Amy Maxwell's 6th Sense

by Heather Balog

  “Must be nice,” I find myself grumbling with bitterness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, he worked hard today. It was a typical day at the high school—a girl brought in a knife with the intention of stabbing the girl who slept with her boyfriend, but she was caught by a teacher, who ended up getting her tires slashed by the girl’s best friend. Oh, the drama. And that was only the first block of the day. The next three blocks consisted of a food fight in the cafeteria and a freshman pulling the fire alarm. Oh, and Roger getting written up by the fire inspector because an exit was blocked with books the English teachers had been stacking up to take out to the dumpster.

  So yeah, Roger had a stressful day. But that still doesn’t change the fact that I had begged him for nearly a week to do me a favor and he had not done it yet. And I was running out of time.

  “Roger!” I shout, causing him to bolt upright.

  “What?” His head darts from side to side. He is groggy, but now I have his attention. For about seven seconds. So I need to talk fast.

  “Did you do what I asked you to do?” I sound like I’m admonishing one of my children, but Roger leaves me no choice. As much as I hate sounding like a nag, I have to remind him five-hundred and twenty-seven times to do something. Most of the time, I just end up doing it myself, however, this particular task was one I simply could not perform on my own. I needed Roger’s height and his, erm, muscle.

  “Well, not yet—” he starts to say.

  “Roger! What are you waiting for? I need it done now!”

  “Nag, nag, nag,” he grumbles, lowering the feet rest of the recliner and struggling to his feet. “I’d like to see you work a full day and then—”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Because you think I lounged all day today, ate bon-bons, and got a pedicure,” I snap. There goes the no sarcasm right out the window. Oh well, I didn’t think it was going to last too long anyway. “No, I did not. After a harrowing morning that included making breakfast, with the assistance of the fire extinguisher, I had to run the kids to school, run back home because Colt forgot his book bag, run back to Lexie’s school because she forgot lunch money, run home and scrape off the oatmeal off the inside of the microwave, run to bring Allie the gym clothes that she forgot—” I glower at him. “The operative word here is run, Roger. Running is what I’ve been doing here all day.”

  “Yeah you’re a freaking martyr, Amy,” Roger interrupts with a scowl. “Did I ever tell you you’re my hero?” He attempts to croon a-la-Bette Midler.

  “I don’t want you to tell me that I’m your hero, Roger! What I want is for you to do what I asked you to do! I can’t get done what I need to get done unless you do that!”

  “I don’t see why I can’t do this after dinner,” he complains, stomping up the steps.

  Oh...dinner. He thinks we’re having dinner tonight? Of all nights? He’s kidding, right?

  “Um, Roger…there is no dinner tonight,” I explain as I follow him up the stairs.

  “What? You didn’t make dinner?” He whirls around and faces me with a panicked expression on his face. As if missing one meal was going to reduce him to Ethiopian status. I can assure you, he won’t starve—not even if he misses dinner for the next month and a half.

  “When are we going to have dinner, Roger? We have to leave by eight-thirty. And if we eat, I’ll have to run the dishwasher again, and you know how you insist on turning the water off. And garbage. Ugh, the house will stink if we make any garbage. I just took the last bag out. We can grab something on the way if you want.”

  “I’m so hungry!” Roger whines as he starts up the next set of stairs toward the bedrooms. “I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch today!”

  I shrug and poke his wide rear end to get him to move up the stairs quicker. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve been busy all day with prepping. Like I said, we can grab something on the way.”

  “But that’s hours from now,” he says, reaching the landing. He turns to me and I can see he is actually sulking. I swear, sometimes he’s worse than the kids.

  Ignoring him, I head into Evan’s room. I find him naked. He’s also sitting on the floor with a puzzle and a banana peel. I don’t even flinch at this discovery as I rummage through his drawers and toss a tee shirt, sweats, and a pair of underwear at him. “Put these on,” I command. I scoop up the pile of clothing that I have stacked on his dresser, and attempt to dump it into the duffel bag on the bed. I stop suddenly when I notice there is something wet at the bottom of the duffle bag. And fish like. And very, very fish smelling.

