The Displaced Nation

“You have got to be kidding me. What were you thinking, Libs?”

Oliver prods with his toe at an oak panel in the empty, echoing living room. The panel cracks; a large piece of wood falls backwards into the abyss behind, and a suspicious scurrying tells us we have disturbed someone’s living quarters.

“Christ in a bucket,” Oliver mutters, as I try to keep an optimistic smile on my face to balance out his own expression, which is grumpier by the second.

It’s his first visit to see the house I found for us and, so far, things are not going well. Although the house boasts new electric wiring and plumbing, as our realtor Donna proudly pointed out last week, it does not boast a new furnace, a new roof, solid floorboards, or any air conditioning.

Or even wooden wall panels that stay intact when you kick them.

But you know what? I don’t care. I want this house. It’s old, it has character, it is full of quirky little corners and unexpected alcoves. I want it. Don’t ask me why.

I just know I want it.

“But it’s so cheap!” I say to Oliver, who is now looking critically at the door frame between living room and dining room. The builder of that part of the house apparently was not familiar with set squares or right angles two centuries ago, because the door shape is an interesting variation on a trapezoid.

“It would need to be,” he says. “Even if it’s free, it’s too much.”

Donna watches us, her eyes swivelling left, right, and back again. She doesn’t like the way this conversation is going, I think. She can see her commission flying out of the dusty windows.

I have an ally.

“An antique house is an investment,” she squeaks in her Minnie Mouse voice. “People like the knowledge that no one is going to build an identical house on the next lot. They like the original features. They like not living in a cookie cutter. They like owning a piece of history.”

“And they like repaying a very, very large home improvement loan and spending all their Saturdays in Home Depot,” Oliver says. “Because if you didn’t like those two things, you’d need to be bloody barking mad before you bought a crumbling money pit like this.”

He turns to me.

“Nope, I’m sorry, Libs. No can do. We’ll keep on looking until we find something more our style and less work. I’m sure Donna can show us some new construction in another town, can’t you?”

I stare at Donna, silently pleading with her to say “Absolutely not. The state has issued a moratorium on the building of new houses. If you don’t buy this house, you’ll be homeless in two months.”

But she doesn’t, of course. Instead, she takes an exaggerated breath, closes her eyes, and breathes out again. As if she thought of saying something but then thought better of it.

“Of course I can,” she says, “if you really want me to. But — could I just say something?”

Oliver looks up at the ceiling, as if asking a deity to give him strength. A dead spider is dangling from the light fitting just above his head, and he steps to one side.

“Be my guest,” he says.

“Woodhaven is a desirable town. We have an excellent school system, yet disproportionately low taxes. If you go to one of the neighbouring towns, you could end up spending on school fees and property taxes what you save on buying a house. Woodhaven is a little oasis of value-for-money town taxes. You might find what you’re looking for in Banbury, two towns away, but believe me, the twenty thousand you save on a house purchase there will be spent in eighteen months in extra taxes and school fees. I wouldn’t put my own children in Banbury schools,” she adds. “Their standardised test results last year were appalling.”

“Huh.” Oliver is scornful. “Jack’s a bright child. He’ll do fine wherever he goes to school.”

“And believe me, I admire that attitude,” Donna says, leaning towards him and patting his arm.

Actually, I don’t believe her. Nor, I can tell, does Oliver. He doesn’t like being patted by realtors with high-pitched voices, either.

“The problem is,” she continues, “most homebuyers don’t have that attitude, and you’ll find that out when you come to sell. You could be stuck with a new house that’s exactly like every other house for sale, in a school district that’s less than stellar. Whereas this house–” she makes a sweeping gesture around the living room, her arm cutting through a swathe of dust motes “– with a little love and attention from you beforehand, it would be snapped up in an instant. Like that,” she adds, snapping her fingers in case we hadn’t understood.

Her cell phone chirps. She pulls it out of her pocket, looks at the screen, and frowns.

“Excuse me.”

She trots out into the hallway where we can hear her murmuring a few seconds later.

I turn to Oliver and open my eyes very wide.

“Please?” I say. “Pretty please? With sugar on the top?”

“No.” He folds his arms, tapping one foot.

“We won’t have anywhere to live if we don’t buy it.” I stick my lower lip out. “And then we’ll have to live in the apartments near the mall again, next to that crazy man who likes using the azaleas for target practice. Remember him?”

Oliver stops tapping his foot and winces. He remembers our old neighbour, all right. The one with the pickup truck with the NRA sticker on the bumper. Oliver was convinced the man was harmless until we ran into him at a Fourth of July celebration, when he rambled on about how he hated all effing Limey effers, and we had to pretend for the next three weeks that we were Australian. Oliver avoided him as much as possible after that. One day he was late home from work, and it turned out he’d been sitting in the car for over an hour, waiting for the crazy man to finish playing poker on the front porch with his equally crazy friends, before he dared to venture into our own apartment.

Considering how he’d told me off for being silly and paranoid, you’d think he would have been less of a wuss.

Donna returns from the hallway, cell phone in hand.

“Another couple is on the way to see this house, so we should leave very soon,” she says. “The office tells me it’s the second time they’ve viewed it. That tells me they’re keen. If I were in your shoes, I’d be making an offer this afternoon. But if you’re sure you want to look at some new houses in Banbury…”

She shrugs. It’s your funeral.

I look up at Oliver, pouting a little again, and make puppy-whimper noises. “I really don’t want to live next door to that man with the BB gun again.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Oliver snatches the sheet of property details from me. “Offer them a hundred and forty, and not a cent more.”

Donna beams, and I try not to do a happy dance.

“You’ve got a really good chance of getting it at that price after so long on the market,” Donna says. “I don’t want to raise your hopes or anything, but if I were the seller, I’d jump at that offer. Let’s head back to my office and complete the paperwork.”

She walks back into the kitchen to collect her briefcase.

I hug Oliver, and after a split second while he tries to pretend he’s not in the least excited about buying a two-hundred-year-old American house, he hugs me back.

* * *

Four hours later, our mood is very different.

“I don’t understand it,” Donna says. She’s come round to our house to give us the bad news in person. “If it had been me, I’d have accepted that offer. I know the seller doesn’t live round here, but surely they must realise that in this economic climate you sometimes have to take what you’re offered, especially with the house needing so much renovation. I am just so sorry.”

I can’t speak. I am, as they say back home, absolutely gutted.

“They didn’t make a counter offer?” Oliver asks.

Donna shakes her head.

“Is it the other couple who saw it today? Did they make a higher offer?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Who was their realtor?” I ask. “Could you find out?”

“It was the seller’s realtor. Melissa Harvey Connor. If they want to buy it, she will probably pass them onto another realtor so there isn’t a conflict of interest.”

I manage to turn a splutter of disbelief into a cough. Conflicts of interest have never bothered Melissa in the past.

“Do you want to make a higher offer?” Donna asks.

I look at Oliver and we both shake our heads. If we pay anything more, I’ll never hear the last of it from him.

“I’m sure I can find you something nice in another town. It might mean moving away, and Oliver having a longer commute, but don’t worry. We’ll find something.”  Donna gathers up her briefcase and jacket, and leaves.

Oliver and I sit on the sofa in silence.

“The idea of making that house a project was starting to grow on me,” he says. “I’m kind of surprised at how disappointed I am now.”

We sit some more, considering our options.

“So,” Oliver says at last. “We’ve got Melissa Harvey Connor representing the seller and a potential buyer, and she just happens to be our landlady. Is it just me,” he asks, “or can you also smell a rat?”

I’m so glad I’m not the only one with paranoia.

“Oh yes,” I say. “A big rat.”

A great, big, fat rat called Melissa.”

The thing is — how on earth do we prove it?

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #78 – Trust no agent

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #76 – This old house

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for next week’s posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Did you do something special with the twins on their birthday?” Willow squirts ketchup on the burger that Oliver’s handed her, then pops open a can of Bud. “On the day itself, I mean?”

Oliver catches my eye, grins, and turns away to flip more burgers while discussing cricket, or the American lack thereof, with his English friends. They, in turn, are trying to explain to Willow’s bewildered partner, Dan — Bronx native and lifelong Yankees fan — a sport where one game can take up an entire working week and which has rest breaks for tea and cucumber sandwiches.

I stick my tongue out at Oliver’s back.

“We went out for ice cream in the evening,” I say, “after I dragged them round the streets of Woodhaven with a realtor. After trailing through eight houses, though, they were ready for bed rather than for ice cream.”

Willow, I reflect, is the type of woman you can say this to. She won’t be shocked that you didn’t do something special for your little snowflakes on their first birthday, or that you are celebrating it nearly two weeks late in the form of a backyard barbecue for grownup friends. She understands that while twelve-month-old babies won’t care if you have a children’s party for them on April 23rd or an adult one on May 4th, the whole family is going to be in the soup if no one has anywhere to sleep on the night of July 15th.

