WHO: Joy Llewellyn and Eileen Hayes WHEN: Afternoon, June 19 WHERE: Common Grounds SUMMARY: Joy & Eileen get together to talk about students and grandchildren. WARNINGS: none
Though Eileen Hayes and Joy Llewellyn had never worked together, there was a certain camaraderie that existed between teachers of small children. Add to that the ups and downs of watching your own adult children making their own potentially ill-advised decisions, plus the woes of aging, and you can imagine that the two women had plenty to talk about.
Which was why they were meeting at Common Grounds today.
Joy had arrived a little bit early, as she liked to do now that she was retired. She had settled into a nice corner table with her cappuccino when she saw the door open and a familiar figure walk in. Joy waved her hand to get Eileen’s attention.
Eileen waved a hand as she saw Joy, and she smiled. The two had shared some stories over the years, and she was looking forward to doing so again while her children were both working on their own projects. Before heading towards the corner table she bought a simple black coffee of her own, poured a bit of milk into it, and headed towards Joy.
"It's good to see you again," she smiled. "I almost didn't find this place with the name change." A beat and she slid in across from the other woman. "There was a name change wasn't there?"
“Oh, that was probably my fault,” Joy admitted upon finding out her friend had trouble finding the cafe. “I usually still call it Cool Beans. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But yes, the new owner changed the name. Rafael Valdez. Very sweet boy.”
She took a sip of her coffee before moving the conversation along. “How was your trip out here?”
“It’s alright. Young ones always switching things up. Is Cool Beans not cool anymore? So it would seem. Although I don’t know why Common Grounds would be more hip,” Eileen rather thought that you should name something and let it be rather than coming up with the newest trending hash-thing or whatever. But unlike some of her generation she knew well enough to stay out of the new-fangled things she didn’t understand.
“The trip was hectic as it always is when one flies, I remember when flying wasn’t such a cattle prodding experience, but it was decent enough. A safe flight is a happy one. How have things been here? Does everyone feel a little less safe these days? Should I be worrying about my children?”
Joy’s face darkened as Eileen began asking questions. “Hard to say. The police are still poking around without any answers, at least not that they're ready to share yet. Some real bright minds on that force, and if they haven't figured it out I'm afraid there's no easy answer.” Another sip of coffee. “So, worry… yes, I don't think you can avoid it.”
“A mother’s plight I suppose,” Eileen agreed. She had been doing it for long enough it felt natural. Even if it had never quite felt natural for her to do. She was not a worrier by nature- generally far too practical for it. But with her husband’s death, her son’s career choice, and now this murder in their hometown. “Hopefully they’ll get it put to rights soon,” she offered. “Emmett can’t say much about it of course, but I’m certain he’s working on it quite a bit.”
She took a sip of the coffee and smiled more brightly. “It was such a relief to finish the school year this year. I had such a class.”
“Ooh, a class!” Joy put her chin in her hands. “Tell me some stories. Did anyone get bitten? Anything flushed down the toilet that didn't belong? Foul language beyond their years?” There were so many ways for a group of children to be such a class, Joy couldn't even guess at all the possibilities. But she knew one thing for sure: there were bound to be good stories.
Eileen chuckled. “Oh good lord,” she reached for her coffee. “It started with one little girl, shall we call her Julia? And her obsession with Elsa. Now that’s not unusual for second graders these days. But this one wore an Elsa dress every single day for those first two weeks and then there were playground issues because the other little girls wanted to be Elsa. And I truly don’t care how a child dressed so long as it’s decent and it doesn’t cause complications, but clearly this was. So I had to have the parents in — and this was August, Joy. August!”
Joy laughed, loudly enough to draw notice from other patrons of the coffee shop. “I must admit I never experienced the full force of the Frozen phenomenon firsthand,” she said, “since I retired just before it started. But you can bet I’ve heard stories -- I assume the light blue colored pencils get worn down the fastest in your classroom, too? But I don’t think Timberline Academy has ever had to have a parent meeting about Elsa. What did the parents say?”
"They were understanding to a degree, but they didn't want to say no to their daughter," Eileen tsked. "I never had such issues with Effie, but even if I had, I wouldn't have had any difficulty telling her she couldn't wear an Elsa costume to school. Fortunately we were able to a compromise wherein they got blue dresses for their daughter to wear and managed to convince her that this was what Elsa wore to school. The other girls settled down, and there we were." She shook her head. "I've never even seen the film, but I could tell you the entire story."
“I’m sure you could sing me the songs, too,” Joy agreed. She’d picked up her fair share of Disney songs from her students over the years. “What else are the little ones into these days? I can’t keep up anymore. I’ll be hopelessly outdated if Eli ever has a child.”
"Oh goodness, even with them around, it's difficult to keep up. There's a fair amount of love for Octonauts and Cars around my group as well. The usual types like Batman, Spiderman, and Disney Princesses besides Elsa as well." She tilted her head. "Do you think Eli is going to any time soon?"
“Certainly not soon. Maybe not ever. He's been thinking a lot about it lately, and he takes the responsibility seriously, which I think is good. It's been causing trouble with his girlfriend, though.” Joy shook her head as she drank more of her coffee.
Eileen nodded, taking a sip of her own coffee. She was beginning to wonder if grandchildren were even in her future. Who knew with Emmett, and she got a sense that Hugo and Effie might have them, but they hadn't yet. And sometimes she wasn't certain how to broach that conversation with her daughter. "It is good he's thinking about it seriously then," she simply replied. "Hopefully that responsibility will be a good thing for both of them in the end."
“He’ll figure it out. They always do,” Joy said thoughtfully. “Now, I want to hear more about your little Elsa. I have a feeling things didn’t go smoothly from September all the way through the end of the year…”