You've Been Volunteered

by Laurie Gelman

  “So if I asked you to renew our vows, you wouldn’t?”

  “Nope. I meant it the first time.”

  My computer pings and I see an email from Aunt Barbara. Jeez, it’s really late in Hawaii. What the heck is she doing up?

  * * *

  To: JDixon

  From: BHoward

  Re: A favor

  Date: 10/16

  Dear Jennifer,

  I will be happy to donate twenty dollars for your walk. What a wonderful thing to do for your mother. You have inspired me! I’m going to find a local Susan G. Komen Walk here and raise money too!

  Love,

  Aunt Barb

  * * *

  Yes! Thank you, Aunt Barbara. Only $480 to go.

  It’s nine a.m., so I pick up the phone for my daily call to my mother. My dad answers on the sixth ring.

  “Hello?” He’s practically shouting into the receiver.

  “Hey, Dad. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, why? What have you heard?”

  “I’m just checking in.”

  “Wait, here’s your mother.” I can hear shuffling and muffled voices.

  “Yes, sweetheart?” My mom sounds out of breath.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” I’m starting to get a bit concerned.

  “Nothing’s going on, Jennifer. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m just checking in,” I say again. “Did I interrupt something?”

  “No, of course not. Your dad and I were just … relaxing. We’re fine and we don’t need anything. Can I call you later?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Okay then. Bye.”

  She hangs up and I’m left staring at my phone. What the hell was that all about? If I didn’t know better, I’d think I had interrupted them having sex. Wait, do I know better? Were my parents having a nooner … at nine in the morning? The thought of them still having sex, at their age, makes me a bit queasy. I mean, jeez, when do we get to call it a day on stuff like that? If I’m still giving blowjobs twenty years from now I’m going to be very put out.

  I reach for my phone and text Vivs what just happened. I update her about ten times a day and rarely get a reply. I know I’m being annoying, but I want my bitchy daughter back. This person who ignores me is really getting on my nerves. I also ask her for the sixth time if Raj is coming for Thanksgiving. I know it’s more than a month away, but I’m trying to get ahead of the game this year. I realize it’s part of getting older—I can’t just throw it all together last minute anymore. I need to plan. Soon I’ll be taking a trick out of my mother’s book by making the mashed potatoes in October and freezing them, so I have one less thing to worry about.

  With this to meditate on, I tidy up the house, do two loads of laundry, and take a short run. After a shower and lunch, I’m ready for my first afternoon of safety patrol. I arrive at the school at 2:15, wearing my usual mom uniform and the new black Lululemon jacket I got for my birthday that I’m convinced I love more than is socially acceptable.

  It’s a crisp, bright fall day and I’m sipping on a generic latte and humming an old Billy Joel song as I head to the gym. My phone buzzes: it’s a one-word reply from Vivs.

  Yes.

  I’m glad. If I see them together, maybe I can figure out what’s going on.

  I open the gym door to a bunch of what I’m guessing are first-graders playing four-square. I scoot along the wall and head to Safety Patrol Command Central.

  My first two patrollers, Hanna and Aaron, have arrived; much to my surprise, Sylvie Pike is there, too. Jesus, how early do I have to be to show up before her?

  “There she is!” Sylvie exclaims and waves me over. Her orange blouse and black peasant skirt give her a decidedly Halloween vibe.

  “Am I late?” I’m definitely not.

  “Not at all,” Sylvie assures me. “I just wanted to wish you luck on your first day.”

  And make sure I’m doing everything to your satisfaction, I think.

  “Hi, Hanna; hi, Aaron. Are you guys excited?”

  Hanna nods her head and says, “I’m psyched,” while Aaron gives me the old one-shoulder shrug to let me know he heard me but is too cool to say anything. They both have their orange vests on already, and their stop signs in their hands.

  “Get together for a picture.” Sylvie pulls out her phone to take the shot. They awkwardly stand together with embarrassed grins but truthfully, they could be on a safety patrol poster, they are both so cute.

