Page 117 of The Holy Grail

Adventures in babysitting

Jacob immediately ran to Evan. “Evan!”

Evan high-fived the excited boy. “Hey, Little Man. How much have you grown since the last time I saw you?”

“A lot. I had to get new shoes. See?” Jacob lifted a foot so his navy Chuck Taylor’s were on display.

“Very stylish. You can’t go wrong with a pair of Chuck’s.” He pointed down to his own battered black pair.

Along with the children, Paige and David had brought what seemed to be an extraordinary amount of stuff.

For Julian there were diapers, baby wipes, baby clothes, bottles of breast milk, a car seat, stroller, and even a portable playpen/crib thing.

Jacob didn’t have nearly as much stuff, but he had a large backpack with a change of clothes, art supplies, books, and a couple of movies.

“For being so tiny, babies sure have a lot of shit,” Jules murmured when David had finally gotten everything inside, with the help of Evan and Malcom. “Men go to war with less than this.”

Along with all the stuff, came two full pages of instructions and emergency numbers, of which there were many.

Just reading through some of them (how to heat up a bottle, the proper sleep position for a baby, and what to do in the event of choking), had Jules wondering if she was going to make it through the night.

She’d never even had a houseplant, for crying out loud.

Thank God Evan was going to be around, because Malcom appeared to be a little uncertain, himself, which meant between him and Jules, they didn’t even add up to one qualified adult.

“You’re looking a little overwhelmed,” Paige said.

David was looking at Jules like he was having very strong second thoughts about leaving his children in her care, so she brushed off Paige’s concern with a wave of a hand.

“I’m fine. I just honestly had no idea all this was part of the babysitting experience.

But, I’m really fine. I mean—” she broke off to pull Jacob in for a side hug and ruffle his buzzed hair, “this one probably won’t be too much of a fuss, so the only one I really need to worry about is that one there,” she said, pointing to Julian, who was still being held by Paige.

If anything, David looked like the second thoughts he was having were now full-on Hell, no thoughts.

“Don’t listen to her,” Evan said, his words directed at David, as he moved in to take the baby from Paige like an expert. “Nothing is going to happen to the fruit of your loins. I promise.”

“What are loins?” Jacob wanted to know.

“Never mind,” David told him, before telling Evan in a low voice, “Try and keep new words to a minimum, please.” Then after glancing at his watch, David turned back to Jacob. “Who’s in charge while you’re here?”

For a second, Jacob didn’t seem to know if it was supposed to be Jules, Evan, or Malcom, so he simply pointed to each one.

“That’s right. They’re all in charge, but Evan is a little bit more in charge, okay?”

“He’s the boss?” Jacob asked for clarification.

“Yes, exactly. So go to him first for anything.”

Jules rolled her eyes.

“What if he’s in the bathroom?” Jacob wanted to know.

“Then knock on the door.”

What followed then was almost like the ‘goodbye’ scene in Sophie’s Choice.

Only instead of saying goodbye to one of her children forever, Paige was saying goodbye to both of hers …

for approximately sixteen hours. There were kisses and hugs, until David finally ended it by pulling Paige out of the house.

“Time to go. We have reservations,” he reminded her .

“Have fun!” Jules called after them, before closing the door. “That was intense,” she said to Jacob, who was still standing there. “Is she like that when dropping you off at school?”

He thought about that. “Not anymore.”

For dinner, they ate waffle sandwiches, which Malcom and Jules made, while Evan hung out in the living room with Julian and Jacob, watching TV.

Every once in a while Jacob could be heard cracking up, sometimes accompanied by Evan.

When Julian woke up and started crying, Evan changed his diaper, then came into the kitchen to warm up a bottle of breast milk.

It was a little strange having a child at the table, as was seeing Evan holding a baby while he ate, one-handed.

It was also a lot strange at how many questions an almost six-year-old boy could ask.

They started off benign enough, with Jacob wanting to know why they only had one cat, were they going to get any more, why the furniture didn’t match, and why the stove was so big, all of which were asked in about the first five minutes of the meal.

From there, he began lobbing some harder to answer questions.

“Why did you all want to live together?” he wanted to know.

The question made it clear that since the conversation between Paige, David, and Jacob about Jules, Evan, and Malcom living together, it had become a source of curiosity for the little boy.

The three of them all looked at one another, as if silently asking who was going to be the one to answer. Finally, Jules replied, “Because we like each other a lot.”

