Happy May, everyone! I’m still not published. But at the measly pace I’m going, what am I supposed to expect?
I haven’t been so good about getting up early this week. I mean, Husband’s show has been 6:00 AM for the last two days, and so I get up with him at 5:00 to make his breakfast/for solidarity, but then as soon as he’s out the door, it’s back in bed for me. Well, at least I’m being good and taking the time to write now, at 2:55 in the afternoon, when I’m tired and hungry, and feeling lazy. It passes the time while my rice is cooking, at least!
***
(Author’s Note: I want to actually send her up to see the Postmistress, so I’m changing a few things here.) “Oh, we’ve got ‘em alright. Apparently there’s a problem of some sort. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but you’ll need to see the Postmistress to get everything worked out with them.” Burt picked up the phone next to his computer and punched a few numbers into it. He waited a few seconds. “Postmistress? Yeah, it’s me, Burt. I’ve got Mary Carlisle here waiting for you. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. Will do, thanks.” He hung up the phone. “She’s waiting for you; you can just go on up. Her office is up the stairs by the main entrance, third door to the left. Next!”
Upon dismissal, Mumsy slowly pushed the door open to enter the main lobby. Up the stairs–she located the stairs and began climbing them–and third door to the left. She was notoriously bad with directions. Who was this Postmistress, that she couldn’t be bothered to come down and fetch her in the first place? What kind of hierarchy was there at a Post Office, anyway?
Mumsy reached the top of the stairs and looked around. The hallway was cluttered with abandoned stacks of papers and boxes. She found the Postmistress’s door easily–it was labeled Postmistress E. Luftfluger in fancy gold-plated lettering. The door was slightly ajar. Mumsy knocked, listened carefully. No answer.
“Postmistress Luftfluger?” she called softly, pushing the door open and stepping into the office.
The first thing that Mumsy noticed were the boxes. Boxes upon boxes, of every shape and size, were stacked in teetering towers, one upon the next, upon the next, upon the next. There must have been at least a hundred boxes; the office was so cramped that only rabbit holes to get from door to chair to desk remained.
The second thing she noticed was the desk. It was a heavy-looking, impressive thing, made with dark wood and carved all over with intricate, intertwining vines, leaves, fruits, and figures. The top of the desk was piled high with papers, and a spot was cleared in the center, within which lay a single piece of paper with a few lines scrawled on it, and a pen resting on top.
Behind the desk was a black swiveling office chair, facing the window, and whether or not a person sat in the chair, Mumsy couldn’t tell, at least, not until she called “Ms. Luftfluger?” again, whereupon the chair spun around 180 degrees, and Mumsy found herself face to face with The Postmistress.
For no reason at all, Mumsy found herself terrified. The Postmistress was an ordinary-looking woman, yet, something about her was incredibly frightening. She had a sharp, wrinkly face with tight lips in the center and framed by wispy yellow-white hair that had been fairly unsuccessfully tamed into a braid at the back of her head. She wore a crisp blue post office workers’ uniform, tailored tightly to her thin, flaccid body. Her face was bare of makeup, save for a thick coat of bright red lipstick on her lips that looked as though it had been applied just seconds ago.
“It’s Postmistress,” was the woman’s sharp reply. “Don’t you ever call me by that earthly name. Now, sit down, please.”
“I’m so sorry–Postmistress,” Mumsy said, wincing. She knocked her elbow against a tower of packages, which swayed dangerously for a few moments–long enough for Mumsy to notice that the name and address on all five of the packages in the stack was hers. She glanced at the other package towers–all hers.
“These are all my packages!” Mumsy cried, pulling out the chair across from the Postmistress, clearing it of its papers, and sitting down. “Can I please take them? I promise I won’t sue or anything. It’s just that I really need to start writing thank you notes, and people are starting to think I’m rude.” She trailed off into silence when she saw the way the Postmistress was looking at her in silence. Her eyes were a chilling blue, and looked full of angry energy.
“Now that you’ve refrained from speaking, Melissa,” the Postmistress said, “I will tell you that you may take your packages as you wish.”
“Oh, is that all? There’s nothing for me to sign?” Mumsy started to stand up.
“There is something you need to do for me, yes,” the Postmistress said cooly. “I think you’ll want to take a seat. I’ve a lot of explaining to do.”
