I took it off the menu because a week ago when I was working at the store, I’d come out of the back to find two adorable lovebird teenagers by the window spoon-feeding each other mouthfuls of a Football Sundae Special, giggling, playful, totally in love.
The Football Sundae Special was a delicacy my husband and I created by accident one of the first times we made love—our special little thing, until I decided one day out of total madness to refine it and slap it on a menu.
The teenagers kept kissing and giggling and looking happy.
And I just couldn’t stand another second of that.
King of Pettiness, right here, table for one.
“Still coming to the game tonight?” he asks, his playful tone traded for something softer, perhaps reading my face for once and backing off on digging any deeper.
And that somehow makes me feel even more bad.
So I pull another Billy and go into some rant about something unrelated to anything at all. “Are you ever gonna take care of that enormous branch reaching out for our roof?” I point at the front window—which isn’t quite the right window, but I point anyway. “It’s as thick as a trunk. All it’s gonna take is a single termite to chew through it before that thing comes crashing down. It makes me nervous every time I look at it, been saying for over a year.”
He chuckles in that vexingly patronizing way he does. “Babe, that monster of a tree has been there since before this house waseven built. I’m pretty sure Jimmy leapt off of it into the pond ten or eleven times while we were growin’ up. It’ll hold until we’re a hundred and our kids are grandpas.”
Jimmy is my husband’s younger brother—twice as cocky, also married to a man, and as athletic as they come. There really must be something in the water on the Strong ranch. Their last name is no accident.
I suddenly wonder if Jimmy’s husband Bobby is someone I can possibly confide in. He’s so kindhearted and patient.
Two things I feel like I’m lacking lately.
“Yes,” I finally answer him. “I’ll be there. At the game.”
His eyes light up. “Really?”
It’s time to be nice. I’m tired of my moodiness today. “Yes, of course.” I’m even practicing my plastic smiles here at home when I’m supposed to be allowed to let the mask drop. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“My good luck charm. You’re, like, responsible for half of my boys’ morale, I hope you realize.” He brings a hand to my cheek for a rather unexpected caress, which forces my eyes right back into the beautiful trap of his.
It’s no secret why I fell in love with this man.
None at all.
A single, innocent glance into those gorgeous, giving eyes of his explains everything.
Next thing I know, he’s out of the house heading back to the school, and I’m at the sink with the container of fallen raspberries. Could I just wash them and be okay? I consider one that still sits in my palm, looking plump and soft and perfect.
I pop the raspberry into my mouth and chew for two and a half seconds—two and a half seconds of tasty, beautiful bliss.
Then I spit it out and shake my head. “Nope, can’t, sorry.” I take all the rest of them to the trash.
Later that evening with the sun dipping behind the rolling fields, I’m in the bleachers, plastic smile in place, with the excited hum of the town around me yet again. No less than twelve people personally come up to me to say how sweet it is that I attend all of my husband’s games. I don’t correct any of them, despite having missed several last year. One woman, a friend of my mama’s, even said, “You are the luckiest man in the world!” I smiled back at her and was about to thank her when Joshua sprang forth and asked me if he could get a hotdog from the concession stand. I gave him some cash and told him to knock himself out, and off he went. The woman looked about ready to cry happy tears right then, finding the little interaction with my son to be too adorable for words.
We get that a lot.
I guess it just hits differently lately, seeing how happy people look when they glance at us.
Tightening the chokehold of our marriage around my neck.
Joshua’s sitting next to me now, drawing in a blank sketchpad, one of several things I got him for his birthday. He’s taking after Marcus lately, who’s active in the Art Club at Spruce High, but like Joshua’s last seven things he was “totally crazy about”, I can’t say how long this obsession will last. We still have a set of electric blue roller skates from his “king of the rink” phase last winter that he wore once before we stuffed them away in a closet to be forgotten.
“We need to meet up next Saturday to taste some cakes,” says Nadine, who has taken a seat with Jacky-Ann on my other side and is gripping my thigh so tight, I can feel my toes losing blood. She’sreallydead-set on our team winning, despite excitedly discussing the vow renewal. “I’ve got several in mind, too many, but y’know me, I have this tendency to—HEY! PICK UP YOUR PACE! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!—be a little overbearing with planning these sorts of things. Please, Billy,sweetheart, don’t hesitate to tell me to back off. One word, and I’ll back off and hand you the reins, cross my heart.”
I highly doubt that’s true, but her saying it is enough of a sentiment to make me smile. Even if her bubbling enthusiasm is, admittedly, one of the things driving me the most crazy lately. Other than rogue raspberries. “Thanks, Nadine. I appreciate it.”
“You make my son so happy. I mean, how else can I possibly repay you?”