“Delia’s fine,” I said, taking Zach from her and resting him in my lap. The pint-size seat didn’t leave room for his pudgy legs, so I turned him around and propped him on my knees. He beamed at the principal. She grimaced as every part of him wiggled in his relentless effort to get down. I set him on the floor to keep him from pitching a fit. He stood obediently beside my chair, momentarily content, beaming at the principal as he tugged on his tiny penis.
Vero threw her arms around Delia, prodding every inch of her, just to be sure she wasn’t injured. “What happened?”
“Cooper was pulling Delia’s hair on the playground. She asked him to stop, and he didn’t, so she defended herself.” I threw a pointed look at her principal. The school might be holding Delia responsible, but I knew exactly where the blame for this fell, and it wasn’t on my daughter.
Vero glowed with pride. “That’s my girl!” She held up a hand for a high five. I pulled it down before Delia could slap it. She might be the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but we didn’t need to invite any more punishment.
I covered my eyes, swearing quietly as my ex-husband’s voice boomed in the lobby. “Delia! Where’s my daughter? Is she back there? Back off, lady,” Steven shouted. “If my daughter’s in there, I’m going in and you can’t stop me!” He rushed past the front deskand through the open office door, blue eyes blazing and mud flaking from his work boots.
“Great,” Vero muttered. “What the H-E-double pumpers is he doing here?”
“What’s a double pumper?” Delia asked.
“Never mind,” I said.
“We’ll discuss it when we get home,” Vero added helpfully.
“What’s going on?” Steven asked, as breathless and red-faced as Vero had been when she’d burst in. “Why’d the school call my office? And why is Zach naked?”
“Potty training,” I said. Steven looked confused. “Vero saw some boot camp on the internet that’s supposed to guarantee success in three days. You take off their clothes and keep them close to the toilet.”
“Is it working?”
We all turned as Zach began peeing on the carpet. The principal gasped. I gritted my teeth.
“Guess that answers that,” Steven said.
Vero flashed a middle finger at him behind Delia’s back.
The principal stared sternly at all of us. “Need I remind you that you are in a school? We are models for young minds here. I’ll ask you both to show some decorum!”
Steven frowned at his mud-spattered flannel and the dirt-caked toes of his work boots.
Vero tossed a fresh diaper over the puddle on the floor and used the toe of her shoe to blot up the wet spot.
The principal closed her eyes, lips pressed between her teeth as if it was all she could do to hold back a retort. She reached inside her desk drawer for a bottle of ibuprofen and shook two tablets intothe palm of her hand as Steven helped me out of my pint-sized chair and pulled me aside. “I was walking lots with a developer when the school called,” he said in a low voice. “I got here as soon as I got the message. They said they needed someone to come down to the school right away. What’s going on? Is Delia okay?”
Steven’s forehead crumpled as I explained. “A boy named Cooper has been harassing Delia on the playground. She gave him six stitches and a couple of bruised ribs.”
Zach giggled when Steven’s eyebrows shot up.
“And then I kicked him in the tentacles,” Delia said, “just like Vero showed me.”
Steven’s chest swelled like a Little League coach whose star player just took home a trophy. He offered Vero a tentative salute. She answered it with an almost conciliatory nod as she tossed the wet diaper in the trash can. My god, were they actually agreeing on something?
“What?” they asked in unison as I looked back and forth between them.
“Delia’s been suspended from school,” I said sharply.
Steven swore the equivalent of a double pumper, and Vero covered Delia’s ears.
Mrs. Carmichael nearly gouged out her own eye in her hurry to put her glasses back on. She signed her name to the bottom of a disciplinary action report and pushed it across the desk toward me. “I see now where Delia has learned to model this kind of behavior. I’ll ask Cooper’s mother to send you a copy of the medical bills. You can collect Delia’s belongings from her cubby before you leave.”
Delia’s lower lip began to wobble. I picked up Zach and settled him on my hip, then took my daughter’s hand and helped her downfrom her seat. Steven snatched the report off the principal’s desk, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the trash. Vero gave the principal a heavy dose of side-eye as I led our entourage out the door.
There was no way this day could get any worse, but I knew how to make it tolerable. “Come on, everyone,” I said. “We’re going out for ice cream.”
CHAPTER 1
