One Fine Day… part 5
(Of Single Parenthood and Double Trouble…)
Lucrezia Noin had just dismissed her class when her cell phone rang.
“Perfect timing,” she thought, positive that it must be Mirialdo, letting her know where to pick up the kids. Instead, much to her dismay, she was greeted by a completely unknown female voice, hollering obscenities into the phone.
“Ok, you twit, where the bloody hell are you? You’re supposed to take off in 30 freaking minutes, pal! Did you forget already that you had Howard drag my butt out of bed to switch flights with me?!! Get your sorry butt out here RIGHT NOW!!!”
She held the phone at a distance as the woman continued on venting off for what seemed like a good couple of minutes. Finally, when it seemed that she had calmed down enough to catch her breath, Lucrezia spoke.
“Uh… ma’am…”
“What the… Who are you?”
“I’m Lucrezia Noin, and who are you?” she replied, slightly miffed at the other’s aggressiveness.
“Flight captain Une. Please get Captain Peacecraft on the phone,” she insisted quite coldly, “and do tell him to sort out his childcare messes without me, next time.”
Captain Peacecraft? Only then did the picture start to make sense in Lucrezia’s mind. Heero and Relena had been playing “Preventers on patrol” with her cell phone, right up until the moment she had to leave… And, at the time, she had just grabbed the cell phone that Heero was holding, not giving it too much thought. But Relena had one, too…
“Ma’am… I’m afraid that’s not possible. See, we must have accidentally switched phones this morning,” she explained calmly.
“Oh…” the lady at the other end muttered, then, after a brief instant of hesitation, commanded, “Well, then, what’s your cell number?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t have time to diddle, ma’am. We’ve got a plane full of people who are expecting to take off on time, here.”
“I can’t just give you my cell number,” Lucrezia protested, slightly taken aback. She never gave that out to anyone, not even to the college, save maybe the Dean himself! True, she had just given it to Mirialdo Peacecraft without a second thought, but that was beside the point… Or was it?
“Ma’am, it is a federal offense to obstruct the smooth functioning of an airline. Now please give me your cell number so I can call your tardy boyfriend and get this over with!”
“I will most certainly NOT!” Lucrezia retorted, her aggravation mounting quickly, “I will call him myself, if I have to. And, just for your information, I have no romantic involvement whatsoever with Captain Peacecraft!”
With that, she flipped the phone closed, and stormed angrily towards her office. Where did this lady-pilot get off, talking to her in that tone? And just where the heck had Mirialdo Peacecraft disappeared to with HER kid? She resolved that it would be the last time she’d let someone so painfully gorgeous sway her better judgment, just as her fingers furiously dialed her own cell number.
“Darn it… I knew I should have handled it on my own,” she grumbled to herself. “Aaaargh! Busy? Who the hell is he yapping with, on MY cell?! Could be Australia, for all I know about this guy… How could I be so stupid as to entrust him with Heero?”
Her worst doubts took shape in her head as she tried the number again and again. A kidnapper… or could he be a spy from the ex-Alliance, seeking revenge on the ones who fought to free Earth from its dictatorship? Getting to her through Heero… Or worse still, working for those scumbag scientists that she had taken Heero from, back at the children’s shelter… No doubt they’d still be interested in getting their hands on him to perform all sorts of tests, if it was really true… that her child had been genetically altered.
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Meanwhile, inside a black Passat, on the way to the airport, a young man with platinum blonde hair wondered why, whenever he dialed the number that Miss Noin had given him, he kept receiving a busy signal…
In the back seat, two children were busy playing a round of interactive Tetris on their GameBoys, until they decided that it would actually be more fun to try breaking the record for consecutive rounds of “The Song That Doesn’t End”...
Then the phone rang.
“I bet you this is her…” the Peacecraft figured.
“Uh… Mirialdo?”
“Hello, Lucrezia.” a deep sigh of relief followed from the young woman’s end.
“Thank God I got through this time… How’s Heero?”
“Oh, he’s being a perfect little gentleman. I was about to drop them off at the airport daycare, but if you want, I can take the next exit and swing by your college and leave them with you…”
In the background the two children stopped singing, to cheer out loud,
“Yes! Pleasepleaseplease no icky airport daycare!!!”
“Uh… ahem… that’s ok, I can meet you there and pick them up myself. I believe a certain Captain Une wants you to get there ASAP…”
“She called you?”
“Yup… I believe our cells got swapped…”
“Hmh… That would explain it. Did she give you a hard time? She comes across a bit rough at times…”
“Heh… no, no… It’s quite alright, I handled it. Just get there, though…”
“Um… right… of course.”
