Totlandia: Spring (15 page)

The man shrugged. “It’s possible. I was quoting the Bard before I could say my own last name, Pudberry.” He held out a dirty hand. “Cornelius Reginald.”

Jade took it slowly, and shook it gently. “Pierce. Jade. And this is Oliver.”

“Ah! As in
Twist
, eh? Middling Copperfield, but the tykes find it relatable. We’re all orphans, metaphorically speaking.”

“I didn’t learn any Shakespeare until I was in high school.”

The man laughed. “Can you quote any now?”

Jade blushed and shook her head. “No. I guess I never made it a priority.”

“Not you. But your parents. Our educational system and our society have let us all down.” The man shook his head forlornly. “The ancient Greeks quoted Homer to their offspring. Shakespeare rolled trippingly off the tongues of wee Regents. Today, we leave our children in front of a television. Pray tell, what kind of vocabulary can they learn from a sponge who wears jodhpurs and has a starfish as a sidekick?” He rolled his eyes. “Blasphemy!”

He’s right,
Jade thought.
This bum has it all figured out.

So, why is he a bum in the first place?

“What about your destiny?” she blurted out.

The man looked down on the concrete sidewalk. It was pocked and stained with soot and grease. Its gray hue had only one spot of color, a wad of bright blue Bubble Yum. “If you have a persistent drinking problem, a Nobel Prize in literature only takes you so far.” Even as he hid his bottle to one side, he raised his head proudly. “Yes, that’s right. I’m
that
Cornelius Reginald Pudberry.”

“Oh!” Jade was awed. Why, if she scored a Nobel Prize winner for her AP instructor, she’d win the Top Mom slot hands down!

She opened her purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. “I have a proposition for you.”

His eyes got big when he noticed the denomination of the bill, but wariness shrank them back down to size. “Sorry, but the latest run on my sperm bank has cleaned me out.”

Jillian’s face turned red. “Oh…No! I mean, I’m hoping you’ll be free to teach a class once a week, granted your students will be somewhat on the younger side.”

“Ack! High schoolers.” Pudberry’s annoyance came out in a long, deep sigh.

Jade shook her head. “No, not exactly.”

“Middle schoolers?” He shrugged. “Their minds are still open. At least, it is in sixth grade. By eighth, hormones are raging.”

She stuttered, “Quite frankly, I was thinking about five-year-olds.”

“Ha!” He mulled that over for a moment. All the while, his eyes never left that fifty-dollar bill perched casually in Jade’s hand.

“You said it yourself about the Greeks and all. So, why can’t our kids be like theirs?”

“Well, in the first place, they don’t speak Greek.” He shrugged. “Still, it would be an interesting challenge.” He leaned back, deep in thought. “A Shakespeare play in the first quarter, perhaps. Followed by something from Dickens. Then a Trollope. In the fourth quarter, maybe Galsworthy.” He snatched the fifty-dollar bill from her hand.

She grabbed it back. “There are some conditions.”

“Ah, Lady Macbeth are we?” When he threw back his head to chuckle, it slammed against the concrete wall. Rubbing it, he added, “‘
Look like an innocent flower, but be the serpent under’t’,
eh?”

Jade frowned. “Maybe. But dig it. These moms will eat both of us alive if we don’t deliver the goods. That means cleaning you up, inside and out. But I’ll make it worth your while. A good wage, and”—she paused to steel herself—“I’ll include room and board. But no booze. Okay?”

Pudberry looked down at the vodka bottle. He tossed it away. It clattered as it rolled down the sidewalk. “It’s not a tenured position at Stanford, but I guess it will do in a pinch. Perhaps I’ll use the experience as research for my next thesis.
‘Litterarum puer prodigia.’
”

Jade stared down at him, awed. “Wow! Was that Greek?”

Once again he guffawed. And once again, his head hit the wall. “Latin, my dear girl. It means ‘literary child prodigies.’”

Jade helped him up. “Either I’ve got to quit making you laugh, or I’ll have to get smarter. Otherwise I’ll give you a concussion.”

He shook his head sadly. “If you get smarter, you may lose your charming sense of humor.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’”

He looked at her in awe. “Did you just make that up?”

“Nah. Forrest Gump.”

Pudberry nodded appreciatively. “I’ve got to sneak into the movies more often.”

