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Lily started preschool at Marlowe Prep in early September, two days after Labor Day. Rick and Kate took her to school together that first day, Lily walking between them, wearing her new backpack, one of her hands in one of each of theirs. Rick and Kate had a harder time saying goodbye to Lily than Lily had saying goodbye to them, since she was excited about starting preschool, having visited her classroom with Kate and Rick the night before the first day of school and meeting her teacher, Miss Jill, and her classmates, and the class hamster Flo-Jo (named for Olympic Track Gold Medalist Florence Griffith-Joyner).
After they had each hugged and kissed Lily and told her they'd be back in a few hours, Rick and Kate watched Lily stow her backpack in her little locker and then head off to the block table to begin playing with a couple of other kids. A few of the other kids were crying, or at least whining that they didn't want to stay, and one boy had wrapped himself around his father's leg and seated himself on his father's foot, refusing to budge no matter what his father, his mother, or Miss Jill said. Meanwhile, Lily was happily building a block tower with another little girl with raven-black hair and shining blue eyes, and they were chattering back and forth as if they'd known each other all their lives.
Rick and Kate walked out of the classroom, down the hall, out of the building, across the playground, and through the large black wrought-iron gates. "I wasn't expecting that," Kate admitted as they made their way down the sidewalk towards the SUV. "I mean, I didn't want Lily to be crying or not want to stay, but that she would take to it so immediately…." She trailed off, then said, "She clearly gets that from you. That ability to be at ease around other people. Even when I was a little girl, I wasn't the kid who walked into any classroom or onto any playground looking to make friends with everybody."
"It was something of a necessary skill I had to develop," Rick reflected. "I went to so many different schools, and The New Kid always goes into a new school with a target on his back. Friendships have already been formed, and by the time you're in junior high and high school, cliques, even among guys, are set too: the jocks, the nerds, the troublemakers. So I learned to be the friendliest new student, smart but not so smart as to get razzed for being a nerd, and the guy who made everybody laugh."
"You were a prankster," Kate said.
"A prankster, yes. A troublemaker, no," Rick replied. "I rarely cheated, and never on exams. I turned in my work on time, and I didn't act up enough to seriously earn the ire of the more intimidating teachers, faculty, or headmasters...at least not until the senior prank that got me banned from the prom." They had reached the car now.
"I was a rebel," Kate reflected. "I did the homework and turned it in on time, I made good grades for the most part, I never backed down from a challenge, whether it was academic or athletic, but I was also one of the kids everyone else knew not to mess with. My friends were few, but they were true and loyal."
"Like Madison," Rick said as they settled themselves in the car.
"Yeah," Kate replied. As Rick started the car and pulled into traffic, Kate said, "You don't have anyone in your life that you go back with as far as I go back with Maddie. After what happened with Damien Westlake...Do you regret that you never kept up with any of your old friends?"
He was silent as he thought about it for a long moment. "No," he finally answered. "With the exception of Damien Westlake, I knew, even at the time, that the rest of the guys I hung around with were...transitory. I'm sure some of them are still in touch with each other, but every school I went to, every guy I hung around with back then, they were all just stops along the way. My imagination was my best, truest friend...until I met you, that is. And I wouldn't want to have a hundred friends from my childhood and adolescence and college days, because you're my best friend, Kate, and you're the only best friend I'll ever need. And the friendships I have with Ryan, with Esposito, with Alan...Those came about because of you too. Old friends may be gold, as the saying goes, but the realest friends I've ever had didn't come into my life until you did, and I'll take them over the guys I went to eighth grade or senior year of high school with anytime."
Kate leaned across the console at the next stoplight to kiss Rick's cheek. He smiled at her in response.
Lily settled into preschool just fine, and her afternoons were usually spent regaling her father, grandfather, and little brothers with the details of her day, which were then repeated over dinner for Mommy and, when they joined the family, Alexis and Javier, Martha and Earl.
Lanie and Alan learned in early October that Lanie's intuition was spot on, and their second child was another boy. This began a spirited debate between them about what to name their son, since Lanie like the name 'Robert,' while Alan liked the name 'Andrew.' At Rick's suggestion that they use both names, both Lanie and Alan declined, because Robert Andrew Masters would give him the initials 'RAM,' while Andrew Robert Masters would give him the initials 'ARM.' Indeed, it wouldn't be until after he arrived that Lanie and Alan would finally agree on a first name and a middle name for their second son.
