Chapter 11: Easter Bunnies & Cactus

For his part, Arthur was glad that Easter had come so quickly after Joan had finally closed out the most recent mission - the one that had taken over their lives for the past two weeks. The whole experience had stressed Joan out beyond her regular high level of stress, which in turn stressed everyone else out. Joan's sister and her husband were coming down to spend the holiday with their daughter, and of course, Arthur, Joan, and Maia. Having some family time was just what they all needed - especially Joan - Arthur thought as he puttered around their bedroom on Easter morning.

Once it sounded like everyone else was in the kitchen, Arthur donned the Easter Bunny costume he'd recently unearthed from the basement. He'd gotten it when Maia was little, and this year decided to bring it out again. "Dad?!" Maia had shrieked as everyone else burst into laughter at both what Arthur was wearing and Maia's reaction. Taking the giant bunny head off but leaving the costume on, Arthur joined his expanded family around the table for breakfast. Joan grinned at her husband as she chided him playfully "Really Arthur? The bunny costume?" In truth, however, she'd always appreciated how much he'd gotten into whatever holiday it was. Both he and Joan had happy memories of holidays with their families as children, and they worked hard to create similar memories for Maia over the years. Joan had come home from work on Friday with three dozen eggs so that she and the girls could spend Saturday morning decorating and dying eggs while they waited for Sarah's parents to arrive. That evening while the girls were busy watching a movie, Joan, her sister, and their husbands sat around talking about the girls and putting together Easter baskets for them, and filling those little plastic eggs with candy, money, and other little trinkets. If you'd have asked any of the adults who had more fun - themselves hiding them or the girls hunting for them - they probably would have told you it was a serious toss up. And so after an extended period gathered around the kitchen for breakfast, the adults sent the two girls off to hunt for eggs around the house. It took them about an hour, but they did finally find all well-hidden 48 eggs.

As everyone sat around the living room the girls opened up their eggs and dug into the Easter baskets that Arthur still insisted came from the Easter Bunny. The girls tore right into the Easter candy, and sweetly offered some of their loot to their parents. Joan looked around at the scene in her living room: everyone was busy peeling pastel foil off of chocolate eggs, Sarah and Maia were chattering about candy, school, and things they thought were hilarious on YouTube. Life was good. Joan smiled to herself, and let herself relax a little and try to believe that everything was good.

The holiday weekend was delightful but passed too quickly for everyone. Joan's sister and her husband took the girls back to NYC with them on Easter Monday, and planned to keep them until the following Sunday. That way Arthur and Joan could work and not need to hire a babysitter to stay home with the girls on their holiday break. In addition, it gave Joan and Arthur some time just to themselves that Caroline had to imagine her sister was in need of. For their part, the girls were thrilled to get to spend a week in Manhattan. As they ran around the city with Sarah's dad/Maia's uncle, doing lots of touristy things in addition to joining Caroline for lunches out at some of her favorite spots, Joan and Arthur threw themselves into work - trying to take advantage of the time they had not being responsible for the girls.

Early Friday afternoon Arthur burst into Joan's office, calling out her name as he blew in. Catching her while she was on the phone she glared up at him, shooting him a look to pipe down. Taking the cue, he stood there, waiting for her to end the call. Speaking into the phone she affirmed to the person on the other end of the line that, "Yes, it's Arthur. I'll talk to you later," as she ended the call.

"Can I help you Arthur?" she asked her husband as she hung up the phone. She didn't make eye contact with him, but he could see the corners of her mouth trying not to smile.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked her then, curious about the other person's identity.

"I'm pretty sure that's not what you actually came to talk about Arthur," Joan said to him as she brushed some stray hairs out of her face and looked up at him, "But it was Seth if you must know."

"And how are Seth and you?" Arthur asked her then teasingly. Seth had been a bit of a sore spot in their relationship over the years. Joan had been involved with Seth at one point before their marriage, and ever after that the two had maintained a friendship that involved Seth also being Joan's sponsor for her drug issue. Arthur wouldn't admit it to Joan, but he'd always been a little jealous of how easily she and Seth got along, and how quick she was to trust him. At one point he had accused her of being too involved with Seth and that hadn't gone over well with Joan. Over the years, Arthur had mostly come to see Seth as an important person in Joan's life because he was able to support her when she was feeling vulnerable to old habits. So while Arthur wasn't thrilled with the maintained relationship, he tried to just joke about it now to deal with the way he felt and still try to trust Joan that her relationship with Seth was nothing more than friendship.

