Kids by Christmas

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “That’s true.”

  They listened as she told them about the play. Neither seemed terribly interested. She’d no sooner finished than Sophia began to dance again, and Jack to bounce.

  “Do you want to see your bedrooms? And bring your bags,” Suzanne added.

  “Yeah!” They leaped for the bags and then careened down the hallway.

  She followed, trying not to be dismayed by their hyperactive behavior.

  Jack whooped and disappeared into his room, but Sophia came to a dead stop in the doorway to her bedroom, just staring.

  Apprehensive, Suzanne stopped, too. “What do you think?” she asked after a minute.

  “It is so beautiful,” the ten-year-old whispered. “Just like I imagined it.”

  Suzanne let out a breath of relief. “I was afraid you’d think it was too bright.”

  “I like bright colors.” She took a few, tentative steps inside. “Ooh. Is that the dresser we bought?”

  If only she’d thought to ask Tom over, Suzanne thought with quick remorse. “Yep. Tom Stefanec—you remember, my neighbor next door—refinished it for you. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  She reverently stroked the top and peered at herself in the mirror. “I never thought I’d have anything this pretty for myself.”

  Ignoring the sting of tears in her eyes, Suzanne gave her a quick hug. “Just wait until we get a bed and desk in here, and you can decorate.”

  “Can I put up posters and stuff?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Across the hall, she found Jack bouncing on the edge of the double bed she’d set up again temporarily. The comforter he’d chosen was spread on it. “Is this my bed?” he asked.

  Had he swallowed springs? She guessed that was the effect excitement had on little boys.

  She shook her head. “It’s too big to leave room for you to play. I’ll get new beds delivered this week. So, what do you think of the color?”

  “I like it. It’s a good color,” he declared, thin face serious.

  She smiled and sat beside him. “I’m glad.”

  “We’re really going to a play? A real one? Not like the ones we do at school?”

  “We really are,” she assured him. “In fact—” she glanced at her watch “—we’d better get going.”

  She herded them out to her car, depressed Jack unutterably by informing him that he wasn’t big enough to ride in the front seat but Sophia was, checked to be sure she’d stuck the ticket confirmation in her purse and started for Seattle.

  Sophia fiddled with the radio the entire way to the freeway, apparently stunned that Suzanne didn’t own a CD player. “Nobody has cassettes anymore!” she protested.

  “I have a CD player in the house. Just not in the car. Until I get a new car, it doesn’t seem worth the money to me.” Suzanne winced at the song on the radio station where Sophia paused. “I don’t like rap.”

  “Why not? It’s cool!”

  “Some of it may be.” She’d save the lecture about violent lyrics that bashed women for another time. “But I don’t like it. I’ll tell you what.” She reached out and turned off the radio. “Let’s talk instead.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said from the back seat. “We can talk.”

  Sophia gave him a slit-eyed glare over her shoulder. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  Suzanne was starting to feel desperate. “If we really want to live together, we ought to like to talk, don’t you think?”

  “You mean, if I won’t talk to you, you won’t let us move in with you?”

  Suzanne forced a smile. “Did I say that? What I was implying is that I’m interested in you two, and I’m hoping you are in me.”

  Sophia sniffed.

  “I don’t have very many friends, so I don’t think I’m that interesting,” Jack informed her.

  “Of course you are! You just haven’t had a good chance to make friends, changing schools so often.” Suzanne glanced sideways. “You, too, Sophia. I’m really hoping you both like your new school.”

  “Can we drive by it someday?” Jack asked, voice small. “Before we start?”

  “Sure.” Of course, she’d have to find out which elementary school kids in her neighborhood went to. “Maybe next weekend.”

  “Do I go to the same school?” his sister asked.

  “I assume so.” But didn’t know for sure. Were Edmonds middle schools grades six through eight? Seven through nine? Another thing to find out. It was entirely possible that Sophia would be at the middle school next year. Suzanne found she didn’t like the idea.

