WATCHING BRAD
Part 203
"This is insane, Brad," I said in a very hushed voice so as not to upset the kids. I was trying to remain objective about our decision, but there wasn't even enough room in the RV for both me and my objectivity. "It's impossible. It's not going to work. I think we made a huge mistake renting this thing."
"It'll work out, Pops," Brad replied with a rather annoying smile on his face. How could he be so cheerful so early in the morning? Perhaps he was revelling in my little tantrum. "We just have to give it a little time, that's all."
"A little time for what?" I asked, my voice a harsh, frantic whisper. "There isn't even enough room in here for more time!"
Brad chuckled lightly, but I hadn't meant it as a joke. "Time to get used to it. To settle into a routine."
Brad was already showered and shaved and dressed for work. He had joined me in our bedroom, at my insistence, as I dried off after my shower and began getting dressed. If you can call what I had just taken a ‘shower'. To me, it was more of an intermittent drizzle. Forget about cranking up the spray and letting it cascade over me for fifteen minutes. We now had a holding tank we had to consider. My shower consisted of a one-minute spray to get myself all wet before pushing the temporary shut-off lever so I could suds myself up with body wash and lather my hair with shampoo without shutting off the faucets. After that, I flipped the lever once more for a two-minute rinse. I swear it was only a minute and twenty-seven seconds. I didn't even have enough time or water for a ‘lather-rinse-repeat'. It was more like ‘lather and do the best you can to get the bubbles out'.
I think that's why I was so annoyed. I knew I was clean, but I didn't feel it.
"I don't think I'll
ever get used to it," I told him bluntly. "One toilet. One sink. One shower. And all of us trying to get in there at the same time. How is a family of five supposed to live like that?"
"
We did," Brad replied calmly. "When Jeremy and Justin moved in with us. There wasn't even a bedroom for them, remember? They shared the room with Lindsay and we hung up a blanket between their beds. And there was only one bathroom for all of us. We managed."
I stood there in my underwear, holding a pair of slacks in my hands. Brad took me in his arms and hugged them around me. "We'll manage, Ted. We always have. Just give it some time." He leaned his head forward and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "Now hurry and get dressed. I have to get to work."
He left me alone then and went back out into the kitchen to watch over the kids until I arrived to relieve him. Whereas my work day began at nine o'clock, Brad's began at seven-thirty. I had a job once which began at seven in the morning. I hated it. I still don't know how Brad could go to work that early in the morning with a smile on his face.
I suppose I was a bit premature in my little tirade. After all, it was only our first morning in the motor home and it was pure chaos as we all tried to do everything at the same time in the same place. It really wasn't that much different than our other home had been, really, except that this one was a whole lot smaller and the water in the toilet was yellower.
We'd all survived the night. Our bed was surprisingly comfortable and I had slept very well. Lindsay didn't seem to mind the pull-out bed and neither of the twins had fallen on their heads getting out of theirs. Still, unlike the boys, Lindsay was getting to the age where she wanted her privacy when she changed. I could see that when she'd used our bedroom to get dressed for bed the night before and waited to get dressed in the morning until I went in for my shower. She wanted to come with me. Privacy, it seemed, was going to be a bit an issue when there was only one room with a door. One more thing to work around and through, I guess.
First thing in the morning, Brad had jumped out of bed and into the shower to sort out the water thing. Paul had gone over the routine with him, explaining to him how to avoid filling the grey-water holding tank too quickly which, apparently, could happen with regular showers. Brad wanted to be the first one to try it. In the meantime, I had pulled on my bathrobe and went out to get breakfast on the go for the kids and to put on a pot of coffee for the grown-ups. Nothing extravagant for the kids. Just a bowl of their favourite cereal and some toast topped with cinnamon spread. They'd never had it before, and neither had I, but they had spotted it beside the peanut butter and jam when we were out shopping and wanted to try it, so I picked up a tub. It was rather tasty and the kids liked it. I put it on my mental shopping list.
That brought me to my own shower and my agitated conversation with Brad. I finished dressing quickly and went out to join him for the few remaining minutes before he had to leave for work. That moment came all too soon.
