Other Books by the Author: I enjoyed The Garden of Small Beginnings, Abbi's first novel. You can check out my review here.
Must Read Excerpt (leaves you wanting more!): Frances pulled into the elementary school lot and Ava
got out, sighing as if she were a fourteen-year-old Victorian child
disembarking for her day down the mine. She pulled open the door and swung her
arm wide.
“Medium-size children may now escape. Mind the gap, and
watch out for speeding moms on cell phones.”
The children had already unbuckled and piled out,
high-fiving Ava as they passed her. Kate stopped, and Frances turned to see
what was up. The little girl’s face was a study in conflict.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Kate looked at Frances, and her chin wobbled.
“I left my toilet roll tubes at home.”
“Oh.” Frances looked at her eldest child. Ava shrugged,
looking back inside the open minivan.
“They aren’t in the car.”
“Oh, OK.” Frances smiled at Kate. “I’m sure the teacher
will have lots of extras.” She herself had, over time, sent in three thousand
toilet roll tubes. For all she knew they were building a particle collider out
of them, or an accurate re-creation of the New York subway system. Let’s hope
they didn’t use the obvious choice for subway trains.
“No, I have to have my own ones.”
Kate’s eyes were filling with tears, her shit-fit indicator was dropping to
DEFCON 3. “It’s for the class project. Everyone else will have them.”
Frances weighed her options. On the one hand Kate was only six,
and would not only survive but would forget the trauma of not having had toilet
roll tubes. But on the other hand, she was a member of the Yakuza-esque
organization known as Miss Lollio’s First Grade Class, whose members fell on
the weakest like wolves on a lamb. Forgetting to bring toilet roll tubes and
having to borrow some was a Noticeable Event to be avoided at all costs. It
wasn’t on the level of peeing oneself, of course, it wasn’t going to give rise
to a nickname you couldn’t shake until college, but it wasn’t great.
“My mommy put them in a bag, but she forgot to give them to
me.” A note of accusatory steel had entered her voice. Frances gazed at the
little angel, whose mother had been heard calling her Butterblossom. Kate’s
eyes had gone flat like a shark’s. She knew she would get what she wanted, the
only question was when. I am younger than you, old lady,
her eyes said, and I will stand here until age makes you
infirm, at which time I will push you down, crunch over your brittle bones, and
get the toilet roll tubes I need.
“Alright, Kate. I’ll go back and get them after I drop Ava,
OK, and bring them back to school for you.” Frances knew she was being played,
but it was OK. She was softhearted, and she could live with that.
“Suckah . . .” Ava
headed back to her seat, shaking her head over her mother’s weakness, a
weakness she loved to take advantage of herself.
“Thanks, Frances!” Kate beamed an enormous smile, turned,
and ran off—the transformation from tremulous waif to bouncy cherub
instantaneous. Behind her in the line of cars, someone tapped their horn. OK,
the brief honk said, we waited while you dealt with whatever mini crisis was
caused by your piss-poor parenting, because we’re nice like that, but now you
can get a move on because we, like everyone else in this line, have Shit to Do.
Amazing how much a second of blaring horn can communicate.
Frances waved an apologetic hand out of the car window, and
pulled out of the gate.
She dropped the other kids and was back at Anne’s house in
a half hour. Having carpool duty wasn’t the onerous task the other parents
thought it was: All three schools were close to home, and all four families
lived on the same block. As Frances ran up to Anne’s door she looked over and
saw her own cat, Carlton, watching her. She waved. He blinked and looked away,
embarrassed for both of them.
She knocked softly on the door, but no one answered. Maybe
Anne had gone back to sleep. She turned the handle and pushed open the door,
peering around. Yup, there was the bag of toilet roll tubes. She grabbed it and
was about to shut the door again when she saw Anne lying on the floor, her face
turned away, her long hair spilling across the rug.
“Anne! Holy crap, are you OK?” But as she said it her brain
started processing what she was really seeing. Anne, on the floor, check. But
now she’d turned her head and Frances realized she was fine. In fact, she was
better than fine. Frances had instinctively stepped over the sill and now she
saw that Anne was naked, her face flushed, a man between her legs, his head
below her waist.
“Shit . . .” Frances dropped her eyes, began
to back out, “Sorry, Anne, Kate forgot her toilet roll
tubes . . .” Stupidly she raised her hand with the Whole Foods
bag in it because, of course, that would make it better, that she’d interrupted
Anne and Charlie having a quickie on the living room floor. It was OK, because she
was just here for the toilet roll tubes. Nothing to see here, move along.
The man realized something was wrong, finally, and raised
his head, looking first at Anne and then turning to see what she was looking
at, why her face was so pale when seconds before it had been so warmly flushed.
Frances was nearly through the door, it was closing fast,
but not before she saw that it wasn’t Charlie at all. It was someone else
entirely.
Frances closed the door and heard it click shut.
