Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 54

Jamie still had an afternoon to get through after his nap. It felt good to wake up in a room with a closed door. Waking up on the floor surrounded by others reminded him too much of college nights we couldn’t remember. If he could do them over, at least now he’d take a nap mat. Yesterday’s attempt at waiting hadn’t gone so well, and today would be an even longer one, so Jamie did his business and waited for someone to come get him. April, he hoped.

Not to misunderstand their relationship though. It was transactional, at least so far. A teacher and favorite student or nurse and favorite patient; that both parties take some satisfaction from the relationship doesn’t change what it is. In time maybe, but for now, she had something she was obligated to give him, and he was happy to take his due.

April came by not long after, but longer than if he had slept in the classroom. A tradeoff, that. “Let’s get you squared away. It’s pretty outside. Do you want to go back out?” She lifted him out of the crib and set him on the changing table against the back wall.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“I never was good at taking naps. I’ve always woken up from them feeling groggy and headachy. Never stopped me from taking them anyway; kind of a one-sided relationship.”

“What’s the cure?” April made quick work of it, much quicker than Amanda. Speed wasn’t everything.

“Getting up anyway.” April set Jamie on his feet, and he checked his pocket for his headphones and his player. He didn’t want to put them back in yet; he needed to wake up first, and sunshine does that best.

“I promised Jordan I’d stay in some this afternoon so she could go out. Just holler if you need me.”

Jamie walked through the gym area and into the classroom area, getting a few sideways glances. He walked through the door not much caring to even wonder why this time. He seemed to collect sideways glances everywhere. The day had cooled a bit, and Jamie smelled rain. He missed thunderstorms, real ones, where entire hemispheres of night sky light up like a camera flash and show the world frozen for a moment before the darkness closes back in, and the thunder rises like old man sky is clearing his throat, slow and building, or else cracks like hardwood bent until it explodes in splinters. He used to sit on the porch and watch those storms, even when wind drove the rain into him; even when the sky turned green; even after the sirens sounded. Let the rain pelt him and the lighting blind him and thunder snap the sky right above him. It took enough of his senses he felt quiet, as if the earth itself was telling him it wasn’t his turn to speak. And when it finally did stop, after minutes or hours, the air was clean and dry; the world dripped in stunned silence; and the birds came back out with the sun, singing to announce they’d made it through the storm

But it wouldn’t be that kind of storm, and it wouldn’t rain for hours yet. The littles were more sedate after their naps, that backwards reaction in which the more tired they get, the wilder they get having exhausted itself. They played and toddled after one another up the swing set and sat in the sand box or in the dirt drawing pictures in the dust. Bobby and now Billy glared at him when they saw him.

“You know eventually he’s just gonna get bored and take a swing at you, right?”

Jamie glared back at them and replied, “Jordan, right?”

“No, Ella.” Expecting to find a new big, Jamie turned and found the little who had been sitting against the wall reading when he went in. She was leaning against the building again with her legs crossed, letting the sun hit her.

“I saw you earlier but not yesterday,” he said.

“I had a doctor appointment. Wanna sit with me?”

He sat down and put out his hand. “I’m …”

“Jamie. I know.”

“What? Do I have a reputation already?”

“You don’t exactly blend.” She rethought that. “Well, actually you did a little bit this morning.” Jamie wasn’t sure what she meant. “When you were playing with your blocks and had your paci in.”

He laughed. “I don’t see any other littles building cathedrals.”

“Is that you were going for? It looked like a castle to me, but now that you say it … still looked too protestant to be a cathedral, though.”

It was a good joke, but Jamie watched her eyes instead of laughing. “You’re not …”

“I’m not. Neither are you. I couldn’t tell this morning until you went outside on your own and did your mini-marathon. Carrie confirmed it.”

Jamie shook his head in irritated disbelief. “Why wouldn’t Diane say anything? Is this supposed to be some fun surprise?”

“She has reasons.” Jamie didn’t have much to say now that he had someone to say it to. It felt so good just to have the option. “What was your deal earlier? You looked ready to pop,” Ella said.

Jamie sighed, embarrassed. The question seemed too personal for someone he’d just met, but keeping the conversation going was more important. “I don’t even know. I just … yesterday was a lot of newness that I didn’t like, and this place gets on my nerves. Jean’s demeanor just took it to the next level. Stupid of me.”

“You’re not the first person to have a temper tantrum here.”

“Calling it that doesn’t make me feel better about it.”

“Person having a lot of emotions they don’t understand and don’t know how to deal with. I think that’s its name. Happens to bigs, too, even if they don’t call it that.”

“Still. How long have you been coming here?”

“I guess about three years. Since maybe a year after I got to Itali.”

“Do you like it,” he asked her.

“I don’t hate it. You get used to parts of it.”

“You don’t get bored? Not having anyone to talk to?”

“You can talk to them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, but you can talk to them. And the bigs. Jean is still figuring it out, but she’ll get there.”

“She give you a hard time, too?”

“No. She’s not allowed.”

“To give you a hard time?”

“To … be in charge of me, I guess. Only Carrie is. The other bigs don’t really bother me without her permission.”

“How’s that work? And why?”

