Page 39 of Love Complicated

It’s only the second day of school, and I’m already sick. I can feel it. The scratchy throat, the watery eyes, and the snot-filled nose. I hate it, and when I get sick, I like sweets. Lots of them.

Arrow, the little girl who asked to bring cupcakes for her birthday, is digging through her lunch. She’s also the one who gave me the Twinkie yesterday.

She’s hanging her backpack up in her cubby when I ask, “Did your mom pack you a Twinkie?”

Arrow rolls her damn eyes at me. “No, and you said you don’t like vanilla.”

“I don’t like vanilla cupcakes. Twinkies are entirely different.”

She stands her ground and goes as far to put her hands on her hips. “How so?”

I put my fingers to my lips and smile, walking backward to my desk. “Shh. No talking during class.”

When I reach my desk, I sit down and Luna walks up. Did you meet her yesterday? She’s the one who sits on the other side of Cash and has the whitest hair I’ve ever seen. It’s almost as translucent as her skin.

“Are you married?” she asks, taking my hand to hold it up.

This kid scares me. Every time I look at her, I think of Caroline from the moviePoltergeist,and at any moment she’s going to say,“Mommy, where are you?”And then I shiver as the child with gray eyes stares at me. “No, why.”

“Asking for a friend.”

Look at her. She’s not asking for a friend. And then she goes on to tell me what she did last night, like I care what she did.

Have you ever listened to a child under ten tell you a story? I should rephrase that. Have you ever tried to understand a story a child under ten is telling you?

It’s damn near painful at times.

All I get from the story is that she has a pet pig and Draven told her poltergeists are real.

Are your eyes wide given what I just told you about her? I shit you not, she said that.

I motion for her to back up a foot because she doesn’t seem to understand personal space.

“He also said the stock market is going to crash soon.”

“Who did?”

“Draven.”

I sigh, out loud. “Well, he eats paper so I wouldn’t put too much weight on Draven’s theories on the stock market.” I can’t believe I’m actually talking about this with a child.

Two months ago I was working with mentally challenged kids with behavioral issues, getting stoned, and fucking nameless women while pretending to use my college education. Now look at me.

Luna goes back to her desk while I sneeze.

“One of you little germs gave me a cold.” I point to Brennan in the back row. “I’m lookin’ at you, B.”

He rubs his nose with the sleeve of his shirt right about then and smiles. “Sorry?”

“Don’t be. I’m tough, but. . . now you’ve gotta hear a story about how germs work that’ll make you wash your hands.” I point to the whiteboard behind me at a random photograph of fish on the wall. “Remember how we talked about parasites yesterday?”

They nod. This is probably not the best story to tell a bunch of second graders but fuck it. They need to know this because I can’t look at a fish the same way. “There’s this parasite called a cymothoa exigua. It’s also known as the tongue-eating louse.”

Brennan raises his hand. “Am I the parasite in this story?”

See? They’re starting to get my stories and teaching methods, and we’re only a few days into the school year. I’m doing something right. “Yep. You’re the tongue-eating parasite in this story so listen up you little freeloader.” The kids laugh and wiggle in their seats, all eyes on me. “All right, so we got the fish, right?” I grab a dry erase marker and draw a picture of what looks like a fish and then a bug beside it. “The parasite. . . I mean, Brennan. . . he enters the fish through the gills and attaches himself to the fish’s tongue. Like he did to me and gave me this stupid cold.”

“You can’t say stupid!” Arrow points out, correcting me.

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