  “What the—” I pull the duffel bag closer to my face, which is of course, a big mistake.

  I gulp to swallow back the vomit that is rising in my throat and I realize that there is indeed a dead fish at the bottom of this duffel bag. And what’s worse, I recognize the fish.

  “Evan!” I whirl around to face my son, shaking the bag at him. “Why is Fishy in here?” Fishy is Evan’s goldfish that mysteriously disappeared last week. I had actually thought maybe Roger had found him belly up in the bowl, and had flushed him without telling me. I completely forgot to ask him about it. Well, now I know what happened to poor Fishy. He met his untimely demise in the bottom of a duffel bag. And I have a pretty good idea of how he got there.

  Evan says nothing—instead, he rises to his feet and pads over to his bookshelf. He snatches a book off the shelf and holds it up proudly. “See?” It’s The Cat in the Hat. Of course. The fish in that book hops all around the house. Evan probably thought that Fishy was just as magical. Damn you, Dr. Seuss!

  “Ugh, Evan!” I groan. I turn on my heel to go back downstairs with the bag. I’m going to have to dump this fish, clean out the duffel bag and…Or, maybe I should just throw it out. I’m pretty sure that Allie has an extra duffel bag somewhere.

  Thoroughly disgusted by the odor of decaying fish, I open up the front door and toss the duffel bag out onto the front porch. I’ll toss it in the pail when we leave—hopefully Lexie won’t see and try to salvage it.

  Seconds later, I am tapping on Allie’s closed bedroom door. I can hear the strains of what Roger refers to as “anger music” behind the door. Good. That means she has stopped beating up her sister.

  “Allie! I need to borrow one of your duffel bags!” I call through the door.

  “I’m busy!” she yells back at me.

  “Busy” in teen speak loosely translates into, “I can’t be bothered by you, you worthless peon.”

  “Allie, just throw the bag into the hall. I need it now!” I order my oldest child.

  I hear stomping and huffing and the sound of the closet being jerked open. I swear to God she’s gonna pull that damn door off the tracks and then Roger’s gonna scream and yell and…

  My thoughts are interrupted by her door opening, and a bright green nylon duffel bag whipping past my head. It lands with a thud in a crumpled heap in the corner.

  “Thanks!” I call out cheerfully to my daughter’s already closed door. I am hoping she is, at the very least, packing. Although, it’s probably not the best idea to let her pack her own stuff. She’ll have clothing that only counts as half a shirt, and shorts cut so high she’ll need to shave her butt cheeks to wear them.

  I sigh as I reenter Evan’s room, which reeks of dead marine life. All the clothing that I had painstakingly folded and placed on his bed is now in disheveled piles on the floor. He is jumping up and down on aforementioned bed with a dish towel tied around his neck. He’s also still naked.

  “Look Mama! I’m Superman!” he calls out, just before he shoots his arms out in front of his body and attempts to leap off of the bed.

  “No!” I yell, throwing my own arms out in front of me. I manage to catch him before he crashes to Earth. Or in this case, his floor.

  I stand my youngest child up, trying to disguise the fact that I am trembling. The last thing that I need tonight is a trip to the ER. That thought reminds me that Lexie still needs a bathing suit. I’m going to have to trek up to the attic
to see if I can find one of Allie’s old ones for her to wear. If not, we’re going to have to stop at the store on our way.

  I quickly shove all of Evan’s clothing into the new duffel bag, zip it, and pull the strap over my left shoulder. I don’t have time to refold it. In fact, I don’t have time for much of anything tonight. Because, in three hours, the Maxwell family is going on vacation.

  ~Two~

  “Why are we leaving when it’s dark, Mommy?” Evan asks, pushing his nose up against the car window. He has been peppering me with questions since we left the house. I’ve been successfully ignoring him for twenty minutes after I answered the first fifty-seven questions that ranged from, why is the moon following us to why is the man in the car next to us putting on mascara. (I’m still not sure it was a man).

  “Damn it, Evan!” Roger yells when he glances in the rear-view mirror. “How many times have I told you not to make marks on the window?”