"I wish you can walk me to school," Jeremy said to his Daddy Brad, who knelt on one knee in front of him. Jeremy's eyes were sad and his bottom lip sagged into a pout. Justin stood next to his brother.
"I do, too," Brad told him with a smile which did little to cheer up Jeremy, "but I couldn't get the time off work. But I promise to be there when you get out at dinner time and you can tell your Daddy and me all about your first day at school while we eat lunch, okay?"
Jeremy nodded, but didn't say anything.
Brad pulled the twins into his arms, hugging both boys and giving them kisses. "Love you," he said. "Have fun at school, okay?"
Justin grinned and said, "Okay". Jeremy continued to look sad.
"Bye," Brad said finally, releasing the boys and standing erect. He gave Lindsay a quick kiss on the cheek and gave me a longer one on the lips. "See you at noon," he told me. "Wait for me, eh?"
"I'll be here," I promised.
He stepped to the door and opened it, pausing in the doorway long enough to bid us goodbye again. Then, with a final wave, he stepped down to the ground and pushed the door closed behind him. Jeremy clambered onto the banquette seat so he could look out the window and watch Brad as he climbed into his truck and drove away.
I was left to watch the kids until Terry arrived. I'd given her the day off since I was going to do the school thing, but she decided she'd rather come along so she'd know how to get to the new classrooms. Her day off would begin after we dropped off the kids.
The television was on and the funny voices and canned laughter of cartoons filled the camper, but the twins were too busy checking their backpacks to watch it. They loved the packs which Brad and I had bought for them whilst on honeymoon in London. The packs were identical, with a Union Jack emblazoned on each. Justin's pack, of course, was trimmed in bright blue piping. Jeremy's was trimmed in green. They were well-acquainted now with all the pockets and hidden slots and flaps and secret pouches but had yet to decide exactly what they would put in each of them. They busied themselves unpacking and repacking them. . . over and over again.
Lindsay, meanwhile, sat beside them on the daybed, reading a book from time to time. For the most part, though, she was watching the twins with mild amusement as her brothers swapped items from place to place. It was a cacophony of television noises mixed with the sounds of nylon zippers and velcro closures and little boy titters and giggles.
Justin and Jeremy eventually seemed satisfied with their arrangements and sat back on the sofa with a great sense of accomplishment on their faces, their packs held securely in their laps with their arms wrapped around them. . . until I handed them the lunch bags which contained the mid-morning snacks as requested by the school.
Lindsay let out an exasperated sigh as her brothers began yet another round of backpack rearrangement, exclaimed "Boys!" in an exaggerated stage whisper, and took her book with her to the dinette where she sat down and continued reading again.
David arrived before Terry did, knocking on the door and officially becoming our first houseguest when the twins let him inside. I was pleased to notice that they asked who it was before they opened the door to him. David, like Brad, was all smiles. There should be a law against people being so cheerful so early in the morning. It makes the rest of us look like sourpusses. Justin and Jeremy gave their uncle a quick tour of the new home by standing in front of the sofa and pointing to the overhead compartment.
"That's our bed," Justin announced proudly.
"And that's our TV," Jeremy added.
And that ended the tour. The rest of the RV, apparently, wasn't important enough to mention. Either that or they figured David could see the entire thing from where he stood.
I poured him a mug of coffee and refill for myself and we sat at the dinette opposite Lindsay as we talked and sipped. The twins went back to rearranging their backpacks to their satisfaction.
"Back again for another shot at sponsorship, eh?" I said.
"All I need is one chance to show him what he gets for his money, Ted," David replied. "That's all. Just one chance. He's bound to show up here sooner or later to see how things are getting on and I'm going to be here when he does. They're going to start framing for the footings today and then they're going to need a lot of heavy labour to move the concrete around for the foundations. All I need is the chance to show the guy I can move concrete with the best of them, despite my size."
"You should talk to Barry," I suggested as David paused to sip his mug of coffee. "I'm sure he would give you a good recommendation, and he can certainly attest to your strength."