***
And that’s like, the end of chapter one, I guess. I haven’t even mapped out the chapters yet. I should probably do that…
I have been up since 4:15. I’ve even got coffee next to me. I haven’t, however, been writing until this present moment, 5:44. Do you want to know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been looking at furniture plans online, because I’m convinced that there’s a woodworking goddess inside of me, just waiting to come out. I mean, come on. We’ve got a woodshop on base that’s full of shiny equipment, eager helpers, and costs only two bucks an HOUR to use! So much for thousand-dollar furniture. I’m building my own crap from now on.
Anyway. Enough with the furniture. It can wait.
In other news, it’s FRIDAY! This week has gone by slowly. But also quickly. Which equals out to: the normal pace. Now for some writing.
***
The post office wasn’t busy when Mumsy marched in the next day. She had woken up early that morning and drank two cups of coffee for a confidence boost, and was now feeling overcaffeinated and jittery. She tripped over her feet as she pushed through the glass doors into the customer service area, and took her place behind a tired-looking woman holding a large box.
The workers at the counter looked just as tired as the woman in front of Mumsy. The one on the left cash register was a tall, thin man with thin, greasy-looking hair that had started to grey. He had a sharp, beak-like nose and kept wetting his lips as he talked to a man about insurance options for his package. The worker on the right was a fleshier man with an imposing presence. A pair of thin-rimmed reading glasses was perched at the tip of his nose and when he wasn’t looking through them to type on the computer, he cast disparaging glances over the top at the woman he was helping. Mumsy sighed. She had always hated going to the post office. None of the workers ever seemed happy to be there; it was like they were being held against their will in a prison where they were forced to send packages to all corners of the country, hour after hour, day after day, to no relief.
The thin worker yawned. “Next,” he called, and the woman ahead of Mumsy shuffled over to his counter and heaved the package up. Mumsy picked at her nails for a few moments, trying to decide whether she needed to buy stamps. Best not to complicate business, she thought.
The fleshy worker finished with the woman and summoned Mumsy over.
“Good morning, sir!” she said cheerily, trying to perk him up with her spirit. She received a disparaging glance in return.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. Mumsy got the sense that he didn’t want to do anything for her at all.
“Well sir, you see–” Mumsy stopped and cleared her throat slightly. She had rehearsed her speech in the car; now, of course, it was completely lost. “My name is Mumsy–that is, Mary–Carlisle. No, not Carlisle, sorry. I got married just the other week, so now it’s Sauder.” Mumsy glanced at the man, who was looking skeptically at her. His name tag read, “BURT”. “Okay, what I mean to say is, I haven’t been getting my packages delivered. My husband and I just got married on the tenth, and everyone at the wedding was saying they had sent packages, but I haven’t been getting any of them. I was wondering if there was a way to track that.”
“What did you say your name was?” Burt asked, knitting his brows. “Marie?”
“Mary Sauder, but the packages may still be under my maiden name of Mary Carlisle.”
“Mary Carlisle. Now why does that name sound so familiar?” Burt put his hand on his chin and rubbed the stubble of yesterday’s beard, looking up at the ceiling. Mumsy turned around and looked nervously at the three customers behind her, all waiting to send packages. Apparently Burt had all the time in the world to think. “Aha!” he cried, snapping his fingers together with a loud pop. “The Postmistress wanted to see you. She told us you would be coming in someday. Of course, that was two months ago. I’m surprised you didn’t come to claim your packages sooner.”
“So you do have my packages?” Mumsy asked hopefully. She wondered if she would be able to fit everything into her small hatchback.
“Oh, we’ve got ‘em alright. Apparently there’s a problem of some sort. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but you’ll need to see the Postmistress to get everything worked out with them.” Burt picked up the phone next to his computer and punched a few numbers into it. He waited a few seconds. “Postmistress? Yeah, it’s me, Burt. I’ve got Mary Carlisle here waiting for you. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. Will do, thanks.” He hung up the phone. “She’ll be down in a few seconds. Next!”
Mumsy moved aside to wait by the door, unsure of just who it was that she was waiting for. Who was this Postmistress? What kind of hierarchy was there at a Post Office, anyway?