  Her gaze slid to the side, and she took in today’s outfit. Sophia once again wore jeans that were way too tight and low-cut given the maturity of her figure. The ragged tennis shoes suggested she hadn’t had a new wardrobe in too long, so maybe she’d just outgrown her clothes.

  Suzanne hoped.

  Definitely a subject for another day.

  Her head turned suddenly. “Didn’t you two bring coats?”

  “I have mine,” Jack said, lifting a faded blue parka.

  Sophia shrugged. “I never wear one.”

  Her brother couldn’t resist telling the whole story. “The zipper is broke on hers.”

  His sister gave him another evil glare.

  “I’ll definitely put a new coat on your Christmas list,” Suzanne said, with what she hoped appeared as undamaged serenity.

  “I got a Christmas list!” Jack bounced. “You want to know what I’m gonna ask Santa for?”

  “I thought tonight we could talk about that,” she said. “But now, let me think about my driving. We’re almost there.”

  Traffic was heavy for a weekend day, with half the cars on the freeway, it seemed, exiting at Mercer Street in Seattle. It appeared other events were happening at the Seattle Center, built for the 1960 World’s Fair. The Key Arena was here, the opera house, and the Northwest Rooms where festivals and shows were staged. A huge fountain occupied the courtyard in the middle, and to the north was the Science Center. A destination for another day, Suzanne realized. Jack would love it, and she thought Sophia would forget she was almost a teenager quickly enough with so much temptation.

  Both kids were craning their necks to look up at the Space Needle. Seattle’s foremost landmark, it reared high above their heads when she found a parking spot.

  “Can we go up?” Sophia asked, as they crossed the street and entered the center.

  “It’s really high.” Jack, still staring upward, sounded alarmed.

  “Not today,” Suzanne said firmly. “Today, we’ll go to the play.”

  She had another daunting realization, which was that she knew little of their tastes. In the abstract, discovering everything about them seemed fun. In practical terms, she could imagine sneers at what she put on the table at dinner, as well as at the mall when she took Sophia shopping.

  More worries to shelve. The shelf, she thought wryly, was starting to groan under the weight of everything she was plunking onto it.

  Both kids became quiet when they joined the stream of other parents and children heading into the theater. Suzanne noticed how their body language changed. Jack ducked his head and began dragging his feet, not looking at anyone else. Sophia’s expression become remote and irritated, as if she were being dragged here against her will, while at the same time her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to hide her small breasts.

  Or her shivers.

  Definitely a coat. Suzanne made a mental note to check both their sizes tonight, when they were in their pajamas, so she’d have some idea where to start.

  Once the play started, both forgot their self-consciousness and gazed, rapt, at the actors playing Toad and his friends from The Wind in the Willows. It was all absurd and childish and funny. Sophia giggled like the little girl she really was.

  During intermission, they looked at each other, dazed, as if they’d forgotten where they were. “It’s good!” Jack declared, and a boy sitting in front of them turned around.


  “It is good!” he said.

  The boy’s mother and Suzanne exchanged smiles, and she felt a tiny thrill. It was her very first conspiratorial, we’re-mothers-and-aren’t-they-sweet? smile. Wow, she thought, I’m a mother.

  After the play, they hung around to meet the actors, then walked to the car. They talked about the play while she drove. Both were excited. Sophia was envious of the actors.

  “Maybe that’s what I should be,” she said. “Although I might like to be a movie actress better. So I could win an Oscar.”

  “But the nice thing about acting on stage is the audience,” Suzanne pointed out.

  Her forehead puckered. “Yeah. I wonder if they get as much money?”

  Suzanne was pretty sure the Seattle Children’s Theatre actors didn’t make Julia Roberts type money, and said so. Sophia decided she’d rather be like Julia Roberts then.

  Finally, she let Sophia turn on the radio again, and they listened to pop tunes until they got home. Jack, she discovered, was sound asleep, and she had to wake him so he’d be alert enough for dinner.

  The moment they finished eating, Sophia asked, “Can I watch TV?”

