Do Not Lick the Glass

“Who are we missing?” Mrs. Clogs looked over her bifocals and scanned the school bus full of third graders, wordlessly moving her thin, wrinkled lips. “We should have five chaperones and I’m only seeing four.”

Then thirty children jumped, startled by a loud bang outside. Mrs. Clogs squinted through the fingerprint-smeared window; someone was running along the side of the bus, beating its metal belly—behaving in that uninhibited way one does when tardiness has subdued all sense of propriety.

“Wait up! I’m coming!”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Mrs. Clogs swore under her breath, then glanced at the third grader in the front seat. “...was a good man.”

“I’m here! Wait!” Lola Gardner stormed up the bus stairs, hauling a bulging canvas beach bag and a thermos of coffee. One of the straps on her bag caught on the door handle, and she stumbled, colliding with Mrs. Clogs and splashing artificially flavored sugar cookie coffee onto the older woman’s blouse.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Lola dropped her belongings, thrust her coffee into the bus driver’s hands, and began blotting at the coffee stain on Mrs. Clogs’ shirt with a crumpled, brown napkin she pulled from her dress pocket.

“Please, please! That is enough!” Mrs. Clogs threw her hands up, blocking Lola’s attempt to clean up the mess. “Miss Gardner, just have a seat!”

Lola gathered her bag and beverage and shuffled past the other mothers seated at the front, all hiding their expressions behind manicured hands. Lola recognized a brunette in a white tennis skirt—a lawyer’s wife with a rhyming name, like Sherry Perry or Annette Burkette, and the pudgy woman sitting beside her—Sheila, she thought it might be. The might-be-Sheila wore a visor and a faded Myrtle Beach t-shirt and had a twisted look on her face like she was about to burst with laughter—or possibly gas.

Lola wove her way through the bus full of children, bumping into nearly everyone with her giant, overstuffed bag, until she spotted a blonde boy sitting alone near the back of the bus. He was scooted as far against the window as the seat would allow, feet propped up on the tire hump.

“Well, hey, Sugar!” she smiled. “Is this spot taken?”

Tate looked up and grinned.

Lola slid into the seat and dumped her stuff in the aisle. She leaned in and whispered, “I made snacks for the ride.” She fished a Tupperware container of cookies from her bag and popped the lid.

Tate looked up at her through shaggy hair and sighed. “Mom, it’s only like 20 minutes to the aquarium.” He sniffed at the container. “And you can’t have those here. “

“Why not?”

“They’re peanut butter.”

“So?”

“Some kids have peanut allergies.”

Lola tossed her head. Her long, dangly earrings clattered against her neck—plastic dolphins wearing sunglasses and straw hats. “Well, then they don’t have to eat ‘em!”

“But it’s the rules, Mom.”

“The rules.”

Lola snuck a cookie from the container and popped it in her mouth. “You’re a good boy, Tate,” she mumbled. Crumbs fell into her bouncy, blonde hair and collected along the buttons of her neon, striped dress. She leaned over and elbowed the girl across the aisle. “Hey. Are you allergic to peanuts?”

***

“Remember now, children, no running, no roughhousing, and no rudeness! Do you hear me, boys and girls?” Mrs. Clogs clapped her bony hands. “And stay with your group!” The children and chaperones gathered around the front entrance of the aquarium, shielding their faces from the sun as Mrs. Clogs reiterated the rules of proper aquarium etiquette. She finally quieted. “Alright, you all may go—”

“Wait!” Lola shot her hand into the air and weaseled her way to the front of the group. She rummaged through her canvas bag and pulled out an armload of colorful Lei necklaces. But instead of fabric flowers, the necklaces were crafted from paper sea creatures strung with twine and doused in glitter—orcas and turtles, sharks and crabs, all sparkling in the mid-morning sun. “I made one for everyone!” She lifted one off the pile and draped it around the nearest student’s neck. Glitter snowed down and settled in the gravel of the parking lot.

The children crowded her, reaching with clammy, sunscreen-coated hands for their own paper necklaces, then ran off to join their individual groups.

“Here; I made extras.” Lola extended one to each of the other women—the four other chaperones and Mrs. Clogs.

The brunette in the tennis skirt held up French-tipped fingers and asserted: “I’m allergic to glitter.”

***

“Do not lick the glass!” Mr. Clogs clapped her hands, disbanding a group of boys whose immediate lapse in reason resulted in streaks of saliva across the tank of electric eels. Lola stifled a giggle and raised an eyebrow at Tate, who splayed his palms in an I swear it wasn’t me expression. Lola watched her son walk away from her and follow his classmates down the hall, their sneakers scudding along the tile floors.

He was having fun, and that’s all that mattered. Do you mind if I go with my friends’ group, Mom? he’d asked when she’d linked arms with him in the parking lot and began skipping toward the building. Of course not, she’d said, releasing him and watching him gallop away and join the herd of boys chaperoned by the lawyer’s wife in the tennis skirt.

Lola didn’t let him see her face fall, didn’t give in to those pricky feelings of rejection that had become so commonplace in her world, but instead agreed to chaperone a different group. And between the bus ride and the dividing of students amongst the adults, Lola had pieced together that she was the leader of the castoffs—a group of girls who weren’t fortunate enough to be claimed by extroverted friends or hold the highest rank in the third-grade caste system—the ones who hadn’t quite grown into their bodies or whose shy personalities had earned them the label of “awkward”—or the ones whose parents hadn’t washed their clothes that week or reminded them to take a bath.

