Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 37

They decided to walk to the park again, the three of them. Amanda carried an extra set of clothes and Jamie’s sandals in her backpack, along with three liters of water. Jamie already had one next to him in the stroller, and he promised to drink all of it before they left the park.

They were meeting Jane and Rosie near the concession stand. They were early, so they walked around the playground and down the hill toward the lake. Jamie got out of the stroller, and he and Amanda went down to the water while Becky sat on a bench on the walking path. Jamie picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the water.

“Bet I can skip mine further,” Amanda challenged.

“I bet you can, too. You’re more than twice my size.” She easily did.

Jamie searched for another flat rock. What he found instead sent him scaling Amanda’s back like a climbing wall.

“Woah, Jamie!” He was frightening her. “What’s wrong?” She managed to grab hold of him and swing him in front of her. “Hey!” He wriggled as she turned to look. She saw nothing alarming. “What’s the matter?”

“Bear!” Amanda had no idea what he meant.

“Your bear’s at home.”

“No! Bear! He has a bear!” Jamie pointed to an older man holding a leash.

“O, you’re scared of dogs?”

Jamie looked at her with mutual incomprehension. “That’s a bear!”

Amanda looked again. “Well, it does kind of look like your bear. But, honey, that’s a dog.”

Jamie was calming down. The bear seemed indifferent, and Amanda wasn’t concerned at all. “That’s a bear where I come from.”

“Like your bear? Why would you be afraid of those?” Abbott and Costello would have been proud.

“I have a teddy bear. That’s an actual bear.”

“How are they different?”

Incredulous, Jamie tried to explain. “A teddy bear is a stuffed animal.”

That didn’t explain it to Amanda. “Yeah …”

“Real bears are dangerous.”

Becky saw something was amiss and walked over. “Everything alright?”

“It’s okay, Mom. Jamie just has a little phobia of dogs.”

“Bears. And it’s not a phobia.”

It was Becky’s turn to look confused. “Then why do you have a bear stuffy?” Abbott and Costello could have taken lessons.

Jamie changed tacks. “What do you think a bear is?”

Amanda and Becky looked at each other as though this were a trick question. “An animal?”

“How big of an animal?”

Becky held her hands apart about a foot. “Like this?”

Jamie shook his head and pointed back to the bear. “Like that.”

“Dogs are very gentle, though,” Becky tried to assure him.

“Yes, dogs are gentle. But that’s a bear!”

“And … what do ‘bears’ do, where you’re from,” Amanda ventured.

“If you get this close to them?” Jamie looked wide-eyed at the bear. “They maul you!”

Becky rubbed his arm. “O, honey, a dog would never do that.”

“But that’s a bear!”

“Let’s go see.” Becky started to approach the man, and Amanda followed.

“I’d rather not!” If any big other than Amanda or Becky had been carrying him, Jamie would have gouged an eye out to get away.

“Excuse me, sir?” The man turned. “My little has never seen a dog before. Would it be alright if he met your dog?”

“Sure! Ofo loves littles.” He turned to Ofo. “Sit.” The bear sat on its hind quarters obediently. Amanda approached it. She felt Jamie’s heart beating against her chest.

Amanda reached out to pet it. Jamie was as scared for her as he was for himself. “It’s okay, Jamie. See? He’s very soft. Wanna try?” Her fingers disappeared into the deep fur.

All three bigs smiled at him. The man knelt down next to the bear and put an arm around it. Swallowing down the part of him that knew better than to poke the bear, Jamie reached out his trembling arm and touched the huge thing. It turned his snout toward his arm and sniffed, and then went back to looking at the man as if to say, can we keep walking?

“See,” the man said, “Nothing to be afraid of.” The man stood back up. The bear stood a little higher than the man’s waist. So they have pet bears, Jamie realized.

“Thank you so much,” Becky said. “Jamie?”

“Uh, thank you, sir.”