  “But it’s cool! Look! I can make smoke!” Evan breathes in and out quickly, causing condensation to build up on the window.

  “That’s exactly why I don’t want you to do that! Then it dries all smudgy and it has to be cleaned—”

  “Roger! The exit!” I shout, pointing to the ramp on the side of the highway while Roger speeds past it at eighty miles an hour.

  “God damn it!” he mutters while swerving into the exit lane. The eighteen wheeler that he cuts off blares its horn at us. Allie screams. Lexie screams. I scream. The car thumps over the grass divider and we are miraculously on the exit ramp. Unscathed.

  “Jesus, Roger!” I swear, clutching my chest. My heart is pounding so loudly, I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. “Why didn’t you just take the next exit?” I point to the sign which clearly states that we can access the airport the next three exits.

  Roger glowers at me while maneuvering into the traffic creeping into the airport parking lot. “You screamed, Amy. How many times have I told you not to do that while I’m driving? You’re gonna get us all killed one day. Like the time you screamed about the bag that drifted in the middle of the road and I nearly hit the senior citizen bus.”

  I slink down in the front seat when he reminds me of this incident. In my defense, I thought it was a puppy. It was a brown paper bag that could have easily been a puppy running into the road. Though, I have to admit, I do have a bit of a bad habit of screaming at him when he’s driving. Like when there’s a car making a turn in front of us and he’s not slowing down. Usually the car is fifteen blocks ahead, but still...I want to make sure he sees it. He is getting older and has less reaction time reflexes. Or something like that.

  “Sorry,” I mutter, pulling my sticky notes out of my carry-on backpack. I start to mentally check off each item on my list as we pull into the long term parking lot. I always seem to forget something when we go on vacation, despite my endless lists and my constant checking of them. That anxious feeling that I’ve forgotten something starts tugging at the back of my brain immediately. At least if I discover what it is at the airport, I have a chance to buy it for a fraction of what it will cost once we get to our destination. My sister Joey told me she bought sunscreen in France once at $50 for a three ounce tube! Can you imagine what it would cost to get enough sunscreen to cover this gaggle for a week? In the Caribbean no less?

  I dig through the bag and discover at least one tube of sunscreen and breathe a sigh of relief. I put one flight approved size of sunscreen in all of our carry-on bags. In each, I also put a bathing suit, change of underwear, tee shirt, and deodorant. On our honeymoon/elopement/ wedding, the airline lost my luggage. I had to swim in my underwear because I wasn’t willing to shell out $100 for a bathing suit, convinced the airline would miraculously find my luggage before my trip was over. They didn’t. It’s probably still flying back and forth on some transcontinental flight to this very day.

  I eye the items on the list, matching them in my brain. Toothpaste, deodorant, phone charger...oh crap! Did I forget the charger?

  I lean over the seat and call back to Allie, who has her earbuds jammed in her ears. “Allie! Did we bring the phone charger?”

  Without missing a beat, Allie holds up the charger. Of course. I can always count on Allie to make sure there is no way we will lose contact with the outside world.

  I settle back in the seat for the brief two minute drive through the parking lot, ignoring Roger’s colorful language as he trolls up and down the lanes, looking for an open spot. Or rather should I say, the perfect open spot. Because it can’t be too small, it can’t be too far away, it can’t be too close, and it can’t have another car parked too closely to the line. He won’t park next to a car with two doors because he’s convinced the owner will definitely slam the car door into our vehicle upon opening it. He actually prefers parking next to minivans, since the doors slide, and there’s less chance of his doors getting nicked.

  When Roger finally settles the car into the spot where it will remain for the next seven days, I crane my neck around to instruct the children in the backseat.

  “Okay, here’s the lowdown…”

  “Jesus, Mother. Did you really say lowdown? That is so 1985.” Lexie gags dramatically. I turn to Roger and widen my eyes. When did Lexie become the snarky one? A few months ago I would have definitely expected that sort of comment from my oldest child, but lately it seems she’s simmered down. Just in time to pass the torch along, I guess. I brush off the insult and continue on.