The prospect of homelessness has been playing on my mind more than my children’s numerical milestones have, I admit.

“And did you have any luck finding a house?” Willow asks.

I shake my head.

“Either the work they needed would put them over budget, or they were too expensive to start with.”

Willow doesn’t say, as many people might, “I’m sure something will turn up” or “Everything will be OK”, and for this I’m grateful. There’s a fine line between spouting comforting platitudes and sounding as if you don’t give a damn.

“What are you going to do?” she says instead.

I make my way across the deck to the food table where Beth and George are strapped into their high chairs, tantalisingly out of reach of their birthday cake.

“Donna, the realtor, is taking me round some more places tomorrow. If I don’t like any of them, I suppose we will have to move back into an apartment near the mall, where we lived when we first arrived. The alternative is to look for a house outside Woodhaven.”

“Is that what you want?”

I cut two more pieces of cake and plonk them on paper plates in front of the twins, who look at each other and wave their arms around in choreographed excitement. Beth and George are already covered from forehead to chest in red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting. They look like twin Hannibal Lecters, but appear to be enjoying their belated birthday party.

Eventually, I answer Willow.

“You can’t imagine,” I say, “how much I don’t want that.

* * *

I’m surprised how upset I am at the prospect of moving to another town. I’m sure another town in Massachusetts would be just as nice, but there’s something special about this one. When I first met Maggie eighteen months ago, she summed it up by saying “Woodhaven is the kind of place that gets to you. It’s like Hotel California — you can check out any time you like but you can never leave. I’ve been trying to leave ever since 1976, but haven’t managed it yet.” After less than two years in the place, I already know what she means.

It’s scary to think that, if not for Oliver’s promotion at Christmas and subsequent extension of his contract in Massachusetts, we’d be packing our belongings into cardboard boxes ready to go back to Milton Keynes next month. Though, as Oliver’s mother is still living in our house there, perhaps it’s just as well we’re staying. I really must check up on what she’s doing to the place, but until we’re sorted out with somewhere to live, that’s a distant second place on my list of priorities.

Still. Chin up. Perhaps today is the day that Donna, our geographically-challenged realtor, will find us a house that’s a) big enough, b) cheap enough, and c) empty.

* * *

“What do you think?” Donna asks, when I’ve looked in all the bedrooms and opened all the closets.

This is the thirteenth house she’s shown me round in as many days, and she’s learning. No longer does she froth with enthusiasm over hardwood floors and granite countertops. I need three, if not four, bedrooms; two bathrooms that don’t contain 1970s-coloured suites or swimming pool-sized bathtubs that require an entire water tank to fill them; a bedroom for me and Oliver that’s on the same level as the other bedrooms; and, most of all, a laundry room that isn’t in a dark, cobwebby basement. If none of those conditions apply, the house needs to be cheap enough for us to make the necessary improvements.

“It’s better than the last one,” I say, “but still not there. The blue bathroom suite is an improvement on the chocolate brown one, I’ll give you that, and the kitchen is old enough for me to call it ‘retro’, but I am not prepared to do my laundry in a dungeon that has a mouse carcass next to the washing machine.”

“That’s not a problem,” Donna says. She’s got a squeaky little voice; she doesn’t so much speak as chirrup. “We can ask the sellers to remove the dead mice from the basement.”

“If you can make it a condition of sale that they come and remove every mouse that enters the house after we’ve bought it, I might consider it.”

She frowns.

“No, I don’t think we could ask them to do that. It wouldn’t be their property any more, so it would be your responsibility after you move in, you see.”

I sigh inwardly. Donna’s one of those people who always take you literally. It’s exhausting.

“How many houses left to see today?” I ask.

She shuffles her sheaf of papers around and passes me a sheet of closely typed, small fonted property details.

“Just the one. It’s a long shot, though. I doubt it’s what you’re looking for.”

I squint at the flyer for this last house, our last chance to find something today, and for the first time since we started on this house hunting lark, I feel a spark of optimism.

* * *

When you come to live in America, you realise that, your whole life, you’ve been taking something for granted in England.

History.

There is so much of it back home. (OK, so maybe my home town of Milton Keynes isn’t the best example.) But every day, we stop in pubs and shops that were around when Columbus was getting seasick, take shortcuts through churchyards over graves that are centuries old, drive past ruined castles that were built to stop marauding invaders.

Do we appreciate it? Not really. Not until it isn’t there.

Here in Massachusetts there seems to be an all-or-nothing attitude to history. Old houses and monuments are reverently preserved, while anything younger than fifty years is, sooner or later, demolished to make way for something bigger, brighter, and brand new.

And while I like big, bright, and brand new, sometimes I miss low, beamed ceilings, and signs in pubs saying “Duck or Grouse.”

* * *

“What do you think of this house?” Donna asks for the last time.

Not for the last time today, but for the last time ever. I can feel it. She won’t have to ask me again, or show me round any more houses.

I’m in love. I’m in love like I was the first time I saw Woodhaven, with its shuttered, clapboard houses and village green, its white church spires and maple trees.

This house is Woodhaven encapsulated. It’s nearly as old as the town itself which, according to the signpost at the city limits, was incorporated in 1766.

It needs a lot of attention and TLC, of course, but I like to have a project.

“How come no one has snapped this up before?” I ask Donna. “It’s been on the market for nearly a year.”

She shuffles her feet a bit before answering. “An old lady owned it before she died. It had been in her family for years. Not everyone wants to take on a fixer-upper like this.”

In that case, other people are big wusses with a very different idea than I have of what constitutes a “fixer-upper”. According to the house details, it’s had new plumbing and electrics within the last year — presumably to hasten its sale by the old lady’s beneficiaries — and the outside also has a fresh coat of paint. The bathrooms — OK, they’re 1970s avocado and orange, and the kitchen needs to be gutted and sympathetically replaced — but this house is so cheap, we will have more than enough headroom in our budget. And, most important of all, there is plumbing for a washing machine in the little mud room next to the kitchen, with not a mouse cadaver in sight.

“I need to talk it over with Oliver, and he’ll want to see it, of course. But we need a place pretty soon, and this is a good price.”

Donna nods.

“It’s been for sale so long that we can probably get them down even more on price.”  She glances at the paper of house details. “Actually, I know the realtor it’s listed with. She’s a friend of mine, which might make things easier. I think you said you know her, too.”

I study my own copy, and when I see the name of the seller’s realtor, I shut my eyes.

Can you say “Conflict of interest”?

And now can you say “Melissa Harvey Connor”?

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #77 – First refusal

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #75  – Glass houses

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for next week’s posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We’re house hunting again.

I meant to have a serious talk with Oliver about Sandra’s interior design efforts in our home in Milton Keynes, but before I could find the right moment (you have to pick the right moment to talk to Oliver about his mother) we had a sweet little note from our landlady.

She’s given us three months’ notice.

Now, we always knew the lease would finish this July, and after the scene at last year’s Christmas dinner, we’d been looking forward to leaving. It’s just that we’d have preferred to give notice in writing to Melissa before she got there first.

Following her letter, a call to a local realtor told us we should have started looking earlier for a new house, even if it had meant paying two lots of rent for a month or two to secure a place. The woman we spoke to must have attended the same realtor charm school as Melissa Harvey Connor, because she could hardly keep the laughter out of her voice when I asked what rental properties she had on her books. There was nothing to rent in Woodhaven, she informed me, when I listed our requirements.

“And certainly nothing with three or four bedrooms,” she said with a derisive little laugh, as if instead of requesting a modest family home with grubby, 1980s wallpaper I’d asked her for a Fifth Avenue penthouse with views over the Grand Canyon. “I have a one-bedroomed apartment, six hundred square feet. Would you like to look at that?”

One bedroom? Was she kidding? I know co-sleeping en famille is fashionable at the moment, especially among yummy-mummies who carry their babies everywhere in slings and breastfeed until their children are in high school, but it’s not for me. If forced to co-sleep with four sets of limbs, I know I’d get more quality rest if the limbs belonged to two octopi rather than the four humans I live with.

“I expect something will come on the market between now and July,” was Oliver’s comforting, if unsubstantiated, verdict as he channel surfed to find some English football. Soccer, he calls it now.

“And suppose it doesn’t?” I asked. “What then?”

He found an old game between Man U and Arsenal.

“We could always rent in another town,” he said. “We’re not forced to live in Woodhaven.”