Next she worked on her wardrobe, which she slowly perfected in college. Mumsy had suddenly taken an interest in what she wore, and was gradually trying to replace the frayed jeans and stained cardigans that had made up her high school wardrobe with a more refined, adult look. “What would Aunt Mary wear?” she unconsciously asked herself every time she had a bit of money to spend on clothing. That day, now so many years back, Aunt Mary had been wearing tight skinny jeans, black flats, and a thin black turtleneck. Mumsy remembered the skinny jeans distinctly: flares were in style back then, and Aunt Mary had seemed a bit out of place in her tight. 80′s style jeans; by the time Mumsy had reached college, skinny jeans were just coming back into the realm of stylishness, and she snapped up a pair of Levi’s as soon as she found a pair she liked.
(Author’s note: I don’t like where this is going right now. I’m doing a lot of telling, not showing. And also I think I spoke too early on the astonished Mumsy in front of the mirror thing. Well, that’s what revisions are for, right?)
Aunt Mary had been right: Mumsy had developed into a fine young woman, met the love of her life by literally bumping into him one day in college, and was married a month after graduation. (Author’s second note: that was just a repair sentence. The second draft will be soooo much better.)
Mumsy tore herself away from her reflection. It was too unbearably strange to keep staring in the mirror at herself. Especially because she was wearing a thin black turtleneck, her favorite pair of skinny jeans, and black flats.
***
If there’s one thing that I’ve forgotten to tell you about Mumsy, it’s that she was a terribly clumsy and forgetful person. That’s how she got her nickname in the first place: Clumsy Mumsy. Even from birth she was a disaster, dropping bottles and shattering vases. In fact, her powers of clumsiness were so strong that she radiated a bubble of clumsy that, should it be permeated, would rub off onto others. Teachers were wont to pass her desk during the day, trip, and break bones in their bodies. Classmates would pass Mumsy in the hall and automatically drop everything they were carrying in their arms.
“It’s ridiculous,” Mumsy vented to her husband, Dave, one night while they were lying in bed. “Just today I was unpacking the kitchen and dropped two glasses and three plates.”
Her husband sat up, startled. “Our nice wedding china?”
“No, the old stuff I had in my dorm that doesn’t even matter. The funny thing is, it’s supposed to be unbreakable. Give it to Clumsy Mumsy and she’ll break it, let me tell you.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Dave said. “But–can you try and be more careful when you unpack the nice stuff?”
“First of all,” Mumsy began, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, “I am careful. I’m so careful. I don’t know how this stuff breaks; it’s like it flies out of my fingers! I’m sorry!”
“And second?” Dave said, unconvinced.
“Second, we–we don’t have any nice stuff to unpack.” Mumsy’s chin quivered. She hated crying in front of Dave.
“What do you mean? You didn’t break it all already, did you?”
“Hey, shut up–no.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “We still haven’t gotten any of our wedding presents, besides what people actually brought to the wedding. I mean, everyone at the wedding was asking me if I had gotten the presents they had sent, but nothing is coming in the mail!”
“That’s odd…have you asked your parents if any packages were delivered to their house?”
“I have, and they say nothing has come. Besides, I put this address on the registry.”
“Well why don’t you try going to the post office?”
“I don’t really want to, but–” Mumsy stopped, remembering the advice her aunt had given her so many years before. If packages don’t get delivered, sometimes the post office has them. “Well, okay,” she said softly. “I guess I’ll go tomorrow while you’re at work.”
“Good,” Dave said, and kissed Mumsy on the cheek. “Speaking of work, 6:00 AM is going to come quickly, so I’m going to turn in, if that’s okay.”
“Do you mind if I keep my light on and read?”
“Nope, that’s fine.” He burrowed down and pulled the covers over his head. “Goodnight,” came his muffled voice.
“Goodnight,” Mumsy said, patting the blanket-covered form of his body and returning to her book. She read the same page three times before giving up and putting it on the stand next to her. For whatever reason, she couldn’t read. Maybe it was the wall of boxes towering around their bed, threatening to topple before she got around to unpacking them. Or maybe it was something else. She shut off the bedside lamp, lay down, and thought about Aunt Mary again. She tried to remember every detail from that day. Had there been a ring on her finger? She fell asleep before the question was answered, and dreamed about boxes and boxes of unpacked things that kept multiplying, until they burst open the house and spread into the street.