  “Okay, time to get out there,” Sylvie announces, and I can’t help but wonder why she didn’t just do this job herself. The kids walk out the door and as I follow them Sylvie helpfully reminds me to take my vest, too. I grab it along with the walkie-talkie and put it on as I make my way across the parking lot to the corner of 12th and Hayward.

  Hanna and Aaron must have sprinted, because they are already at their assigned corners and looking sharp. I scan the area and see a few cars in the strip mall parking lot and a man sitting on the bench in front of the park across the street. All seems fine, so when the bell rings for school to let out I feel we are ready for anything.

  I’m not sure where to stand to strike my desired balance between “on the job” and “not really here,” so I decide to hang back and observe. As the first wave of kids and parents gets to the corner, I’m not at all surprised to see what an electrified bunch they are. When kids get out of school, it’s like pulling the pin on a grenade. All their pent-up energy comes exploding out the doors in the form of running and yelling and bumping into one another. And the mothers are busy talking, so they’re no help. I’m suddenly very concerned for the fifth-graders who are supposed to contain this rodeo. No wonder Sherlay took the morning shift. Not even Max could manufacture this kind of energy in the morning, except maybe on a Saturday.

  “What are you wearing?” The voice of my son startles me out of my thoughts.

  “Oh, hi, sweetie. It’s my safety patrol vest. Do you like it?”

  “No. You look stupid.”

  “Gee, thanks. And for that, you can go sit under that tree and don’t move until I’m done.”

  “But you asked me!” Max is confused, and I can’t blame him. We haven’t yet taught him the art or value of the little white lie.

  I turn back to the corner and see that despite the waves of anarchy that keep approaching the intersection, my patrollers have everything under control. I wander up to Hanna and ask how it’s going.

  “Great. It’s pretty easy after the first bunch of kids.” And she’s right. The first two or three crossings were a dog’s breakfast but after the rush, and for the next twenty minutes, kids come in dribs and drabs. By 3:30 Aaron is amusing himself by playing his stop sign like a guitar.

  Sylvie Pike weirdly pops out from behind a bush at this point to let us know it’s okay to go in. Does she think I don’t own a watch … or a cell phone? And was she there the whole time?

  As we walk back to Safety Patrol Command Central, with Max grudgingly in tow, Sylvie asks me how it went.

  “Well, nobody died, so I’d call it a win.”

  “That’s not funny,” Sylvie says, and I remind myself that snarky isn’t always the way to go.

  “I thought it went really well,” I assure her. In fact, I have to give myself snaps for pulling the whole thing off so seamlessly. I’m glad I said yes to this task. I don’t know what I was worried about.

  9

  * * *

  To: Safety Patrol People

  From: JDixon

  Date: 11/26

  Re: Today’s debacle

  Greetings—

  I’m sure by now you’ve all heard what happened at safety patrol today so let me just state the obvious: this cannot happen again. Please consult your schedule and your child’s, and if there is a conflict, make arrangements to have your shift covered by another parent. Sending your cleaning lady is not an option. Also, if your child is sick, please have them reach out to a patrol friend. I’m hoping today was a once-i
n-a-lifetime incident.

  And for those wondering, Draper Lody’s nose was not broken, as previously reported, but there was an impressive amount of blood.

  Onward,

  Jen

  * * *

  And that’s what I get for giving myself snaps. I should have known the shit would hit the fan at some point. What is it about long weekends like Thanksgiving that makes the best-laid plans get shot to hell?

  I get up from my kitchen-counter office and grab a coconut water from the fridge. Max is allegedly doing his math homework at the kitchen table, but it’s hard for me to tell since he covers his work with his arm. I can’t decide how to punish him for his part in today’s fiasco. I know he didn’t mean any harm, but my God, did he have to get the homeless guy involved?