“I needed that, at first. I couldn’t handle more than one big.” Jamie looked over at her again, wondering what that meant, and why she wouldn’t be able to.

“Jean hasn’t been here that long,” he said.

“Now it’s just habit. It works, so I don’t mess with it.”

“So they’re not allowed to even talk to you?”

“They are, but they don’t very much. Like I said, that was how I needed it to be at first. Now it’s just the way things are, and I’m okay with it.”

Fair enough, Jamie thought. “What are you reading?” She held up the book. The Mouse and the Motorcycle. “I remember that,” Jamie smiled.

“They carry stuff from home here. Some of it’s imported, and some they now make here. I think I read this in fifth grade; I wanted a mouse so bad.”

“Should’ve come to my house. We had plenty … I wanted a cat.” Ella laughed at that. “Was your name always Ella?”

“No; my full name is Ellafaire. I guess yours is James.”

“I think so; I’ve only been called it once after I told a woman I hoped she dried up and shriveled.” Ella laughed much harder.

“Why would you say that?”

Jamie grinned, wanting to at least look chagrined but actually still quite proud of his curse. “It was my first time out of the house, and this complete stranger got right in my face and started babbling baby talk at me and then pinched my cheek. Not sure what else I called her, but Mom wasn’t happy with me.”

“You call your big ‘Mom’?”

“Not then, actually, but for about a week now. I’ve been here, I’m not sure. I guess I’ve been awake for almost four months. Why, don’t you call yours that?”

With her lips pressed together and her eyes narrow, she shook her head in a tight rectangle. “Uh-uh.” The way she said it made Jamie uncomfortable; he sensed something wasn’t right.

“So who is it you live with,” Jamie asked.

“Stacy. Just the two of us.”

“I haven’t met a little with a dad, that I know of.”

“Think about it for a sec,” she told him. Jamie did.

“Women who don’t have partners …”

“Yep,” Ella responded. “Agencies are reluctant to place littles with families where they’ll be competing for attention or where an actual toddler could drag them around like a doll. Lots of families have littles, too, but not until their own kids are older. Single men, well, that’s like home. Don’t find many single men who’ve adopted a little. Who do you live with?”

“Mom, uh, Becky, and my sister, Amanda.”

“You call her your ‘sister,’ too, not your big sister?”

“Uh, that’s kinda recent, too.” Jamie felt self-conscious, like he was being judged by another unregressed little like he was afraid he would be. “Is that … wrong?”

Her face brightened in a friendly smile. She hadn’t smiled much; it was a pretty smile. “No, not at all. It’s very sweet. You must really like them.”

“Hmmm,” Jamie said, “I really do. Took a while with Becky … I mean, with Mom. Can I ask, um, why you don’t call your big that?”

“Term has a history with me.”

“But you do get along with Stacy?”

“O yeah, very much.”

They sat in silence for a minute. “Do you want to go take a walk?”

“Sure.”

They walked to the back of the field side by side. “What now? Is he jealous that I’m with you or something?” Jamie was referring to Bobby, who looked like he was getting worked up over something.

“Take it as a compliment. He doesn’t do that when a very regressed little shows up. Only ones around his level or higher.”

“Did he pick on you?”

“No. I’m not sure, but I think it was made clear to him and Billy and their big they wouldn’t be welcome back if they did. I don’t know why that would get through to them, even their mom. She’s one of those who can’t believe her littles aren’t angels, and then she figures it out and flips her shit, and then she goes back to thinking they’re perfect.”

“Known my share of those back in the world.”

“What will you do,” she asked.

“When?”

“When he tries to fight you?”

“Walk away, or else just try to let him wear himself out, or restrain him until a big comes over.”

“Why not fight back?”

“To prove what? That I can outfight someone with the motor skills of a preschooler?”

“To make him not do it again. He’ll probably wait until he can convince Billy to help him. Billy is more of a whiner than a troublemaker. Bobby drags him into things.”

“Are they real brothers?”

“No, they both just had parents who were the same kind of ugly.” Jamie belly laughed at that, which got Ella laughing too. “But seriously, no idea. Guess they are now.”

“You want me to fight back?”

“Of course not. I was just wondering. Can we sit for a while?”

“Sure.” They sat down on the crest of the rise. She looked winded.

“Thanks. I gotta go soon,” she said.

“What does Stacy do?”

“Business something. I never much cared to know the details. I have physical therapy a couple times a week; she leaves work early.”

“Physical therapy?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly. “So what about Amanda?”

Jamie smiled and said, “Best sister ever. Like I told my caseworker, I’d be lost without her. She’s in college. She picks me up every other day. Guess the one good thing about this place is it’ll make time with her and Mom more special.”

“ELLAFAIRE?!? Stacy is here!” They turned and saw Carrie waving from the door.

“That’s my ride.” They got up and walked back.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jamie said, shaking his head at his good fortune. “You’re going to have to explain to me how you managed to be the only unregressed little here without losing your mind. I’ve just been, I don’t know, bored and overwhelmed at the same time, and resentful, I guess that I’m even in daycare when I don’t really need to be.”

They reached the door. “I understand all that, really.” She glanced toward the door. “Can I give you one piece of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Be grateful, too. See you tomorrow.”