Oh yes! Her dimple saves the world! It’s really a deus ex machina type deal. Her husband always tells her that her dimple will save the world, and when she is summoned into the Upper Offices (the Head of the Post Office is visiting), he is so taken by her little dimple that he decides to–or maybe her little dimple reminds him of a device they have for saving the world? Something like that. In any case, at the end of the day she returns home to write long-overdue thank you notes. Actually, perhaps the deal is, the world was never in danger of truly collapsing, because the Gods have so much control over things. They show her a Time Board, and the threads of those who time travel. They can just unravel them. Postmistress thought she was all that, but in the end she is banished to the dreadful Sorting Room.
Yesterday was former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s birthday, and so on the way to work I managed to catch The Writer’s Almanac and hear Garrison Keillor read me his biography. Apparently this guy woke up at 4:30 AM every day, made himself a big pot of coffee, wrote until 7:00, and then went to work as an insurance man.
For some reason I’m always interested in writers’ schedules. Someone else (I forget exactly who right now…Faulkner?) used to write from 10 AM-3 PM, avoiding all distractions and trying to write something like 2,000 words a day. It’s as though, if I am writing according to their rules, perhaps some of their success will rub off on me. Well, hopefully.
Actually, this blog entry that I just found breaks it down pretty well. Apparently productive writers tend to write in the morning, with coffee and no distractions. Oh, but the internet! It’s like Virginia Woolfe said: a room of one’s own. (Note that I haven’t actually read A Room of One’s Own. But I understand the gist well enough from a summary I heard once, which said that Ms. Woolfe was arguing that, for a woman to become a productive author, she needs a room of her own to write in. But then I could be totally wrong.)
I think what it comes down to is that I need to develop my own morning writing ritual, before I even do anything else. If I wake up even wanting to write, I go downstairs and see that the house needs fixing up before I can begin my writing. Then I need to go upstairs and get ready for the day, fix up the bedroom, etc. By that time–what with all the distractions–it’s usually already 10:00! Then I want to go outside and bike, because why not just get that done with? You can see why this writing thing never gets done. It’s not a priority.
I’d like to say that the other problem is the variable time of Husband’s show time, week after week. This week, for example: Monday we got up at 4:30. Tuesday 4:00. Wednesday he got to go in late, so we slept in until 6:00. Today was 4:00 again. (Yes, it is 5:28 now, did I forget to mention that?) I usually go back to bed after he leaves for work, but last night we were in bed at 8:00, and I felt okay once the fog cleared from my head this morning, so I thought I would try Kooser’s method. Yes, after all of those paragraphs, I have come to my initial point! I don’t mind being roundabout though. This blog is written for no one but myself, and I always forgive myself when my writing is unclear!
The final thing to ponder over is this: why don’t I just make my own successful writing schedule? It sounds like morning is the best time to work, and that coffee won’t be given up so easily. (Hey, if it’s the key to success, I don’t want to miss out!) Also, I need to be able to tune out the disaster that is the rest of the house, so I’ll have to clear out my writing room and actually use it for that purpose. (Oh, but if there were only a comfy couch in there.) I shall be productive and successful, starting today! Now to to work on Mumsy, which I think deserves a separate post now.
Can I just say that I can’t concentrate on anything right now? Husband has just flown the biggest ride of his training so far, and I can’t stand not knowing whether he passed or hooked. Luckily for me, I’m going in to help with Taco Tuesday in two hours (a whole two hours?!), so at least I don’t have to wait until the end of the day to find out.
***
Mumsy never saw her Aunt Mary again. And, in fact, when Mumsy came home from school that day and told her mother all about her visit from Aunt Mary, her mother became confused and concerned.
“Mumsy, you don’t have an aunt Mary.”
“Are you sure?” Mumsy asked, swinging her legs at the counter and dipping a cookie into her glass of milk. “Because she said she was my aunt Mary. Maybe she’s from Dad’s side of the family.”
And when her father came home that evening, there was hushed conversation from the next room, while Mumsy, for the first time in her life, sat down at the dining room table and did her homework, just as Aunt Mary had told her to do. It wasn’t fun–she had a page of math equations, a page of grammar corrections, and a short reading from her health textbook with answers at the end–but she finished the work surprisingly quickly.
