Say Never (33 page)

“McKenna has never been a problem, Mrs. Monroe—”

“
Ms.
Monroe.”

“But we have a no name-calling policy.” He glances at his note pad. “Dumb-witty? I believe that is what your daughter—”

“She’s my niece,” I tell him. Is this guy for real? Has he never met Caroline or is he just too stupid to remember her.

“If this happens again, we will have to take severe action. Suspension, expulsion…”

“For calling a name? Jes—Jiminy Cricket! What is this, the Inquisition?”

“I’ll expect your daughter to write an apology to Mr. Dunwiddie. And please make certain she uses imaginative details and expressive language.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? She’s five!”

The principal finally looks up at me, his expression of shock is barely discernable under his thick jowls.

“I now understand why McKenna is so at ease with the use of derogatory and insulting verbiage.”

I put my hands up in surrender and take a calming breath. “Look, Mr. Paulson. McKenna is a good kid. And you’re right. She only called that little twerp a name because I told her to. It’s my fault.”

“Mmmhmm,” he says, returning his focus to his desk. He makes a note on his pad and nods grimly. He probably wrote down something about how horrible I am, but since he thinks I’m Caroline, I’m okay with it.

“Be that as it may, if I am not satisfied with McKenna’s letter of apology, I shall have to take this matter further…”

I look at McKenna’s tear-streaked face and my heart breaks. I grab her by the hand and drag her from the office, then march her over to Cera and Tebow, who have been waiting at the table outside the reception counter. When Cera sees McKenna, she grimaces with adolescent superiority.

“God, she is such a bab—”

“Your sister needs our help,” I say, cutting her off.

“With what?” she asks, her expression doubtful.

“With our ability to covertly castigate whilst seeming to compliment.”

“Huh?” Cera says, but I call tell she’s intrigued.

“Let’s get out of here.” I lift Tebow to my hip and head for the door.

“Daddy’s gonna be real mad at me,” McKenna says, sniffling uncontrollably as we walk across the macadam.

“No, honey. He’s going to be mad at
me
. But don’t worry. I can handle it. And besides, we’re going to write a letter that will knock Simon Dunwiddie’s socks off.”

“We are?” she asks, looking at me hopefully.

“You betcha,” I reply. “You might not know this, McKenna, but your Auntie Meg has a way with words.”

* * *

My brother gets home at four-thirty. Cera, McKenna and I are seated around the kitchen table, poring over her letter to Simon Dumb-witty while Tebow alternates between shoving Cheerios into his mouth and crushing them on his high chair with a Matchbox car.

“What’s going on?” Danny asks, both surprised and curious. “The three of you look as thick as thieves, don’t they Tebow?”

As cheesy as it sounds (and I
hate
cheesy), his ‘thieves’ comment gives me a little lift. I have been a complete failure as an aunt for days, but with Cera companionably on my left and McKenna comfortably on my right, and Tebow not screaming his guts out, I have achieved a modicum of success in the parental-guardian league.

“I like to think of us as the multi-generational Charlie’s Angels,” I tell him. “Tebow’s Bosley.”

“Who’s that?” McKenna asks.

“Bill Murray,” Cera says, proving the cross-generation-thing.
My
Bosley will forever be David Doyle.

“Seriously, what are you doing?” Danny changes the subject. (He always did hate Charlie’s Angels.)

“We’re writing a letter,” Cera says.

“Really? To who?”

“That’s ‘to whom,’” she corrects archly, and I bite my lip to keep from smiling. When we were kids, I always corrected Danny for every single grammatical error he made. (It’s hard to believe Cera and I
aren’t
related by blood.)

“Simon Dunwiddie,” McKenna says. “He’s a boy in my class and he was mean to me and I called him a name and now I have to write him a ‘pology letter.”

Danny loosens his tie and unbuttons the top three buttons of his dress shirt. Then he puts his hands on his hips and gives McKenna a stern look.

“What did you call him?”

Immediately, McKenna turns to me. I roll my eyes then shoot Danny a bored expression. “Dumb-witty. And I told her to call him that, so don’t get all mad at her.”

The corners of his mouth twitch as though he’s fighting a grin. He’s probably relieved that McKenna didn’t call Simon a shithead or a douchebag or any number of other horrible names she could have picked up after hanging out with me for a few days.

“That wasn’t nice, McKenna. Even if your aunt told you to call him that, you know better.”

“But he was being so mean to me, Daddy. He said my macaroni Thanksgiving looked like I barfed it up!”

“Well, that wasn’t nice either, was it? But we’ve talked about this before. What are you supposed to do if someone is mean to you?”

McKenna hangs her head then looks up at him through furrowed brows.

Danny holds up one finger. “Number one?”

“Tell ‘em that’s not right,” McKenna says through pursed lips.

Danny adds a finger. “Two?”

“Walk away.”

Danny adds his ring finger. “Or, three?”

McKenna scrunches her nose. “Find a grownup.”

Four, kick him in the balls.

Danny shakes his head at me, reading my mind. “Very good, McKenna. Now, let’s hear that letter.”

He takes a seat next to Cera and smiles at her. For the first time, she smiles back. McKenna picks up the letter, squints at it, then hands it to her half-sister. Cera clears her throat.

“Dear Simon, I know it’s hard for you to be respectful and courteous to your peers because of the many social challenges you face, for instance having impaired vision and a disastrous overbite. But although you feel the need to lash out at others around you, this does not excuse my own behavior. I deeply apologize for calling you Dumb-witty, and will never again be so heartless and cruel in your presence. Please forgive me. Sincerely, McKenna Monroe, Esquire.

