Donley, Marianne
Best Served Cold
Winter 2022
The Wilkinses blasted into our neighborhood community like a shooting star. Alita, a former model, willow thin; yards of hair, striking, tawny eyes. Harte, a football superstar, blond and dimples, Greek god shoulders.
Wives ignored Alita. Husbands and wives buzzed around Harte like bees around the only flower in a field. Soon we realized Harte was a player and a flirt. When I found my wife up against the fence with her skirt around her neck and Harte with his pants around his ankles, both breathing hot and heavy, my marriage was the first to implode.
Harte got a feature news story. Alita got a wide diamond bracelet and a brittle smile that didn’t reach her striking eyes. I got the kids, the dogs, and the house. My wife got the cats and a permanent rage from my refusal to forgive her.
Their marriage survived.
Neither Alita nor I received much sympathy from our friends. Harte continued to invite me to his backyard barbecues. “Come on, Perry,” he would shout, “Come have a beer. It’ll be fun.” I continued to decline but couldn’t help sneaking a peak from my upstairs bedroom window. Alita bustled about as if she were a hired caterer. Harte acted as host, surrounded by a mob of admirers.
Erstwhile friends apprised me of Harte’s continued philandering.
Alita ignored each infidelity. She managed her family with the same invisible efficiency that she catered Harte’s parties. We shared an accountant, a doctor, a dog groomer. When I asked if Harte might attend any task, she smiled her sharp smile saying, “Harte is incapable of mundane chores.”
Our kids went off to college. Harte met Faith Rayburn, a hot, blue-eyed, blonde; twenty-five but determined. She demanded a stunning engagement ring, marriage, and a generous prenup.
Alita managed their divorce details. She told me it was simple. “The kids have graduated. I don’t need support or the house.”
She helped Faith plan the wedding, which shocked everyone but Harte.
On the wedding day, hundreds of guests overran Harte’s house. Cars and cops blocked the street. Alita hired five different caterers, five different florists, five different bands, but paid only the deposits. Tempers frayed. Soon service people argued with the guests, who argued with the cops. Broken wedding cakes, crushed bouquets, and bills trashed the front lawn. Faith left in a huff, taking her diamond ring and the singer from one of the bands.
Harte yelled for Alita, but she had vanished with his savings account, his retirement account, and all the jewelry he had given her over the years.
His parties and crowds fizzled away. His kids don’t even visit. His house is in foreclosure.
Alita video called me yesterday, from a beach in Montenegro, which she said has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Her smile reached her stunning tawny eyes. She suggested I look her up if I were in the area. I laughed.
Yet.
I always wanted to see Montenegro, and I would love to send Harte a joint postcard.
It was suggested to Marianne H. Donley, when she was six, that she become a math teacher. Flush from the success of teaching her five-year old sister how to add and subtract, this seemed like an excellent idea. After a few math classes, Marianne realized math teachers routinely lie to their students. Examples: You can’t subtract a larger number from a smaller number. You can’t divide a smaller number by a larger number. When you multiply two numbers the product is always larger. She continued taking math courses because she figured she would eventually learn that you can divide by zero. While that never happened, she did teachmathematics to a variety of students from middle school to university level without ever lying to them. She now writes fiction from short stories to quirky murder mysteries. She makes her home in Pennsylvania with her husband and a tank full of multiplying fish. The story offered here was previously published in MoSAiC, Mount San Antonio College Literary Magazine.
Here Comes Trouble
Marianne H. Donley
Feature, June 2012
After the birth of her son, David, Ann Jones became addicted to a terrible and powerful substance –parenting books. She started with Your One-Year Old, moved on to the more commanding Your Child’s Self-Esteem; before David was three months old Ann had devoured Your Two-Year Old. She read How to Parent during late night feedingsand Your Three-Year Old before David could sit up or crawl. She even procured Parent Effectiveness Training. If a book dealt with parent and children, she bought it; she trusted it; she used it. Like her old Baltimore Catechism, she faithfully believed that by memorizing all the questions and answers she could get to heaven. For Ann, heaven was a confident, sane, healthy child just oozing with self-esteem.
Henry held a deep mistrust of his wife’s addiction. He believed that children were the reflection of their father and should be visible only when brilliant or unique, like: “Oh, Mr. Jones, your son, at age three, is the youngest M.I.T. graduate in the world.” He viewed those books as a hotbed of liberal propaganda. How did confidence or healthy self-esteem fit in with fear of father, God, and the police?
The first crisis in this divided family occurred when David turned two.