“Aunt Mary was right,” Mumsy told her parents as they came back into the room, worried looks on their faces. “Homework really doesn’t take too long.” She squinted her eyes at her last math sum, did a small calculation neatly down the lines of the paper, and wrote and circled her final answer. “See, done! Now may I go and watch Boy Meets World?”
“I suppose so, yes,” her father said, “But–Mumsy–who is this Aunt Mary I’ve been hearing about?”
“She’s totally cool, Dad. She came and talked to me at school today, and we ate milkshakes together. She told me to do my homework and that everything will turn out okay for me. How come I’ve never met her before?”
Her parents had decided to let the Aunt Mary thing go, and Mumsy quickly learned not to talk about her around them. But her influence stayed with Mumsy. Though her bedroom was still a mess–Aunt Mary had forgotten to address that problem–the diligence regarding homework stuck. Every day she would come home from school, eat a small snack her mother had laid out for her while chatting about her day, and then set in on her homework, which usually took her no longer than an hour. By the time she was finished, her favorite TV shows would be coming on. Then it was supper, then Mumsy would read and just generally while away the rest of her evening however she wanted.
Before she knew it, she was twenty two years old, fresh out of college and just married, and looking with astonishment into the bathroom mirror of the townhouse apartment above Main Street that she and her husband had just purchased. She had, through her own powers or perhaps through nature, developed into the exact likeness of that Aunt Mary so long ago seen and never forgotten.
It had started with the perfume, when she was sixteen and had just secured her first job as a cashier at the local Kroger. She had picked up her first paycheck on Saturday morning, cashed it into her bank account, and from there drove to the mall where she spent two hours smelling her way through hundreds of perfumes and lotions. Finally–just as a massive scent-induced headache that would ground her for the rest of the afternoon descended on her–she found The Scent.
It was immediately recognizable as Aunt Mary’s perfume: the same exquisite bottled honeysuckle essence that she had smelled four years earlier. It was expensive: $120 for 1.7 ounces, and Mumsy spent the money with a twinge of guilt, but it was her first paycheck, after all, and she knew that the perfume would last her for years. She could start saving for college come the next check.
The next part of her transformation was when she decided to start running the summer between her sophomore and junior year in high school. Mumsy had always been a chubby child. Her fondness for milkshakes and honeybuns and all manner of delicious sweets didn’t help her shed her baby fat as she progressed through puberty. But then one day, as she spritzed on the lightest coating of her perfume and smiled at herself in the mirror, she thought back again to Aunt Mary, and how she had looked so stylishly thin that day. Not too thin–she still had curves, but her face was a bit sharper than Mumsy’s, and she didn’t have the bulge of stomach and side that hung out over Mumsy’s pants.
She began to run. It wasn’t fun for her. She and her parents lived in the country, and the only good running place was along the side of the road. She didn’t like when cars would whiz past her, barely moving aside to give her space. Sometimes dogs would bark from behind their owners’ fences; sometimes it seemed like they weren’t locked up at all. Summer was hot and sticky, too, and Mumsy’s face turned embarrassingly red and splotchy when she ran. But she did like running past the pasture of cows, mooing at them and startling them away from the fence. And she loved the way she felt when she was done running. By the end of the summer she could fit into pants two sizes down from what she had been wearing.
***
Husband passed his check ride! Party!
Oh yes! Her dimple saves the world! It’s really a deus ex machina type deal. Her husband always tells her that her dimple will save the world, and when she is summoned into the Upper Offices (the Head of the Post Office is visiting), he is so taken by her little dimple that he decides to–or maybe her little dimple reminds him of a device they have for saving the world? Something like that. In any case, at the end of the day she returns home to write long-overdue thank you notes. Actually, perhaps the deal is, the world was never in danger of truly collapsing, because the Gods have so much control over things. They show her a Time Board, and the threads of those who time travel. They can just unravel them. Postmistress thought she was all that, but in the end she is banished to the dreadful Sorting Room.
Because I’m so lazy, see? It’s not like I’ve been terribly busy. Yesterday, I lounged around until work at 9:30, lounged around when I came home from work at 4:00 (waiting anxiously for Husband to come home), lounged around after Husband got back, and watched Girls and surfed the internet while he studied, until we went to bed at 8:00.
Yes. I did say 8:00. Don’t judge, it’s not ideal for me, alright? Husband has been having these crazy early show times, and had to go in even earlier this morning (we woke up at 4:00, just to give you an idea) to get his mission data card ready before his flight today.