  “Yeah!” Jack agreed.

  A little worn out herself, Suzanne gave permission and sat down in the living room as well, automatically reaching for her knitting.

  She was already well into a soft, ribbed throw for Tom Stefanec. She’d been able to get quite a bit of knitting done during the day, between customers. The yarn was a heathered blue-gray, and she planned to finish each end with long fringe.

  After a while, she noticed that Sophia was sneaking glances at the needles as they whisked in and out of the yarn.

  “Do you want to learn a few stitches?” she asked.

  “Can I?”

  “Sure.” So she set aside her own knitting and cast on a row of purple yarn to begin a scarf. “I’ll teach you to do that later,” she said, “but for now, let’s start with the two basic stitches.”

  Tongue caught between her teeth, Sophia concentrated fiercely on knit and purl, showing surprising tenacity when she dropped a stitch and had to go back. Hard at it, she didn’t object when Jack turned the channel to a show he liked.

  Finally, Suzanne tucked them in, and heard them whispering and giggling for at least an hour, both getting up to go to the bathroom again before they at last became quiet.

  In the morning, she was beating eggs for French toast when Sophia came into the kitchen in her nightgown.

  “Jack peed in bed,” she announced. “He’s crying ’cause he thinks you’re going to be mad. Are you?”

  “Of course I’m not!” Suzanne set down the egg she’d held in her hand. “Shall I start a shower for him?”

  “He’s scared of showers. He only takes baths.”

  “Okay. A bath it is.” She started it running before she stuck her head into the bedroom. He sat in the middle of the bed, head hung, face tear-streaked. “Sweetie!” she said. “Don’t worry. You can’t help it. Grab some clothes and go hop in the tub. I’ll wash your pj’s this morning along with the sheets.”

  He lifted his head. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Sophia watched him race for the bathroom. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Ew! I’m wet. Yuck.”

  “You can take a shower right after him. I’ll wash your nightie, too.” Suzanne began stripping the bed, grateful she’d followed Tom’s advice and bought a plastic mattress cover. “I shouldn’t have let him have that juice so close to bedtime, should I?”

  “Uh-uh. Except, I had juice, too, and I didn’t have to go that bad.”

  “Remember that he’s lots smaller than you. That means his bladder is, too.”

  “Are you going to get mad if he keeps doing it?” Sophia asked. She stood in the middle of the bedroom, the wet hem of her nightgown held out from her body.

  “Getting mad wouldn’t help at all. Besides—” she smiled at the girl “—I don’t get mad very often. I can’t remember the last time I did.”

  “Really?” She studied Suzanne with open astonishment. “I get mad lots.”

  “I haven’t seen you yet.” Except for the hateful glares, which Suzanne suspected were standard-issue big-sister tools for keeping a younger sibling in line.

  “You will,” Sophia promised. “’Cause I never know when I’m going to get mad.”

  “You can learn to hide it when you’re mad, you know. That’s part of growing up.”

  Her forehead crinkled again. “Why would you want to hide it? When I’m mad, I want everyone to know.”

  “Um…” Suzanne paused, the bedding clutched in her arms. “Because people are even less likely to give you what you want when you’re rude or violent. That’s one reason. Sometimes because you don’t want to give another person the satisfaction of knowing they hurt your feelings or made you angry. Sometimes just because you’re a better person when you have the self-control not to act on your feelings.”

  The ten-year-old made a face. “Why would you be a better person? Pretending you don’t feel something is lying.”

  “I don’t think it’s lying if you choose not to tell another person something you’re thinking. Lying is the act of deliberately saying something you know to be false.”

  “Well…” Now she frowned.

  “Anyway, just to be practical. Don’t you get in trouble at school when you get really mad and act out?”

  “Yeah. I get detention.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather not?”

  Sounding grudging, Sophia said, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Well, think about it.” She tilted her head. “The bathwater has stopped. Why don’t you go use my shower? I’ll take these out to the garage, then come back for your nightie.”

