It's Definitely Not All Mary Poppins

Negotiating Clubs (3)

"Gardening?"

"Yes."

"Chess?"

"Okay."

"Yoga?"

"Daddy said he liked it, so I'll try it."

"Art club."

"Is it in the morning, or later? Because I paint better at night."

"Ballet?"

"I like dancing."

"Book club?"

"Sure."

"Horseback riding?"

"Yeah, but I don't like riding them. Can I just, like, brush their hair?"

Matthew paused, flapping the pages of the booklet in his hands. "Geographical design."

"That sounds cool."

"It doesn't exis – " He groaned, hiding his face with the pamphlet. A wave of exhaustion and dizziness washed through his head. If he'd known it'd be this easy, he would've stared with her first. Even so, it seemed only fair that picking clubs for one child was like pulling teeth; the other, naturally, had to be just as troublesome. "Lilly, you can't do them all. You just need four."

"Why not? They sound fun," she said, covering the wall-length castle with layers of blues, greens, and gray reminiscent of a Monet painting. Bringing her paint pallet to her side, Lilly tilted her head, staring. "Does this look like a jungle night sky, or is it too blue? I'm painting a red manticore, so keep that in mind."

"Lil –" God did he want a cigarette. "You can pick four."

"How can I pick just four?" she asked, flapping the piece of wood against her and splattering paint in recently-cleaned spots of the floor. "This'll be the first time I get clubs like that!" Lilly turned back to the wall. "I've been waiting to do clubs like those since Eli started school there."

Matthew cocked his head to the side. "What does that mean? He didn't start there originally?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Eli came to live with us when I was still a baaaaabyyyyyyyy," Lilly sang, swiping her paintbrush against the cinderblock wall. "I just remember listening to Daddy telling him he needed to do clubs because 'I am working' and 'I don't want you debraiding your mind watching TV', and then I'd take the book and look at them. Some of the words in it are still really confusing and big and I don't know them, but the pictures make them look cool!"

He shook his head. 'Ask later, ask later,' he mused, reopening the pamphlet. "Lil – okay, let's start with picking four, okay?"

Liliana glared.

Matthew assessed that the stare was definitely an inherited trait.

"Fine."

"Art club to start?"

"Only if –"

"I'm signing you up for the afternoon one," he assured her, tabbing the page's corner. "They don't have a night one."

"That's dumb."

Matthew rolled his eyes. "Okay...gardening?"

"I said 'yeah' to that."

"Are you sure?" he asked, raising a brow. "That's two of your four gone right there. That's half your clubs if you pick gardening."

Lilliana pulled her paintbrush off the wall, mouth open in supposed thought. Sticking the wooden end against her lip, smearing a small amount of gray paint above her chin, she turned back to Matt. "Weather."

"W-weather?"

"The weather one? What's that one called?"

Matthew flipped through several pages before landing on the club. "Meteorology?"

"Is that it?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes, but it isn't open to you until next year."

She sighed, turning back to the wall. "That's rude."

Tabbing the page, he flipped to another science-related club. "Astronomy?"

"That's horoscopes, right?"

Smirking, Matthew glanced up at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars overhead. "You need to stop hanging out with Eli so much." Bringing his eyes back to her, he continued, "No. It's about space, the stars, moons –"

"Does it track the moon?" she asked, turning to him. The girl asked it with such a seriousness that Matthew nearly snorted. "I do some of my best painting during full moon nights."

"Lilly, that's the wrong question. I don't know. It just says it 'explores the wonders of the universe – from models of the solar system to tracking spectacular astral events.'"

"Put that one down."

"Please?"

Lilly cocked her head. "What?"

"Put that down, please?"

"Oh. Please?" She stared twisting halfway back to her painting before turning around. "Sorry, I'm thinking about..." Lilly gestured to the wall.

Matthew nodded. "Uh, okay. So, we have –"

Lilly threw her pallet to the ground, falling to her knees to rifle through her collection of paints. Squeezing out black, a shimmering silver, and a darker green onto the wood board, she grabbed a broader brush. She stood back up, swishing the paintbrush across the wall in long black strokes, the colors underneath peeking through.

He watched, intrigued.

She sighed. "The wall's not smooth enough." She kept painting.

"...afternoon art club, gardening, astronomy," he listed, eyes watching the child move. "Are there any others you remember?"

Lilly tapped the paintbrush in the palm of her hand, rubbing what came off against her fingertips. She flicked it on the wall, dots of silver speckling over the freshly painted black. "I still want the weather one."

"Well, that isn't open to you until next year."

"That's dumb," she sighed, wiping silver paint across her chin. "I need red." Turning, she stopped. "I don't need red. Wait, do I?" Lilly turned back to the wall, glaring.

He was beginning to understand what Mr. Yang meant concerning yoga. She could benefit not necessarily from the mindfulness, but from the concentration and focus that came with it. "Can I pick one for you?"

"What if I don't like it?"

"Then...I will let you crash weather club."

Lilly leaned back and eyed the painted wall, holding her thumb up.

Matthew wasn't sure what she was doing.

"Okay."

He got up. "Need anything from downstairs?"

She didn't answer. A paintbrush swiped in a colorful arc across the wall was her response.

Closing the door, Matthew popped a piece of his nicotine gum. He grimaced the same way he used to when taking cough syrup – frowning and grunting lowly; it did not settle his empty stomach. Wrapping the pamphlet into a tight tube, he took the ramp back downstairs.