Why can’t I just have a baby? Then I’d have an excuse to stay home and work around the house all day. Plus, I’d be busy like whoa. Okay, well, I don’t actually want a baby right now. So that’s out of the question. I am obviously not ready to be busy like whoa!
Well, right now it’s 6:40, so I can at least pretend I’m getting a good start on my day with blogging! This post is actually going to be worth something in just a second.
(Beat. Beat.)
Pilot training. You get to your pilot training base of choice, get involved in activities with other student spouses, and all of a sudden people are hurling jargon and buzzwords left and right like it’s some sort of a big JargonFight. Let me just come up with an innocent conversation between two insiders:
“Hi there, I’m Amanda!”
“I’m Jaime! What class is your husband in?”
“13-01, what about you?”
“13-05! My husband just finished his midphase checkride today, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to come to this social.”
“Oh! That’s great–did he pass?”
“Thankfully, yes! He’s been having some trouble. He hooked the two rides before the last, and would have hooked the last ride, but his IP was nice enough to pass him, since he would have just sent him to his 88 ride for no reason if he hooked him. He’s been flying fine, but he just had a rough couple of days. It was the end of the week, he was tired, and he wasn’t receiving the instruction he needed because he was afraid of coming off as a quibbler. Then on Friday he had an IP that talked over the radio and told him where to enter his loop, so he busted out of his MOA when he wouldn’t normally have. It was a real bummer.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. At least he passed his midphase!”
“Yeah, he’ll be off flying CAP if he passes his next ride. How about you? You guys have track select coming up, right?
“Yes, on Friday! We’re so excited! Drew has been doing really well on his daily flying, and I think his commander’s ranking will be pretty good too. We’re crossing our fingers for T-38′s.”
“Cool. I feel like our track select will never come, but I guess we’re halfway through T-6′s, and July will come in no time. Time just flies!”
“Doesn’t it, though? What does your husband want?”
“He wants HELOS, which would mean we would be out of here pretty soon. But if he gets T-1′s, he’ll be perfectly happy. He’s got a lot of ideas of heavies that he wants to fly.”
***
Did you read that? Did you understand any of it? Unless you’re another pilot training spouse, I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s bad. There’s just so much to learn. Which is why I’m planning on writing Pilot Training for Spouses and Loved Ones. It would detail all the steps of pilot training and cover do’s, don’ts, and jargon, so that you can understand all the jargon-filled conversations that you otherwise would get lost in. Here’s a sample chapter outline:
- Arriving at your base/getting integrated
- Casual jobs
- IFS: The first TDY
- Beginnings: The 10 Days Before
- Phase 1: Academics
- Phase 2: Flying
- Track Select
- Phase 3: (My knowledge ends here!)
- Assignment Night and Graduation
Information will be specifically geared toward spouses, and how they can support their student pilots throughout the whole process. I think it could really be something!
Now I am going to get changed and ready, and hopefully there will be time for a little Mumsy between then and Taco Tuesday. Woo!
–Em
Maybe it is unwise to begin writing already, but…I won’t get anywhere if I’m stagnant. So I’ll just see what I can sort of get out in the next half-hour.
Clumsy Mumsy
an unedited start by Emily Huffman
Some are born clumsy, some achieve clumsiness, and some have clumsiness thrust upon them.
Mumsy–born Mary Sienna Rogers one chilly fall day in Indiana–belonged to the first category.
Or maybe…
The first and last time Mumsy met her aunt Mary was when she was twelve, crying on a bench in the cafeteria because she had just accidentally ruined the four-square ball that her crush Adam had been playing with outside.
Aunt Mary appeared seemingly out of nowhere that day,
Yikes! Gotta go on a bike ride, then work! Will write more soon.
Aunt Mary appeared seemingly out of nowhere that day, striding through the double doors, pushing her way through the hoards of chattering middle-schoolers, and plunking down on the bench next to the teary-eyed Mumsy with an “Ouch, good Lord these tables still show no mercy!”
“Hit your knee on the metal bar underneath?”
“Yes! You would think that they would pad it or something. After all these years!” Aunt Mary looked around the cafeteria with a satisfied smile. She chuckled to herself as she glanced over the rows of student artwork, on the far right wall, hung by the school’s eccentric art teacher each week. She gazed at the students, split up into their cliques of four or five friends, as though she were taking tally of each of the different groups and their respective members.