  She got the load ready to start but thought she’d better wait half an hour. Her hot-water tank wasn’t that big. Then she washed her hands and went back to making breakfast.

  Jack was quiet until he realized she wasn’t going to say anything about his bed-wetting, then became so ebullient he knocked over his juice.

  Just as he had the previous time, he leaped to his feet and cried, “I didn’t mean to!”

  “I know you didn’t.” Suzanne stood to get the sponge. “But you were being kind of wild. You’re less likely to knock over your drink if you eat without bouncing around in your chair.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t mean to,” he repeated.

  She kissed the top of his head. “Don’t worry, kiddo. Sit back down and finish your breakfast.”

  Chastened, he did, eating without saying a word, his shoulders bowed.

  The day was too gray for him to go outside, and she had no toys for him. He colored for a while after breakfast, and finally she let him watch TV again while Sophia returned to her knitting. She liked the idea of making her own scarf.

  “I won’t take it with me,” she decided when Mrs. Burton honked in the driveway right after lunch. “I might make a mistake. I’ll wait till next weekend.”

  “Good idea.”

  Despite the drizzle, Suzanne walked them out to the car, carrying their bags. She wondered if they had much else to bring when they came to stay for good. Clearly, both needed things to occupy them, Jack especially, or the TV would be on ten hours a day. She had asked them what they wanted for Christmas and had written down a long list. She supposed she could suggest some of it to her brother and sister, although neither had asked for ideas. Thanks to her stepson, Carrie knew what boys Jack’s age liked, so Suzanne was pretty sure her Christmas present would be age appropriate. But Gary hadn’t had a normal childhood himself, and probably didn’t have a clue what seven-year-old boys played with.

  Honestly—she didn’t have any idea. Or only the haziest of ideas. The two boy cousins with whom she’d grown up had been quite a bit older than Jack by the time she’d gone to live with them. Jack had given her a list, thank goodness, or else she’d have to go to a toy store and throw herself on the mercy of the cler
ks. How humbling to realize how little she actually knew about children!

  She was about to go back inside when Tom Stefanec’s garage door rolled up. This time, it appeared he hadn’t been watching for her because his pickup truck backed out. He stopped when he saw her, turned off the engine and got out.

  “I was just heading out to grocery shop and to pick up some primer for that dresser. I think we’re going to have to paint it.”

  She pressed her hands to her chest in mock horror. “Paint it?”

  He grinned. “Okay, I deserved that. But this one isn’t cherry. Come on, you can take a look.”

  The wood was bare and white, the drawers neatly stacked to one side. But it appeared the front had been singed at some point, the blackened spots probably the reason the dresser had been painted in the first place.

  “I sanded, but short of gouging I can’t get all the black,” he said. “It’s a good, solid piece, though.”

  “You fixed the drawers?”

  “Yeah, they’d swelled. All it took was a little sanding.” He lifted one of the drawers from the stack and inserted it, demonstrating how smoothly it slid in and out.

  “Wow. You’re amazing,” she said in all sincerity.

  “Like I said, I’ve always enjoyed woodworking.”

  Suzanne studied the dresser. “I suppose we should paint it the same color as the chair rail. Hold on. I’ll run and get the can so you know what color.”

  She hurried through her house to the garage and returned with the quart can of paint. “Irish Clover,” she told him.

  “Can I take this so I can match colors? An oil-base paint will stand up better than a latex like this on furniture, and I might not be able to get the same brand.”

  “Sure.” Suzanne sighed. “I suppose I should go do a few errands, too. It sounds like a letdown after the rest of my weekend.”

  After a moment’s pause, he nodded toward his truck. “You want to come with me? We can get that paint, grocery shop, maybe grab a bite to eat?”

  The invitation sounded casual, nothing to cause her heart rate to increase, so she ignored her silly reaction and said, “That sounds great. Maybe grocery shopping is more fun if you have company. If you don’t mind waiting a minute while I get my purse?”