I sighed again.
“Anyway, I’m glad you remembered to call, because I’d forgotten he was coming. Are you going to be home early enough for Jenny’s friendship group tonight?”
“I’m going to try. But I have to write that trivia contest for them first. You’re handling the prizes, right?”
“Yup,” I said.
The friendship group. We were this close to not having to do it. When the room parent brought it up at the PTA meeting, I could tell that several people were preparing to say no. But then after Dina’s dad, that annoying broker, started arguing against the friendship group and Emma’s mother brought up online bullying, everyone was suddenly in favor of it.
And now here we were hosting the thing, and already two kids had been dropped off. Twenty minutes early. They ran into the living room without even saying hello, and started chasing each other around the table. They kept that up until everyone had arrived, when I was able to shepherd them all together and seat them at the dining table, along with rolling pins, flour, cookie cutters, and dough.
“Isn’t it a little early in the year to make gingerbread?” asked Matilda, who wore a ponytail high on her head and always adopted a Disneyesque pose in photos.
“No.”
“Did you make this dough yourself?”
“Yes.”
“When did you do that?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“What time is afternoon?”
“Later in the day.”
“How late then?”
“Five o’clock.”
“Do you work?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an associate professor of literature.”
“What’s that?”
“That means I work with books. I read books and try to think clever thoughts, and then I write things down, about the books. Read, think, write. That’s what I do.”
“That sounds boring.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Pause.
“Oh, and I also teach. At the university.”
“What do you teach?”
“About books.”
“Just books?”
“Yes.”
“No math?”
“No.”
“Well, your job doesn’t sound that fun. I’d totally rather work in a pet store.”
“OK. Do you want me to roll out your dough for you?”
It was sticky, way too sticky. I had to add a lot more flour, and I struggled to remember why I hadn’t bought ready-made dough from Ikea. I supposed it was just on principle. Although sometimes I suspected I might have a bit of a masochistic streak.
The other kids quickly tired of waiting for me to finish rolling out the dough, and they started making mountains of flour and rolling dough-clump boulders down the sides, or playing catch with the dough across the table.
“You might not want to split the dough up into such little pieces,” I warned, continuing to roll out my own little slab, “if you want to have big enough sections to cut shapes out of.”
“Are you a dwarf?” Kai asked me out of the blue.
“No,” I said.
“You look like one. My mom is a lot taller than you.”
“Should I put on a movie?” I asked.
“We’re not supposed to have any screen time during friendship group,” Matilda protested. “We’re supposed to play with each other and be social.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine, just one short movie until Jenny’s dad gets home. Then we’re going to have a trivia contest!”
“Are there going to be teams?” Kai asked, excited.
“No. It’s going to be every kid for himself.”
“Oh.”
“But everyone gets a prize,” I hurriedly added, “and the prize for the winner is awesome!”
“Yippee!”
Immediately they started guessing what the first place prize might be.
“Maybe an iPad!”
“Ooh, or a gift card to the indoor fun park?”
“Or candy!”
The rumble in my head gained strength. Did we have anything that could serve as a prize? I was wondering when a gray car pulled in, and I ran to the door to meet Bj?rnar.
“This is painful,” I whispered as he stepped inside, “terrible, awful. I hate this! I hate them. You have to help me!”
Bj?rnar smiled the way he always did when he came home. As if he were happy. As if nothing could ruin this, the moment when he was finally reunited with his family. It had occurred to me that I ruined this moment almost daily. Because I couldn’t wait to unload about how idiotic my colleagues were or about all the things that had gone wrong during the day or about how impossible Alva had been because she fell asleep in the car and had been a pill ever since or about how insufferable it was to listen to Ebba and Jenny arguing all afternoon.
I tried to police this inclination, but very rarely succeeded.
He knew that.
And still, he came home with a smile.
“Hi!” he exclaimed as Alva ran in and flung her arms around him. “There’s my Alva! You’re so pretty! And so heaaaaavy! Did you guys make gingerbread cookies?”
She nodded seriously.
“Did you make one for me, too?”
She shook her head.
“What, no cookie? Oh, then there’s going to be some tickling!”
She squealed so loud that it distracted the friendship group from their movie and the kids came to check what was going on.
“Can you do that to me, too?” Jenny asked.
“And me!” said Kai.
“No, you guys are too big. Were you watching TV? I thought there was no screen time during friendship group.”
He gave me a look.
“Oh, it was just for a few minutes,” I explained. “Should we eat minipizzas and have our contest now? You did make the contest, right?”
“Oh, I made the contest all right,” Bj?rnar replied seriously, “but it’s in written format and the questions are really hard. You guys aren’t going to get any of them right.”
Even Kai got that this was a joke, and with astonishing speed everyone gathered around the kitchen table.
The rest of the time I served minipizzas and tried to stay out of sight so that Bj?rnar would handle the contest on his own. I was both envious of and grateful for the good mood he had put everyone in.