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Fifteen minutes and 37 rounds of “The Song That Doesn’t End” later, the children climbed onto Lucrezia’s SUV, and waved good-bye to Mirialdo, who, coincidentally, already had a monster-sized headache. Even as he waved back and dashed towards the pilots’ lounge, to ride damage control with Une, he had the nagging feeling that the song’s silly lyrics would be stuck on his mind for the rest of the day.
Meanwhile, Lucrezia could not help feeling like dirt for the horrible thoughts that had just minutes before gone through her mind. Oh, she was aware that any rational person in her situation would at least have had a fleeting doubt. And yet, for some reason, she could not get over the gut-wrenching feeling of having wrongfully accused an innocent person. A trustworthy, kind-hearted person, who, right now, was the closest thing she had to a friend.
“Hey, Re,” Heero’s voice startled her out of her self-induced guilt-trip, “Wanna see if we can beat our NEW record?”
“Record of what?” Lucrezia inquired curiously, then regretted it instantly.
“It’s the Song That Doesn’t End,” Relena pointed out quickly, “Heero and I just sang it for twelve whole minutes on our way here. It was KEWL!”
With that, the children exchanged a glance, breathed in, and merrily belted it out, painfully loud,
“This is the song that doesn’t eeeeeeeend, and it goes on and on, my frieeeeeeeeeeend!!!”
“Um… guys… it’s ok. I’m familiar with the song, I really don’t need to hear it all.”
“Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it for ever just because…”
“Guys… ok, I remember it now, thank you.”
“This is the song that doesn’t eeeeeeeeeend…”
“Alright, that’s cool. But it’s really fine if you stop now…”
“And it goes on and on, my frieeeeeeeeeeeeeend….”
“Aw, man… how long before they get tired?”
Twenty-five minutes later…
“Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they’ll continue singing it for ever just because this is the…”
“Alright, ENOUGH ALREADY!!!” Lucrezia finally exploded, out of sheer exasperation.
“Song that doesn’t… Mom?” Heero blinked, startled. Relena’s jaw had dropped at the unexpected vocal outburst from the young woman, and her cerulean blue eyes had welled up with tears.
“Miss Noin…” she sniffled, “But but but... Heeeeeeeerooooo!!! Your mom doesn’t like my voice!!!! I wanna go hooooooooome. I want Miiiiiiriiiiiiiii-sniff- aldoooooooo!”
“Oh, dear,” the black-haired woman sweatdropped, “I really did it this time…”
She frantically searched her head for a way, any way, that would stop Relena from wailing in utter misery, and her own son from looking at her as though she were the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Then a sign at the side of the road caught her attention…
“Relena…. Re… sweetie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, and you do have a very pretty voice that would give… uh… (think of something, think of something!) Britney Spears a run for her money any old day,” she began.
The little girl wailed some more before taking notice of the woman’s last remark.
“You… sniff… you really think so, Miss Noin?” she stuttered, just as Heero handed her a Kleenex from his own pocket.
“I most certainly do,” Lucrezia chirped, cringing inwardly for failing to come up with a better example of musical excellence, such as Sarah McLachlan, or Dolores O'Riordan.
“You like Britney, too?” Relena sniffled some more, her face opening up into a smile as she wiped the tears with the back of her sleeve.
“Um… yeah, you bet I do! Who doesn’t?” Lucrezia lied blatantly, just as a small grimace warned Heero that this was NOT the appropriate time for the tale of how his mom called the teen idol Twitney Spears…
“Wow… this is super!” Relena giggled with delight, “My brother always says I can be an opera singer when I grow up. But I think being Britney is waaaaaay better… Of course, I could also be a princess, too, and rule the universe…”
“Yeah!” replied Heero, “and I’ll be the bestest Gundam pilot in the whooooooole world and all the colonies, too, and I’ll protect Princess Relena with my Wing-Zero!”
“Hey! I wanna pilot Wing Zero, too!” the little girl protested at the thought of being just a pretty damsel-in-distress.
“Which brings me to what I wanted to ask you guys when I first interrupted your song,” Lucrezia smirked with an air of complicity, “Who’s up for the Air and Space Museum? I hear they’re hosting this really cool exhibit on that Gundam show you guys like…”
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The party of three sat down at the museum’s café, which for the occasion had “Gundamized” its menu. Exhausted and exhilarated from running around from one end of the exhibit to the other, they had finally decided that grabbing a bite to eat would not be a bad idea at all. So, after convincing Heero to get off the cockpit of the Wing-Zero model, for they could always go back to it later, they set out for the signs that read “SpacePort Café”.