But they weren't weighed down by rejection or burdened by being different; in the blue, dreamy light of each tank of fish or crabs or sea turtles, Lola observed nothing but pure joy in each awkward and unwashed face.

Lola led her group of girls to a wide exhibit with a deep pool—California sea otters, the sign read. The playful creatures dove into the water and swam on their backs like college boys trying to make everyone laugh, in which they succeeded.

Next, Lola ushered the girls to the stingray exhibit, where a young woman in braces and a Southport Aquarium polo was waving an arm over the tank of sea creatures and speaking loudly to the group. “These graceful swimmers are super intelligent and very sociable! And if you’d like, you can pet them! Just like this.” She waved two fingers in the air, then stroked her own arm in a gentle sweeping motion. Then she plunged her arm into the tank and rubbed the back of the nearest ray.

A chorus of oohs and ahhs rose from the children all scrambling to see above each other’s heads. As the girls waited in line for their turn to pet the stingray, Lola meandered over to the jellyfish tank.

Air conditioners roared above her, and children laughed and squealed, their voices echoing off the tile halls and glass tanks, but Lola stood in silence, transfixed—mesmerized by the jellyfish and their graceful, weightless movement. They were clouds, pulsing through the glowing water, arms and tentacles trailing behind them like transparent party streamers. She stared, watching one intersect another, and she waited for their tentacles to tangle, to become knotted and rip away from their bodies, but they never did. Jellyfish were tranquil, peaceful, and orderly.

Everything Lola wanted so badly to be.

But sometimes life was messy and chaotic. Sometimes people’s worlds intersected and they joined arms, and when they did drift apart, things got broken; people got hurt.

Her son, Tate, didn’t understand how his world had become so messy or why the people in it he loved so much had drifted apart. But he didn’t blame her, and for that, she was thankful.

But she knew what people thought about her—what they said about her.

Lola Gardner—what a hot mess. An embarrassment. A walking shitshow. It’s no wonder he left.

Words whispered in the office breakroom or in the back of the classroom at parent meetings.

Or in the parking lot of an aquarium.

Did they realize she had ears? That she wasn’t stupid? That she knew who they were talking about?

Just then, one of Lola’s girls walked up and tapped her on the arm. “Miss Lola, we want to see the sharks now.” Five guileless faces looked up at her, unenraptured by the jellyfish Lola couldn’t seem to tear herself away from.

Lola squatted on her knees and looked from girl to girl, lowering her voice like she was about to share a secret. “But, what if I’m scared of sharks?”

The tallest girl of the bunch leaned in and whispered in Lola’s ear. “It’s okay—we’ll protect you.”

***

The entire class gathered at the final exhibit—a grand, beachy arena where two sea lions huddled at its center causing quite a spectacle. The larger was heaped atop the smaller, bumping and humping, both emitting a string of loud, throaty barks. Mrs. Clogs gasped and then was rendered temporarily speechless from an ensuing coughing fit.

One of the girls pointed. “Aww, look, they’re friends!” The sea lions seemed undeterred by the crowd of innocent voyeurs ogling them but remained locked in this position for several minutes until one of the aquarium employees emerged from a side gate, red-faced and hauling a bucket of fish, which helped expedite the completion of the mating ritual.

Then the brunette, Sally O' Mally, or whoever she was, glanced at her friend—the pudgy mother beside her. “I bet that’s what it looked like when Lola Gardner walked in on her husband with the principal.”

The stocky woman snorted, her round cheeks sunburned and red. “Probably what it sounded like too.”

Lola felt heat creeping up her neck, though none of the children heard or acknowledged the comment, and thankfully Tate was on the other side of the exhibit, laughing with his friends and flapping his elbows like a sea lion.

Lola turned, facing the women, and sucked in a breath when Mrs. Clogs stepped between them and, clearing her throat, spun on the brunette.

“Funny thing, Lauren Warren. The whole time I’ve been standing here watching these concupiscent creatures, I couldn’t help but think that sea lion looked familiar.” Mrs. Clogs pointed at the animals. “See that big ugly one there? Reminds me of a face I’ve seen plastered on billboards all over town. Oh, who is it now.” She licked thin lips, then snapped her fingers. “Oh yes, your very own husband—Frank Warren, from Warren Law Firm, that’s it.”

The brunette’s face blanched, and her mouth fell open. Beside her, might-be-Sheila coughed back a laugh.

“Oh.” Mrs. Clogs continued, turning to the stocky woman. “And the other one looks a bit like you.”

***

“Please make sure you remove from the bus whatever you brought with you. Backpacks, water bottles, souvenirs, etcetera.” Mrs. Clogs stood at the head of the bus as everyone disembarked, nodding to each child and wishing them a happy weekend. Lola and Tate were the last two to leave.

“Miss Gardner—” Mrs. Clogs extended her arm like a gate closing. “I’m not sure how attentive you are to the schedule of upcoming class events, but our next field trip is in May. We will be touring the Westmore Botanical Gardens—a truly enriching and peaceful experience.” She paused, fingering the brown coffee stain on her blouse. “I do hope you will be able to join us.”

Lola grinned down at Tate. “I’d love that, Mrs. Clogs.”

“And one more thing.” The older woman leaned closer, her gray eyes wide behind the lens of her bifocals. “A little birdy told me you made cookies.”