Light and fluffy off the starboard bow. :-)

[phinnia]

This is kind of silly and fluffy like spun cotton candy, but it amuses me somewhat, similar to the Law and Order bit. I wasn't quite sure what to call this: it's an idea I've had for a while, and I'm writing it to amuse myself, because sometimes I'm like that.

I could call it 'Thies has Two Daddies' or 'Looking for Miss Goodbar' or 'Jakob and Fabian go to Kindergarten' ... or I could just call it Genderqueer in the Pre-K.

Audra paced around her hotel room and sighed, listening to the phone ring.

And ring.

And ring.

Where the hell were they?

Finally, on the fifth ring, the speakerphone picked up, treating her to a distorted version of 'Doo Wah Ditty Ditty Dum Ditty Doo' by Manfred Mann.“Yeah?”

“It's me.”

“Hey, spunky. How goes?” Fabian's voice was distant and tinny, abstracted. She'd obviously called in the middle of his workday.

“Not bad.” she admitted, flopping backward on the bed. “Not bad. Look, I got this message from Thies' school ...”

“Oh, yeah, we got that. The kindergarten teacher?”

“Yes.” Audra nodded, nudging her shoes off. “Something about a picture?”

“Don't worry, babe. We'll handle it.”

The song stopped, and started again. Audra sighed and rolled her eyes, pushing her hair out of her face. “How long have you been listening to that?”

“What?”

“The doo wah ditty song.”

“Oh God, I don't know, a few hours. It's catchy.” He began to sing along, serenading her from several thousand miles away, and she laughed.

“I'll let you get back to your work. So you're going to take care of this thing?”

“Of course.” Fabian replied, a smile in his voice. “You just worry about your conference, and Jakey and I will take good care of Miss Goodman.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Shit, that's my dinner. I'll call you back later?”

“Sure thing, spunky. Love you.”

“Love you back.”

It occurred to Audra as she stuck her cellphone in her jeans pocket and got up to answer the door that perhaps the fact that Fabie and Jakey would be 'taking good care of Miss Goodman' might be ... interesting, to say the least.

Hopefully the poor woman would come out of it in one piece.

* * *

“So when are we meeting with Miss Goodbar?” Jakob stretched lazily and took a long drink of coffee before falling back onto the overstuffed sofa with a yawn. Appreciatively, he ogled the tall morsel of naked blonde sitting on a stool in front of him, cool and pale and delicious in the sunbeam streaming through the east window.

“In a few hours. Three-thirty, she said.” Fabian replied, not bothering to look up from his vanity mirror and the delicate kohl smears he was applying around his eyes.

“So what is this all about?”

“Oh, you know how they make little kids draw pictures of their families, right?”

Jakob nodded and started laughing. “I see.”

“Yeah. Miss Goodbar is confused.” In the mirror, Fabian twitched an eyebrow as his face flirted with a mischevious grin. “I suppose one cannot blame Miss Goodbar for her confusion ... but I imagine that this isn't going to help.”

“You're enjoying this.” Jakob accused.

“Of course I am. My goal is to get Miss Goodbar to have to get a good stiff drink after this.” He picked up a couple of lipsticks off of the table, looked at each thoughtfully for a moment, and selected one.

“Kindergarten teachers don't drink.” Jakob scoffed. “At least mine didn't. Of course she was about three hundred years old and smelled like mothballs, so maybe she didn't need to.”

“All that preservative.” Fabian snickered, getting up from his table and disappearing into the walk-in closet, returning with a few elegantly tailored silk shirts. “White, pink or lavender?”

“I love the lavender, it brings out the colour of your eyes.”

“Well, that's good enough for me.”

* * *

Andrea Goodman was a young teacher, fresh-faced and eager and still at that stage of teaching where she was excited about everything; squealing internally over the utter cuteness of the chubby little paintbrushes, carefully making sure that all the cubbies were neatly labelled in block printing and that the plastic cups and plates were perfectly stacked in their baskets by the end of the day. She had shiny new untested teaching philosophies and was still able to read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' with a perky smile in her voice. She was a very sweet and well-meaning young lady, anxious to please and help, and was very enthusiastic about Parental Involvement and her role as a kindergarten teacher in a respected private school such as that one. Every week she wrote enthusiastic letters to her mother about the wonderful students and the caring, concerned parents and the wonderful experiences she was having.

So when she returned to her classroom with a full jug of water in order to refresh the flower arrangements, she was very pleased to see two people already in the room, promptly on time for their three-thirty appointment. A tall blonde woman was standing by the window, staring out over the play yard; a young man with ... with green hair, all right, Andrea, you can handle that, it's not too unusual for people to have green hair nowadays ... yes, a tall young man with green hair and glasses was poking through the book rack.

“You must be Thies' parents.” she smiled, setting the jug of water down on the table and extending her hand toward the young man in a friendly gesture. “I'm Andrea Goodman.”

“Jakob Vanderschpiegle-Lennon-Donnelly.” he replied with an engaging smile, nudging the woman by the window after shaking Andrea's hand. “Love, wake up, the teacher's here.”

