The Write Mommy For The Job

by Jennifer Brown

Important

It’s getting late. The children are playing in their rooms. Hubby’s watching TV, engrossed in Dog The Bounty Hunter. The dinner dishes have been done. The cat’s curled up in the rocking chair.

I’m trying to concentrate on Dog’s wife’s impressive cleavage when I’m hit by The Urge.

I try to resist. I pretend the craving can’t get a hold of me tonight. I do everything I can to ignore the itch.
It’s useless.

Feeling slightly guilty and knowing that if the family knew what I was about to do, they’d do everything they could think of to stop me – break an elbow, throw up on the carpet, produce spur-of-the-moment algebra homework – I sneak out of the living room and head for the only place I can reasonably expect to do what I need to do. The bathroom.

Silently closing the door, I tiptoe in. Quickly I get down to business, kneeling in front of the toilet and stretching the upper half of my body back behind it.

Is this what my life’s come to? My brain tries to ask, but I shush it, focusing only on the craving at hand.

Feeling around blindly, my fingers search out the bent piece of linoleum that hides my stash. Carefully I peel the linoleum back and expose my guilty pleasure: a notebook and a pen.

Giggling ever so quietly, I sit on the toilet, barely able to contain my glee at getting a moment to work on a short story. I open my notebook and click open my pen.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Mom? You in there?”

I don’t answer. Maybe they’ll think I escaped through the window. Or am having an affair with the Ty-D-Bowl Man and am floating around on a tiny boat in the toilet tank, swooning to Italian love songs.

I hear another voice. “Where’s Mom?”

“I think she’s in here.”

“What’s she doing in there?”

“I don’t know. Hey, Dad! What’s Mom doing in the bathroom?”

I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to be mortified. I remind myself that if birthing three children in front of the man can’t make me die of embarrassment, having the children announce to him that I’m in the john can’t either.

From a distance: “Probably going to the bathroom. Leave her alone.”

I sigh gratefully. I can think of someone who’s going to get lucky tonight if he keeps talking like that.

I start to write, but am distracted by a third voice.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Shh!” answers one of the others. “Dad said to leave her alone because she’s going potty.”

I swear that kid’s going to be in the newspaper business when he grows up.

“When’s she coming out?”

“I don’t know. We’re trying to see under the door, but all we can see are her feet.”

I briefly consider stuffing a towel along the bottom of the door. But that would just intrigue them.

There’s a lot of whispering going on now, punctuated by the familiar sound of our basset hound doing a “rescue sniff” around the doorjamb. I turn on the water to drown them out and start writing again.

No use. They think the running water must mean I’m done. Or drowning. Either way, it brings them out of their silence.

“Hey, Dad! I think she’s coming out now!”

“Leave her alone,” he repeats. And after he gets lucky – brownies.

“But I need to talk to her.”

“What’s your mom doing in there? My mom never takes this long in the bathroom.” Great. A neighbor kid. Forgot about the sleepover.

“What do you need?” Hubby’s voice is getting closer and I begin to feel like half of Kansas City is standing outside the bathroom door, pondering what I could possibly be doing in there for so long. I begin to wonder if birthing three children on the turnpike would be more embarrassing than this.

“I need Mom,” says one. “It’s really important.”

“I need to pee,” says the second.

“I need a shoebox,” says the third.

“I don’t need anything. I’m just hanging out,” says the neighbor kid.

“Well, she’s busy,” says Hubby, his voice fading, admitting defeat in the hallway standoff. “Wait till she comes out.” Brownies and a back rub.

There’s a general rustling and chatting, some thumps, and a ringing telephone. The dog barks a few times. Something breaks in the kitchen. There’s wild laughter in what sounds like my bedroom. I look at my paper. I’ve written: “The”.

For a few moments there’s silence, during which I imagine myself as fabulous Danielle Steele, turning out pages of prose in a brightly-lit studio apartment turned office. I see myself smoking elegant long, foreign cigarettes – not because I’m hooked but because it’s part of my glamorous artist persona – and laughing with Janet Evanovich on the telephone, before I throw on a cape and “buzz off for a little convo with my agent.”

My thoughts are interrupted by a sound at the door. A piece of paper is being pushed under it and into the bathroom. I grind my teeth, bend over, and pick it up.

On the outside it says “Impurtnt!” As if what I’m doing in here isn’t important, I think haughtily. What I’m doing is darn important for your information. You have no idea how important this is! What could you possibly need that’s so important?! I unfold the note.

Inside, it says: “Der Mommy: I lov you and hope yur ok.”

I clutch the piece of paper to my chest, then look down at the silly notebook in my lap. I toss it back into its hiding place and head out. I’m thinking brownies for everyone.

What’s so important about the word “The” anyway?

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