Question number one in Ann’s addictive catechism: How can a parent encourage creativity in her child?
Answer: A parent can encourage creativity in her child by teaching him rhyming games and by allowing him to use his imagination.
David learned to rhyme in Sears, Christmas shopping with his aunts. The word he learned to rhyme was truck, but he did not rhyme it with duck, luck, or muck. David exercised his imagination when he called the operator, said he was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico. It took Ann twenty minutes to convince the operator not to send the police.
“That kid better never embarrass me,” Henry warned Ann. But Ann had faith in her books and along came question number two.
Should a parent teach her child the correct names for all body parts? YES, a parent must teach her child the correct names for all body parts. When dining out with Henry’s parents, disaster struck: David accidently called his grandfather “grandma.”
“Don’t you know the difference between grandpas and grandmas?” Grandpa Jones asked.
David did know the difference. He explained it, too, in anatomically correct language. Ann sensed the hostility radiating from Henry’s side of the table. But Grandpa and Grandma Jones chatted back and forth like nothing had happened. David’s lisp made his explanation completely unintelligible. Ann knew that lisp saved her life.
Ann found it harder and harder to justify her addiction. Question number three was difficult for Ann to abide by; for she was getting the feeling the authors of her wonderful books had never met a child quite like David. Nevertheless, she plowed ahead.
Must a parent answer each and every question her child asks? A parent must answer all questions honestly, completely and scientifically. David’s questions stared out simple.
“Does Daddy have one?”
“Yes,” Ann would answer. “All boys have one.”
“Do you have one?”
“No, David, girls don’t.”
“Why, Mommy?”
“Because God wants it that way,” Ann replied.
“Can I ask Uncle Jim if he has one?”
“NO!” Ann answered. “You can just ask mommy these questions. OK?
David agreed to question only his mother about these matters. Ann thought she had weathered the storm very well, until one winter morning when David ran into her kitchen, hollering, “Mom, what does mated mean?”
Ann turned to face her son, acutely aware that two feet behind her and well within earshot were fifteen members of the construction crew working on her new family room addition.
“Can we talk about this later?” Ann whispered.
“But, Mom,” he bellowed, “Sunny is having his dog mated. What does mated mean?”
All the hammering and sawing stopped.
“Can’t this discussion wait?” Ann asked in a low voice.
“No, Mom, please, I wanna know.”
“Hey, Mom,” one of the roofers called, “we want to know what it means, too.”
All ears were on Ann, waiting to hear how she would answer.
“It means,” David said with authority, “that Sunny’s dog is getting married.”
“David,” Ann sighed, “if you knew what it meant, why did you ask?”
“I just wanted to make sure,” David answered as he ran back outside.
The construction workers’ chuckles, snickers, and belly laughs were deafening as Ann picked up was has left of her shredded dignity and walked out of the room without looking back.
Henry waited for her in the hall. “That kid better not embarrass me.”
“Just one more question,” she mumbled to herself, “then I won’t need these books.”
Should a child be able to tell his parents anything? David picked a family reunion, in front of three aunts, four uncles, twelve cousins, two sets of grandparents and one great grandma to tell Ann that he was pretty sure his father was still a virgin.
“Cold turkey!” Henry thundered as he threw How to Parent into the fireplace. “You’re going cold turkey. No more parenting books.” Your Child’s Self-Esteem followed Your One-Year-Old into the flames.
“Can’t I keep just one?” Ann asked as she tried to hide Parent Effectiveness Training.
“NO!” shouted Henry. “I told you that kid had better not embarrass me.”
“Do you think you could have handled David better than I did?” Ann asked.
“Absolutely!”
“Fine, from now on you are responsible for answering any and all of David’s questions.”
“Agreed,” Henry said without noticing Ann’s smile.
“Oh, by the way, dear,” Ann said sweetly, “Deacon Paget and his wife are coming with Father Tom to dinner.”
“I know,” Henry said, puzzled.
“Sue Paget is eight months pregnant and David wants to know why she ate her baby.”
Ann slipped out of the room as Henry frantically tried to pull How to Parent out of the fire.
Top Ten
Math Jokes
Marianne Donley
As a former math teacher, Marianne has heard them all. These are her favorites.
10. Some engineers are trying to measure the height of a flag pole. They only have a measuring tape and are quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole: It falls down all the time.
A mathematician comes along and asks what they are doing. They explain it to her. She pulls the pole out of the ground, lays it down, and measures it easily. After she leaves, one of the engineers says: "That's so typical of these mathematicians! What we need is the height, and she gives us the length!"
9. Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi!
8. Five out of four people are bad at fractions.
7. There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.
6. Math book: 1,000 Random Numbers Arranged in Ascending Order.
5. Father: I told you to be home at a quarter of twelve.
Son: But in math class I learned that one-fourth of twelve is three!
4. My sister has a brilliant horse. It can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and even extract the occasional square root. She decided to teach the horse a little analytic geometry (graphing, ordered pairs, etc.). The horse promptly died. Which proves you can't put Descartes before the horse.
3. Old math teachers never die; they just reduce to the lowest common terms.
Mr. Olsen's correction: Old math teachers never die; they just simplify.
2. Rene Descartes was having a lovely breakfast at a little outdoor cafe: coffee, croissants, and a bowl of blueberries. A waiter approached him and asked if he would like his coffee cup refilled. Descartes replied, "I think not," and promptly disappeared.
1. Q: What's purple and commutes?
A: An Abelian grape.
Valentine’s Day Rules
Marianne H. Donley
(February, 2012)
In 1986, Mrs. Ramsey was the only stay–at–home mom within an eight-mile radius of Oaks Elementary School. Her house sported cases of peanut butter, a whole fridge of milk, a cookie jar with just crumbs no matter how often she baked, homemade play–dough in six different colors and flavors, a daughter, a husband, and a ripe infestation of little boys.
They all dressed alike, these boys. Sweaty baseball caps covering a head of hair rarely touched by comb or shampoo. Striped shirts stained with purple jelly and tuna fish. Jeans worn for so many days that they could stand alone. Mismatched soccer socks and tennis shoes held together with spit and a length of string. Two of them, Daryl and Jason, belonged to Mrs. Ramsey. But the rest somehow tunneled in after dark looking for food, help with homework, a mean game of Crazy Eights, or someone to be grossed out by their Garbage Pail Kids Cards.
Since she didn’t work outside her home, by default Mrs. Ramsey also served as room mother. That year she volunteered for Jason’s fourth grade class.
Jason’s teacher, Mr. Sullivan, earned high boy-approval points after he got annoyed with all the little girls bringing Cabbage Patch dolls to class. He tried warning the girls, calling their parents, and assigning detention. Nothing worked. Every girl in class lugged their dolls along. Finally, Mr. Sullivan arrested the dolls for attending school without permission, convicted them, and then hanged them from the classroom ceiling with a noose around their soft little dolly necks. The dead dolls and their nooses, clearly visible though the room’s windows, caused a minor school controversy. Parents protested. The principal ignored it. The boys cheered. The girls learned to leave their dolls at home where they belonged.
The plague-of-boys assured Mrs. Ramsey that Mr. Sullivan would never approve a Valentine’s Day party, even though Valentine’s Day fell on a Friday that year. Mr. Sullivan was way cool. Valentines were girly and pink and had cooties and no way Mr. Sullivan would want a part of that.
Wrong.
But there were rules:
1. Everyone in class had to bring Valentines.
2. Homemade ones were nicer than store bought ones.
3. Everyone got a Valentine. No exceptions. No complaining.
Mrs. Ramsey typed up a list of all the students in the class and made sure everyone got the list. A few days before the party, Mr. Sullivan taught an art class that featured paper folding and cutting to make hearts (and the mathematics of symmetry happened for free). Mrs. Ramsey helped with the glue and the glitter and the math. Students also decorated shoe boxes with slits cut into the top to receive their cards. At the end of the lesson, the kids were invited to take home extra supplies if they wanted to make their own Valentines. A very neat way, she thought, to let students who couldn’t afford the material accept help without embarrassment.
The boys grumbled about Valentine’s Day to Mrs. Ramsey every chance they got.
“Do we have to give Brandy and Tiffany a Valentine?”
“Yes.”
“But they’re really gross.”
“Too bad.”
“Do you have to make all the cookies heart shaped?”
“Yes.”
“Will the punch be pink?”
“It will be now.”
“Ah, man. Can’t we have Dirt-with-Worms like we did for Halloween?”
“Nope.”
“Can we play Heads-Up Seven-Up?
“Sure!”
The Valentine’s party went off without a hitch. The boys gobbled up the heart cookies even with the pink icing and pinker sprinkles. They laughed over the sayings on the Sweetheart candies. They didn’t protest too much when the girls picked them in Heads-Up Seven-Up.
Finally, they opened the boxes with all the Valentines. Everyone had a huge pile, even Mr. Sullivan. Girls giggled and carefully tore the ends of the envelopes noting who signed each one. Boys ripped them apart looking for more candy.
