Futures and Frosting (4 page)

All of this,
while nightmare inducing, had made me realize that when I found Claire, I knew
I would do whatever it took to never lose her again.

We may have done
everything ass backwards, but I wouldn’t change a thing.  Claire and Gavin are
my whole world and I want to make it official.  I want her to know that nothing
could tear me away from them and that I am in it for the long haul.  Pushing
the nerves aside, I smile as I stare at my future and a big chunk of my savings
account tucked into the small, velvet box.  I close the lid with a
snap
just
as Drew walks into the kitchen dangling his keys from the tip of his index
finger, holding them out away from his body as far as possible.

“So you’re
really going to do it, huh?  You’re going to make an honest woman out of
Claire?” he asks as he runs water in the sink, dumps in about a half a bottle
of liquid soap, and throws his keys into the growing pile of bubbles.  He shuts
the water off and turns around to lean against the counter.  I give him and the
sink a questioning look and he just shrugs his shoulders.

“I found them in
the tank of the toilet.  Better to be safe than sorry.”

Gavin chooses
that moment to run into the room and I lift him up into my arms before I can
ask Drew why this is the second time in a month he’s lost his keys in my
toilet.

“Why is Uncle
Drew washing dishes?” Gavin asks as he wrapped his arms around my neck.

“I’m not washing
dishes. I’m washing my keys,” Drew explains with his back to us as he splashes
in the water trying to retrieve them.  He flings them out of the sink as he
turns back around, splattering Gavin and I with suds.

“You don’t wash
keys.  That’s dumb,” Gavin replies seriously.

“Um, hello?  You
do too wash keys.  Especially if they have
your
poop on them because
they were in
your
toilet,” Drew replies as he shakes the excess suds off
of his key ring.

“I don’t poop on
keys!  YOU poop on keys!” Gavin yells angrily.  “I’m going to stick your head
in the toilet!”

I probably
should have intervened by now, but sometimes this is the highlight of my day. 
I unwind Gavin’s arms from my neck and set him back down.

“Okay, that’s
enough.  Gavin, go in your room and get your baseball hat.  It’s almost time to
pick up mommy and go to the game.”

Gavin takes off
running but not before giving Drew a dirty look.

“Dude, that kid
has anger issues.  I hope you sleep with one eye open at night,” Drew mutters
as he watches Gavin run off.  He turns back to face me and crosses his arms in
front of him.  “So, you took my suggestion and went with the baseball game
proposal.  Nice.  Good work.”

“As much as it
pains me to say this, it was a really good idea.  A guy at work got a bunch of
free tickets to the Indian’s game today because his daughter works for the
concierge desk at Progressive Field.  According to this guy, they don’t allow
you to just pay for a proposal to be put up on the scoreboard anymore.  He gave
me his daughter’s work number and she told me about this whole proposal package
they have.  So, for three hundred dollars I am now the proud owner of a
Cleveland Indian’s Proposal Package,” I explain proudly.

“Will those
three hundred dollars assure that they might actually win a game this year?”
Drew asks.

I shake my
head.  “Probably not.  But, it does get us moved to VIP seating in a loge after
I propose, a five-by-seven glossy photo of the proposal as it was seen on the
scoreboard, a dozen red roses, and a gift certificate to the Terrace Club
restaurant right at the park so we can have dinner to celebrate,” I say with a
smile as I grab my non-toilet-infested car keys off of the counter along with
my wallet.

“If she says
yes, you mean.  Otherwise that’s just going to be the most depressing photo you
will ever have hanging on your wall and a
really
uncomfortable dinner,”
Drew supplies with a sad shake of his head.

“Thank you so
much for that vote of confidence,” I deadpan.

And now the
nerves are back.  But I won’t let them get to me.  I’ve been wracking my brain
for weeks trying to come up with a unique and special way to propose to Claire,
and when she mentioned casually that she’d never taken Gavin to an Indian’s
game, I knew it would be the perfect setting.  It will be in front of thousands
of people and our son will be there to witness it.  What could be better than
that?  And really, what woman wouldn’t love it?