David began shaking his head back and forth as he swallowed his mouthful of coffee. "Nope. No way, no how, Ted. And don't
you say a thing, either, you hear? I'm the one looking for a sponsor and it's up to me to find him. It's up to me to show him I'm worth his time and money to hire me."
"But we can. . ."
"No, Ted," David said firmly, his eyebrows furrowed in warning. "Promise you'll stay out of it."
"David. . . ."
"Ted?" There was a serious hint of warning in his voice as he drew out my name in a lengthy and menacing way.
I backed down. "Okay," I relented. "I promise."
"Thank you," he said and went back to sipping his coffee as if the conversation hadn't occurred.
"Have you seen the contractor yet?"
"No. Just Grant. I dropped off my résumé in person at the office the day after I found out what contractor Grant was going to hire, but the secretary told me they weren't hiring. Still, though, I'm here every day and I drop by the office twice a week just to ask if there are any openings yet and to let them know I'm still available and looking."
"Aren't you afraid you might be overdoing it?"
David shook his head ‘no'. "Nope. One of these days they're going to need to hire someone and they're going to remember me. Do you think they're going to remember someone who dropped off a résumé and then sat on their asses at home waiting for the phone to ring? Not on your life, man. But me they'll remember. The guy's going to call up his secretary one of these days and say, ‘Trudy?' he'll say. ‘I'm a man short. I need to hire someone. Any prospects on file?' and she's gonna think of that short guy with the tight T-shirts that show off all his big muscles and the funny accent and she's gonna say to him, ‘Yes, Sir, I know someone, and he can start yesterday.' No, Ted, I'm not overdoing it. They'll remember me and he'll sponsor me. You just wait and see."
No doubt about it. David loved to ramble, but his words weren't empty. He got one thing right, though. They certainly would remember him. David is one of the most memorable people I have ever had the privilege to meet. Sitting there, looking at him sipping his coffee, it still amazed me how much man there was in that little body.
Terry arrived and we left David in charge of things until we returned. Justin and Jeremy walked with me, one on each side and each holding one of my hands. Lindsay walked behind us with Terry but gave me a quick kiss ‘goodbye' and ran on ahead of us when she spied one of her classmates stepping out from a side street a short distance up the walk. Terry continued walking behind us.
Justin and Jeremy were dressed in new clothes and were identical except for the familiar blue and green differences in their pull-over shirts. The blue/green thing always seemed to work until people learned how to tell the difference between the two, so we thought we would continue it. The boys didn't seem the least bit nervous or wary or frightened about their first encounter with school. To them, it seemed to be just another outing with me. Either that or they were too excited about and preoccupied with the backpacks which they had slung over their shoulders to be worried about the day that faced them.
They chatted away excitedly the whole way, asking all sorts of questions about school and watching all the parents and kids heading in the same direction, all going to the same place. Terry and I did our very best to answer all of their questions, but, like any other five-year-old's questions, most of them didn't even have answers mainly because adults were too unimaginative to think of the questions in the first place. A block ahead and on the other side of the street, I think I recognised Lori Smith and her son, Andrew, but they were too far ahead for me even to call to them.
As we neared the school, a rustle of crinkling paper sounded behind me and I knew that Terry was checking the directions to the kindergarten classroom. The boys fell silent and gripped my hands tighter as we neared the building, their eyes flying everywhere and trying to take in everything. There were so many older students laughing and talking and running about, and there were a number of kids their own age holding hands with a grown-up as my sons were doing with me. I don't think they realised those kids might very well be their future classmates.
Justin and Jeremy had been at the school many times when either I or Terry went to pick up or drop off Lindsay there, but it seemed a lot different to them now that they were becoming directly involved in the school process and the reality of the unknown finally smacked them right in the face. I could sense the reservations in them and, perhaps, a bit more than a hint of fear.
I had tried to prepare myself for this moment as well, anticipating the moment that they would refuse to be left alone with all these strangers. We had all tried to prepare them as well, but no amount of preparation could predict how my sons would react. Theirs had not been a typical childhood.
