Chapter Five #2
“Misses Smiths,” Maddy spit the words. “As president of the tenants’ association I am obliged to remind you this is a normal apartment building with quiet tenants and rule number 436 of the Wayside Rules and Regulations state no cheerleading allowed in the lobby between the hours of six p.m. and ten a.m. It is now”—Maddy looked at her watch—“six-oh-one. We are officially spared from your high-spiritedness. Hurry up and get your packages or I will have to call Mister Smith.”
A flash of something feral twisted the face of the cheerleader nearest them and Amos let out a tiny gasp. In the blink of an eye, the squad surrounded Maddy, menace in their expressions.
The scent of ozone permeated the air, and the light bulb in the sconce to the left of the mailboxes made a popping sound and died.
Visions of a cheerleader-led Lord of the Flies flitted through Josie’s head as the squad tightened their circle.
Maddy, however, was obviously badass. As though she had all day, she removed her blue cat’s-eye-frame glasses, hung them from the bodice of her dress, and put a hand to the pin in her turban.
“Yes, ladies?” she asked, one perfectly plucked eyebrow lifting into a sharp point.
The threat of violence hovered, but none of the cheerleaders moved, as though Maddy setting a hand to her head created an impasse. The quiet cheerleader whispered in the tallest girl’s ear and got her to step back, defusing the threat.
A deep voice cut through the tension.
“No need to call anyone.”
Josie jumped. Pax stood behind her on the landing. She hadn’t heard his tread on the stairs but now he was here, a scent reminiscent of the early-morning air high in the mountains settling around her like a blanket.
He nodded hello to Josie and Amos while passing them on his way down the stairs toward the angry cheerleaders. The teenagers shrank in his presence, their limbs turning more sticklike, their faces narrowing and eyes widening.
The phenomena must have been due to Josie’s perspective from above. Pax’s height was so great everyone else looked smaller in comparison. He parted the sparkling sea and faced Maddy, his shoulders rising and falling with a silent sigh.
“I don’t understand this hostility. Number 436 of Wayside Rules clearly states…” Maddy began.
“I’ll bet she’s memorized all seven hundred rules,” a cheerleader said, not bothering to lower her voice.
“You wish you could remember seven hundred of anything,” snapped Cindy. “You can’t even memorize the lyrics to a Taylor Swift song.”
“I know the words to Tawor Swift songs,” Amos said quietly. The acoustics in the lobby must have carried his voice, because the cheerleaders’ heads swiveled in unison to examine Amos with thoughtful expressions.
“She means the real words, Amos,” Josie clarified. “Not the words you put in yourself.”
“Rules are important.” Pax looked around at the cheerleaders. “They keep us safe, especially when we find ourselves in unknown territory,” he said, putting a strange emphasis on the last two words.
Maddy’s perfectly made-up mouth tightened in satisfaction, and something squirmed in Josie’s stomach. From where she stood, it looked like Maddy wore the same shade of candy-red lipstick as Josie’s grandmother.
“However. When there is no immediate danger, sometimes rules can be loosely interpreted.” He nodded at the teens. “Especially when the prohibited action is a joyful one.”
Like flipping a switch, the cheerleaders went back to their bouncy, sparkly selves, all traces of animosity and otherness gone from their faces.
“Pax, Pax, he’s our man. If he can’t do it, no one can!”
Backflips and cartwheels ensued. Pax nodded tentatively, backing slowly away from the chaos.
The quiet cheerleader gave Pax a grateful nod, then hustled the squad back into the elevator. Josie forgot to watch to see how they fit because while she’d been staring at Pax, he’d turned around and caught her watching him.
A prickle of heat itched at her cheeks and the realization she was blushing made Josie blush even more.
“What is the point of writing down rules if no one bothers to follow them?” Maddy asked. “The only way this whole thing will work is…” Maddy paused and looked over at Josie, then at Pax. When she frowned the faint odor of cabbage filled the lobby and Amos tightened his grip on Josie’s hand.
Maddy directed her attention at Pax. “The only way this tenants’ association will work is if everyone takes the rules seriously.
” She made her way to the far end of the lobby, where a small plastic tag reading Building Staff Only hung above a door, paused, put her hand on the doorknob, and spoke.
“Rule number 312 is no children allowed unsupervised anywhere in the building.” She stared directly at a spot behind Josie’s head. “That rule is nonnegotiable.”
Maddy shot one more glance at Pax, then exited.
“I better get myself a copy of those rules, huh?” Josie asked.
Pax nodded, then shook his head no.
“Maddy is dedicated to her position,” he said in an apologetic tone. “She takes the association presidency seriously.”
“I can tell,” Josie said. The weirdness of the entire scene left her off balance. “Those cheerleaders…”
She let her words trail off, but Pax gave no sign he was interested in small talk. Probably worried Amos was going to touch stuff again.
“C’mon, buddy. There’s leftover potpie or I can make a tofu scramble. You decide,” Josie said as she turned away from Pax.