Lucrezia was quite perplexed in her quest for any even remotely healthy menu choices (“what on earth is a Shinigami Wrap, anyway? The Sandrock veggie sandwich sounds alright…”), when three humongous sundaes whizzed by, destined for the table next to theirs. Seeing how the two children’s eyes lit up at the enticing vision, she flipped the menu closed, and resolved to live a little, and to heck with good nutrition principles for once!
“Well, I think I’ll go for the Death-Scythe-by-Chocolate sundae!” she announced, “how about you guys?”
“Mom… you mean… we can…” Heero stuttered, pointing at the gigantic treat, unable to believe his own ears.
“Cool! My brother never lets me have ice cream for lunch!” Relena cheered.
“I don’t usually, either… but, hey, you know what else would be really fun?” Heero’s mother continued, sounding like a six-year-old herself, “If we all got a different kind, so that we can share!”
“Alright!” Relena gushed, “Heero, your mom rocks!” then, pointing to a picture of a strawberry-and-whipped-cream loaded sundae, she confidently flagged a waitress (with the practiced ease of someone who dined out a whole lot, Lucrezia could not help but notice) to inquire more about it.
“That’s our Strawberry Heart of the Universe Sundae,” the young waitress chirped back at the six-year-old, before going into a detailed description that caused both children to salivate. “And because it’s part of our Gundam special, you receive a complimentary 3” model of the Sandrock!”
“’Scuse me, ‘scuse me, miss, what’s this green one with the Oreo thingies on it,” Heero inquired excitedly.
“That’s our Chocolate Mint-Justice Sundae, which comes with the model of the Nataku. It’s my favourite, you know…” then, in a low whisper that only the adult at the table was supposed to hear, the waitress commented, “the pilot is soooooo hot! I wish they made real-life models of him too…”
For an instant, Lucrezia fought the urge to gag. If anything, from watching the show with her son, the pilot of Nataku was her least favourite character… He kind of reminded her of his schoolteacher, Mr. Chang, who had a thing against single moms…
“To each their own, I suppose,” she shrugged, just as the two children had started playing the “Just Communication” theme with their glasses and cutlery.
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Lucrezia soon found out that, as much of a feat as it was to get Heero to leave the museum behind, nothing could quite compare to cajoling little Relena Peacecraft into doing the same. The little girl had managed to work herself up in such a frenzy that she ended up having a mild asthma attack just out the door. Could have been worse, Lucrezia had sighed, thanking Heaven for fast-acting inhalers, that avoided her a trip to the ER. Yet, it only occurred to her too late that, by the time she would be handing the munchkins over to Mirialdo for her other class, the sugar high would just then start to kick in…
And indeed, it did, the very second that Heero and Relena hopped into the black Passat, headed towards the Peacecraft residence. Mirialdo, who was already tired to his bones from the roundtrip he just came from piloting (not to mention, his colleague Une giving him pilot lounge cleaning duty…), barely resisted the urge to bang his head against the wheel as he proceeded to get stuck in rush hour traffic with the two hyped-up kids. He had this eerie feeling that, from then on, the mere sentence,
“Are we there yet?” would never again hold its neutral, non-threatening meaning.
Not that things got any quieter as soon as they did reach home. By then, Heero was hopping around the backyard (and into every single puddle, may I add), pretending to be Tigger, and Relena, who instead was very fond of Roo, was following behind, hollering, “Wait for me!!! Kaboink, kaboink, kaboink…”
For his part, Mirialdo slumped on the couch with a glass of water and a Tylenol. He would from time to time glance out the French door to check up on the kids, all the while muttering,
“My poor rhododendrons…” and keeping a close watch on the clock for Miss Noin’s class to be over. At least then, he would only have one little Tasmanian Devil whirling around the backyard instead of two…
Instead, he found himself growling in utter exasperation as raindrops started to fall, and the two kids barged into the living room, without even removing their muddy shoes. He attempted a rebuke, in hopes that they would at least go back and leave the shoes at the front door, but found that his temples throbbed even more painfully when his own voice was compounded to their loud giggles and squeals.
“Moon Crystal tiara!!!!!” Relena hollered with a sweeping movement of her right arm that barely avoided knocking over an expensive vase. For all reaction, Heero made a shielding gesture and dived to his left, landing lickety-split on Mirialdo’s shins, outstretched on the couch. The young man, who was already feeling quite feverish and groggy, let out a small groan.