~

During the sixth
inning is when everything went to shit.  Aside from the Drew-induced nervous
stomach I suffered from during the first five innings, we are having a great
time.  Gavin is amazed by the ballpark and the Indians were up by seven.  As my
knee bounces up and down, and I force myself not to buy another hot dog to give
myself something to do because eight ballpark hot dogs is where I draw the
line, I try not to think about the fact that I never asked Claire’s father for
her hand in marriage.  That is something people still did nowadays, isn’t it? 
Would George be mad at me that I didn’t have a formal sit-down with him to
discuss our upcoming nuptials and whether or not he approved?  And now that I
have said the word, “sit-down,” I am having flashes of George wearing a
three-piece suit and fedora staring at me across a plate of half-eaten linguini
while he steeples his fingers under his chin and then excuses himself to go to
the bathroom so he can get the gun he hid behind the toilet and shoot me in the
head.

“Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli!”

A few people in
the row in front of us turn around to look at me quizzically and I just shrug. 
They won’t judge me if they know my future father-in-law is a mobster who wants
me dead for not going through the proper channels to marry his one and only
daughter.

Claire is too
busy arguing with Gavin about how a third bag of cotton candy will not, in
fact, give him superpowers no matter what he saw on television so she has no
idea about the minor freak-out I had going on.  Not that I would talk to her
about it anyway.  This is supposed to be a surprise—a huge, life-changing surprise
that could make or break our future.  Or my kneecaps if George decides he
really does hate me.

I continue my
manic foot tapping as Jose Cabrera goes up to the plate and repeat the words I
plan to say to Claire in my head.

I never
thought I’d find you again…you are my heart and soul and my reason for
living…every moment I spend with you is like-

Claire’s
laughter breaks my concentration, and I glance over to see her pointing to the
outfield and snickering with a few people sitting around her.

“Oh my God,
would you look at that!” she exclaims.

I glance out
beyond third base to see what has caught her interest.  When I see what
everyone else is staring at, my stomach plummets all the way to my toes and the
eight hotdogs I just consumed threaten to make a reappearance in a totally
unflattering way that won’t be near as much fun as dancing meat singing the
Oscar Mayer wiener song.

There, televised
on the jumbotron for all of Progressive Field to see, is a guy down on one knee
somewhere by the first base line holding up a ring box to a hysterically
sobbing woman with her hands over her mouth in shock.  In big, jumbotron-sized,
blinking red letters below their picture are the words, “Crystal, will you
marry me?  Love Rob!”

Claire snorts
and shakes her head.  “What a tool that guy is.  How cheesy can you be? 
Proposing at a baseball game in front of tens of thousands of strangers and
putting it up on the scoreboard?  That’s got to be the most clichéd thing ever.

“REALLY ORIGINAL
THERE, MORON!” she yells as everyone around us claps and cheers when the woman
on the screen nods her head up and down emphatically and the pair embrace.

Oh sweet
Jesus.  Sweet mother fucking fuckery of fucks.

I am going to
win the
'Tool of the Year'
award if my proposal shows up on that screen
in the next five minutes like it’s scheduled to.  I don’t even know if there
is
a
'Tool of the Year'
award.  There must be.  It’s probably a huge,
gold penis trophy with an arrow pointing to it that reads, “This is you!  A
giant dick!  Congratulations.”  There’s probably even a
'Tool of the Year'
book they print every year like that
'Darwin Awards'
book that really
has nothing to do with winning an esteemed award and everything to do with the
fact that people are pointing and laughing because you died from trying to slow
dance with an ostrich that would rather peck out your eyes than learn the Cha
Cha.

Claire is
going to peck out my eyes if I propose to her right now!

“Carter, are you
okay?  You look like you’re going to throw up.  I told you no one should ever
eat more than six hotdogs.  That’s just asking for pig snout disease or
whatever the hell they make those things out of,” Claire scolds as she looked
me over worriedly.

“I ate a pig
snout?!” Gavin asks elatedly.  “What’s a pig snout?