“But…”

Technically, he was right. We have no real ties to this town. Jack hasn’t started elementary school yet. But after nearly two years here, I was starting to feel as if I belonged. Moving even ten miles away would take me back to square one. If we were going to live here for another three years with Oliver’s new job, I would like to feel at home for all of it — not spend the first year making new friends and finding my way around again.
I picked up the local paper to flick through the property pages again, to see if I’d missed anything the first four times I’d read the paper.

“Or we could buy,” Oliver said, his eyes fixed on Wayne Rooney.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.

“Buy? Buy a house, you mean?”

“Yeah. I’ve been promoted a few levels, so the company will subsidise a mortgage. I forgot until now.”

“How very male and forgetful of you,” I told him; he didn’t look very pleased with my assessment. “How very Oliver.”

*  *  *

I’ve spent the last few days poring over property websites and coming up with a list of houses in Woodhaven to look at; we’ve lived in the town long enough to know where is a good place to live and where you need to avoid because it’s near a noisy highway or next to a graveyard. Once I’ve got a shortlist together, I look for a suitable realtor to represent us, the buyers, because without one we’re restricted to gazing at the outside walls and gardens of the houses on that list. Only a realtor can get us through the front doors.

The system’s a bit different over here. There are two estate agents in a house sale transaction: one for the buyer and one for the seller. They share the 6% commission they charge the seller, which is why they can all wear designer suits and drive Lexus cars.

The big realty companies have mugshots of their realtors online, and I browse through them. The men have Italian surnames, woffly moustaches, and thick, wavy hair, while the women are dressed in power suits with pearls and bouffant up-dos, and are in the same awkward photographer’s pose with one shoulder hunched up to ear level. It looks most uncomfortable.

I can’t see any particular photo makes me feel confident in the model’s abilities to negotiate property sales, so I run the cursor around the screen while my eyes are shut, and select the photo where the cursor lands: the cyber equivalent of pulling a name out of a hat.

It’s a woman called Donna in a red jacket and big hair and Quasimodo shoulder pose, and she looks familiar — probably because the For Sale signs outside the houses around town have the same realtor photos on them, I think.

When I speak to her on the phone, though, her voice sounds familiar too. It’s only when she’s taken the details of the houses I want to view, and has made appointments for us to view them in a marathon session next Tuesday, that I realise why.

*  *  *

“I know it’s awkward but I think I should phone the office back and ask for a different realtor,” I say to Oliver. “This woman is a real ditz. She was taking Jack’s details at kindergarten registration and couldn’t understand why a British boy born in Britain wouldn’t have an American birth certificate. She probably has difficulty negotiating her way through the supermarket’s self-checkout, never mind legal contracts of for six-figure amounts. She—”

I see Oliver’s face, and stop talking. It’s the Libby-you’re-giving-me-a-headache face. Actually, if I’m honest, I’m giving myself a headache.

“She’s not that bright,” I finish, rather lamely. “But we’re going to see these eight houses on Tuesday afternoon.” I hand him the info sheets I’ve printed off the internet, each with an appointment time written in the top corner. I feel quite pleased with my efficiency.

Oliver gets his BlackBerry out, checks his calendar, and wrinkles his nose.

“What?” I ask. “Can’t you make it? I thought you said you were free on Tuesday.”

“I am,” he says. He waits a bit then asks, “Are you bringing the kids with us?”

“Probably,” I say. “I know it won’t be much fun for them, but it’s a bit much to ask Maggie to have three of them all afternoon. The twins are a handful now they’re both trying to walk. They’re at that age.”

Oliver flicks through the sheaf of house details.

“And what age would that be?” he asks.

He really is unbelievable. His memory’s getting worse.

“Honestly, Oliver. Don’t you know how old your own children are?”

He pauses, then says: “Of course. Do you?”

“Yes, they’re a year old on…”

I clap my hand over my mouth. I’ve just arranged to take Beth and George house hunting for six hours as their First Birthday treat.

“That’s why I said I would be free on Tuesday,” Oliver says. “ Cake, presents, candles. Not ditzy realtors and fusty basements.”

I’m mortified. Oliver grins at me.

“How very female and forgetful of you,” he says. “How very Libby.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #76 – This old house

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #74  – Quarterly accounts

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 

STAY TUNED for next week’s fabulous posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

April 1, 2013.
One quarter of the way through the year. Time to check in with those New Year’s Resolutions. In the wee hours of January 1st while being kept awake by the neighbours’ illuminated, inflatable Christmas decorations, I promised myself I would do certain things this year.

In no particular order:

1. Talk to Maggie about her taking permanent custody of Fergus.
Check. Not only did I talk to Maggie, but the mission was successful. Maggie and Fergus are happy, I am happy, and as Jack is no longer snacking on high-calorie, gourmet dog biscuits, the paediatrician is also happy. Jack, however, still suffers from Fergus-withdrawal symptoms. Would a goldfish or two fill the pet void, I wonder? Or is Jack merely suffering from dog-biscuit-withdrawal symptoms? We could give the goldfish a try, I suppose. If it turns out it’s pet food Jack misses, he’ll have a hard time putting on weight if he starts pinching Goldie’s fish food.

Unless Sandra comes to visit and she buys him a piran—

No. Don’t even think about it.

2. Check out the local elementary school and enrol Jack for kindergarten.
Another tick in another box. Jack will start kindergarten after Labor Day, just six months from now. After last week’s school assembly for the parents of prospective kindergarteners, when we were all assured our offspring were Special And Important, we were herded into a series of classrooms where we sat on miniature chairs, banged our knees on miniature desks, and handed over paperwork to assorted admin assistants, to enlist our children in the academia sausage machine enrol our children in the Class of 2026.

The admin assistant to whom I gave my paperwork was, not to put too fine a point on it, not very bright.

She had a clipboard with a sheet of paper that said “Kindergarten Registration Checklist.” Nothing complicated on the list, until we came to the item that requested “US Birth Certificate.”

I handed her Jack’s, which, as he was born in Milton Keynes, was issued in the UK.

She looked at it, turned it over and back again, then asked, “Which state was he born in?”

Assuming she meant “State” in the sovereign sense, I said, “United Kingdom.”

A pause while she held the certificate up to the light.

“Is that like Puerto Rico or Guam?”

“No. It’s like England or Scotland.”

This time, a frown.

“So, it’s, like, not a state in the USA?”

“No, it’s Great Britain.”

“Britain? You mean British?”

I nodded, daring to hope we were getting somewhere. Silly me.

She jabbed at the clipboard with her pen. “I need a US birth certificate.”

“But I can’t give you one.”

“Then I can’t complete the registration form. Can you get a US birth certificate?”

For the love of God. I saw the Principal walking by and called out to him:

“Could you please explain to this lady why I haven’t got an American birth certificate for my son and why I’m unable to get one, and why it doesn’t matter?”

Eventually we got it sorted out.

As I signed the forms that condemned Jack to thirteen years of compulsory schooling with no parole, I asked the woman, “Do you work here?”

The idea that our local taxes paid her to work among impressionable children was quite alarming.

She shook her head. “I’m on the PTA, just volunteering tonight.”

That was a relief.

“So you know Jodee Addison?” I asked.

“Of course! We did our realtor training together.”

Realtor? Aha! It was all becoming clear now.

“What about Melissa Harvey Connor? Do you know her as well?”

A beaming smile. “Everyone knows Melissa! Is she a friend of yours?”

I tucked all Jack’s paperwork carefully in a manilla folder, then stood up to let the next person in the queue have their turn in the torture chair.

“Absolutely not,” I said.

Talking of Melissa: 3. Find another house.
Yes, we really should get round to finding somewhere else. It would mean paying two lots of rent if we found somewhere now, though, because Melissa won’t release us from the lease early.

The cow.

4. Make friends based on their personalities rather than nationalities.

And — check! My new friend from kindergarten registration evening, Willow Reeves, is not English, but as American as they get.

After we’d both finished being tortured by the PTA, Willow said to me “Got time for a coffee?”

Only she didn’t say “coffee.” She said “cawfee.”

“Sure,” I said. Because I can say things like “sure” now and not feel like a Brit trying to be American.

“Maxwell Plum?” she said. “The owners are friends of mine.”

Willow Reeves and Anna Gianni. Yes, that made sense.

5. Go to England and see what sort of a dog’s dinner Sandra has made of our house.
Over Maxwell Plum espressos — not a good idea, in retrospect; those babies pack more caffeine than a Red Bull reduction, and it was already 8 p.m. — Willow and I exchanged life stories. She’s originally from Brooklyn, New York, which is why we were having cawfee together instead of coffee.

“So you’re telling me,” she said, “that your mother-in-law, who gave you food poisoning at Thanksgiving, regifted you a pit bull for your wedding anniversary, and bought a tarantula for your three-year-old, is living in your house in England? And you haven’t checked on that house since she moved in?”

