You knit me together in my mother’s womb…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret…Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
Psalms 139:13-16
I, too, sometimes forget God is in charge and try to tackle the world on my own.
“You’re so wise.” I brushed my fingers against my husband’s cheek. “Kim and Mitzi are both doing the ‘What-ifs’. No wonder they’re nervous.”
It makes more sense for Mitzi to be nervous. Although she doesn’t seem to mind that Kim and I are Christians, she doesn’t appear interested in joining the club herself. Just because she and Arch once committed to join a denomination in order to marry in a particular church, that didn’t make them Christian anymore than standing in a kitchen makes one Julia Child.
“Ah, for the good old days.” He gathered me into his arms and nuzzled his nose into my hair. I detected the faint, crisp smells of shaving lotion and soap.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I want to have a baby the old-fashioned way. You know, homemade, a do-it-yourself endeavor…”
“And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?”
He grinned, and his even white teeth flashed. “It’s a project I’m willing to commit my life to.”
“Like the post office? ‘Neither rain, nor hail, nor sleet will stop…’”
“Something like that. In fact, I think playing post office is a good place to start.”
I didn’t even hear Mr. Tibble or Scram complain when I dumped them off my knees and onto the floor so that I could get my arms around my husband’s neck.
Monday, March 29
On Monday morning, Mitzi dealt out party invitations around the office as if they were Old Maid cards.
“For you, for you, for you…” She paused and gathered herself together before putting one on Bryan’s desk. “For you…”
Bryan isn’t exactly the life of the party. In fact, he can suck the energy right out of one. If he overhears an argument, he gets nervous and hides in the bathroom until it’s over. “What’s this?” Kim held hers up to the light to see if the flat vellum envelope contained a bomb.
“Arch and I are having a get-together on Saturday night. There will be appetizers, a buffet by the pool, music, and scads of doctors and their wives there. I thought it might be good to water down the intellectuals with you guys.”
Leave it to Mitzi to extend a gracious invitation.
“Suddenly, I think I’m busy,” Kim retorted.
“Don’t get huffy. You know what I mean. I don’t want these people discussing appendectomies and thyroidectomies all evening. You’ll be a diversion.”
“Like a juggling clown, or someone who does balloon art? You aren’t helping your case, Mitzi.”
“I’m having the food catered by Ziga’s.”
Ziga’s is a well-known dining spot on Lake Zachary, where Mitzi lives.
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? They have the best food I’ve ever eaten.” Kim exchanged a resigned glance with me over Mitzi’s head. We’re a family; we show up for each other no matter what—especially when food is involved.
Thursday, April 1, April Fools’ Day—Innova’s Annual Day of Celebration
Forget Presidents’ Day, Labor Day and the Fourth of July. April 1 is my company’s day to howl. Quite literally, in fact.
The first thing Harry did when he walked into the office this morning was to stub his toe on the leg of Kim’s desk and start hopping around as if he was riding a crazed pogo stick.
“Ouch, ouch, owww…”
Immediately, Kim jumped up to help him, Bryan headed for the bathroom to get out of the way, and Betty lunged to the phone to call for help. I, meanwhile, had the presence of mind to find the man a chair so he could sit down. But it wasn’t until Mitzi sauntered over to examine the damage to Harry’s shoe, that he erupted out of the chair and yelled, “Gotcha! April Fool!”
We all groaned in unison. How could we have let Harry get away with the first April Fools’ gotcha? There is, after all, a trophy at stake for the one who tricks the rest of the office with his or her April Fools’ joke. Harry had, in the first moments of the day, set the standard high. Now, if one or two of us did hoodwink the others with our stories, we’d still have to face the play-offs—a highly competitive game of dominoes, something to do with Mexican trains or chicken scratches or whatever Betty dreams up.
It’s not like the traveling trophy is so fabulous or anything. It’s actually a spectacularly ugly lamp with the names of past winners taped to the shade, but such is the competitive element of our office that everyone takes pleasure in displaying it in a place of prominence in their homes. Mitzi won it last year and had a small decorative niche installed in her basement family room to show it off.
After a high-level meeting of the minds over the water cooler, we decided to play a group trick on Harry in retaliation for catching us all so early in the day.
While I distracted him with a bogus question about a spurious client, Mitzi sneaked into his office and took his car keys out of the pocket of his jacket and passed them off to Kim, who, on her break, went outside to the parking lot. Harry always parks in the first row of cars, those nearest our building. In fact, if there’s no opening when he arrives, he circles the area until someone leaves.
Kim reparked the car in the fifth row and returned to the office unnoticed because Betty was intercepting him with another counterfeit question. Kim handed off the keys to Bryan, who put them back into Harry’s pocket and was back at his desk before Betty let Harry return to work.
Then we all sat holding our breath, waiting for lunchtime.
Harry breezed out of his office and called back over his shoulder, “I’ll be back at one. I see I’ve got a luncheon meeting with a client today.”
Mitzi smiled and waved at him as he left, never letting on that she had fabricated the luncheon just to get him out of the office and into his car.
Then we all stood at the window and watched.
Harry strode to his parking space and, without even looking at the car, thrust the key into the lock. When it didn’t fit, he glanced up and did a double take when he saw that he’d been trying to breach a gleaming black Hummer instead of his charcoal Jeep Cherokee.
He glanced around the parking lot, and then at his key. We hooted with laughter as he tried the key in the lock a second time, as if hoping that upon feeling the familiarity of the key, the Hummer, like Cinderella’s coach, would turn back into a pumpkin.
I’ve got to give it to the man, he’s persistent. He stormed up and down the long row of parking places for nearly five minutes before spinning on his heel and marching back toward the building.
When he arrived, we were ready for him.
We greeted him when the office door banged open. “April Fool!”
Harry folded like sails collapsing from a dearth of wind.
“You! You? You…” Then he grinned. “Man, that was good!”
Like sportscasters recapping the game’s best plays, we rehashed every moment from Harry arriving at the Hummer to him returning to the office.
And the day only went up—or maybe it was down—from there. Mitzi put a thin layer of Icy Hot on the toilet seat