Joan rolled her eyes at her husband as he asked her about Seth and her. "We are fine," she told told her husband, "and by we I mean you and me and me and Seth. The two of you - well you'll never be fine, but we all already know that."

Arthur nodded. Still standing up behind her desk as she was when he came into her office, she crossed her arms, cocked her head, and stared at her husband. "What?" he asked when he noticed her posture.

"What do you mean what? You burst in here calling out my name. What do you want?" she asked him as she shook her head. Sometimes she was amazed that Arthur was the DCS when he couldn't even remember why he came into the room.

Raising his eyebrows and letting his bright blue eyes smile at her, Arthur told her, "Oh right! I booked you an appointment with your esthetician, it's in an hour so you better get going. I'll meet you at home by 4," he said to he handed her purse and coat to her.

"You what?" Joan started, "Arthur what's going on?"

"Don't ask questions, it's a surprise and you're going to love it," Arthur replied with a twinkle in his eye.

"Arthur - what kind of surprise requires me to go to the esthetician, and also since when did you even have that word in your vocabulary?" Joan asked him, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I didn't know the word until this afternoon, Midge did though. She made the appointment. Now come on - stop stalling and get going," he said hurrying her out of her own office.

Deciding it was best not to ask questions she left the office and drove off to her appointment. Arthur took off shortly after he knew that Joan had left the building. He ran into the house and packed a small bag with clothes for himself, some underwear for Joan along with the bathing suit he wanted her to wear as they lounged by the pool the next day, and their toiletries. When Joan pulled her car into the driveway, Arthur dashed out after setting the alarm and didn't even let her come inside.

"Arthur! What on earth is going on?" Joan asked him as he opened her car door.

He grinned at her, "I'm driving us to our surprise," he said as he motioned for her to get out and hop in the passenger seat. She did so begrudgingly. And with that they whizzed off to the airport. Pulling their car into the lot at Dulles, Joan finally figured that we were definitely going somewhere, but she still had no idea where they were going. Arthur wasn't giving up any information, and so she tried to figure it out from context clues. Looking at her husband she finally realized that all he had with him was a little carry on suitcase.

"Where's the luggage?" she asked him. He responded by continuing to grin and gesturing down at the carry on he had with him.

"Are you leaving me?" Joan asked as she stopped walking.

"What are you talking about?" he responded spinning around to see his wife studying him and no longer walking anywhere, "Of course not. Why would you think that?"

"Because there's definitely not enough room in that suitcase for even what I'd need for a night away. What is going on Arthur?" she asked him, not totally wanting to ruin the surprise, but worrying that Arthur might be forgetting details - like clothes - that would be important to her later.

Arthur's grin got even wider as he told her, "I only packed you underwear, I've got my own stuff in here, and our toiletries."

Joan blushed deeply and sputtered, "WHAT? No Arthur, we have to go back so I can pack something, anything, to wear."

"Nah, I also packed you a bathing suit" Arthur told her as he flashed her a winning smile. When he saw that she wasn't really recovering from his statement about only packing her underwear, Arthur relented a little as he admitted, "We're going west, there will be time to get you some things when we arrive."

She rolled her eyes, but finally started moving again. Once they were settled into their first class seats on their way to Tucson, Joan leaned into Arthur and asked him, "You really didn't pack me any clothes?"

He chuckled and told her, "Nope. Not any."

"You are crazy," she told him.

After a beat he told her, "Yeah. Well I thought of picking stuff out but I figured I'd just pick the wrong stuff. I figured it was safer if we just let you pick up something new when we arrived. We'll swing by La Encantada when we get there." Joan smiled to herself as she realized just how thoughtful Arthur had been - even if he was playing it pretty safe by not even trying to pick out an outfit for her.