“
The esquire-thing was my idea,” she says proudly. “And the ‘impaired vision’ comment.”

“Did you write any of that, McKenna?” Danny asks and McKenna nods her head vigorously.

“I totally did, Daddy. The overbite-thingy, only I said Simon looked like a rabbit. Auntie Meg and Cera made it sound better.”

“Well, it certainly has, um…”

“Imaginative details and expressive language?” I supply.

“You could say that.”

I put my hands up in the air, palms out. Simultaneously, Cera and McKenna high-five me. My brother shrugs, chuckles, then heads for the fridge and grabs himself a beer.

My buoyant mood evaporates a moment later when Danny announces, “What do you say we all grab a bite at Applebee’s before we go see Mommy!”

I mentally hold up a finger.
Number One, I’ve never eaten at Applebee’s in my life and don’t plan to.
Next mental finger, my
middle
finger.
Number Two, I have no intention of visiting my traitorous sister-in-law after she sicced Patsy Gates on me last night.
Third mental finger.
Number Three…Hmm. It seems I have more mental fingers than points.

“I think I’ll bow out on both.”

Danny looks me. “Really? Applebee’s has great chicken-fried steak.”

“As enticing as that sounds, no thanks.”

“We could go somewhere else?” he suggests and I shake my head.

“You guys go. I need to do some things, like check my email and post something on Facebook. Plus, I’ve got that lunch tomorrow. I want to get my thoughts together.”

“Can I stay with Aunt Meg?” Cera asks, and I want to shoot myself in the head for how happy I am that she called me ‘Aunt Meg.’

What the hell is wrong with me?

“I know your mom wants to see you, Cera,” Danny says. “Let’s do the right thing, okay?”

Cera rolls her eyes, and if I didn’t know better, I would swear that she’s counting to ten in her head. Still, when Danny tells the girls to get their shoes on, she follows McKenna to the foyer without protest.

Danny withdraws Tebow from the high chair, a stupid smirk on his face.

“What?”

“I’m impressed, is all. You and the girls all getting along so swimmingly. I can’t wait to tell Caroline.”

“Oh, yeah, she’ll probably think I crushed up my Xanax and slipped it into their milk.”

“Did you?” Danny asks, still grinning.

“No. I’m all out of Xanax. I used Prozac instead.”

* * *

I stare at the computer screen as though I am looking at an alien-constructed device way beyond my intellectual understanding. I feel like my brain has been scrambled and yanked out through my nostrils and my whole body feels like it’s made of lead.

When Danny and the kids left, I immediately booted up my laptop, but sometime between pressing the power button and seeing my screensaver, I have fallen into a lethargy, and I can barely muster the energy to check my emails.

Today has been an emotional rollercoaster, from getting McKenna to school on time to her sentencing in the principal’s office to Tebow’s tantrum from hell in Target. I have no desire to update my Facebook Page, nor tweet reassurances to my fans, nor even read the comments everyone is posting about me. I don’t want to work on future segments for my show, or do Google searches on funny and ridiculous subjects that will entertain my listeners. I just want to get the email from Eileen Buchanan—which my phone alerted me about earlier—shut down my computer and crawl into a hot tub.

A week ago, in my normal life, I would finish my work day, meet friends or co-workers for drinks or dinner, go home to my apartment and spend hours working, staying up until the wee hours even though I had to be up at six AM to get to the station on time. And I should be working now, since I’ve fallen way behind. But parenting sucks the life and energy out of you. It’s a complete drain. I understand those mom bloggers who complain that by eight o’clock at night, they haven’t a single functioning brain cell. The omniscient
They
say that motherhood is the hardest job in the world. I used to roll my eyes when I heard that phrase, but now I know that
They
are right. NASA space shuttle engineers and crime-scene-cleanup crews have it easy by comparison. Not for the first time, I realize that I could never be a mother. I’d become a pill popper or an alcoholic.
More
of one, anyway.

But you handled it today, Meg,
I tell myself.
You survived a tantrum without cracking into a million pieces and you turned around a potentially disastrous situation with McKenna, plus you got the girls working together. Not too bad.

I consider this for a moment, then tsk. Sure,
today
I did all right. I was successful one out of the four days I’ve been here. But you can’t be a good parent only a quarter of the time. Quarter-of-the-time parents raise drug addicts and axe murderers, or worse.

I shrug my shoulders to the empty living room. It’s a moot point. I’m never going to be a mother, bad or good. I feel a slight pang at this thought, but I ignore it. All I have to do is make it to next Wednesday without misplacing or in any way causing or allowing bodily harm to befall my charges. And stay sane while I do it. No problem.
Right
.

I click on my Outlook software and wait for my emails to load. I stare into space, and my thoughts wander, then unwittingly land on Matt Ryan. I haven’t seen him today, although I did catch sight of his truck sailing down the street when I brought the kids to the Camaro this morning. My stomach flutters at the memory of his lips against mine, but I quickly push the thought away.

I open the expected email from Eileen, then type the restaurant’s address into the GPS on my phone. I feel slightly unprepared for my interview tomorrow. Back when I landed the job at WTLC, I came in with both barrels and wowed Gordon into submission. But I don’t want the job with KTOC, so there isn’t the same pressure. However, I don’t want to come across as ambivalent. I want to impress Eileen Buchanan enough to get a great offer. I should probably jot down some ideas. Unfortunately, my brain is taking a vay-cay.

I shut down my laptop and push away from the table. Matt Ryan’s face comes into my head again, his blue eyes framed by those long dark lashes, his full lips and chiseled jaw. I wonder what he’s doing right now. Playing guitar on his patio?

Shit, Meg. Get a grip. You do not need any complications.