I gazed down into my espresso. “Yep.”

Willow leaned back in her chair. “Looks are so deceptive,” she said. “You don’t seem insane on the outside, but you must be. Aren’t you worried about your home?”

“Of course,” I said. “But what can I do? I’m 3000 miles away, and she’s my husband’s mother, not mine.”

“You need to visit,” Willow insisted. “I had some friends who sublet their apartment in New York while they went travelling for a year, and the subtenants did all kinds of shit to the apartment. Guess who had to pay to put it right? Not the subtenants.”

“What sort of ‘shit’?” I asked.

“The absolute literal kind. These guys kept adopting stray cats. When the ASPCA went in, there were 37 in this one-bedroomed apartment and only two litter trays.”

I shuddered.

“And you say your monster-in-law likes animals?” Willow said. “Well, honey, I just don’t know why you’re sitting here having cawfee. If it was me, I’d be heading over to Logan for the next plane home.”

April 5.
For the last few days, have been thinking over what Willow said. She’s right. It’s time for another trip home.

Oliver and I need a little talk.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #75 – Glass houses

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #73  – Stuck in my craw(fish) 

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Beth is in possession of her wooden box again. I, however, am in possession of a new enemy. Ah well. I suppose it’s about time.

Last week I met Crystal’s mom, Jodee Addison. In the nursery school parking lot, we returned our respective offspring’s stolen Valentine gifts as if exchanging ransom and hostage — each of us with a different opinion of which item was hostage, of course. Ms. Addison, whom I was liking less and less each minute, was determined to have the last word.

“Crystal was heartbroken this morning when I told her she had to give the box back,” she said, holding tightly onto said box even as I tried to take it from her. “She wouldn’t get dressed or eat her breakfast, so I ran her a bubble bath to soothe her, but bless her heart, she was so upset about the box she threw all her American Girl dolls and their clothes in the bathtub.”

Jack has had a lucky escape from this girl, if you ask me. I’d just seen her going into school wearing a pink plastic tiara and a T-shirt with the word “Princess” on the front. While I object to calling small girls “princess” on the grounds they need no further encouragement in that department (“Princess” is merely a euphemism for “Spoiled Brat”) it was Crystal’s Coach handbag that bothered me. All the other children at nursery school have Angry Birds or Dora The Explorer backpacks, but no — Crystal has a Coach handbag. It might be a cast-off from her mother, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

And I’m meant to feel sympathetic because she can’t have one of my own daughter’s Christmas gifts?

“Perhaps she needs some help,” I suggested, firmly taking hold of Beth’s wooden box.

Jodee sighed and raked French-manicured nails through her ash-blonde extensions. Carefully, so as not to pull them loose. “She has anger issues.” (Trendy-Mom-speak for “Temper tantrums”.) “I hear there’s a really good paediatric therapist in town. Maybe I should contact her.”

I nodded, with what I hoped was a sincere expression on my face. “On the other hand, I hear Supernanny is doing a new series. Maybe you should contact her instead.”

It took a few seconds for the penny to drop, by which time I was safely locked in my car.

Well. Honestly.

*  *  *

So, that was last week. This week, it’s time to set a new era in motion: tonight, I am going to the local elementary school for Kindergarten Registration Evening.

Kindergarten in American schools is what they used to call Reception Class when I was Jack’s age. It’s ABCs, 123s, fingerpainting, and nap-time. The children start when they’re five-going-on-six, and only do half a day for the first year, so the daily routine won’t be much different from how it is at the moment. Nevertheless, I feel quite emotional at the prospect. My baby is going to Big School.

I get ready with more care than usual, and even remember to put makeup on. When you’ve lived in Woodhaven long enough, you know not to turn up at public events in the first rags that come out of your closet, because all the other parents will be sizing you up and making decisions about whether, based on his mother’s appearance, your child will be a suitable playmate for their child.

It’s very stressful for a slob like me.

I find the school OK; I’ve driven past it numerous times in the last eighteen months on the way to the supermarket. This is the first time I’ve been inside the school gates, however, never mind inside the building itself, and although I’ve arrived in plenty of time before the official start of 6pm, there’s already a Mom-war going on for prime parking spaces. I find a space easily enough at the back of the car park, and stay there, watching the power struggle.

The parking lot is a heaving mass of SUVs. Small Subarus driven by mousy moms are being bullied by outsize Lincoln Navigators — everyone round here has a 4-wheel-drive car because of the Massachusetts winters — which in turn are looked down upon by Porsche Cayennes. “I’m a mother of three so I have to drive a big car, but at least it’s a Porsche” is what those cars say. Lincoln Navigators generally have bumper stickers advertising the local high school lacrosse team, and are driven by only-just-right-side-of-forty blondes with a cellphone permanently attached to one ear. Occasionally, a large pickup truck with plumbing advertising decals comes along, and all other cars stop and let it pass. You don’t argue with pickup trucks. They’re the T-rexes of Car World.

As I sit in my nondescript Ford, a monster black SUV pulls into a slot two rows in front, and, true to stereotype, a woman with blonde hair extensions gets out with a cellphone stapled to the side of her head. I idly gaze at her for a moment before realising who it is; then I swear loudly (eliciting a startled look from the man who is getting out of the car next to me), slink down behind the steering wheel, and hope Jodee Addison doesn’t notice me.

For some reason, it didn’t occur to me that other parents from Jack’s nursery school would be here tonight, but now I think about it, everyone from his current school and also from Patsy Traynor’s, where he went last year, will be registering for kindergarten this evening.

After a few minutes, I peep cautiously over the dashboard. It’s a couple of minutes before six, and the parking lot is magically empty except for a few parents power walking towards the school’s front door. I clamber out of the car and attempt to power walk too, but my high-heeled boots won’t go faster than a teetering hobble.

Inside the school, I follow the other straggling parents to the gymnasium, where all the seats are taken and the noise is intense. Front rows are occupied by the hair-extension types, Jodee Addison included, still yapping on their cellphones; middle rows are full of married couples, the men in their work suits, looking stiff and uncomfortable and trying to loosen their ties, here to show that they are caring fathers who take an interest but really longing to be at home with a Michelob and ESPN; and the back rows are occupied by mothers on their own with two or three small children in tow. The children are either crying, crumbling Goldfish crackers on the floor, or bobbing up and down on their seats to play peek-a-boo with the people behind them. I send up a silent “thank you” that Oliver was able to leave work early today, and I don’t have to join this throng of RMS Titanic third-class inmates.

And then, at the very back, in the “standing room only” section, are people like me who didn’t quite make it on time. We are doomed; classified already as parents who aren’t as serious as we should be about our children’s education.

A bearded man approaches the lectern at the other end of the gym and introduces himself as Dr. Felix Roth. He is the Principal of this establishment, he says, and has been an Educator for forty years now.

The woman standing next to me, a curly redhead about my age with heavy eye makeup and an armful of silver bangles, shuffles impatiently.

“We believe your children are the most precious resource we have,” Dr. Roth is saying. “They are all special. We truly believe that. We nurture that sense of being special, that self-esteem, that feeling of being important to the community, in every single child.”

He introduces the head of the PTA, and I’m not surprised to see that it’s Jodee Addison. She must have older kids here.

“Special and important,” she begins, as she adjusts the lectern’s microphone. “That’s how this school makes our kids feel. It’s how my kids feel.” Yes. I know this already. “Every morning, the teachers at this school do affirmations with our kids to make them believe the world is their oyster.”

The redhead snorts softly, and I glance sideways at her. She smiles apologetically and leans across to whisper.
“Last year, that PTA woman got it wrong. She said ‘lobster’ instead of ‘oyster’. The sad thing is, I think I was the only one who noticed.”

Jodee’s finished her little seafood speech, and plays a Powerpoint presentation of five-year-olds with gappy mouths and inky fingers doing various kindergarten activities. Then she cuts to a short video of them chorusing “We are all Special and Important.”

My neighbour covers her mouth with her hand, but not before a giggle escapes. I meet her eyes, and can’t help giggling too.

“Did you ever hear such a crock?” she says as a round of applause bursts from the more earnest parents. “And they wonder why kids today are such entitled narcissists.”

I like you, I think. Another voice of sanity in Woodhaven.

I hold out my hand. “Libby Patrick,” I say. “I couldn’t agree more with you.”

She takes my hand and shakes it.

“Willow Reeves,” she says, and smiles. “Thank God for a like-minded parent.”

So, although I might have made a new enemy this week, I think I made a new friend as well.

Hey. Win some, lose some.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #74 – Quarterly accounts

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #72  – Puppy Love

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I really don’t want to make this phone call. But I dial the number anyway.