“You mean like a boyfriend and girlfriend?”

There was another round of glances, and then Jules spoke up again, because apparently neither man knew what to say. Not that she did, either, but calling Paige to ask what she should do was not really an option, so she decided the best thing to do was be vague. “Kind of.”

“Are Evan and Malcom your boyfriends?”

Since her previous answer had worked, she used it again. “Kind of.”

“Are you their girlfriend?”

“Kind of,” she said a third time, deciding it was now her favorite answer in the world.

Jacob’s expression turned thoughtful. “I kind of have two girlfriends at school.”

“You do?” Evan said, finally entering the fray now the worst of it was over. “Are they pretty? ”

Jacob shrugged.

“Well, looks aren’t everything. What matters is if you like them. Do you like them?”

“I don’t always like them. Sometimes they’re mean.”

Evan nodded. “Girls can be mean. But they usually grow out of it … usually by their mid-thirties.”

Jules gave him a look that said, Careful, now.

“What are their names?” Malcom asked.

“Kelsey and Emma.”

“Isn’t Kelsey the one who put glue in your hair?” Evan wanted to know.

Jacob, in the process of taking a bite of his waffle sandwich, made a face before replying, with his mouth full, “Yes.”

Jules leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. “She probably did that because she likes you.”

Looking confused, because that information obviously didn’t seem to make sense, Jacob swallowed his bite and picked up his glass of milk. “So, who are you going to marry?”

The question was directed at Jules, who was beginning to wonder why kids didn’t come with an ‘off’ switch. When she glanced at Malcom and Evan, both of them looked like a deer in the headlights. “Neither one, actually … even if they were to ask me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wouldn’t be able to choose. I like Evan and Mal equally.”

“I don’t think I want to marry Kelsey or Emma.”

“You never know,” Evan said. “You might change your mind in twenty years.”

Jacob shrugged, then thankfully jumped to another subject.

When dinner was over, Jacob surprisingly offered to help clear the table with Malcom and Jules, while Evan took Julian into the living room and put him in his hybrid playpen/crib thing.

However, when Malcom and Jules started clearing, Jacob just stood there. “We need music.”

“Oh.” Jules stopped. “What kind of music do you want?”

“The bomb song.”

“The … bomb song? What’s that?”

“I think he means “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” by the Gap Band,” Malcom replied, grabbing his phone, then tapping and scrolling for a minute, until the song began to play. As the first few notes were heard, Jules recognized the song, and so did Jacob, whose face lit up like it was Christmas.

“That’s it!” he cried out.

He and Jules began clearing the table together, and when she saw him sort of dancing from the table to the sink, she decided to join in. “You have some good moves, kid. Did Paige teach you those?”

He nodded.

“Did she teach you this?” Jules asked, before breaking out in the iconic dance move from Saturday Night Fever , raising her hand and pointing up to the right, then moving her hand down and pointing to the left, while moving her hips from side to side.

“No.”

Because he looked intrigued, she showed him how to do it, and they practiced a few times until he mostly had it down … maybe not on a John Travolta level, but certainly impressive for someone who wasn’t yet six years old.

The next song Malcom played was Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” and while it was obvious Jacob didn’t know it, he still seemed to like it and continued to dance and straighten up with Jules.

“What do you think?” Malcom asked. “Thumbs up or thumbs down?”

“Thumbs up,” Jacob proclaimed.

“They used this song in a commercial with dancing raisins in it.”

“Raisins can’t dance.”

“These were like cartoon raisins. It was kind of funny.”

“Oh.”

When the kitchen was clean, Jules told Jacob he could get a snack out of the snack drawer.

Jacob looked enthralled. “You have a snack drawer?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“We don’t.”

“Oh, right, I know your dad. He probably thinks kale is a snack. But that doesn’t mean Paige shouldn’t have a secret one somewhere … that’s a little disappointing.”

She took him over to the designated snack drawer, and when she opened it for him, he drew in an excited breath, probably because most of the ‘snacks’ were really …

an assortment of candy. There were a few granola bars and protein bars, but mostly it was fu n-sized Snickers, Reese’s peanut butter cups, Milky Ways, Three Musketeers, and Twix, with little bags of Skittles and Sour Patch Kids mixed in because … Evan.

Jacob gazed down at the sugary bounty in awe.

“Take your time,” she told him. “It’s a big decision, even though I always go for the peanut butter cups.”