Sunday, 31 March

“Where are the pink and blue tie-dyed ones?” Lorna looked frantically in the back of her SUV where two crates, holding eggs painted in a rainbow of colors, were still waiting to be hidden before the start of the PHM&T Easter Egg Extravaganza. “Oh my God! I’ll bet we left them on the kitchen table at home! I knew we should have taken separate cars! I’ve got to go back and get them.”

“Quit panicking,” Matthew said softly. “Brady has already hidden them. He also got rid of the ugly lime green ones.”

“Did he take the golden egg, too?”

“Nope. I hid that one myself. I found a really great spot. It’ll be a miracle if anyone finds it.”

Lorna wagged a finger. “You’re not supposed to lose it, just make it harder to find than the others.”

“Then I’d say the mission was accomplished.” He grabbed her finger, using it to pull her closer so that he could give her a kiss. “So what are my marching orders?”

“We’ll each take one of the last two crates. If I can find Jade, she can watch Dante with Oliver.” She scanned the park. “Where is she, anyway?”

“She’s over there, chatting up Bettina about her AP instructor. She wangled some Nobel Prize winner.” He swung Dante onto his shoulders. “I’ll walk our little man over there. It’s time he met Bettina’s puppy, anyway.” Seeing his wife’s frown, he added, “Don’t worry! Prince Whatever-His-Name-Is won’t hurt him.”

“I’m not worried about the puppy. I was thinking of Bettina. If she notices something doesn’t seem right with Dante, she’ll have Eleanor up in arms.”

Matt frowned. “Let’s just get it over with and tell everyone the truth.”

“No! Not until…not until the results come back from this latest round of tests.”

“But our therapist says we should get everything out in the open, with everyone who loves us. What are you afraid of?”

He wants everything out in the open?
she thought.
Okay, here it is.
“The ‘unconditional love’ the Connaughts are famous for.”

She had nothing more to say on the matter. From the resigned look on his face, neither did he.

She grabbed one of the cartons of eggs and handed it to him. “We better get moving. The park will be filled with tots in another thirty minutes. And take Dante off your shoulders. Around that puppy, he’s better off in his stroller.”

She took the other carton and started up the hill.

“You’ve really outdone yourself, Jade. A Nobel Prize winner! How thrilling! And you’re hosting him during his tenure, too? Wise move! What a wonderful dinner party guest he’ll make!”

I wish Brady saw it that way,
Jade thought.

Unfortunately, Brady had made it clear that offering “the Bum” (as he liked to call their guest) the au pair suite off the kitchen was begging for trouble. “Now I’ll have to go out and get a lock for the liquor cabinet,” he groused.

“C.R. promised to stay sober,” she had reminded him. “So far, he’s done everything I’ve asked of him.”

Brady shrugged. He knew she had a point. After a bath, a shave, a decent haircut and some new duds, he almost looked the part of an egghead, albeit not one with a Nobel Prize hidden in his sock drawer.

“Yeah, okay, so far so good. But just remember, ‘Promises are made to be broken.’ That ain’t Shakespeare, but I think in this case it’s apropos.”

“Brady, all I’m asking you to do is to give him a chance. If he doesn’t work out, I’ll drop him back where I found him.”

Brady slammed out of the house.

Well, thank goodness Bettina is tickled pink,
thought Jade. Then again, she wasn’t the one who had walked in on Jade while she was combing lice out of C.R.’s hair.

“My bad, bad boy,” Bettina cooed at Prince Vsevolod as she leaned down to shoo him away from the pram. “If only Lily were a Fivesie! How I long to see her play Juliet! Well, perhaps next year.”

Matthew rolled his eyes. “What? Not Viola?”

Bettina dismissed him with a shrug. “
Twelfth Night
? I should say not! There’s no death scene. And Lily was born to play tragedy.”

“Just like her mother,” Matthew muttered under his breath. “Hey, Jade, would you mind watching Dante while I unload the last of the eggs?”

Jade smiled and nodded. “No problem! Ollie will love the company.” She placed the strollers side-by-side, so the boys were closer.

Matthew waved as he walked back to the SUV.

Had he looked back, maybe he would’ve noticed that Jade hadn’t locked the brake on Dante’s stroller when she moved it closer to Oliver’s.

A Labrador retriever came over to sniff up Prince Vsevolod. The puppy, overwhelmed by the attention, nipped the retriever on the nose. The bigger dog’s angry response was to bite back.

Bettina’s mother tiger instinct kicked in, She shooed retriever away from Prince Vsevolod.