The phone picks up at the other end, a child answers, and I’m about to launch into a high-pitched, nervous Hello-is-your-mommy-there routine when I realise it’s not a real child but one who’s been recorded in a message.

“Hiiiiiii….. This is the Addisons’ house.” (A breathy sigh and some adult promptings in the background.) “Say your number and — and — who you are and my mommy will call you.” (Another pause and more prompts.) “Or my daddy. But not Sammy, because he’s a cat and he can’t talk.” Beep.

Crystal’s parents probably love this message. However (and look away now if you’re easily shocked) I don’t find other children as cute as their parents do. Not that I’d ever admit it, of course. It would mean social suicide for Jack if his mother didn’t openly consider his little friends to be “precious” or “adorable.”

“This is Libby Patrick,” I say. Ugh. Leaving messages, for me, is almost as bad as listening to those recorded by nauseating five-year-olds. “Your daughter gave a gift to my son at nursery school. You might be missing an item from your model car collection.” I give my cell phone number and hang up.

Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Certainly, it will be a picnic compared to the next stage of the gift-returning process, which is the extraction of a red, collectible, model car from Jack’s sticky grasp.

I find Jack in his bedroom, making soft vroom-vroom noises and scooting the Ferrari around his Lego table.

“Sweetheart,” I say, bending down to his level, Supernanny-style. “Would you like to go to the toy shop? Maggie’s coming over later for tea. We could all go out together and buy a new toy car for you.”

Yes, I know. Total coward.  A stronger woman would explain the situation and firmly tell Jack he must give the Ferrari back to his little girlfriend. No bribes, no tantrums, no more cars to add to his already expansive Hotwheels collection.

Jack looks up from his impromptu racetrack. “Another car?”

“Yes.”

“So I get two cars today?” His voice rises an octave in excitement at his good fortune.

I consider my next words carefully. They could mean the difference between peace on earth and Armageddon in New England.

“Well, yes. But not at the same time.”

Jack narrows his eyes at me.

“I mean –” I flounder “– I’ll buy you another car, but we have to give this one back to Crystal.”

Jack picks up the car and hugs it protectively. “No.”

“She shouldn’t have given it to you. It belongs to her daddy, and now we have to give it back, but I know you’re disappointed, and I’ll buy you another car to make up for it.”

A nice one, I think, although not one that goes for 150 bucks on eBay, but Jack is having none of it.

“No! It’s MINE! Go AWAY!”

He hugs the car even tighter and throws himself on the floor in the foetal position. This is what comes, I think, of letting him watch American football all winter.

Come on, Libby. WWSD? What Would Supernanny Do?

Probably not what I do next, which is wrench the car from his hands and put it on the top shelf of his bookcase. He jumps to his feet, ineffectually trying to reach it down again, and calls me something that I can only imagine he’s learned from lip-reading football coaches on TV when the opposing team scores a touchdown.

“You do not speak to Mummy like that,” I say, wagging a finger at him and trying to keep my voice low and authoritative while disguising my shock at his new vocabulary.

“Yes I do!” Jack roars. “You took my car!”

He aims a kick at my shins. A four-year-old shouldn’t be able to inflict much damage, but this one is still wearing his Timberland boots and has accurate aim. I’m sure the Patriots would be interested in having him on the team one day, but right now —

“You little git,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “You want to play football? Let’s do timeout.” I take him by the shoulder and propel him through the bedroom door to the Naughty Spot outside the linen closet. “Sit there. Five minutes, and don’t you dare move.”

I go downstairs to attend to the twins, and Jack sits, cross-legged and seething but subdued, outside the linen closet.

I’ll give it to Supernanny, this Naughty Spot technique really works.

* * *

As I finish filling the twins’ sippy cups, my cellphone rings. It’s Crystal’s mum, who sounds confused when I tell her we have an item that might belong to her but, upon checking the display cabinet in her TV den, gasps and confirms there is a gap that should be filled by a small Ferrari. She would appreciate its return before Crystal’s daddy notices, she says. Her tone indicates that it’s all Jack’s fault and that he’s coerced her daughter into stealing.

“While you’re on the phone,” she says, “may I ask — are the crackers that Jack gave Crystal gluten-free?”

It’s my turn to be confused now. “Crackers?”

“Yes, crackers. They look like animal crackers but darker. She’s allergic to wheat, gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, turkey, and soy, so I need to check what’s in them before she eats them.”

It’s amazing the child eats anything at all. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Jack gave Crystal two pencils. Not animal crackers.”

“Maybe they came from the school party, then,” she says. “But the wooden box was definitely from Jack.”

Box? I rummage through Jack’s backpack before answering. Beth’s wooden box from Maggie, that Jack took in for show-and-tell, is not there.

“Does it have pictures of fairies and toadstools, by any chance?” I ask.

* * *

Crystal’s mum was quite unreasonable. Apparently, it was OK for me to traumatise Jack by taking her husband’s toy Ferrari away from him, but not OK for her to traumatise Crystal by taking Beth’s box from her. “But your little girl is only a baby — how will she know?” she said at one point in the conversation. Finally, grudgingly, she agreed to return the box, but only when I hinted I might put Hubby’s little car on eBay.

I’m still fuming half an hour later when Maggie arrives, bearing a box of homemade cookies.

“I thought we could have these with our tea. Jack loves cookies,” she says, looking round. “Cookies, biscuits, whatever he likes to call them. Where is Jack, anyway? Still at school?”

I slap my forehead.

“Still in timeout.” Supernanny recommends a minute on the Naughty Spot for each year of a child’s age, so according to my timeout calculations, Jack by rights should have started male menopause.

I creep upstairs, thoroughly ashamed. “Jack,” I call. “It’s OK, sweetheart, you can get off the Naughty Spot now. Mummy’s so sorry…Jack?”

Jack has already taken the initiative and vacated the punishment space. I look in his room, expecting to see him playing with Ironman and Captain America, but he’s not there. He’s not in the bathroom, or the twins’ room, or our bedroom.

“I can’t find him,” I say to Maggie, hearing the panic in my own voice. “He’s just — gone.”

“He can’t be. Think. Where did you leave him?” she asks, as if he’s a bag of shopping or my reading glasses.

I point. “On the landing, by the linen closet. But he’s not upstairs–”

Maggie ignores me and tiptoes up the stairs. I follow. She stops by the linen closet, turns and puts a finger to her lips, then quickly opens the closet door.

Squeezed onto one of the shelves, concertinaed into a space far smaller than I’d ever thought possible, is Jack. He has cookie crumbs smeared all round his mouth and down the front of his T-shirt, and looks very happy.

I’m too relieved at seeing him to be cross that he’s eating between meals. On the other hand, all cookies and snacks have been banished to the top shelf of the pantry where he can’t reach them, so—

“What are you eating?” I demand.

Jack, I can see, is trying to hide something under the pile of pillowcases he’s sitting on. I reach into the closet, under the pillowcases, and pull out a box.

A varnished wooden box, painted with trains and cars, the one Maggie gave him for Christmas. I reach under the linens again and pull out another box. George’s. They’re both heavier than I remember, and they rattle.

I open one, and then the other.

They’re full of cookies: the animal cracker-type cookies that Crystal’s mum had described.

“Did you get these cookies at school today?” I ask Jack.

He unfolds himself from the shelf and squirms free. After a pause, he nods.

I’m getting to know that pause-then-nod technique. It means he’s telling fibs.

“Did you take them from the pantry?” I ask. “Did you climb on a chair and take these cookies from the snack shelf?”

Because the thing is, these cookies look familiar.

Jack shakes his head vigorously. He’s not fibbing. He mutters something.

“Excuse me?” I lean down to hear him better.

“I said they’re biscuits not cookies.”

“Don’t push your luck, sunshine. Stop contradicting me.”

Maggie holds up her hand. “Let me see.”

After a quick glance, she says: “Jack’s right. They’re not cookies, they’re biscuits.”

“They look like animal crackers to me,” I say.

Maggie smirks.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose they are,” she says. “They’re Fergus’s special canine-celiac dog biscuits.”

*  *  *

In the kitchen, I read the empty packet of Fergus’s dog biscuits that Maggie has fetched from her house. The calorific content is terrifying.

“No wonder Jack’s been putting on weight,” I say. “And no wonder he liked being in timeout so much. It was snack time, with his secret stash under the pillowcases.”

“More to the point, no wonder poor Fergus has been starving.” Maggie strokes Fergus’s head. He gazes up at her, his eyes half-closed. “But Jack loves these things. He must really like this little girl to give them away to her.”

I put the packet down, and look for the phone.

“That reminds me, I’d better call Crystal’s mum,” I say. “I should let her know Jack’s present was gluten-free after all.”

