I cursed and shivered as I climbed down from the rickety top bunk to grab the device. The screen cracked in my hand as I pressed the call button.
“This better be an emergency because I just broke my phone for you!” I yelled into the receiver.
“I hope that’s not how you answer the phone for clients,” came Beck’s crisp voice.
“You couldn’t have sent an email?”
“We have a bit of a situation.”
“Does it include a new phone?” I asked.
My boss sighed.
“Because if it doesn’t, you won’t be able to reach me to give me an insane and overly complicated lunch order for something like salad with only the dark-green leaves.”
“I have never asked you for anything like that.”
“There’s always tomorrow.”
A large blackSUV pulled in front of my building when I ran out the door.
I had procrastinated yesterday and not only hadn’t done laundry but also lied to myself and pretended like I was going to sew the button that had popped off last week back on my mostly clean blouse.
I fussed with the safety pin and yawned as the driver got out and opened the door for me.
“It is way too early,” I said to Beck as I crawled into the car, lay down on the leather seat, and closed my eyes.
Annie and Enola, arms crossed, were sitting in the back while Beck typed an email on his laptop.
“I don’t want to go to school,” Enola begged.
“We aren’t discussing this anymore,” Beck said, not looking up from the report he was scrolling through. He pulled a box out of his bag and set it on the seat beside my hair that I really should have washed.
“New phone. Don’t lose it.”
“I didn’t lose my other one,” I said, sitting up as the car pulled into traffic. “It’s your fault the other one broke.”
I spent the ride setting up my new phone and trying to hype the girls up for their first day at school.
After driving through traffic, the car pulled up in front of a historic-looking stone building. Other little kids in perfectly pressed uniforms walked serenely into the stately building.
“I don’t want to go!” Annie yelled, grabbing on to the seat belt. “I want to stay at home and bake cookies!”
She is really channeling my energy right now.
Beck grabbed his little sister and tried to drag her out of the car.
“You two look so cute in your uniforms,” I told the girls as Beck pried Annie’s small fingers off of the seat belt. “You’re going to have a lot of fun, and look, your sisters are here too!”
Beck’s look-alike brothers were also pulling up with their little sisters in tow. None of the Svensson girls were pleased to be going to school.
I ushered Annie and Enola after Beck as we went into the school building. I whistled.
“This is a nice school!” I pointed to a sign. “They have a planetarium! Isn’t that cool? My school didn’t have anything this nice; we didn’t even have a building! It was destroyed by a tornado, and we spent eight hours a day doing standardized test prep in leaking trailers in the parking lot.”
“I don’t care!” Annie wailed.
“I want to stay with you, Beck,” Enola pleaded, and she and Annie wrapped themselves around his legs.
