paper. Then she started organizing the clutter that was all around her. A beautiful neat freak…I instantly felt like I was cheating on Lucy.

  “Ok, kids. Before we do anything I want you guys to meet a friend of mine.” I looked over with the deer in the head lights look. “This is David.” Lucy pointed to me. “You all need to go up to him at some point before class is finished and tell him your names.” All the kids looked over at me and waved.

  “Oh, you're, David.” I turned around and Rachel was standing right next to me. I backed up a few inches. “So, you're Lucy’s little pet?” she said with sweet innocence.

  “Umm,” I stammered.

  “So, she talked you into coming?” She was talking while combing her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face. Her dark hair looked lik
e a chocolate fountain as it fell on her shoulders. It was long, like Lucy’s. But Rachel’s was thick and very straight. She wasn’t much shorter than me, maybe an inch because she had high heels on. I was just under 6 feet and her eyes were right at my eye level. She wore a tight yellow dress, which was crazy because it was cold outside. She had on high brown boots that went up to her knees.

  “I guess,” I said, wondering if this whole thing was pre-planned.

  “Well, I'm glad you’re here.” She smiled at me with big white teeth and walked gracefully over to Mike and grabbed his hand. They must be dating now, I decided. I peeked over at Lucy to see what her reaction was and to my satisfaction she looked like she could not have cared less.

  “What are some of the animals that you think Noah brought onto the boat that God asked him to make?” Lucy asked them. She had her right arm up in the air, signaling that she wanted them to raise their hands. A sea of little fingers and pudgy hands went up. Lucy pointed to a little girl who started laughing before she even said anything. That didn’t make any sense until she yelled “chickens.” Lucy started to squat, she put her fists on her ribs and put her elbows out like a chicken and she clucked. I had the feeling that Lucy had done this before. It was really cute.

  “Good one, what else do you think that he put on the boat?” Once again, the hands went up in the air.

  “A alligator," a little boy said. Lucy got down on her knees and put her arms out in front of her face like a big pair of jaws and snapped them shut. They all laughed again. I looked over and Mike was also laughing, while Rachel was rolling her eyes. The kids abandoned raising their hands and started yelling out different animals.

  “Flamingos." Lucy stood on one leg.

  “Lions.” Lucy roared as loud as she could.

  “Kangaroos." Lucy started hopping around the room.

  “Elephants.” Lucy looked absolutely ridiculous. She squeezed her lips together and blew as hard as she could. A perfect elephant noise came out. Her face was bright red with puffed out cheeks. Her eyes were closed tight. I've never seen so many kids in one area so entertained by one person. They laughed and cheered. I felt my heart swelling in my chest. I pictured her with little kids of her own and what an amazing mother she was going to be. She clapped her hands, taking all of us out of our dreamy state.

  “Everyone sit down quietly and wait for your turn to get your hands painted.” Rachel came over to where I was, and put an apron on me. As she was tying the strings behind me, her face was right next to my ear. I turned a color of red that hasn’t been invented yet and in the corner of my eye I saw Lucy give me an incredulous look, I made eye contact with her and gave her an honest shoulder shrug. I was here helping her, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  “David," Rachel said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a bucket of warm soapy water that was on the counter. “Once I'm done painting their hands, they are going to come straight to you. Make sure their hands are completely clean and dry before you let them go play, ok?” She said it like she was explaining something to someone who was very dense.

  “I don’t know, can you say it again, I don’t think I get it,” I said, as I patted my hair down in front of my eye. She was extremely close to me, I could smell the coffee on her breath.

  “Oh, you're funny,” she said, rolling her eyes again and walking back to the table full of rowdy kids, all jumping up and down on their bottoms from being wound up by Lucy. One by one I helped each squirmy toddler dunk their little hands in the water and then dried them off. It wasn’t so bad. Each kid had something to say about my lip rings or eye brow ring, my favorite being: “I want to pierce my eyeball, Mr. David!”

  I got a name each time I picked someone up and they were all ridiculous biblical names like Malachi, Elijah, Ezra, Hannah. The list went on and on. They all sounded the same after a while. After half an hour, all the kids were playing with Mike and Lucy while Rachel and I were cleaning up. I couldn’t wait till my friends found out about this. I would surely be moving on from the name Ice Queen that I had picked up since I had helped Lucy, to something like “Preacher Boy” or “Choir Kid.”

  “Thank you, David,” Rachel said, as we finished putting all the supplies away.

  “Yeah, it’s ok,” I said quickly, not looking at her, but making a point to look over at Lucy.

  “Ok, everyone, what are we going to tell our parents that we learned today in Kids Church?” Lucy asked the question to the whole class. There was a jumble of noise that was a mixture of words.

  “Noah.”

  “Animals.”

  “Elephants!”

  “Good! Now, have an amazing day and remember that God wants us to be nice to our parents,” Lucy said, winking to the group. Like clockwork, the parents started filing in, taking the artwork from Rachel and saying thank you to Lucy. I helped clean the class room, Cloroxed all the toys and the table. All four of us made sure the toys were put away and everyone had their kids.