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #73 – Stuck in my craw(fish)

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #71 – Bonnie and Clyde go to preschool

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

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Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jack and I sit at the kitchen table, surrounded by the Disney Valentine cards and heart-decorated pencils I bought in January. It’s serious business, writing out sixteen Valentine cards when you’ve only just learned your alphabet — Jack, not me — and over the course of this afternoon’s school project, Jack’s right fist has acquired a layer of black pencil smudges, and my patience is now but a chiffon veneer.

“Last card,” I say. Not before time. “Which one for Crystal?” I ask Jack. “The little one with Cinderella, or the big one with Belle?”

I know it’s not conventional to do this kind of project in late February, but the massive snowstorm and resultant clear-up three weeks ago meant the nursery school’s planned Valentine’s Party was cancelled. Jack had been distraught and sulked for days, his mood lifting only when he learned that the party would take place two weeks later instead. I was surprised at this; last year’s episode at his other preschool should have put him off romance for life.

Jack points at the card with Belle on the front. “That one for Crystal. The big one.

He picks up his pencil and writes “Jack” in the space marked “From”, his tongue poking out of one side of his mouth, then painstakingly copies Crystal’s name from the list provided by the nursery school. After he writes the final letter, I hold out my hand, ready to Scotch tape a new pencil onto the card like all the others.

“I haven’t finished yet,” he says, and proceeds to write two rows of x’s at the bottom of the card. When he runs out of room, he admires his handiwork, and passes it to me. “And Crystal needs two pencils.”

The clouds part, and at last I understand why Jack was so disappointed when the real Valentine’s party was cancelled.

You always give the big Valentine to the person you like best at nursery school — I remember this from last year. But two pencils? That’s serious.

At not quite five years old, my son Jack is in love.

*  *  *

With or without a crush on a five-year-old girl with blonde pigtails and a predilection for Hello Kitty T-shirts, Jack likes going to nursery school. He likes the toy car corner, and the toy DIY workbench you can bang loudly and legitimately with plastic hammers, and he particularly likes the Show-and-Tell sessions, where the children are encouraged to bring something from home to talk about. Some kids refuse to take anything, ever, and others like to bring something every day. Jack, being a talkative soul, is of the latter persuasion, but unfortunately his selection of objects is limited. He takes either a toy Lightning McQueen or a model of Ironman, and no helpful suggestions from me — “A seashell? A pound coin? This empty Curly Wurly wrapper?” — will convince him otherwise.

Today, though, he surprises me: as I walk him from the parking lot into school I notice he’s carrying the little wooden box that Maggie gave Beth for Christmas, the one with fairies and toadstools painted on it. Come to think of it, this is the first time in weeks I’ve seen it.

“Is that for Show-and-Tell?” I ask, and after a second’s pause he nods.

While I’m pleased he’s exercising his imagination by bringing something other than overpriced, trademarked tat, I’m concerned because the box doesn’t belong to him.

“You must look after it,” I say, helping him off with his coat, then adding unconvincingly, “and you should have asked Beth first before you took it.”

Jack glances at his sister in her pushchair then shoots me a disbelieving look that says clearly, “But Beth is ten months old and can’t talk yet.”

“Just make sure you bring it home again!” I call to him as he runs into the classroom clutching the box to his chest and is lost in a heaving sea of pink-and-red-clad, over-excited Lilliputians.

*  *  *

Parties are not parties without swag bags, and this Valentine’s party is no exception. Jack bursts into the house after school and, while I’m depositing the twins on the floor to crawl around and eat interesting items on the floor, dumps a brown paper bag upside-down on the kitchen table.

A heap of Valentine cards — pretty much identical to those we wrote yesterday — plus heart-decal pencils, temporary tattoos of Cupid, heart-shaped erasers, and heart-shaped lollipops scatter everywhere. Jack picks through them, putting the small gifts on one side and the cards on another. Then he goes through the gift pile and discards anything that is inedible and too frou-frou. The cards and girly gifts are ruthlessly chucked in the kitchen bin.

I close my eyes, reliving the two (pointless) hours yesterday of writing every child’s name on a card. In sixteen other Woodhaven homes at this moment, Jack’s careful handiwork and probably quite a few of his pencils  have met a similar fate and are now resting among potato peelings and flu-ridden tissues.

Or maybe not. One card has escaped the carnage: a large one with a picture of Ironman. It’s signed: “Lv Frm Crstl”. Presumably Crystal-who-must-receive-two-pencils, who appears to have a grudge against vowels.

I ask, as casually as possible, “Did Crystal like the pencils?”

Jack hesitates, then nods.

“And what did Crystal give to everyone?”

“Erasers.” Jack holds up one of the minuscule heart-shaped erasers. “And a car.” He delves into his Lightning McQueen backpack and brings out a model car.

“That’s nice,” I say. Then I study the car more closely. “You mean Crystal gave everyone one of these?”

Jack shakes his head proudly. “Only me.”

I’ll bet. This car is not a Matchbox or Hotwheels; it’s a 1/18 model of a classic Ferrari that bears more than a passing resemblance to Jack’s automotive hero, Lightning McQueen. I turn it upside down and look at for the manufacturer and model number, and do a quick google on my phone.

The results make me feel faint. An identical model is for sale on eBay. Fourteen bids, $150, reserve not met.

My guess is that a display cabinet somewhere in Crystal’s home — probably in a male-dominated part of the house — has a vacant spot at the moment.

You know — in all my fervent watching of Supernanny, I’ve yet to see an episode where one parent has to tell another mum and dad that their child is a kleptomaniac.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #72 – Puppy Love

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #70 – A brewing storm 

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

Want to read more? Head on over to Kate Allison’s own site, where you can find out more about Libby and the characters of Woodhaven, and where you can buy Taking Flight, the first year of Libby’s Life — now available as an ebook.

 STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jack lies on the kitchen floor in his red pyjamas, legs and arms flailing, his face a puce, wet, dripping mess.

He looks like an overripe tomato.

“I want Fergus!” he wails, then hitches in a breath for more volume. “I — want — Fergus — baaaack!”

Despite all the episodes of Supernanny that I’ve watched over the years , I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried “bringing myself down to his level” (crouching down to make myself three feet tall), looking him in the eye, using a firm voice, putting him in time-out on the Naughty Spot, asking for apologies and hugs…

Nothing works. At nearly five, he should be growing out of tantrums, not more into them by the day.

The Naughty Spot, a mat outside the laundry closet, worked for about a month until a few days after Fergus left. Jack would sit on the landing quietly in time-out, and happily give me a hug and a “Sorry” when his five minutes was up. (I must be honest and admit here that it was usually more than the allotted five minutes, because I’d go off and do something else and forget he was there.)

I don’t want him to think he gets a reward for bad behaviour, but in this case, it’s unavoidable.

“You can stop that silly noise right now,” I say, sounding like my granny. “You’re going to see Fergus today because we are staying at Maggie’s tonight.”

The screams and kicking magically stop. For a second.

I put my hands over my ears as Jack yells again, this time with joy, and the twins in their high chairs yell with alarm.

“Go get dressed,” I tell him, raising my voice above the noise. “Your clothes are on your bed.”

*  *  *

“This storm looks as if it’s going to be a bad one,” Maggie had said to me yesterday. “We’re bound to lose power on this street, because we always do. Have you got a generator yet?”

I shuffled my feet and mumbled, as if she’d asked me where last night’s maths homework was. “No.”

“Then all of you should come and stay with me tomorrow night until it’s over, or until you get power back on. All five of you. No fun in a house in these temperatures, with three babies and no heat or hot water.”

“We can’t do that,” Oliver said, when I told him of Maggie’s offer. He has no idea what it’s like here without electricity. He’d been safely in England the last time we had a long power-cut.

” ‘We’?” I said. ” ‘You’ can do what you like, my love. Stay in a refrigerator if you prefer, should the worst happen. But the children and I are thinking ahead and staying in Maggie’s nice warm house.”

And after some grumbling, he agreed.

*  *  *

 Jack comes downstairs, fully dressed but not accurately so. I turn his sweatshirt so it’s not back-to-front, and twist a sock round so that the heel is under his foot. His jeans, I’m relieved to see, are looser than they were two weeks ago.

After nearly falling out with Maggie over what she perceived as Jack’s weight issue, I was mortified, when I went clothes shopping for him a couple of days later, to find that the regular boys’ trousers I bought for him were too tight when he put them on at home. I had to take them back and exchange them for the ‘Husky’ fitting, for boys with more generous waistlines. Maggie and that awful paediatrician had been correct, and my son was indeed piling on the inches.

“Puppy fat,” Maggie said, when I apologised later for getting huffy with her when she had been correct in her observation. “Just puppy fat. It will go.”

