Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [54]
Marin was so enraptured by the Non-Stop Party Patrol that she’d had nothing to do with me the whole time I was there. I wanted to wish her luck on her first day of school, so I popped my head into the playroom.
“Marin?”
Marin was wearing a purple ringer T-shirt and a sparkly yellow tutu over jeans. She positioned herself in front of a perky, ponytailed dancer with her legs apart, arms up, and hips gyrating round and round. Her tongue was out, and her chin was slick with spit, both signs that she was concentrating really hard on learning the choreography to “2-Getha 4-Eva,” the closing number from Grease 3: The Return to Rydell. My niece had forced me to watch this DVD more times than anyone with memories of the original should be reasonably required to endure.
This was our little secret, you see. If Bethany had any idea that we had spent so many weekday afternoons in front of that DVD, I doubt that I would have vaulted past all the others on the list of potential legal guardians. When Marin is in my care, I am supposed to follow The Fun Chart™, a calendar created by a team of leading child psychologists that structures each day around “activities that aid in the acquisition of specific developmental milestones.” The Fun Chart™ has met MILF approval, proving that the reviled Park Slope Mommies have not cornered the market on “multidisciplinary explorative colloquia.”
Watching Grease 3 might be acceptable once, maybe twice a month, and only if it was a day officially designated by The Fun Chart™ toward the cultivation of Marin’s Auditory, Creative Expression, and Language skills. By allowing her to watch Grease 3 once, maybe twice, or even three times a week if we’re both tired and cranky enough, I’m defying The Fun Chart™ mandate to engage in Fine Motor, Visual Perception, and Cortical play, which means she’ll never get into one of the “better Ivies” and her life is ruined.
Obviously, all that stuff is B.S. Back in the day, my mom’s idea of educational play was devising the rehearsal dinner menu for Barbie and Ken’s wedding. And I turned out okay, despite an utter lack of Proprio-ceptive stimuli. Likewise, I doubt that there was much emphasis on your Tactile/Kinesthetic skill set when you were in juvenile detention. And just look at you now, a Princeton Tiger.
As a babysitter, I can get away with breaking all the rules because, as any amateur Freudian knows, it’s Bethany and Grant who can do the most damage to Marin’s fragile psyche and future earning potential. I can’t imagine a more high-pressure job—especially in this city.
Case in point: Marin fell off the monkey bars a few weeks ago. She landed in a bloody tangle of arms and legs. She howled for a few minutes but calmed down with the promise of ice cream and Grease 3. No broken bones, but her knee took the hardest hit, making it difficult for her to walk. I did what any sane caregiver would: I scooped her up and carried her back to Bethany’s place. I was about halfway there, waiting patiently for the Walk light, when a smug thirtysomething wearing a heart-rate monitor and three-hundred-dollar running shoes looked right at Marin and said, “You should be walking.” He dashed to the other side before the comment registered.
It was a dick thing to say, because it was none of his goddamn business. What made it worse was his cowardliness. Oh, it takes a big man to admonish a four-year-old still sniveling over her bloody boo-boo instead of the adult who happens to be holding her. But I let it go because this guy was obviously a fitness Nazi who had made it his moral imperative to end childhood obesity by berating one injured, immobile preschooler at a time. By the time Bethany got home, I was ready to joke about it. But she didn’t think it was at all funny.
“ARRRRRRRGH!” Bethany growled, balling up her freshly manicured hands into fists. “Why can’t people mind their own business?”
“He was a jerk.”
“Everyone thinks they have a right to parent everyone else’s kid in this city! Everyone’s an expert!”
“Let it go….”
“You try to let it go when you know that every time