  “Anyhoo...this is the deal. We are getting out of the car. We will each take our own carry-ons.” Colt begins to moan. “No ifs, ands, or buts,” I snap, pointing at him. “Daddy and Allie will pull the suitcases—”

  “Why don’t you have to pull the suitcases? Why do I have to do it? I don't even want to be on this vacation to begin with." Allie suddenly comes alive, popping the earbuds out of her ears.

  “Because I need to keep the little ones together,” I explain.

  “I hope you’re not talking about me,” Lexie grumbles, as the children all clamor out of the back seat.

  “Of course not, Lex.” I attempt to smile at her. She rolls her eyes before she turns her back on me. Cringing, I grab Evan’s grimy hand and we start walking away from the car while Roger and Allie unload the back. Lexie is walking a few feet ahead of us when she starts wandering into the middle of the car lane, eyes focused solely on her phone.

  “Lex! Pay attention to where you’re going!” I warn. Almost on cue, an SUV comes barreling around the corner.

  “Lexie!” I yell, dropping Evan’s hand and lunging toward my daughter.

  I push her out of the way just as the car screeches to a halt.

  “Hey, lady!” A guy who can only be described as a Long Island Guido, leans out the car window, chest hair fluffed up underneath his plethora of gold chains. “Watch where ya goin’!” He offers me a one finger salute and swerves around me in order to speed off toward a closer parking spot. I offer him my own salute to his back window.

  “What the hell are you doing, Amy?” Roger hisses when he sees my finger. He is huffing and puffing as he drags the suitcases behind him.

  “Your daughter almost got hit by a car and that’s the asshole,” I wave my hand at the car turning into the next row, “that nearly hit her.”

  “Mommy pushed me,” Lexie grumbles, rubbing her arm and peering up at her father.

  “I pushed you out of the way of the SUV coming at you!” I cannot believe the audacity of my child.

  “What SUV?” Lexie inquires innocently. I know it’s hard to believe, but she isn’t being sarcastic. She’s just being...Lexie.

  “Let’s go,” I command, grabbing both of my sons’ hands much to Colt’s dismay. He’s not a baby either, I’m sure he will tell me. That is, once he glances up from his Gameboy, or whatever he’s holding in his hand.

  Like ducks in a row, we file up the stairs to board the tram that will deliver our family to the terminal we need to get to. Heaving the suitcases up the stairs, Allie mu
mbles and grumbles about slave driver parents. Roger pants, and I can see a bead of sweat forming on his brow. Wondering if having him carry the suitcases instead of doing it myself was a mistake, I pause to offer help when Evan tugs my sleeve.

  “What’s wrong with that man, Mommy?” he asks curiously (and loudly) while pointing to the rail-thin, aging man who is propped up at the top of the tram platform. He is clearly homeless or strung out on drugs—possibly both. “Why is he so dirty?” Colt asks we pass by, grabbing his nose and pinching, adding to his brother’s rude observation, “And smelly, too!”

  Roger grimaces at me as the guy turns his head and sticks his tongue out at my children. I smile apologetically despite the childish nature of his act. They probably deserved that. Resisting the urge to slap them both in the back of the head, I point to the open doors ahead of us. “Look, the tram car is here!” Roger and I quickly usher them onto the waiting tram car.

  “What luck!” Roger exclaims as we settle down into the seats of the nearly empty tram car.

  “Awesome,” I agree. “We didn’t even have to wait.” The tram doors close and I notice several people still standing on the platform, waiting. The tram whisks us away while I wonder out loud what they are waiting for.

  “They’re waiting for the tram that takes them to the airport terminal.” The woman sitting across from me answers my question.

  “Well, then why didn’t they get on this tram?” I ask feeling smug and sanctimonious. What, this tram car wasn’t good enough for them? Or maybe they didn’t want to get on a tram filled with unruly children. I could definitely understand, but still, I am slightly offended.

  “Because this is the tram that takes you to the extended parking, all the way at the edge of the airport property.” She pulls her purse close to her lap with one hand and waves in the air with the other. “Way over on the other side.”