I wasn’t so sure though — and I was totally at a loss to explain how he could be putting on weight like that. Since Christmas I have only given him organic food — lots of vegetables and fruit and lean meat and stuff like that — and any treats are on the top shelf of the pantry where he can’t reach them. I did this after smugly watching one episode of Supernanny on Christmas Eve that showed a sugar-crazed toddler running around and bashing his younger brother with a toy car, before realising that my own elder son, who earlier had been quietly stuffing his face with a Hershey bar, was pounding George on the head with a plastic toy hammer.

That was the day all chocolate and cookies went on the top shelf, and the Naughty Spot on the landing instigated. Also the day the toy hammer was confiscated indefinitely.

Today, thought, Jack is the picture of sibling virtue as we all plod through the snowflakes across the street towards Maggie’s house.

Maggie sees us coming, opens the door, and we are greeted by a whirlwind of pit-bull-Labrador. Fergus bounds around us, nearly knocking me and Jack over. He saves his biggest welcome for Oliver, of course, but even so, I swear that dog has never been so happy in his life to see me. Not even after several months in kennels while he waited to be shipped abroad.

When we are all inside and have stomped the snow from our boots onto the doormat,  Jack stands on socked tiptoes and indicates to Maggie that he wants to say something in private. She bends down to listen while he whispers in her ear.

“I haven’t got many of those, sweetheart,” she says to him. “They’re a bit expensive, so Fergus only has them as a special treat on Sundays.”

Jack’s mouth droops, and I’m afraid he’s about to go into meltdown. He asks, “Is it Sunday today?”

Maggie laughs. “We can pretend it is, can’t we?”

His mouth becomes a normal shape again. Meltdown situation averted.

“What did he want?” I ask Maggie when Jack has run off to her TV den, where she’s put the DVD of Finding Nemo on for him.

“He wanted to give Fergus one of his special doggie treats, and I said he could. I think he misses that dog, you know.”

I know he does, and I feel guilty. I’d been so intent on getting rid of Fergus that I’d forgotten Jack’s feelings in the matter.

I tell Maggie this.

She frowns. “And yet he never bothered much with Fergus before, that I could see. Why all the fuss now, I wonder?”

Jack runs back into the hall to have another private word with Maggie. She shakes her head. “You’ll have to ask your mummy.”

Jack’s shoulders slump, and he slouches off back to the TV den.

“Ask me what?” I say.

“He wanted a cookie.”

“Ah.” I feel quite proud. “I think he knows better than to ask me that now. They’re strictly rationed in our house.”

Oliver laughs. “My mum did that to me once, when I was about 10, when she decided out of the blue that we should both go on a health kick, So I made myself jam sandwiches every morning before she got up, took them to school, and bought chocolate on the way home with the school lunch money she’d given me. She couldn’t understand why I kept putting on weight when all she fed me was cornflakes and salad.”

I roll my eyes at Maggie, as if to say, “You see what kind of a mother-in-law I have?”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t respond.

Later, when Oliver is busy taking our bags into the spare bedroom, she says: “Libby, you know I’m not one to interfere, and after our last near-argument about Jack, I’m reluctant to say anything at all, but…I have found that the more you stop someone from doing something, the more likely they are to find a way round the obstacle.”

I close my eyes. Maggie’s talking about Jack’s diet again, offering advice where it isn’t wanted.

“Thanks,” I say, and even I can hear the frostiness in my tone that makes the frigid weather outside seem tropical in comparison.

Oh dear. I do hope this storm isn’t a long one. I would like to still be friends with Maggie when the snow has stopped.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #71  – Bonnie and Clyde go to preschool

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #69 – This dog’s life takes the biscuit

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode. 

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Fergus looks up at me, down at his empty dish in the corner of the laundry room, then back at me again. I could be imagining things, but I think his lip is curling.

“No,” I say to him, as I pull one lot of washing out of the dryer and insert another wet load. “Just — no. You can’t be hungry, not again. It’s impossible. And it’s no good trying to fool me. I know you don’t eat everything in sight when Maggie’s in charge of you. You’re just doing it to annoy me.”

At Maggie’s name, Fergus pricks up his ears, wags his tail, and goes to sit by the back door under the coat hook where I keep his lead.

“Later,” I promise him. “You can see Maggie when Jack has gone to school and I’ve gone shopping with the twins. And in a few days more you’ll be with her all the time. Won’t that be nice?”

Nice for him, and oh-so-blissful for me. I am counting the days until next Wednesday, when Maggie has — hallelujah! — agreed to take Fergus and I can rid myself of this hound for good.

Maggie, though, is looking forward to having him. A couple of burglaries in town last month made her nervous, and she thinks a dog barking around the place will be a good deterrent.

“Besides,” she said, sounding rather sad, “he will be good company when you move house.”

Oliver and I haven’t got a moving date yet, but Maggie isn’t looking forward to losing us as neighbours, although we’ll still be in Woodhaven. We haven’t even found a new house to move into, but lately I’m spending so much time and money in the local supermarket that I’m starting to think we should cut out the middle man and set up home in the checkout line.

When I first arrived here, all I heard from the other wives was how cheap it was to live in America compared with England. “I spend three-and-sixpence a month on food, and have money left over for a jar of caviar and some more diamond earrings.” That kind of thing. After a while I sussed out that the reason the wives spent so little on food from the supermarket is because they ate at restaurants, and the husbands hid the bills on their company expense accounts at the end of the month.

With Oliver being boringly honest and never putting items on expenses unless they’re work-related, my own grocery bills are astronomical. Add in disposable nappies and cans of formula milk for two, and even Wills and Kate in their starter flat at Kensington Palace would balk at the monthly total.

But that’s before we get to the pet food aisle.

Fergus, as I mentioned when I started this journal, is one of the most stylish dogs in the world. Never mind diamanté collars or fluffy dog sweaters like Dr. Lowell’s ridiculous chihuahua wears — for his fashion accessories, Fergus has food allergies. He went on a gluten-free diet long before Lady Gaga did. Not for him the cheapo dog kibble; only the best for Fergus. Special gluten-free dog biscuits, more expensive per pound than Black Angus filet mignon.

Hey. Those biscuits are nothing to do with me.

They were Oliver’s idea. Maybe coddling the dog she gave us is a way of assuaging the guilt he feels towards his mother for abandoning her, or for letting the cat out of the bag about her bigamist husband. Whatever the motive, the upshot is that while normal dogs are happily gnawing on bones and finishing the children’s leftover chicken nuggets, Fergus is lording it with grain-free, venison-and-cinnamon-and-butternut-squash dog treats, at 25 bucks a pound. To even things out, I buy the cheapest canned meat without wheat filler, but he turns his nose up at it most of the time. Only those doggie-deli-delights will do.

Not content with his food’s Michelin 5-star quality, Fergus also has to have it in Supersize Me quantity. It doesn’t matter how often I fill his bowl with these delicate morsels — when I look again, the dish is empty, and Fergus has a mournful expression on his face, begging for seconds.

I told Maggie she should rename him Oliver. Twist, that is, not Patrick.

“But he never eats that much when he stays with me,” she says. “He gets whatever meat the butcher has going cheap, and nothing else. Perhaps he’s got worms.”

I’ve given him enough worming tablets to eradicate the subterranean population of Massachusetts. It’s made no difference.

Fergus is still sitting by the back door, staring up at his lead. Every few seconds he lets out a little whine and shifts from side to side on his front paws.

What the hell. It’s nearly time to go, anyway.

I bundle the twins into their snowsuits and fasten them into their double pushchair. Then I tug Jack’s arms into his big winter coat, and pull the two sides of the front together to do up the zip.

The two sides don’t quite meet. Jack’s got an extra layer of fleece on, admittedly, because it’s so cold here at the moment, but even so…

“I need to buy you more clothes while you’re at school today,” I say to him. “You’ve grown again. You’ve eaten too many cookies. You’re the Cookie Monster!”

“No, Mummy,” he says. “Biscuit Monster!”

“Ah, that’s right. Silly me.”

Jack is rather particular lately about his vocabulary. It’s very sweet. He corrects his American friends if they say “Truck” (“Lorry!”) or “Chips” (“Crisps!”) or, in this case, he corrects his mother for saying “Cookie” instead of “Biscuit.”

I think his obsession started when I got into watching old episodes of Supernanny USA. Supernanny herself is unapologetically Essex and sounds like Jack’s Granny Sandra, even after filming with families in New Jersey for two weeks. But although she talks like my mother-in-law, I like watching the programme because it makes me feel superior after I’ve had a bad day, and I can think “Well, at least I don’t do that.” Occasionally, though, an episode will bring me down to earth, like the one a few weeks ago when this woman had about nine kids who kept diving into packets of fun-sized Milky Ways every five minutes, and then bounced off the walls all day, much to the mother’s bewilderment.