In the midst of this chaos, Freddie Farkis stood up and shouted, “No fair. No one gave Mrs. Ramsey a Valentine.”
The noise level dropped to near silence. Mrs. Ramsey heard the clock ticking, a piece of paper rustling and the sharp inhale from Mr. Sullivan.
Every child in that room stared at the teacher. His eyes were wide. His mouth opened and closed in rapid succession as if he were a fish gasping for water. A sudden flush spread up the side of his neck and colored the tips of his ears hot pink.
Either Brandy or Tiffany sobbed, “We broke the rules. We broke the rules.”
“Moms don’t need Valentines,” Mrs. Ramsey said.
“Yes, they do. Everyone needs a Valentine.” Freddie turned to Mr. Sullivan. “You said everyone needs a Valentine.”
“Don’t worry, Freddie. Mr. Ramsey will get me a Valentine.” She glanced around the room. The girls seemed happy with that solution and smiled at her. Mr. Sullivan cleared his throat a few times and nodded his head as if he, himself, had arranged for Mr. Ramsey to give Mrs. Ramsey a Valentine.
The boys were not happy. They all folded their arms across their chests. They ignored their candy and cookies.
Freddie’s eyes narrowed. Mrs. Ramsey knew he wanted to argue more when the bell rang signaling the end of school. Mr. Sullivan snapped out of his panic and clapped his hand. “Let’s get this room cleaned up. It’s time to go home.”
Students packed their backpacks with their holiday loot and dribbled out of the doorway in groups of two or three.
Mrs. Ramsey stayed after to help.
“That was embarrassing,” Mr. Sullivan said when the last child left. He picked up chairs and placed them on the desks so the janitors could clean the room. “I am so sorry.”
“I typed up the list. It never occurred to me to put my name on it.” She dumped cookie crumbs into the trash can and emptied cups of punch into the sink.
“I’m going to have to figure out something for Monday.” He turned off the lights and picked up his briefcase and keys.
“Don’t worry about it. They’ll have forgotten all about it by the time they get to the crosswalk.” Mrs. Ramsey stashed her supplies in a rolling box, picked up her purse and headed to the kindergarten room.
Her daughter and a buddy, Erin and Addison were waiting for Mrs. Ramsey by the kindergarten door. Addison’s mom, Mrs. Marshall who worked swing shift and could sometimes attend school parties was with them.
“Our usual hoodlum-boy escorts deserted us,” Mrs. Marshall said as they started walking home. “They ran right by me without a single high-five. What’s up?”
“Sugar high,” Mrs. Ramsey suggested, looking around for her sons. “Your brothers didn’t stay?” she asked Erin.
“They went to Freddie’s,” she said. “I told them they better not. Are they going to get in trouble?”
Before Mrs. Ramsey could answer, both Daryl and Jason ran up.
“Can we go to Freddie’s?” They asked in unison.
“Will his mom or dad be home?” she asked.
They looked at each other, shrugged, kicked the ground and with great care did not glance at their mother.
“No parents. No way.”
“Ahhh, Mom.”
“Please. Pretty, please. With sugar on top.”
“Sorry, guys. When we get home, you can call Freddie and find out when his folks will be home. You can go over then.”
“His sister’s there. She goes to junior high.”
“Not happening,” she said.
They grumbled and groused walking down Eucalyptus Way. They argued when turning on Sycamore Avenue. They tried bribery all the way up Live Oak Street and into their driveway.
There they were greeted by an entire horde of boys, hanging in the tree, lounging on the front porch, rolling in the grass.
Freddie stood in the middle of the mob, straddling his bike, a grubby brown paper bag in one hand and the handle bars of his bike in the other.
“Here,” he said thrusting the paper bag into Mrs. Ramsey’s hands.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We traded. We traded our Valentines with my sister.” Freddie looked at his feet as she opened the bag.
Inside she found a small heavy glass bottle half–filled with turquoise-colored bubble solution. The bottle was strung on a long black string making a necklace.
“It’s your Valentine,” he said as he got on his bike. “Everyone gets a Valentine.”
He rode off before she could get the necklace around her neck. But the other boys watched as she unscrewed the tarnished cap and blew tiny iridescent bubbles all over the front yard.
“Thank you, Freddie,” she yelled to the quickly disappearing little boy. “This is the best Valentine I’ve ever received.”
Mrs. Ramsey has worn that necklace every Valentine’s Day for the last twenty-six years.