Page 95 of Lovebug
“That punkass kid in The Giving Tree.”
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know The Giving Tree?” his deep voice goes up in pitch.
“Oh! The Giving Tree! Yes, of course! Such a beautiful book.”
He stops in his tracks and gives me a pointed look. “It isnota beautiful book. It’s a book about an entitled, self-serving, tree-murdering psychopath.”
“Are we talking about the same story?” I cock my head to the side. “By Shel Silverstein?”
“That’s the one.” He starts walking again. “That book is so far up its own ass it can see its esophagus. It shouldn’t be called The Giving Tree, it should be called… The Taking Turd.”
“Did you come up with that right now?”
“I did.”
“And… aturd? You’re calling a fictional child a turd?”
“I am,” He says definitively. “And you should too. Sure, the reader may be tempted to let him off the hook early in the tale when he’s a kid, but the guy grows up and his selfish douchery just keeps on douching until the tree is left a literal stump, devoid of her leaves and her branches and her majesty. I’m just glad you escaped your ‘taking turd’ before you were left stunted and stumped like that gorgeous, giving tree.”
I smile and shake my head at him.
“I don’t - I don’t understand the way you talk sometimes. I mean, I guess Idounderstand it, but It’s so...saucy. So unlike anyone I’ve ever met.”
He takes that moment to weave our fingers together, and… suddenly we’re walking hand in hand.
I look down at our joined hands.
“This okay?” he asks.
“Totally okay,” I say softy. “Yeah.”
“So. You think I’m a saucy talker, do ya?” He gets closer to me and rumbles in my ear. “Lady, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Stay tuned, will ya?”
“Sure,” I say. “Yeah. I’ll… I’ll ‘stay tuned.’”
“Good.” With that bit of business taken care of he returns to our previous discussion. “Also, looked at in another way, it’s a book about martyrdom. About pillaging our natural resources. It’s really up in the air whether Shel meant it as inspiration or a cautionary tale. Whatever his intention though, you better believe that when I have kids I willnotbe reading it to them.”
“When?” I sort of choke on my own spit.
“You okay there? Swallow.”
He gives me a gentle smack on the back.
“Fine, yeah. Thanks. It’s just… you said ‘whenI have kids,’ not ‘ifI have kids.’ I would have expected you to say ‘ifI have kids.’”
“Why is that?”
“I guess maybe because you don’t seem like the kid type?”
“What are you saying, Mabel, you don’t want to procreate with me?” he asks with a face like stone.
“Oh. Um. I didn’t say—I mean I’m sure you’d be—But we haven’t even—”
“Because I’m going to need you to get onboard and provide for me, woman. I’m twelve weeks along and you’re the father.”
“Whaaat?!”