“It happens to me all the time,” Mumsy said, wiping her eyes discreetly. “I’ve got permanent bruises on both of my knees. Um, who are you, by the way? If you’re a teacher coming to talk to me about the ball, I’m really sorry. It was an accident–Roy had done a spin to Mike, who was trying to do a Buttmunch but didn’t quite make it, and so I tried to catch the ball and give it back to them, but, well…”
“You’re not quite clear what happened next?”
“Well it couldn’t have been my fingernails! I bite them down to the skin!”
“Don’t worry about it, Mumsy. Anyway, I’m not a teacher. I’m your aunt, Mary!” Aunt Mary smiled goofily at Mumsy, and pulled a dollar bill and two quarters from her pocket. ”They still do those milkshakes here?”
“Sure do! Today the flavors are mint and vanilla.”
“Oh, mint is my favorite! Why don’t you get us both one.”
“Mint is my favorite, too!” Mumsy said, taking the money from Aunt Mary and disappearing into the crowd. “I’ll be right back.”
Mumsy made her way slowly through the tables, wondering all the while who this aunt of hers was. She thought she knew all of her aunts and uncles. Her father had two siblings: an older brother, Jim, and a younger sister, Darlene. Jim wasn’t married. Her mother had four siblings: two older brothers, a younger sister, and a younger brother. All three of her brothers were married; Mumsy knew all of their wives from reunions.
It crossed her mind that perhaps one of her parents had a sibling they hadn’t told Mumsy about–a family secret! But no. She had seen old family photos. Maybe this aunt Mary was adopted at birth! Now that was a possibility: for whatever reason, she had been given up for adoption by one set of Mumsy’s grandparents, and had only recently decided to reconnect with her family. Yes, that must have been it.
Mumsy returned to her aunt with two twist cups of mint and vanilla swirl. She eyed Aunt Mary suspiciously as she took the cup from her and began eating the ice cream with a rapturous smile.
“This is the life, Mumsy,” Aunt Mary said, looking around again. “I mean, you’ve got your best friend, Anna, you’ve got your crush, Adam–which, by the way, he’s not worth it. Not all the rocks in his brain, if you know what I mean. I picture him turning into a construction worker.”
“How do you know all this stuff about me?” Mumsy asked, narrowing her eyes and sucking on her spoon.
“Oh, your mom was telling me earlier today. Well, not about the Adam stuff. I just guessed that part. Mumsy,” she began seriously, leaning in. She smelled like the honeysuckle vine that grew on the arbor in the backyard. “What I came here to say to you today was, everything is going to turn out fine for you. I promise.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. You’re a good kid. You’re smarter than most people. Sure, you ding yourself up now and again, drop stuff, forget stuff. It’ll get better if you practice at it. Hey, and do your homework, too. Lists help.” She reached the bottom of her ice cream cup and swirled her spoon around the edge, catching the last drops of cream. “Listen, I really wish I could talk to you for longer, but your lunch is ending, and I’ve got to go anyway. Take it easy. Don’t ever lose track of Anna. Oh, and–Mumsy?”
“Yeah?” Mumsy’s head was spinning with all of her aunt’s talk.
“Don’t forget to check the post office if you’re ever missing any packages. Sometimes they keep stuff on accident. Or on purpose.”
“What do you mean?” Mumsy asked as the bell gave a warning blare to the students. The hubbub picked up, and before she knew where she had gone, her aunt Mary was lost in the crowd. “I kind of liked her,” Mumsy said to herself as she walked to her locker.
Oh yes! Her dimple saves the world! It’s really a deus ex machina type deal. Her husband always tells her that her dimple will save the world, and when she is summoned into the Upper Offices (the Head of the Post Office is visiting), he is so taken by her little dimple that he decides to–or maybe her little dimple reminds him of a device they have for saving the world? Something like that. In any case, at the end of the day she returns home to write long-overdue thank you notes. Actually, perhaps the deal is, the world was never in danger of truly collapsing, because the Gods have so much control over things. They show her a Time Board, and the threads of those who time travel. They can just unravel them. Postmistress thought she was all that, but in the end she is banished to the dreadful Sorting Room.