  Here’s what happened. This afternoon while I was waiting with Ravi and Shirleen for our kids to get out of school, they proceeded to give me shit because I hadn’t sent out a class email since early November.

  “I mean, Jennifer, we depend on you to let us know what is going on in that classroom,” Shirleen informed me.

  “Not to mention I depend on you for a good laugh,” Ravi added with a smile. “At least every two weeks.”

  Shirleen’s sniff told me she didn’t agree. “Do we have any field trips coming up?”

  “Not that I know of.” I was going to share with them that I thought Razzi was getting a bit lazy in her old age. But when I looked past Shirleen’s shoulder toward the street I noticed the safety patrollers weren’t at their posts. I looked at my phone. It was 2:55.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to them and ran to the gym to check Command Central. The vests and stop signs were sitting in their baskets. I looked at the schedule on the wall and saw that it was Hanna and Aaron’s week again. Where the hell were they?

  Just then a middle-aged woman with graying blond hair pulled in a tight bun appeared at the door out of breath.

  “Oh, thank God. Are you the parent on duty today?” I ask while searching my mind for the name of the person who was scheduled.

  “Please, eez dis safety program?” Her thick Slavic accent surprised me.

  “Yes! Glad you made it. Hanna and Aaron haven’t shown up for some reason.”

  “I do patrol for Hanna. She sick with cold.”

  I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  “You’re here to do safety patrol for Hanna?”

  “Yes, and Mrs. Ali. I clean for them.” I had no time to absorb what this woman was saying to me because at that moment the bell rang. Shit. I was torn in six different directions. I immediately texted Ravi to tell Max to meet me at the safety patrol corner, grabbed the two stop signs and vests, and told the woman to follow me.

  “What’s your name?” I yelled back to her as we sprinted through the parking lot.

  “Martika,” she puffed, trying to keep up with me.

  “And Mrs. Ali sent you?” The name rings no bells.

  “Yes. She was helping Mrs. Pam.”

  Mrs. Pam? “Pam Mitchell?” The name of the patrol parent on the schedule finally came to me.

  “Yes,” Martika grunted.

  We got to the corner just as the first wave of people swarmed the area.

  “Hold on. Okay. Just let me get my vest on,” I said with authority as I tossed Martika the other vest and a stop sign. Luckily, we were both able to barely fit into the kids’ vests. I then stuck out my sign to stop the already stopping traffic.

  “Like this,” I told her, stepping onto the street in front of the cars and helping my charges cross safely.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” Max was standing a few feet away with a boy I didn’t know.

  “Hi, sweetie. I’m doing safety patrol. Just hang out and wait for me okay?”

  “Can Draper and I have a play date at our place?”

  “Uh, sure.” I was helping another group to cross the street and making sure Martika was holding her own, so I only gave them a passing glance. “Is it okay with his mom?” Draper nodded.

  For the next twenty minutes I was engrossed in the task of helping people cross the street, all the while trying to put together the events that had brought me here. Neither Hanna nor Aaron had shown up for safety patrol; neither did Pam Mitchell, and neither did her substitute, Mrs. Ali, who sent her cleaning lady instead. I couldn’t have written a weirder scenario.

  As the steady stream of people turned to a drip, I thanked Martika for her help and told her to just leave her vest and sign on the grass. I took a deep breath and turned to talk to Max. But he wasn’t at his usual tree. My eyes darted all around the schoolyard and parking lot. No sign of him. My heart started to pound. I turned to look across the street and finally spotted him. He and Draper were sitting on the bench beside the park talking to a man!

  Before I could stop myself, I screamed his name at the top of my lungs.

  “Max!”

  He looked over and waved.

  “Get over here now!” My voice sounded shrill and panicked.

  He and Draper said a few more words to the man and then crossed the street back over to me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him. I had no doubt I was embarrassing the crap out of him.

  “We were just talking to Mitch.”

  “Oh really? And who is Mitch?”

  He pointed across the street. “He’s that guy. He lives in the park.”