The heat of the Arizona late afternoon greeted them as they left the little Tucson airport and picked up the rental convertible that Arthur had reserved for them. Bright red and flashy it was the opposite of their safe, sleek, black BMWs they both drove in DC. "How'd you think to come here?" Joan asked him as they strolled through La Encantada while Joan wandered in and out of stores looking for the clothes she needed for that night and Saturday.

Arthur reached over to take his wife's hand and explained, "I wanted to go somewhere warm, and I remembered how much you love cactus."

Joan laughed out loud at her husband's response. "I don't know if it's me who loves cactus so much. I mean I like them, but I think you have me confused with our daughter. Remember how taken Maia was with the saguaros the first time she saw them?" she reminded her husband.

"I remember that. I also remember what she said about them when she saw themthat winter we came out here to visit my brother while he was out here," Arthur said as he too laughed.

Joan and Arthur both thought back to that trip. It was another much needed family vacation. Arthur's brother had been doing some work at the University of Arizona, and he'd rented a little Spanish style house not far from campus. Life had been a little stressful in the Campbell home. Maia was 6 at the time and she'd been in a phase of not wanting to wear socks or tights or anything because she didn't like they way they felt. The seam on the toes rubbed her the wrong way, and even when Joan caved and bought seamless everything, she'd just protested for no other reason than what Arthur and Joan could determine was just a desire to be difficult. Joan was exasperated with Maia, and Maia had dug her heels in. On top of all that, Joan had been dealing with some family drama with one of her sisters and so when she was home she was often on the phone. This bugged Maia who could give her mother about 20-30 minutes of phone time before she got antsy and whiney. In turn this frustrated Joan, and so the two of them were in a vicious cycle of pressing each other's buttons. Arthur's resolution to the problem was that for the President's Day holiday they'd all go to Tucson to visit his brother. Even in February the weather would be warm enough for Maia to wear sandals, and the time difference would mean that Joan couldn't talk to her family some of the time. The trip had been a good, restorative one for everyone. They'd done some hiking and had visited Saguaro National Park. Joan had talked to her family twice a day, but gave the daytimes to her daughter and husband. When they were hiking one day Maia had asked her parents, "What's inside the cactus?" They'd talked about cactus anatomy then, and how good cactus were at taking care of themselves even in harsh conditions. "So they're soft inside?" Maia asked after her parents were done explaining.

"Well - they're not prickly inside. I suppose their firm so that they stand up, but softer yes," Arthur had said as he thought through his response out loud.

Maia had smiled, and then excitedly pulled on Joan's arm. "Mom," she said in her little 6-year old voice, "They're your plant!" Both Arthur and Joan had looked at Maia with some confusion then.

"What are you talking about Miss Maia?" Arthur had asked her playfully.

"Prickly on the outside to take care of themselves, but soft and full of good stuff on the inside. That's a cactus right?" she asked her parents wondering why they weren't following her logic.

"Yes," they'd both affirmed.

"That's like mom, it's like this is her plant-self!" Maia had exclaimed.

Arthur had thought that was hilarious and he got a good laugh out of the comparison of his wife to a cactus. Joan had taken it well, she knew that Maia meant it not as a derogatory statement. And truth be told, the more she thought about it, Joan had to admit that she was kind of like a cactus. Ever since then, apparently, Arthur had thought of Joan when he saw cactus. It was a weird thing, but ultimately the memory was a good one, and Joan was more than a little touched at the thought and sentiment of Arthur's surprise quick trip to Tucson.

That night the two of them had gone to dinner at what, over the years of visiting Arthur's brother, had become a favorite restaurant in town - Cafe Poca Cosa. Driving back up to their hotel in the foothills of the mountains, they'd both admired the way the hotel had wrapped white Christmas lights around the cactus so that the saguaros lit the way up the road to the hotel. As Arthur turned the car keys over to the valet, Joan leaned over and kissed Arthur before taking his hand to lead him into the hotel lobby, and then on to their room. This little getaway was definitely what she needed, and she intended to make sure Arthur knew she was impressed with his thoughtfulness.

Thanks for the reviews. Since this only a T, I gotta stick to the guidelines about the Arthur & Joan romance details. But I'm trying to write them romantically, but still still true to their characters. Cheers!