Claire turns to
the other side of her to try and explain to Gavin that hotdogs are, in fact,
not made out of dogs, and I take that moment to jump up from my seat, mumbling
something about throwing up before I race up the stairs to the concierge desk
to cancel my Cleveland Indian’s Proposal Package before I die a slow, horrible
eye-pecking death.

“I think he’s
going to break up with me.”

Liz’s sigh
through the phone line is loud and clear.  I know she's irritated with me. 
I
am irritated with me.  It's getting to the point where I can’t even stand the
sound of my own voice and yet I can’t shut up about this.

“He’s been
acting really weird ever since the Indian’s game last week,” I explain as I
pull my car into the driveway and let the engine idle.

“Carter isn’t
going to break up with you. Will you shut up about this already?  Maybe he’s
just stressed about work or the fact that his parents are finally coming for a
visit.  Did you try out that move on him I told you about the other night?  The
one where you take your fingers and put them in his-”

“LA-LA-LA, I’M
NOT LISTENING TO YOU!” I yell over her voice and try to block out the words
“prostate” and “gentle massage”.

“Fine, but I’m
telling you – it will totally relax him,” she says matter-of-factly.

I turn off the
ignition and rested my head against the steering wheel.

“Have you tried,
oh I don’t know,
asking
him what’s wrong?” Liz continues.

“You’re rolling
your eyes at me right now, aren’t you?” I reply.  “No, I haven’t asked him. 
I’ve done what every other woman in a new relationship does when her boyfriend
is acting all twitchy and nervous.  I completely ignore the situation and
pretend like it isn’t happening while making a list of possible responses and
comebacks I can lob at him when he finally decides to give me the brush-off.  I
am NOT going to be one of those people who clam up when he tells me, ‘It’s not
you, it’s me,’ and then six hours later when I’m sitting alone in the dark with
a bottle of vodka scream, ‘OH IT’S TOTALLY YOU AND YOUR SMALL PENIS!’.  I’m
going to have viable retorts ready to go so I don’t come up with them later
when I’m drunk and alone, and they do no one any good.”

I sit back in my
seat and stare at the front door of the house I now live in with Carter.  The
white, three bedroom ranch with black shutters is nestled in a lush cluster of
pine trees.  I love this house.  But more importantly, I love the two men
inside of it.  My heart literally hurts to think about not being with Carter.

“Carter doesn’t
have a small penis, by the way,” I say, breaking the silence.

“So you’ve told
me.  Several times,” Liz deadpans.

“I’m sorry I
keep bugging you about this.”

“Don’t
apologize. That’s what I’m here for.  Just talk to him about it.  You can thank
me for my sage advice by remembering that, as my maid of honor, you are
required to keep any and all passé bachelorette party activities as far away
from me as possible this weekend,” Liz reminds me.

Liz and Jim’s
wedding date is fast approaching.  Being as far removed from a typical bride as
possible, Liz had vetoed a traditional bachelorette party and instead decided
it would just be one big co-ed night out.  Maybe that’s what Carter and I need
- a night out with friends without any work or parenting responsibilities.  I
thank Liz again and quickly hang up the phone so I can go in the house and
greet my boys.

~

“I’m home!” I
yell as I close the front door behind me and set my purse down on the table
next to it.

A flash of color
darts into the room and barrels into me.

“Mommy’s home!”
Gavin cheers as I pick him up and start walking further into the house.

“Where’s Daddy?”
I ask as I rub his back while he clings to me.

“He’s gettin’
ready for work.”

I walk into the
bedroom and set him down on top of the bed, bouncing onto the mattress next to
him.  Gavin stands up and starts jumping up and down and singing.

“Woke up dis
mornin’, got myself a gun!”

Before I can
tell him to stop, Carter walks out of the bathroom, popping his head through
the neck of a tee shirt and then pulling the material the rest of the way down
over his stomach.

“Hey, baby,” he
greets me with a smile as he makes his way over to the bed, leans over, and
gives me a kiss.  He lingers against my mouth and rubs his lips back and forth
against mine before pulling away so he can look at me.

“Did you let our
son watch
'The Sopranos'
again today? I ask him with a raise of my
eyebrows.