I watched one of the nine children having a tantrum just as Jack lay on the floor, kicking and shouting because I’d taken a clandestine Hershey bar off him, which he was about to eat five minutes before lunch was ready. From then on, all chocolate and sugary things have lived on the top shelf of the pantry where Jack can’t reach them, and I’ve doled them out sparingly, only once a day, in accordance with a big set of Mum’s Rules which I wrote in black marker on poster board immediately after the TV programme ended.

Jack seems to have adapted, though. After one episode on the naughty spot outside the landing linen closet on Boxing Day, he accepted it. I can’t say his tantrums have got much better, though.

With some pushing and huffing, I finally get his coat fastened.

“Ready to go?” I ask him. He nods, as best as he can beneath layers of woolly hat, hood, and scarf.

Fergus barks — once, twice, three times.

I open the back door, and the dog shoots out, straight across the road and up Maggie’s driveway. A Jeep coming down the street slows for him and honks its horn. Fergus looks back briefly. If a dog were physically capable of flipping the bird, Fergus just did it.

Next Wednesday can’t come a minute too soon.

.

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #70  – A brewing storm

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #68 – Puppy fat

A note for Libby addicts: Check out Woodhaven Happenings, where from time to time you will find more posts from other characters.  Want to remind yourself of Who’s Who in Woodhaven? Click here for the cast list!

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode.

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The paediatrician pinches a wad of baby flesh and plunges her syringe into the right thigh of an unsuspecting George.

A couple of seconds of silence while George’s bottom lip sticks out and he fixes me with a reproachful stare. Then, tears squirting from his eyes, he opens his mouth wide and lets rip a bellow that echoes around the small consulting room, the corridor outside, and probably the waiting room as well.

Undeterred, Dr. Lowell picks up another syringe and sticks it in George’s left thigh. The bellows treble.

“I can give Elizabeth her shots now, as well,” she says, as she presses a small, circular Band-Aid over each pinprick. “She also should have had them several weeks ago.”

The last time I fell for this trick and had both twins vaccinated on the same day, I didn’t sleep for three nights, while I paced around the bedroom with one or the other feverish, grizzling baby. Our usual doctor, the lovely Dr. Wong, who is out sick today with a nasty dose of flu, learned from this. She would never make such a silly suggestion.

“I’d rather deal with just one at a time, thanks. We’ll come back next week. I doubt Beth’s going to catch hepatitis B by then.”

Dr. Lowell reaches for another vial and needle as if she hasn’t heard me. “Best to get it over with,” she says. “If you could just take Elizabeth out of the stroller and undress her—”

Dr. Lowell doesn’t have children. She has a chihuahua. I’ve seen her on Main Street, carrying it around in a wicker shopping basket, dressed in a little pink doggie sweater — pooch, that is, not paediatrician. The Coffee Posse warned me long ago that I should avoid this doctor if possible.

Today, thanks to Dr. Wong’s flu, it wasn’t possible.

“No,” I say, more firmly. Instead of unbuckling Beth from the pushchair, I strap George in beside her.

George’s roars have diminished to hiccuping whimpers. I stroke his head and tell him he’s a brave boy and that he can have some ice cream when we get home.

“He’s fat enough already.” The doctor throws the needles in the sharps bin, and snaps off her blue latex gloves.

I’m not sure I’ve heard right. “Excuse me?”

“Childhood obesity is a real problem. He’s already at the 95th percentile for weight. And you need to watch the weight of your older son, too. Neither of them need ice cream.”

Enough. This doctor visit is over. I wheel the pushchair through the doorway, grazing the paint on the door jamb in my rage.

“And I don’t need a chihuahua fashion expert pretending to be Jillian Michaels,” I tell her. “Come on, Jack. Let’s you and me and the twins go to Baskin Robbins and pig out.”

* * *

“And then, the old witch says my boys are fat and they don’t need any ice cream,” I say to Maggie. “So here we are with a gallon of full fat chocolate brownie ice cream to share with you while you tell me all about your holiday.”

We didn’t go to Baskin Robbins, in the end. We went to the supermarket to buy Maggie’s favourite flavour to share with her. She came back from the Seychelles yesterday and I was dying to hear all about it.

Maggie scoops the ice cream into three dishes, and gives the small one to Jack. The largest one she gives to me, because I have to share mine with the twins. Then she pulls a dog bowl out from under the kitchen sink, fills it with a can of premium dog meat, and gives it to Fergus, who is watching her every move with an adoring expression.

He never looks at me like that. Perhaps this would be a good time to approach the subject of her keeping Fergus indefinitely.

“Nothing like ice cream for de-stressing, I find,” Maggie says, shovelling in a mouthful and closing her eyes.

I’m guessing she’s not talking about my own post-doctor stress levels. I’ll mention Fergus another time.

“Was it so hard, spending five days on a tropical island?” I ask.

Another spoonful. Maggie nods.

“I was there as a witness.”

Blimey. I didn’t expect that. Witness to what, I wonder? Drug deals? I’ve heard rumours of Maggie’s hippie past, and there’s sometimes a suspicious whiff of ‘herbal cigarettes’ on her back porch, but this was different. Dangerous, even. You hear about people giving evidence then ending up in neat little dismembered parcels in the bowels of New York’s sewers.

“Will you have to move, or change your identity, or anything like that?” I’d hate to lose my friend just because some drug cartel had it in for her.

Maggie wrinkles her nose and squints at me. “What do you mean?”

“You know — like witness protection.”

Maggie puts her spoon down in her dish. She laughs, and laughs some more. She picks the spoon up, but has to put it down again because she’s still laughing.

On one hand, I’m pleased because I’ve amused Maggie and made her laugh. Laughter is better than ice cream for stress busting. On the other hand, I’m really offended.

“What did I say?” I ask, when she’s quiet at last.

“I wasn’t a witness to a crime,” she says. “I was a witness to a wedding. One of those barefoot beach weddings. My daughter’s.”

And that’s all she would say about it.

But I surmised that, for Maggie at least, it wasn’t a happy occasion.

* * *

As I zip Jack and the twins up into their coats to walk the couple of hundred yards to our house, Maggie says, “You know — don’t take this the wrong way, but that miserable doctor might not have been entirely wrong. You’re struggling to fasten Jack’s zip.”

Et tu, Maggie?

“The zip is stiff, and Jack is not obese. Thank you.” I’d like to say more, but I need to ask her soon if she will take Fergus off my hands. It wouldn’t do to ruin a beautiful friendship at this point.

“No, I didn’t say he was.” She hesitates. “But he’s…hefty, isn’t he? Heftier than he used to be.”

Maggie shouldn’t go on tropical vacations if it makes her this argumentative. I have a perfectly good mother-in-law available if I want to be insulted.

“Even if he is–” I say “— and he’s not — children need it for their growth spurts. They can’t be expected to follow the standard growth charts all the time.”

Maggie holds up her hands, palms outwards, in a “peace” gesture. “Of course not. Anyway, it’s none of my business. Do forgive me, my dear. Tell me, did they like my Christmas presents?”

“They loved them,” I say, stalling for time. They had so many presents from fond grandparents that I can’t instantly recall what Maggie gave them.

“Handpainted, those boxes are. A relic from the time I owned the craft store in Main Street.”

A-ha! Exquisite little wooden boxes with hinged lids, painted with trains and cars for the boys, and fairies and toadstools for Beth. No wonder I couldn’t remember them instantly — I hadn’t seen them since Boxing Day.

“They’re absolutely beautiful,” I say, quite sincerely. “The children loved them. I’ve put them away safely for now, of course,” I add, crossing my fingers behind my back.

Maggie nods. “A good idea.” She opens the front door and looks outside at the descending clouds. “You’d better go before this mist turns to rain. Where’s Fergus…I might have known, in the kitchen, asking for more food! I don’t know where he puts it. Anyone would think he was never fed. Don’t forget to take the rest of your ice cream with you.”

“You keep it,” I say, having just caught sight of my post-Christmas reflection in Maggie’s full-length hallway mirror.

As children, dog, and I hurry home through the rain, I reflect sourly that one member of the family won’t have to diet this January, and can eat as much as his canine heart desires.

Another reason — the final straw, even — why Fergus has to go.

*  *  *

Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #69 – This dog’s life takes the biscuit

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #67 – Lights in the rearview mirror

A note for Libby addicts: Check out Woodhaven Happenings, where from time to time you will find more posts from other characters.  Want to remind yourself of Who’s Who in Woodhaven? Click here for the cast list!

Read Libby’s Life from the first episode.

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Image: Travel – Map of the World by Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net