Eight

  

When I married Mr. Right

I didn’t know his first name was always.

~ Quote of the day in the Cayboo Creek Crier

  

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders up to her ears trying to drown out the sound of Manny E. the Mozzarella Monkey singing “Happy Birthday” in a jarring off-key tenor. She was surprised she could hear the lyrics over the excited shrieks of children and the ceaseless bings and bongs of the videos games that reverberated throughout the pizza restaurant.

Playtime Pizza was located in Augusta across the Savannah River from Cayboo Creek. A large flashing sign out front billed it as the “happiest place on the planet.” To Elizabeth it seemed like the noisiest place, with a decibel level somewhere between an airport runway and a Metallica concert.

Chiffon Butrell, who was one of Elizabeth’s best friends, was hosting a birthday party at Playtime for her six-year-old son, Dewitt. Elizabeth and Timothy had volunteered to attend and help her manage the twelve first-graders that had been invited to the party. Thus far it had been an exhausting responsibility. All the noise and Coca-Cola made the children as wild as an acre of snakes.

When Manny E. finished his uninspired solo and started serving slices of pizza to the party guests, Elizabeth leaned toward Chiffon and said, “I wonder what the ‘E’ stands for?”

Chiffon, who was beauty-queen pretty with long, wavy blond hair, rolled her eyes. “Expensive, exploitative, and excessive is my guess,” she said. “But I didn’t have much of a choice. My house is too small to host a party and it was either this or the laser-tag place down the highway.”

“Have you heard from Chenille lately?” Elizabeth asked. Chenille was Chiffon’s older sister. She’d been chosen by her school district to teach gifted students in a teacher-exchange program in England for a semester.

Chiffon poked her straw into the remaining ice in her cup. “She called to wish Dewitt a happy birthday. She sure misses everyone. Especially her boyfriend, Garnell.”

Elizabeth nodded and glanced at her daughter, who was happily gnawing on a teething ring in her high chair, oblivious to the racket around her. “I’m glad Glenda is too little to care where her birthday party will be.”

“Yeah, you have a few years yet.” Chiffon snapped a new roll of film into her camera. “Timothy looks happy as a clam.”

Elizabeth glanced over at her husband, who was thronged by three little boys watching him twist a balloon into the shape of a wiener dog.

“He does look like he’s enjoying himself,” Elizabeth said. Instead of appearing frazzled by all the bedlam, Timothy acted as excited as one of the pint-sized party guests.

“Mama!” Dewitt shouted. He was out of breath as he approached Chiffon. “I need more tokens.”

“More? You had a whole handful five minutes ago,” Chiffon said. She poured a pile of the gold plastic coins into his waiting palm. “After this, you’re done. Those darn machines eat up tokens like they were kibble.”

Elizabeth ventured a nibble of the pizza slice that the moth-eaten Manny E. had placed in front of her on the sticky table. The cheese was rubbery, the temperature was cold, and the crust was the consistency of cardboard.

A group of Manny E’s minions, Doughboy Dan and the Sausage Sextet got onstage and started singing, “Playtime Pizza is the happiest, happiest place on the planet.”

“You got anything for a headache?” Elizabeth shouted to Chiffon. Chiffon nodded and set out three bottles: Extra-Strength Tylenol, Motrin, and Anacin-3.

“Choose your poison,” she said. “After last year’s party, I came prepared.”

Later, after Timothy and Elizabeth had helped drop off half the party guests, Timothy was humming Playtime Pizza’s theme song as he pulled up in the driveway of their bungalow.

“Please don’t do that.” Elizabeth plugged her ears with her fingers.

Timothy chuckled as he put the SUV into park. “I take it you didn’t care much for Playtime Pizza.”

“It was a train wreck,” Elizabeth said, climbing out of the car. “I though Chiffon was going to tear her hair out.”

“It was kind of loud,” Timothy said, opening the back door to release a sleeping Glenda from her car seat. “But I had a lot of fun with all those little kids.”

He unlocked the front door and stepped inside the house. “I’m looking forward to the time when we’ll have our own tribe of children,” he said with a wink.

Tribe! After a long afternoon of herding a pack of rambunctious kids, Elizabeth’s patience snapped.

“Timothy Horace Hollingsworth,” she fumed as she followed him into the nursery. “I’m your wife... not some sort of… old woman in the shoe who’s supposed to have a parade of children trailing after her.”

She hadn’t intended to confront him this way; her plan had been to civilly discuss the issue over a glass of Chablis. Too late now: She was spitting like a grease fire.

“What do you mean?” Timothy said as he tucked Glenda in her crib.

“You heard me,” she continued. “You keep making remarks about all these babies we’re going to have. What you really mean is the children I’m going to have, because I’m the one who has to do all the work.”

“You don’t think I help out enough with Glenda?” Timothy said in a wounded voice.

“You lend a hand when you can, but you’re not here all day long with a baby.” She softened her tone. “You have no idea how isolating that can be.”

“But what about your Mommy Time group? Doesn’t that give you a chance to hang out with other adults?”

“Mommy Time has been canceled until the weather’s warmer. We lost our place to meet, and we can’t find another one.” She looked at her husband with large, pleading eyes. “Do you have any idea what I’m trying to say?”

“Of course I do, sweetheart. I didn’t realize how hard it is to be cooped up with an infant all the time.” Timothy curled his arm around her waist. “Have you been keeping this from me for a while?”

Elizabeth nodded, sniffing back tears.

“Tell you what.” He smoothed a strand of dark-blond hair behind her ear. “Why don’t I get Ferrell to tend the bait shop on Friday afternoons, and I’ll come home and look after Glenda. That’ll free you up to do a little shopping or have a lunch date with your friends. Maybe you could even treat yourself to a facial or a pedicure. How does that sound?”

“No.” She stiffened in his arms. “You don’t understand at all. I could care less about clean pores or painted toenails.”

“What are you saying, then?”

Tell him, she ordered herself. There would never be a better time than now. She gently broke free from his embrace and faced him. “I want to go back to work.”

“Work?” Timothy said, as if genuinely puzzled. “How can you work? Who would take care of Glenda?”

“Timothy, there are people who care for children, nice, decent people who—”

“Strangers,” he interrupted. A look of betrayal crossed his face. “You want to put our daughter into the hands of people she doesn’t know or trust. We discussed this at length, Elizabeth. We both agreed that the parent is the best person to raise a child. Why even have children if you’re going to farm them out to other people all day long?”

“Not all day long,” Elizabeth protested. “I thought I’d work part-time to start. I called your mother, and she said Hollingsworth Paper Cups could use another marketing executive, especially since they’re coming out with those new, insulated coffee cups.”

“Are you telling me that you’re going to abandon our daughter so you can peddle Styrofoam cups?” Timothy demanded.

Glenda stirred restlessly in her crib and Elizabeth put a finger over her lips.

“Let’s go in the living room to talk this out,” she whispered. “I don’t want to wake her.”

Timothy shook his head and dropped down into the rocking chair beside the crib. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but there’s nothing to talk about. We had an agreement, and you’re trying to wriggle your way out of it. As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is closed.”

“Come on with me, Timothy, please,” Elizabeth rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve always been able to talk things through.”

“Not this time,” he said darkly. “You go into the living room. I’m staying in here with my daughter.”