This was new to me as well. Connie had taken Lindsay to her first day of school and had continued to take our daughter and pick her up every school day after that, no matter the weather and no matter how ill Connie might have been. Only twice could I remember having to leave work to look after my daughter. Connie had been a very caring and extremely loving mother back then.
Justin and Jeremy moved in closer to me as we walked up the wide, concrete walk toward the massive front doors of the school. Terry hurried around us and up the steps to get there first. She held one of the double doors open for us to enter and fell into place beside us as we passed through, taking Jeremy's free hand into her own. "Turn left past the offices," she said as she glanced at the paper in her other hand, "then turn right at the end of the hall."
The hall wide hall was pretty crowded with people and students scurrying here and there and laughing and talking and calling out for each other. The noise was almost deafening. Justin was getting bumped around and was running into people who weren't paying as much attention as they might have been doing so I moved him between me and Jeremy. He gripped my hand and his brother's hand and held on tightly. Terry and I became the visible pair of the quartet.
We found a hallway to our right, but it wasn't quite at the end. The hallway continued straight to another door leading outside. Metal lockers lined the walls and a door on the other side undoubtedly opened to two other classrooms. Hanging from the ceiling was a lighted ‘Exit' sign pointing directly ahead and a stairway icon pointing to the right. Beside it was a small wooden sign with the numbers three and four and a small arrow pointing up. Beneath it were the numbers from five to ten with an arrow pointing to the right.
"This way," Terry said, indicating the right-hand hallway. I followed her lead. "It should be the first door on the left. Number six."
The door was propped open but there was no need to look for a room number on it. It was more than obvious that we had found the right room what with the large, bright, multi-coloured letters glued above it and spelling out ‘KINDERGARTEN' in a fun, wavy, welcoming, haphazard sort of way.
"This is it, boys," I said as we paused for a moment. "Here's your new classroom. Let's go in and meet your new teacher."
They had little choice but to follow me inside. I noticed Lori and Andrew immediately, standing off to one side and talking to a young man. A young lady was standing nearby talking to another mother and her son. We paused inside, waiting for yet another young lady who appeared to be greeting the new arrivals and writing out stick-on name tags for all the children.
As we waited, the first young lady left her mother and child pair and joined the young man who then left Lori and Andrew to go greet another parent and child. I was surprised that both might be teachers and even more surprised to see that one of them was a man. But then I thought to myself, "Why not?"
The young lady writing out the name tags eventually made her way to us and knelt down in front of my sons. "Hi," she grinned widely. Her smile was pleasant and welcoming as she glanced from one boy to the other. "My name is Jane. What's your name?"
She had been looking at Jeremy when she asked her question and Jeremy looked up at me as if asking if he should even talk to her. I nodded. He looked back at Jane and replied, "Jeremy de Villiers."
"Jeremy," Jane repeated happily as she printed his name in large, block letters with a thick, black felt marker on one of the paper tags. "Your name starts with a ‘J', just like mine." When she finished writing, she peeled of the tag and said, "Can I stick this on your shirt, Jeremy?"
He nodded and Jane pressed the tag over his heart and smoothed it down with her fingers before turning to Justin to repeat the process. Jeremy hunched himself over, looking down at his chest and placing his hands on either side of the tag before looking up at me and grinning one of his happy, excited grins. When she finished, she looked from Justin to Jeremy, then asked, "There you go. All set." She rose to her feet and said to me as she indicated a spot off to her right side, "If you could wait over there, please? Mr. Kent and Miss McCauley will be with you in a few moments."
"Thank you," I told her and she left us to go to the next child in line.
We moved to our designated spot to await the teachers' arrival. The twins passed the time by admiring each other's name tag, chittering quietly between themselves. It was a few minutes before Mr. Kent made his way to us. He was a pleasant-looking young man, probably in his early to mid twenties. He had a broad congenial smile and gentle-looking face despite his short, jet-black hair, thick eyebrows, dark, deep-set eyes, and a distinct shadow on his face and neck. He was one of those guys who had five-o'clock shadow the moment after he finished shaving. He looked better suited to heavy manual labour than he was to teaching a kindergarten glass. When he spoke, though, his voice was surprisingly easy on the ears not the least bit threatening or ominous. He certainly wasn't as tough as one would think it would be by his appearance. There was such a gentleness about him.