  “Thank you," Lucy said to me after the room was empty and cleaned for the next class to come in.

  “It was actually kind of fun.” I said, smiling at her.

  “Yeah, kids are amazing.” She had a gleam in her eye. “I want about five of them.”

  “That’s a lot of kids.”

  “Barefoot and pregnant. That’s what I long for!” She punched my shoulder and smiled her sweet smile.

  “So, now what?” I asked her, slightly panicked again.

  “Anything you want,” she said, gathering all her things together. That’s when a girl with short black hair walked in.

  “Hey, Lucy, we are all going to Firestones for lunch. You two want to come?” Lucy looked up at me and then back at her.

  “Let me talk to David, then I'll let you know, ok Christina?” The young girl gave me a fleeting look then left the room to join everyone else. When Lucy looked up at me she laughed through her nose.

  “What?” I said sourly

  “The look on your face was priceless just now,” she said, still laughing. “We don’t have to go David, it's ok, I see these people all the time.” She clicked the light off and led me out of the room. I felt torn. I didn’t want to go with them to lunch, there was no question about that but I didn’t want to make Lucy choose between me and her friends.

  “I don’t care, we can go,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, honestly Lucy, I just want to hang out with you,” I said, reaching down and touching her nose.” She, unlike Rachel was a good five inches shorter than me.

  “Ahem.” We heard a deep girl's voice pretend to clear her throat. I took my hand quickly away from Lucy's face and patted down my hair.

  “Hi, I'm Evelyn.” A tall skinny girl with black curly hair and blue eyes reached her hand out towards me. I took it and shook it like a good boy.

  “Hi. David," I said, realizing that everyone most likely already knew who I was.

  “So, are you guys coming to lunch with us?” she asked, with an air of getting down to business. I looked up and saw the girl who first asked us to go to lunch, Christina and Rachel standing behind her, all with their arms crossed.

  “We are," Lucy said. She sounded reserved.

  “Good, we will save you seats.” She flipped her hair around without giving me another glance and the three of them walked away like three supermodels on the cat walk. Lucy looked up at me and winked, then put her warm hand in mine. She wasn’t shy about me around her friends, which was a nice surprise. I had convinced myself that I was going to be left in the corner of the church, forgotten. Now I thought about it: the way Lucy took care of me the day before when I was sick, and the way she was with all of those children...I should be ashamed of how I was feeling.

  “Who are those three girls?” I asked her as we stepped outside into the snow. I was beginning to regret that I didn’t have more than this white shirt on under my jacket.

  “Oh, you looked like you got to know, Rachel.” She
sounded jealous, which was fantastic. I poked her side. She slapped at it, but held on to my hand tighter still.

  “She seems nice,” I said, not really knowing what to say about her. Lucy sneered her lip up like Elvis and huffed. I laughed at that. “I’m assuming you don’t like her?”

  “Just be careful, David," was all she said. She looked down at the ground.

  “Be careful?”

  “Yes,” Lucy began, "she is very nice and she acts like a really good Christian, but underneath, she is a very angry, bitter person," she said quietly.

  “You sound like you're upset that she is dating Mike.” My heart sank a little. Lucy stopped abruptly and turned to face me.

  “You're kidding, right?” Her voice was harsh. I just shrugged.

  “You're serious. I can't believe that you don’t realize that I don’t care about him, that I..” she trailed off.

  “You what?” I asked.

  “You have no clue that I like you, do you?” She blushed furiously and dropped my hand.

  “You like me?”

  “Well, yeah. Isn’t it obvious?” she said, not looking up at me. I put my hand under her chin and lifted her face up towards me.

  “A little, but I’m glad you said it.” I bent down and kissed her forehead again, like I had the night before.

  “Get a room!” Lucy and I jumped, but her eyes were already glaring before I even knew who it was. I turned around and saw a pink BMW with three beautiful girls sitting in it looking at us with drama in their eyes. Rachel was driving, Evelyn was in the front passenger seat and Christina sat in the back.

  “I like them," I said, waving.

  “Oh shut up," Lucy said, slapping my arm. As we walked back to her car, I had a little bit more spring in my step and even waved back to a few people who waved at me.

  9. TEAMS?

  Lunch wasn’t so bad. There were tons of people there, all of whom knew Lucy. We sat at a big table right inside a noisy restaurant that had eight of the largest TVs I’d ever seen, all of them tuned to a different sport. This restaurant was renowned for steak sandwiches; they were big and ridiculous. Their signature sandwich featured a hoagie bun that tasted like it was baked in an oven made of barbeque sauce, and contained enough meat to feed a starving African child for a week. Lucy wanted to share one with me because she said she could “never finish one on her own.” I could finish one by myself, no problem, but I shared with her. It was becoming painfully apparent that I would wrestle an alligator for Lucy if she asked me.