“Are you kidding?” I explode. “It wasn’t me!” They better be sure it’s not me. There’s no way I would do such a thing. “Maybe whoever Metis is, she should be the one to file the complaint about Naked Girl.”
“?‘Metis was a goddess of wise counsel, cunning, craftiness, and wisdom,’?” reads Alice, who just searched the Internet for that piece of information. While she speaks she opens an email on her phone. “And the reason I believe Metis isn’t one of us is because she’s just sent another email.” While we’re all sitting here getting nothing accomplished, Metis has been working.
Together we grab for our phones and find the Metis memo in our in-boxes. It reads our thoughts so completely, it is as if this Metis person was sitting with us the entire time.
To: All Employees
From: Metis
Subject: Put some clothes on.
Your mother isn’t around to tell you to lengthen your skirt or that cleavage is for hoochie mamas, so we will. You will never be taken seriously if you don’t dress seriously. Boys and girls, listen up. Socks go with those loafers. Suits come with a jacket for a reason. And if you have an away game, do us all a favor and find yourself a change of clothes. We don’t want to see your oversexed butt wearing the same clothes twice in two days.
Amanda laughs. “Consider the complaint filed.”
CHAPTER 19
Trade You
CHAPEL? I can’t do chapel. I wake up feeling sweaty and sticky because I’ve slept in black Lycra running tights. I didn’t actually run last night but I thought about it, so I dressed the part right before reading to Owen a book so boring it made us both pass out. We spent the night sweating on each other in my marital bed that contained no husband. That means I got nine hours of sweaty sleep while Bruce found another bed in some other room.
It’s Environment Day at Kevin’s school, so I got assigned religious duty while Bruce will learn about being green. Right now, sticky me thinks that was a bad trade.
I’ve avoided Henry since Florida and for the first few days, my research calls were directed right into Tim’s office. I suppose that was Henry’s punishment, Tim taking some of his responsibility away for a bit, reminding him who is boss, reminding him how it’s done. The few times I’ve spoken with Henry our conversations are crisp business downloads. The type that cater to only one side of his personality, the one that doesn’t remember us napping together or ever having known each other. Henry may be at chapel and I don’t want to see him.
“Bruce, let’s switch back. I can’t do chapel,” I say when I find him on Brigid’s floor, partially in her Dora the Explorer sleeping bag, which only comes up to his waist. He grunts but doesn’t turn over. He must have been using Mr. Potato Head as a pillow because the ear of the toy is stuck in his cheek. I slide my Lycra body in the half bag next to him so that we fill every centimeter of the thing and Owen sees a good time in front of him.
“Me too,” he says, and climbs on top of us.
“Little guy, you are always cutting in on my action,” Bruce says, and envelops our baby in his muscled arms.
I position my nose behind his ear and say, “Honey, I woke up being more concerned with the vanishing polar ice caps and less interested in singing about David and Goliath.”
Bruce tries to roll over to face me but has to scooch in slight, almost painful movements to get this done. His face touches my face and Owen, outside of the bag now, straddles us. I want to be close to Bruce to say something funny to him, but I can tell he doesn’t need a joke.
“What are you saying?”
“Let’s switch. I’ll go to Environment Day and you go to chapel.”
“It’s over two hours long,” he says. “You’d be so late for work.”
“It’s okay. I can call in.”
“No way. I did all the work on Kevin’s green machine. What if it breaks? You won’t know how it operates.”
I feel a gush of love toward a guy who both invented and really cares about the success of the green machine. I’m a sucker whenever he shows commitment to anything.
“I’m a fast learner,” I say with very little resolve. I know that Bruce is right.
“I don’t want you there on the phone checking your CrackBerry ’cause that’s not really being there. Chapel is forty minutes. Stick to fire and brimstone, lady, and besides, I told Kevin I was going with him,” he says.
Brigid appears in the bedroom, her hair standing on end and her clear, pool-blue eyes screaming, Love me. She looks let down by what she sees on the floor, her frumpy family being held captive by Dora and Swiper. She sighs. “Here, chapel shoes for Mama,” she says while thrusting the shoes toward me. She stands back and waits to be awed by the magic of my large feet slipping into something so fabulous. The shoes today are red, fire engine red tap dancing shoes done in a shiny patent leather. They are a leftover from my made-in-China Dorothy Halloween costume. I pull myself out of the sleeping bag and slip them on, resigned.