“Don’t mention it.” The two of them continued their walk.

Amanda kissed his cheek. “How brave you are. See, told you dogs aren’t scary.”

“Well,” Becky announced, “Jane is probably waiting for us by now.” They collected the stroller and began walking toward the playground. Amanda patted his butt.

“You’re a little wet.”

“Does he need a change,” Becky asked.

“No, he’s good for a while.”

When did I do that, a part of Jamie asked. Another answered back, O yeah, probably sometime between seeing and touching a bear.

Jane was waiting for them at the playground. Rosie was seated next to her swinging her legs dangling from a bench much too tall for her to sit on with her feet touching the ground.

“Hi, guys!”

“Hi, Jane. Jamie just met his first dog.”

“Ooh, that’s so exciting! Do you want one now,” Jane asked him.

Jamie shook his head. “Nope. I’m good.”

Jane chuckled. “Do you guys wanna go play?”

Rosie hopped down off the bench, and Amanda put Jamie down. He supposed he was supposed to follow her. “Wait!” Jamie stopped, and Becky handed him his water bottle.

Rosie headed for the sandbox, and Jamie followed. They claimed a plot of sand, and Rosie began scooping some out. Jamie sighed and did the same.

“So you saw one of the bears, huh?”

Jamie stopped short. “Excuse me?”

“The bears. You get used to them. They do come in smaller and bigger sizes, if you were wondering.”

“You …”

“When I want to, which isn’t often.”

Jamie was far more curious about her than the bear. “I guess I don’t understand.”

“Easy. Ismailia the Account Executive was miserable. Rosie the former Account Executive was happy sometimes. This Rosie is happy almost all the time.”

“But … how?”

“Think of it like reaching Nirvana. When you get there, everything is so clear, the things that don’t matter stop mattering to you. A simple, happy life.”

Jamie was awestruck. Of all the things he’d seen since his arrival, this was the most fascinating.

“Um, can I ask you questions some time?”

“Sure. Do you have any more right now?”

Jamie thought and couldn’t think of any yet, but he knew he’d have many with time to think on it. “Not right now, I guess.”

“K. I might not answer all the time.”

“I understand.” Not really, he knew.

“Mind if I stop for now?”

“Uh, no. Not at all.”

“Thanks. It’s cool if you don’t want to hang with me when I’m like that.”

Jamie watched her seamlessly pick up a stick to help her dig into the sand deep down where it was cool and wet. That’s incredible, he thought as he watched her play.

Jamie did play with her a while longer. They were good enough together to open a sand pile building engineering firm. Jamie drank to stay hydrated, and it ran right through him. He let it go.

He was done playing in the sand and wanted to go join the game of tag. He at first worried about leaving Rosie, then remembered he wasn’t her sitter; her big was just a few feet away. He walked back to Amanda and Becky.

“You guys having fun,” Jane asked.

“Yeah ... just playing in the sand.” And receiving a philosophy lesson. “May I go play tag?”

“Sure,” Becky answered. “But first …” She bent down and felt his diaper through his shorts. “Thought so.” Jamie looked down at himself. It was quite obvious. He took a deep breath and sighed. This was gonna happen away from home eventually, he reminded himself, in the next few days, in fact. Becky took the diaper bag from under the stroller and held out her hand for Jamie.

When they had turned away, Jane turned to Amanda and near squealed in delight. “He is so cute I could eat him!”

“What’d he do,” Amanda asked.

“He said ‘May I.’ Ughh. Can I buy him a present today, just ‘cuz?” Amanda laughed.

Becky and Jamie walked around to the back of the concession stand. Even better, he thought, a public change in a filthy park bathroom; an open field would be preferable.

Instead, when he got inside he was surprised to find not only did it not smell of evaporating urine and worse, it was actually clean. Like, cleanclean, not just park bathroom clean.