“Whoups… sorry,” Heero muttered, rubbing his head sheepishly at the poor fellow, obviously in multiple states of pain, then proceeded to scuttle off upstairs after Relena, yelling,
“Sailor Moon, I’m gonna get you!!! You can’t escape the power of the Negaverse!!!!”
Only then did Mirialdo deem it safe to clutch his hurting shins and growl a curse into the cushion. He then settled down again, curling in the fetal position on the couch, and covered his ears with his hands. It was not long before sleep overcame him, despite the noise from the two hyped-up children upstairs.
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Lucrezia Noin stood in the rain by the Peacecrafts’ front door, muttering curses to herself for being so scatterbrained as to forget her umbrella in her office. She rang the doorbell once… no answer. Twice… nothing yet. Maybe the doorbell wasn’t working, she wondered, as she proceeded to knock. Still no answer, after several trials. She resolved to circle around the house to see what was keeping Relena’s brother from coming to the door.
“Making me wait out here in this miserable weather… what’s up with that,” she grumbled under her breath as she trampled in the soggy grass, careful not to slip and fall face-down in the mud. She figured it was bad enough already that she probably looked like a drowned rat…
She then proceeded to step in front of the French door, and rap her knuckles on it before she actually looked through the glass.
“Oh, my…” she felt her cheeks catch fire as she recognized the huddled, sleeping figure of Mirialdo Peacecraft. An unorthodox thought crossed her mind in the same split second, just as her eyes settled on the way his jeans accented his derriere. She promptly shoved that thought back into the recesses of her head, together with the rest of her fantasies of him.
Startled by the tapping on the glass, he stirred in his sleep, then peered over his shoulder, a dazed expression on his face as he finally focused his vision on her, beyond the glare of the windows. His mouth gaped and his hand slapped his forehead, just as he scrambled off the couch to let her in, all the while apologizing a mile a minute.
“Never mind that,” she promptly cut him off, a frown of concern on her face at seeing how pale he looked, “are you alright? You look really exhausted… Did Heero give you a lot of trouble?”
He frantically denied, blaming the dark circles under his eyes on his massive headache and, possibly, the beginning of a chest cold. With that, he led her inside by the arm and cranked up the gas fireplace, this time not caring at all about the muddy shoeprints all over the hardwood floors. He then promptly scavenged a towel so that she could at least shake the rain out of her hair.
“Jeez, what a clueless moron,” he cursed himself once alone in the small guest bathroom, “who knows how long she’s been standing out there in the pouring rain…” He cringed, thinking she must be very annoyed at him… if only too polite to let it show. And yet, that silly feeling in the well of his stomach would not subside…
“You know, you can snip it in the bud if you start popping vitamin C and Echinacea right away…” she suggested casually as she ran the towel on her short hair, all the while standing by the fireplace. He wrestled his gaze away and wondered what on earth was wrong with him, having such thoughts… Seeing her with her hair wet, pulled back from her face, the better to reveal those dizzyingly intense eyes from underneath her dark eyelashes… That gentle, yet unwavering tone in her voice; her concern for his health, even as she shivered in her damp clothes… It affected him more than he would have liked. And her lips never quite seemed so red to him, despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Not that she ever did, at all… even though she was no longer a soldier.
He walked away, only to come back, gently leading a very sleepy Heero down the stairs. Well, at least the sugar high seemed to have worn off for good, as both children had seemingly passed out under a pile of Relena’s toys. The little boy’s face lit up in a full-sized grin as his mother picked him up in her arms and smoothed his unruly dark hair. His blissful face elicited an unconscious smile from Mirialdo, just as he settled against Lucrezia’s shoulder and mumbled sleepily,
“Mom… can we miss the ferry again next time? It was fun…”
He walked them outside to their car, insisting that Lucrezia borrow his umbrella until she could retrieve her own the next day. Not an easy task, since she kept arguing that she already owed him for the next century, just for looking after her son. But he’d be damned if he did not get his way in the end… after all, the expression “stubborn as a Peacecraft” existed for a reason… and he owed her just as much for looking after Relena.
He watched her buckle Heero in the seat, unfazed by the pouring rain drenching his hair and clothes. Then, just as she climbed in the driver’s seat, their eyes met again, her soft smile once more awakening the butterflies in his stomach.
“Mirialdo… take care of yourself, ok? And, for Heaven’s sake, don’t stand in the rain like that! Or I might just have to drop by tomorrow to check on you…”
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(to be continued…)