  I was about to launch into a speech about not talking to strangers when I heard a resounding thwack. Draper had picked up Martika’s abandoned stop sign and was hitting anything he could find, using the sign like a baseball bat.

  “Excuse me, Draper. Please put that sign down.”

  “Why?” Draper asked while swatting a half-full juice box he had picked up by the curb.

  “Because it isn’t yours and that’s not what you use it for.”

  Now this next part is a little weird. You kind of had to see it to believe it. Basically, Draper sauntered toward me to hand me the sign. As he was passing near Max, he batted the sign in my son’s face as if he was going to hit him, like a “Made you flinch!” move. Unfortunately, my Ninja-loving son is not familiar with the fake-out, so he put his hands up and not only stopped the sign but pushed it back so hard it slammed Draper in the nose.

  “Ow! Fuck!”

  Nice mouth on the kid! He dropped the sign and put his hands to his face while I reached into my jacket pocket and thanked my lucky stars I had put a fresh Kleenex pack in there. I asked a stunned Max what the heck he was thinking while I pulled Draper’s hands away from his face so I could assess the damage.

  “I thought he was going to hit me” was all he said.

  I concluded that Draper’s nose was not broken. But he was crying, so there were tears and snot mixed in with a lot of blood. Ugh. This is gross enough when it’s your own kid. With someone else’s kid, it’s just disgusting.

  “I want my mom,” Draper sobbed.

  “I know, kiddo. I’ll call her. Do you know your mom’s phone number?”

  I dialed the number he gave me through his sobs and while it was ringing I noticed that we had drawn quite a crowd of rubberneckers, including Mitch, the guy who lives in the park. I found myself wishing that Sylvie Pike would jump out of the bushes.

  “Hello?” Alison picked up on the second ring.

  “Hi, Alison? This is Jen Dixon. I’m here at school with Draper. He’s fine, but he has a bloody nose and you might want to pick him up.”

  “How did he get a bloody nose?” she asked with more calmness than I could have mustered if the roles were reversed. “He said he was having a play date at your house.”

  “He is … was. They were waiting for me to finish safety patrol.”

  I hear a sigh at the other end of the line. “Can you bring him home? My daughter is sick, and I can’t leave her right now.”

  “Of course. What’s your address?”

  She told me, and I typed it into a message bubble on m
y phone.

  When I hung up, one of the gawkers wondered if I needed any help. I recognized her as a safety patrol parent, so I asked if she could take the signs and vests back to Command Central. I wanted to get Draper home ASAP. I walked both boys to the parking lot and didn’t notice I was being followed until we got to the car. A glance over my shoulder showed me that homeless Mitch was limping about ten feet behind us. The hairs on my neck stood up.

  I’m not going to lie. Homeless people make me uncomfortable. I’m well aware this is not one of my more attractive qualities, but I can’t seem to help it. Plus, this guy had just followed me to the car. My danger radar was on high alert.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  Shit!

  As I opened the van for the boys, I scanned the parking lot and was relieved to see a few adults and students still milling around. Feeling a little more secure, I turned to get my first real look at him.

  Mitch was about five ten, with dark, weather-beaten skin and sad brown eyes. He was wearing jeans, a down jacket, and what looked like very old black sneakers.

  “Yes, sir? How can I help you?” I asked in my no-nonsense voice. I had already put my car keys between my fingers in case he attacked me.

  “You dropped this on the grass.” He held out my phone.

  Three things popped into my head immediately.

  1.  I’m such an asshole.

  2.  Eww, Mitch is touching my phone and God knows where his hands have been.

  3.  Do I have any small bills to give him?

  “Oh! Thank you,” I sputtered, took the phone from him, and scurried back to the van.

  “You’re Kay’s daughter, right?” he asked my back. I turned and gave him what I’m sure was a freaked-out look. He smiled.

  “I know your mom from the church and I’ve seen you a few times.” A very few times, I think to myself. Church and I are on an as-needed basis.