"Tom Kent," he said to me as he held out his hand in greeting.
I took it. "Ted de Villiers," I returned. "Pleased to meet you."
"Mutual, I'm sure." He turned to Terry to greet her as well. "Mrs. de Villiers," he said.
Terry blushed. "Oh, no. We're not married," she objected with a sudden, embarrassed blush. "I'm just the nanny."
Tom Kent looked back at me. "I'm terribly sorry," he apologised. " To both of you. How presumptuous of me."
"That's okay," I assured him.
"He's my Daddy," Justin said and Tom Kent's attention switched to the twins.
Jeremy was quick to say, "My Daddy Brad is at work. He didn't come with me."
"He's my Daddy Brad, too," Justin added proudly.
Young Mr. Kent looked back at me, a bemused and befuddled look now creasing his handsome young face. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I'm a bit confused."
Well, now was just as good a time as any to clear the air: "Brad is my husband," I told him in a soft, confidential voice. "We were married this past July. These are my adopted sons. This is Justin and this is Jeremy."
"Ah," Tom Kent said a smile which couldn't hide his vanishing confusion. "Now I understand. Thank you. I do hope you can forgive me."
"Forgiven and forgotten," I assured him. "If you're still here at noon, Brad will be coming back with me to pick up our sons."
"I'm their co-teacher," he said with a wide, toothy grin. "I'll be here. I'm quite looking forward to meeting him. Oh, and if it's not too late, congratulations."
"Thank you."
He crouched down in front of the twins then, looking from one to the other. "Now, this is going to be fun trying to figure out which one is which without sticking name tags on you every day."
I crouched down beside Justin and put my arm around his back. "They'll probably be dressed in identical clothing because that's the way they like to dress, but we use a colour code. Justin will always come to school in blue. Jeremy will always wear the same thing, but in green. They used to try to trick people by pretending to be each other - even swapping clothes and things when no-one was looking - but that seems to have stopped since they figured out they couldn't fool us anymore. You'll eventually figure it out on your own but, until then, just make note of this." I pointed to a spot on my upper lip and nodded toward Justin.
Tom switched his attention to Justin and leaned forward a bit, squinting his eyes for a closer look. Then nodded in understanding and made note of Justin's name tag. "Right," he said as he tapped the side of his head. "Noted and filed." He added a wide, bright smile to his face as his attention returned to the twins. "Well, that's simple enough, isn't it? Hi, Justin. Hi, Jeremy. My name is Mr. Kent and I'll be your teacher this year."
"Hi," the boys said in unison as the other young lady joined us and stood beside Tom Kent..
She bent at the waist, propping her hands on her knees and saying to the boys, "Well, hello there. My name is Miss McCauley. How do you do?"
As she talked with Justin and Jeremy, Tom Kent stood up again and held out his hand one more time, smiling. "It was very nice meeting you, Mr. de Villiers. I'll see you and Brad at noon?"
"You bet," I smiled back as we shook hands one more time.
With a final nod, he left us to move on to the next family. I sighed with relief that it had all gone over so well and news of my marriage to Brad hadn't caused a stampede for the exit. A movement to my right brought my attention there and I saw Terry surreptitiously turning her head to look over her left shoulder at Tom Kent's receding frame. I smiled to myself when I saw her eyes glancing downward and I wondered briefly if her boyfriend knew that she checked out other men's butts.
Looking back at Justin and Jeremy, I could see that they were getting along well with Miss McCauley as well. I was immensely relieved to see that they seemed to be getting over their apprehensions as far as women were concerned. I guess all it took was a lot of love and consistency from the new females in their lives. They had advanced so far in less than a year. We must have been doing something right.
But now they were facing an even bigger adventure than that. . . their first day of school.
To Be Continued