No one noticed that Dante’s stroller had rolled down the hill until it was too late.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Bettina ran after it, but it was too fast for her. It toppled before it reached the sidewalk. Dante was flung into the grass. The way he was lying there, moaning but not moving, sent Bettina into a tizzy.

She picked him up and ran with him to her car.

“Watch Prince Vsevolod for me,” she shouted to Jade. “Oh! And Lily, too!”

Luckily, the nearest emergency room, the one at California Pacific Medical Center, was just a few blocks away on Sacramento and Webster.

By the time Lorna and Matthew got there, an ER doctor had already questioned Bettina about Dante’s medical history. The fall had left a bump on the little boy’s head, but there really wasn’t anything to worry about—

Except that his motor skills seemed slower than they should be for a child his age. From the frown on the doctor’s face, she realized he suspected something was not right.

“He’s fine,” she insisted. “He’s a Connaught, which means he has hardy ancestors. His father was a college basketball star. The child has always been perfect.”

Bettina was still rattling on about him when Lorna rushed into the room. She’d never seen her sister-in-law so upset. Needless to say, she was miffed when Lorna screamed for her to get out, that she would handle the doctor’s questions without any assistance, thank you very much.

Bettina was too shaken to argue. She threw off Matthew’s comforting arm and ran as fast as she could out of the room and back to her car.

Of course she had noticed Dante was slower and quieter than most children his age. Still, she felt she had done the right thing by lying to the doctor about Dante’s poor range of motion. Despite his mother’s questionable lineage, Dante was, and always would be, a Connaught. That alone earned him her acceptance.

Besides, if the fall had caused something to be awfully wrong with Dante, she had no one to blame but herself.

This realization so upset her that her hands shook on the steering wheel as she drove back to the park. In all honesty, Jade was supposed to have been watching Dante. And why hadn’t Matthew locked the stroller in place?

For that matter, Prince Vsevolod was also to blame. He’d been horrible. A nuisance! A very, very bad boy.

Oh my God,
she thought.
I’ve left him in the park, all alone.

The two-block distance back to the park seemed like an eternity. When she got there, she saw Lily was cradling the puppy, who was shaking like a leaf.

Lily, who had ignored Prince Vsevolod since he’d first scurried into the Cross home, was actually showing affection for the animal. Her heart soared watching Lily finally accepting him.

“Mummy, he’s just a baby! Why didn’t you pay attention? Why did you leave him all alone? That big mean dog was trying to eat him up!”

“I…But Dante…”

As Lily swung her head in protest, her tears flew off her cheeks. She wouldn’t let Bettina cradle her. Instead, she stormed off with her puppy.

“Well, at least now they’re bonding.” Jade put her arm on Bettina’s shoulder. “But more importantly, is Dante going to be alright? Bettina, I feel so awful! I was supposed to be watching him. How could I have been so negligent? Lorna and Matthew must hate me. And you, too! Will you ever forgive me?”

Bettina nodded. As hard as it was to admit, she felt the same way.

Poor little Dante,
she thought.

“I think…I think something is seriously wrong with Dante,” she whispered.

Jade didn’t say a word. Instead, she opened her arms. Bettina collapsed into them.

She didn’t know how long they stood there together. She should’ve been ashamed to have lost her composure in public, but she wasn’t.

And to think, she hadn’t had to tear anyone down to feel this wonderful.

“Group hug, eh? So, who’s got first dibs if something pops up?”

At the sound of Art’s voice, both women turned around.

Jade, embarrassed, walked away as quickly as she could.

Bettina’s response was a slap.

Art rubbed his jaw as his wife walked off. “Foreplay? In public?
Awesome
!”

Monday, 1 April

For Kimberley, the Top Moms post-Easter meeting had been nothing but a series of letdowns.

No one could argue that a child in an emergency room was reason enough to leave an event one was hosting. With Bettina’s blessing, Jillian, Jade, and Ally had covered for Lorna, so despite the two cartons of eggs left rotting in the sun, there had been enough to be found for the club’s other forty-nine tykes, all dressed in their Easter finery.

Even Mallory declared the event a success. Kimberley presumed it had something to do with the fact that Angus Wickett found the golden egg. Rumor had it that Angus’s playroom, located on the fourth floor of the Wickett mansion on the Washington Street side of Lafayette Park, was equipped with an advanced Celestron 127mm Refractor Computerized GoTo telescope. If so, then tracking Matthew Connaught as he hid the golden egg had been child’s play.