The Big Cheese
an excerpt

It began as, what is for me, a typical day. I woke up at 6:30 to the sound of some ghastly concoction by Sonny and Chere, which, incidentally reminded me of the all-too-innocuous Bill Murray film Groundhog's Day, heavens if I know why exactly. After rubbing my eyes of any remaining vestige of slumber, I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the shower. The cold water (courtesy of the cantankerous water heater – remind me to call about getting that fixed) should have been an omen of sorts, a loud warning to proceed with caution. But, as so many of my gut feelings do, it went unnoticed; I was still wishing I were in bed and mentally grouching about the day's errands.

After a good lather, rinse, and repeat, I shivered from the tiny shower into the bathroom, which I now suddenly found myself sharing with another half-asleep creature: my first born – of twins -- Alice, shivering on the potty, the sound of her first morning's offering trickling into the toilet aux musicale.

"I'm cold, Mommy,” she declared desultory as I reached for a towel. It smelled as though it had been used one too many mornings already, but I was dripping wet and too lazy to cross the room and fight with the linen closet door, which had a nasty habit of sticking shut.

"Yes, well, it's September in Alabama, honey. The temperature will be too hot to bear come noon.” That was the thing about the deep South: you never knew what the weather was going to do between the months of September and May; it could be bitterly cold or desperately hot, as I'd found out in the last seven years living here. Unlike May to September; now those months you pretty much bet on being hot, hot, hot.

“Huh?” She was obviously still too groggy – or too young – to understand my morning quips.

“It will warm up, don't worry.”

“I want the heater.” She pointed to the small electric contraption built into the wall, . It was old. Very old. And I was hesitant to turn the thing on, even on the coldest of days, icicles forming on my freshly-showered nose.

“Go get some breakfast. That'll warm you up,” I said in an attempt to distract her. It worked.

“Okay, I want oatmeal.” She pulled her pajama bottoms up too far, almost granny style, bringing a smile to my lips, and flushed the toilet. Crossing the room, she stumbled over the ragged rugs I'd thrown down to cover the dingy linoleum, and ran her hands under the sink.

“With raisins?”

“No. I want the apples – no peelings.” She looked up at me in the mirror, giving me one of her too-adult, matter-of-fact expressions. I still had the towel wrapped around me, my hair drizzling rivulets of Pantene-scented water down my bare backside. Chilled though I was, I found her expression simply too heart-warming.

“No peelings then.”

She started out the door, still stumbling groggily.

“Oh, and wake up your sister, will you?”

Alice mumbled something, tugging the door behind her, beginning to leave me sans bathroom buddy.

“Pardon?” I asked, now drying off in earnest as I spied the time on the wall clock above the sink.

“She's already up,” she shrugged as the door clicked into place leaving the me alone again.

After dressing, I hurried into the kitchen to find Alice and Vic – short for Victoria – her twin – identical, in case you were wondering, and yes, I can tell them apart, and no, they're not one boy and one girl, I'm so sick of hearing that question after I already identify them as identical – already “making oatmeal”: two apples, dripping wet from being washed, were rolling around on the counter top; the milk opened and spilled just a few inches from where the apples lay; and the tub of quick-cook oats, turned over on its side, filled two plastic bowls. It looked as though Vic had already started on a glass of milk, which explained the small white lake, and Alice had filled the bowls, not understanding the oatmeal needed to be cooked first.

I silently went over to the bowls and, with one hand, poured the dry oats back into the now uprighted tub, wiped up the spill with a kitchen towel with the other hand – even though what I really wanted to do was remind my girls again to clean up after themselves. Instead I tried very hard to just assume they were doing their best to help out, despite the minor mess.

Let me stop here and say a few things about Alice's and Vic's “messes”. The old adage “no use crying over spilled milk” is an apt one when a mother – that would be me – has a pair of too smart for their own good ladies to tend to. T o put it another way, spilled milk is nothing for my daughters who, in their short six-years lives, have done their fair share of spilling and mess-making. I remember waking one Saturday morning to an entire jug of fresh squeezed orange juice in the kitchen floor. Alice and Vic had woken me in their attempts to clean up this particular disaster. I walked into the dimly lit room – because the sun was only barely up – my socked feet squishing into an ice cold puddle, and flipped on the light to find them attempting to sweep up the goo with a cheap broom I stash by the back door for cleaning up the patio.

And that's only a minor mess. They've done much, much worse, as you're about to discover. That is, if you keep reading. Suffice it to say, my life is never short on “wonder” from my Wonder Children; that's what I call them, because one always has to wonder what they're about to get into next.

I started a pan of half milk, half water to boil then sliced one of the the apples – two weren't needed, despite the stubborn protestations of Vic – slicing my left index finger in the process, one bowl sporting apples chunks with half with peeling, one without. Cutting myself should have been my second omen. But it wasn't. I was in my cooking groove now, too intent on getting the job done and getting out the door on time to think too much of the day's hinting around that I might not want to actually leave the house.

Of course, as things wound up, leaving the house, at least ultimately was really what didn't happen in the end. But I'll get to that.

I gave the girls their breakfast. By that point they were both wide awake enough to begin, what is for them, their “twin speech”. Most twin speech, clinically speaking, is indecipherable to the outside listener, more a dialect of their first language (in the case of my girls, English) than an authentic language – I learned these things in my months of pregnancy reading; oh the little factoids that stick with a person. But for Alice and Vic, abject silliness was their primary mode of lingo. Tuning the world almost completely out, they begin with making faces, then advance to giggles, then finally to telling “jokes” which aren't at all funny, but which are uniquely weird, like “Why did the elephant cross the road?” Because he wanted to unscrew a light bulb, of course. See? Not funny, but strangely amusing to the pair of six year olds sitting like other worldly aliens in my kitchen.

“Ladies, you're going to have to finish eating.”

I was being completely ignored.

“Ladies,” I rose my voice ever so slightly. They turned their now bright as dew faces to me, mirrors of innocence and mischief all rolled up in one. Alice had a glob of oatmeal stuck to her forehead. “Breakfast.” I motioned to their half-empty bowls, and they returned to spooning in mouthfuls of apple-cinnamon goo, snickering in between bites. I knew that within sixty seconds breakfast would be forgotten again in lieu of oh-so-important morning conversation. I left the room anyway, needing to do my make-up before I found myself too flushed with aggravation toward their antics to get the right shade of blush on my cheeks.

Walking back into the bathroom, I flipped on the light, though now it was hardly necessary as the sun was streaming bright against the stark white walls; the landlord won't allow me to paint, and until I save up a decent down-payment on a house of our own, I would have to live with the deadpan blah of “Country Whisper”, or so the touch-up paint can advertised.

And trust me, with Alice and Vic in the house, I knew that touch up can very well.