Swimming Lessons. Mary Monroe Alice

40” width 36.5”

      Weight: 240 lbs.

      Condition: Floater

      She’s beautiful. TS

      4

      Toy woke while the sun was still rosy on the horizon. She quickly went through the motions of her morning routine, then went to rouse a sleepy Little Lovie from her bed.

      She paused at the door of the pink bedroom, soaking in the vision of that sweet face swathed in frills and lace. Children looked like angels when they slept, she thought. She hated to awaken her. Moving to the bed, she sat beside her and showered Lovie’s face with kisses, murmuring, “Wake up! Wake up, sleepyhead!”

      Lovie rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Is it time to go to day care?”

      “No. I have to go to the Aquarium to feed Big Girl. I’m taking you to Flo’s, just for a little while. You can watch cartoons.”

      “It’s Saturday?”

      “Yes.”

      “But you promised me we’d go to the beach.” Her voice was filled with reproach.

      “I know. And we will. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Now up and at ’em.” She patted Lovie’s bottom to get her moving, then drew back. Lovie’s arms shot out to grab hold of her and tug her back.

      “What, honey?” Toy asked.

      Lovie’s small hands reached up to frame Toy’s face like blinders. Toy felt the gentle pressure on her cheeks while Lovie’s blue eyes gazed at her, as though saying fiercely, look at me!

      “I wanna be with you,” Lovie said.

      Toy’s breath hitched. “I know,” she said, knowing her answer fell pitifully short. “I want to be with you, too. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

      Lovie nodded and dropped her hands.

      Toy picked them up and kissed each one. “I’ll be home in a jiffy and we’ll build that sand castle.”

      Flo, bless her heart, was only too happy to mind Little Lovie for the morning, even at such an early hour. When they showed up at her door, Flo greeted them at her front door brandishing a neon green super-squirt gun and calling out, “Tawanda!”

      “Oh, brother,” Toy said with a light laugh. Flo was incorrigible. Toy thought the gun was a better toy for a boy than a girl, but Lovie lit up at seeing it. She grabbed the gun and tore out the back door to fill it at the spigot.

      “I’ll be back early so we can go to the beach,” she called to Lovie’s retreating back.

      “Time for a cup?” Flo asked.

      “I wish. But I’d like to get in and out of the Aquarium as early as possible. Lovie is giving me the cold shoulder for going in to work this weekend. She’s so looking forward to going to the beach.”

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’ll take her.”

      “I appreciate the offer,” Toy replied with faint heart, “but I’d like to go with her. I’ve yet to keep my promise to help her build a sand castle. I’ve been so busy this week trying to set up a program for Big Girl at the Aquarium, my little girl is getting the short end of the stick.”

      “She doesn’t look the worse for wear.”

      “I hope not. But this schedule isn’t about to slow down any, at least not until I get a better handle on things.”

      “You know I’m here for you. Anytime”

      She felt a rush of emotion. It had always been this way with Flo. “I know.”

      Flo narrowed her eyes in scrutiny, then pushed open the screen door and signaled with her hand that Toy should come into the house. “Come on, just for a minute. No whining.”

      Toy did so reluctantly. Flo closed the door and sat on the Chippendale wicker bench in the front hall. It fit two women comfortably.

      “Now tell me. What’s really bothering you?” asked Flo.

      “Oh, nothing.”

      “Mmm-hmm. Nothing always means something.”

      Toy heard Lovie’s high pitched laughing outdoors, no doubt because she pelted something with a super stream of water. The women chuckled and Toy felt her burden lighten.

      “You look worried,” Flo said.

      “I am, a bit.”

      “Not about Lovie? She’s fine, you know. No child could be loved more.”

      “Thanks to you and Cara. You’re like surrogate mothers to her.”

      “More like favorite aunts. So, don’t waste your energy feeling guilty about that. If not Lovie, what’s the problem?”

      “It’s not a problem, exactly. I’ve been put in charge of Big Girl at the Aquarium.”

      “How wonderful! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

      “Yes,” she said with hesitancy. “I volunteered for the task and would have been crushed if Jason hadn’t given me the assignment.” She threw up her hands. “What was I thinking? Suddenly I’m aware of everything I don’t know.”

      “But that’s normal, my dear. It happens to all of us when we start a new job or a new project. How do you think I got all this white hair?”

      “Oh, great,” Toy said with a rueful smile. “I’ll be gray before I’m thirty. That’s always a big help in attracting a husband.”

      Flo shrugged. “I never worried about finding a husband. Oh, sure, I thought about it when I was younger,” she said. “It was the natural path for women. You married and had children. Folks were always after me about it, like my being single was a state of affairs I should be ashamed of. I never was in any big hurry. I surely never felt deprived. Just the opposite. Honey, I thrived!” She tossed back her head and laughed.

      “After a while, heck, I just didn’t want a husband. I got set in my ways, I reckon. I was fulfilled with my career as a social worker, I made a good living, had dear friends—male and female. I suppose I’d simply accepted that I’d live my life single. Not a spinster…”

      She turned her head, eyes blazing, “Isn’t that a horrid word? Spinster? It implies someone old and dried up. Unwanted.” She frowned and shivered with disgust. “Unmarried men are called bachelors. I like that word. It conjures up someone debonair, even sexy. Freedom. Men have bureaus called ‘bachelor chests.’ Can you imagine ever wanting a ‘spinster chest’? Women have ‘hope chests’, for hoping they’ll get married.” Her eyes flashed. “It’s a conspiracy. Don’t get me started on that. No,” she said in conclusion, “I never worried much about finding a husband.”

      “I reckon I’ve always worried about it, but at the rate I’ve been working, I’ll never find a husband, either. And lately, I’m too tired to worry about it. So, I guess you and I are alike in that.” She sighed and, growing serious again at the mention of work, leaned back in the bench. She thought about Flo’s life, her unconscious decision to remain single, and her satisfaction—even pride—of that path. Toy had always assumed her primary role as a woman was to marry and have children.

      Yet life had taken her down another path. She had, in fact, not married. She had a child and now a career. It was possible she might not ever marry. Her acceptance of that possibility thrust her career as a provider for herself and her child into primary importance. She had to depend on herself.

      It was a daunting realization, one that kept her up at night shivering in fear that she’d fail in her career or make serious financial blunders and end up in trouble. This was the dark shadow Flo had spied behind her eyes this morning.

      She sighed and began to open up. “I’m afraid, Flo. The other day when Dr. Tom was