“Oh, hi.” The woman turned. For a moment, it occurred to Andrea that she had an awfully deep voice for a woman -

Before it dawned on her that the peach fuzz on her cheeks really meant that Mrs. Vanderschpiegle-Lennon-Donnelly ... well ... wasn't.

* * *

“So I understand there's some concern about our son?” Fabian smiled, patting the poor woman on the hand as he watched her facial expression run the gamut from shock to uncertainty to plain vanilla confusion.

“Oh ... yes. Yes.” she floundered. “Yes.”

Fabian and Jakob traded vaguely amused looks; Jakob sat down on one of the small tables, yawning.

“Something about a picture?” Fabian prodded helpfully.

“Yes!” Andrea managed to recover a certain amount of her composure, bustling over toward the bulletin board which showed the students' finished work and taking down the picture in question. “Yes.”

“Oh, isn't it cute.” Jakob marvelled, peering at the piece of construction paper. “He's obviously got your artistic talent, schnookiebaby.”

“An excellent use of colour and line.” Fabian smiled disarmingly at the teacher. “Well, this looks fairly accurate, I'd say ... there's me, with the yellow hair – oh look, he's such a sweetheart, he even put the tiara on! And there's Jakie, and there's Audrababe there, and there's his brother and sister. I don't see anything wrong with that.”

“I – I don't understand.” she replied numbly, sinking down in the rocking chair. “So ... are you ... divorced?”

“Nope, happily married.”

“The two of you are married.”

“Us and Audraschnookiebaby.” Jakob replied promptly. “But she's in Fresno right now at a conference.”

“She's a very respected surgeon, actually.” Fabian stretched.

Poor Miss Goodman looked, for all intents and purposes, like she was about to crash. She could, after a moment of adjustment, have dealt more or less well enough with two gay men raising a child. Two men and a wife – singular! Wife! - was completely out of her bailiwick.

“Would you like some water?” Fabian asked politely. “You look a little peaked. I'll get you some ... just a minute.” He disappeared out of the room.

Andrea's head fell into her hands. “I ... I don't understand.” she whimpered in a very small voice.

“It's complicated, schnookiebaby.” Jakob replied soothingly, patting her shoulder. “But we manage.”

“How - “

“You probably don't want to know.” he replied dryly. “If you're having trouble with this, you probably don't want to know.”

Fabian returned, carrying a plastic cup full of water. “Here you go, honey, have a drink.”

She sighed and gulped the water down, taking a look at the two of them with their honest, helpful smiles and their strange hairstyles. “So you are Thies' father.” she turned to the blonde one on the left.

“Yes.” he replied simply.

“And you are...” she turned to the other one.

“Thies' father.” he replied matter-of-factly.

“And you have a wife.”

“Yes. She's in Fresno.”

“Which one of you has the wife?”

“Both of us.” Jakob replied calmly, shrugging. “Think of it this way, schnookiebaby. It's all about sharing, really. Just think of it as one great big cookies and juice time.”

“That's very ... unusual.” She took another drink of the water, trying to recenter herself. “So ... your wife is a surgeon?”

“Yep.” Fabian replied cheerfully from where he'd wandered over to look at the paintings on the bulletin board.

“What do you do?”

“Oh, Schnookiebaby's an artist.” Jakob shrugged. “I run a coffee shop.”

Andrea took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. “So what on earth does 'schnookiebaby' mean?”

Fabian turned, laughing, and spoke up before Jakob could answer, having already noticed the evil leer on his face. “It's just a term of endearment. Don't worry about it. Darling, we should go, the kids will want dinner.”

“I suppose.” Jakob replied, bowing floridly and kissing Andrea's hand. “Wonderful to meet you, schnookiebaby.”

“It was very ... educational to meet you too.” she nodded, a weak smile on her face. “I hope to meet your wife sometime?”

“Oh, we'll all be here for Parents' Day next month.” They disappeared out the door.

Andrea Goodman sank down in the rocking chair again and picked up her notebook.

Dear mom ...

She set her pencil down again.

No.

Her mother would never believe it.

Really, she wasn't quite sure she believed it.

* * *

“So were you nice to Miss Goodman?” Audra yawned, kicking away her jeans and crawling between the starched hotel sheets.

“Of course we were, schnookie.” Jakob replied, the smile in his voice audible even through several thousand miles of fiberoptic wire and transatlantic cable.

“Really?”

“Of course.” Fabian soothed. “We're always nice. She was a little rattled, but she pulled through like a trooper. See? We can handle things fine.”

“That's what I'm afraid of.” Audra replied with a dry chuckle, flicking out the light. “So you didn't burn the house down?”

“Not one burn mark to be found.”

“Good.” she yawned. “I'll be home tomorrrow. Keep safe, you two. And kiss the kids for me.”

“We will.” they chorused.

“Goodnight, spunky.” Fabian murmured.

“Night.”

“Goodnight, schnookie.” Jakob air-kissed her through the phone.

“Night.”