Another big mom was changing her little, who held a plastic ring of keys. “Up-up,” Becky said as she lifted him on to a table. He looked away as she went about her work. The other big mom picked up her little, washed her hands, and left without paying Jamie any mind. The table the little had been on went into the wall; he heard a noise, and the table came back out. It sanitizes it, he realized.

Another big came in with another little who was clearly regressed but not as much as the other one. The big didn’t pay attention to Jamie, and when he made eye contact with the little, he blushed but she didn’t. This was that ordinary; there was no judgment. Once he was back on his feet, Jamie felt much more comfortable inside and out.

When they got back to their bench, Jane and Amanda stood as they approached. “Why don’t we all go over to the field,” Amanda suggested.

“Well, Rosie seems pretty happy where she is,” Jamie said.

“Don’t worry about her, Jamie. She can have fun anywhere. She may even join in,” Jane assured him.

In fact, this was planned. Rebecca had filled them in on the woman they’d encountered. Amanda was surprised her mom didn’t know about those people. Becky didn’t know if the woman was there or not, but if she was, and if anything was said, Rebecca wanted to be sure Jamie knew that they all had his back, or better yet, if she so much as frowned at him, he hoped he wouldn’t even see. Jamie deserved a permanent break from bigs like that. They collected Rosie on the way to the field.

Their bad luck, the woman was under the tree with a group of other moms, including Stephanie. Rebecca signaled to Jane and Amanda. Brenda or Brunhilda or Mergatrude or whatever her name was noticed them before Stephanie did. The three of them ignored her and approached Stephanie. Becky introduced Jane and Amanda to her, and she greeted Jamie and Rosie enthusiastically.

Jamie politely returned her greeting and stood there awkwardly as the bigs talked. Amanda noticed and chuckled at him. “Go on,” she told him. Jamie ran to join in the game. To his surprise, Rosie followed, and Jane was glad of it. Rosie didn’t get much vigorous exercise.

The four bigs watched the game. Jamie was once again the star. Rosie was the goat. They saw what Jamie was doing: every It could see Rosie was an easy target, and she ended up It within a minute of every change over, with no hope of catching anyone. Jamie would slow himself to a trot and position himself near enough to her that she could catch him without making it obvious he was taking a dive, then he was off again, leaving Rosie feeling like a winner.

Jamie was delighted to be It. He’d chase the slower littles and purposely never catch them, and they were elated in getting to run and play and get away. Jamie tagged only the fastest littles. And when they homed in on Rosie, he was there.

All four bigs oohed and smiled. “Seriously, though,” Jane spoke up, “What can I buy him? Anything. What does he like?” The other three laughed, but Jane was perfectly in earnest.

“Kinda spoils the game, doesn’t it?” That snotty voice interjected from behind. “I mean, he’s basically cheating.” All four women turned to face her. After the day she’d had yesterday, Becky was ready to eat her liver. Amanda’s ears turned a dark shade of red. Stephanie huffed. Not Jane.

Jane walked over to the woman casually. The woman watched her but didn’t move. Jane leaned in and whispered something into her ear. The woman moved her head back to look at Jane wide-eyed for a brief second, sheepishly put her head down, then rolled her stroller over to another tree, alone. Jane walked back with no smile or scowl on her face.

“What did you say to her,” Amanda asked.

“Not telling.”

“Why not,” Amanda replied.

“It’ll give ya nightmares. Maybe when you’re older.” She didn’t crack a smile until the other three did. They had a good laugh.

Amanda had known Jane her whole life. She was almost like a second mom. As Amanda had grown older, she came to appreciate Jane in another way: as her mother’s best friend and confidante, something she knew her mom needed even more than most.

Amanda put her arms around Jane and whispered into her ear, “Thanks for being my mom’s friend.”

Becky smiled. “What did you say? What did she say?”

Jane shook her head. “Not telling.”

Becky laughed, “Why not?”

Jane sniffed. Her voice broke. “It’ll make you cry.”