“I decide cake,” Amos said, seriously.
“I decide no cake,” she replied.
“What Maddy said.” Pax’s voice stopped Josie as abruptly as if he’d put a hand on her shoulder. “About children left unattended.”
She twisted her neck to look back at him.
“For everyone’s safety, rule 312 is nonnegotiable.”
A wriggling worm of anxiety woke in her belly.
“He’s only four,” she said, her throat dry from disappointment and fear. “I will try my best but sometimes…” Exhaustion sucked at her legs and Josie let out a long sigh, along with a piece of truth. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Pax tilted his head. “I don’t understand.” He climbed up the stairs and halted one step below her.
Amos decided now was a good time to lie down. He lowered his body to the stairs, reached his chubby fingers out, and hooked them among the wrought iron leaves of the balustrade, singing quietly to himself about birds.
“It’s an impossible task, parenting,” Josie said, the words rushing out of her like water bursting through a crack in a dam. “No matter what you do, you’re confronted by books and websites and magazines and a whole horde of people ready to tell you you’ve done it wrong.”
Pax startled her as he folded his body with a liquid grace and sat on the steps, tilted his head, and stared up at her without saying a word.
Listening.
Shrugging, Josie sat on the stairs as well. The calming scent of violet gum wafted on a draft, and Amos tapped his toes against the marble stairs as he sang nonsense words.
“Those same people spend a lot of money and time scaring you into hyperawareness of how many ways you can screw up or how close you are to ruining everything,” she said.
Pax frowned and rubbed his chin, silent but still listening.
Dear God, how attractive.
Men should put it on their Tinder bio. Silent listener.
“He’s four,” she said. “He’s a child. At any other time in human history, the expectation would be if I keep him fed and clothed and educated, I’ve done my job. That if he runs around in circles or gets dirty or lost or scared or bored or sits on a stone gargoyle that’s normal.”
She hadn’t forgotten Pax’s face when they last met in the courtyard. This wasn’t an apology, because Amos hadn’t done anything wrong. More of a reminder that Amos was a kid.
“Children learn a lot by touching things,” she said.
“Boys like to hit things, too,” Pax added. “And push things over, I remember that.”
“Right,” Josie agreed. “They’re fleshy, stinky little tornadoes and that used to be okay. Not today, though. Today, they’re…”
What were children expected to be these days? Perfect? No, if you demanded perfection from a child, you were a bad parent. Perfectly imperfect? Imperfect in ways that could be solved by a column in a parenting magazine or a vlog post?
“It’s not the rule itself,” Josie explained. “Of course, you don’t want four-year-olds running around an apartment building without anyone knowing where they are or what they’re doing. Trust me, I can imagine a hundred different scenarios where it ends up in tragedy.”
Amos stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around.
“A hundred?” Pax asked.
A thousand if she put her mind to it, but Josie didn’t say that.
She continued. “The weight of my expectation something terrible is bound to happen, the way I raise my voice when he takes one step out of my sight, how I’m constantly telling him ‘No, you can’t touch this’ or ‘Go there’ or ‘Do this’—I don’t know how to keep him safe without making his childhood smaller than it should be. ”
“Do you come up against many rules like 312?” Pax asked.
Josie nodded. “Dozens and dozens. All day, everywhere.”
“You are a biwd named Unique and you have frwee brothers named Bird, too,” Amos sang, quietly serenading a wrought iron sparrow. “Tomorrow you will eat some cake because cake is the best dinner in the world, and I love it so much.”
Pax cleared his throat and stood, frowning at the floor.
“Caaaake is so good and has flowers on the top and I love it soooooooo,” Amos crooned.
Josie hid her smile with her hand. She loved Amos to the moon and back, but Frank Sinatra he was not.
“For some reason, I am thinking of getting cake for dinner,” Pax said.
Amos was into his song now and didn’t hear him, but Josie raised an eyebrow at Pax and waited.
“What if I cannot finish my dinner, though?” he said. “I don’t like to think of sugar going to waste.”
If it were only possible to see inside Pax’s head. Did he pity her? Did he pity Amos for being saddled with an anxiety-ridden mother who insisted on tofu scrambles? Was he truly craving cake?
“You can saves it for breakfast if you don’t finish it.” Amos had stopped singing and started to pay attention to them at some point.
“I could. Or, if you are not too full of your tofu scramble, perhaps I could share the rest with you and your mother?” Pax asked.
“I will never be full from tofu,” Amos said seriously. He wrenched his fingers free of the wrought iron ivy and sat, gazing up at Pax with wide eyes. “I always has room for other food when it’s tofu scramble for dinner.”
Pax looked to Josie, and she nodded.
Amos certainly did not need to believe his freestyling about cake would work every time but the way Pax grinned when she nodded yes was the most genuine expression of joy she’d seen in a long time.
Fuck it. She was going to make a mistake at some point today anyway, right? Might as well make one that came with frosting on top.