Alexis finally got her bar exam results on October 27, and was happy, relieved, and proud to learn that she had passed with flying colors, as was everyone else. She and Javier were living at her place (his lease had run out and he had opted not to renew it) while looking for a place of their own, and they hadn't found it yet. Alexis was busy going on interviews, and was hoping to land a position in an Assistant D.A.'s office.
Then it was Reece and Jake's first Halloween. As they had done with Lily on her first Halloween, Reece's first Halloween costume was a peanut, and Jake's first Halloween costume was a red jellybean, in reference to their nicknames of Peanut and Jellybean. Lily dressed as a princess, while Alexis and Javier showed up on Halloween night dressed as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy, Alexis wearing a blue-and-white gingham dress, plain white apron, a curly red-headed wig, and carrying a large bottle labeled 'Vitameatavegamin.' Javier wore an old black tuxedo and bow tie he had actually found when he and Alexis were searching for costumes at a vintage thrift shop and toted a large bongo drum, but stoutly refused to sing Ricky Ricardo's signature song "Babalu," although, to humor Martha and Rick, he did once tell Alexis, "Lucy, you've got some 'splainin' to do!"
Sarah Grace dressed as a police officer, showing everyone her little plastic badge and announcing her intentions to be a police officer like her dad when she grew up, while Nick proudly wore a firefighter costume and hat and carried a stuffed dalmatian with him. He had begun lobbying his parents for a real dog, but Kevin and Jenny lived in a building that didn't allow pets, so they were stalled. Kevin had dressed as Sherlock Holmes, and Jenny was his Watson.
Martha and Earl showed up dressed as John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the movie Rio Grande, Martha with her hair swept into a chignon, with a cameo at the throat of her lacy white dress with its long skirt, while Earl had grown a mustache and was decked out in a Union Army Cavalry Officer's blue-and-gold uniform, complete with suspenders, boots, hat, and sword.
Will was dressed as a dinosaur, while Alan had spiked his hair and wore an exact replica of the cream-colored suit and solid gray shirt and necktie, with a tan trenchcoat over top of them, that Thomas Dolby had worn in the music video for "She Blinded Me With Science," while Lanie wore a lab coat over her red maternity dress and black heels and her hair in a bun, with black plastic-framed clear eyeglasses, like the woman in the video who had shown Thomas Dolby to the psychiatrist's office.
Jim Beckett arrived decked out in a complete New York Yankees home uniform, wearing his all-time favorite player Roger Maris's number 9 on the back of his jersey, and the old-fashioned sanitary socks and stirrups with a pair of old cleats that were no longer sharp on the bottoms.
Like Kevin and Jenny, Rick and Kate's costumes also had a literary background, though their costumes, like Martha and Earl's, had also been portrayed in the movies: from the Harry Potter universe, Rick was dressed as a Quidditch player and Kate was dressed as a Golden Snitch. As Rick said, "This is as close to being a jock as I'll ever get," which led to a lively and spirited debate in which all the adults agreed that if Kate and Rick were ever to play Quidditch, Kate would, as Javier put it, "kick your you-know-what, Castle."
"She would," Rick agreed, "but Quidditch is the one sport where I actually understand all the rules, so that's an advantage, right?"
"If you say so, Richard," Martha said.
"Hey, I'm no jock, but I'm not a complete klutz, either," Rick insisted. "In fact, I think we should play Quidditch the next time we all go to the Hamptons house."
"I'm not going to be the Golden Snitch there," Kate said.
"I'll be the Golden Snitch," Jim volunteered on the spot.
"We're really going to play Quidditch?" Alan asked eagerly.
"Well, not before spring, but sure, why not?" Rick said.
There were plenty of treats for the kids, and thanks to some input from Madison, not everything the kids consumed was chock full of sugar. There was plenty of candy to go around, and Halloween sugar cookies, but also cheese stick fingers and cute little Clementines, completely peeled and with a celery stick stem that resembled miniature pumpkins.
Lily, Sarah Grace, and Nick joined the adults in bobbing for apples, and of the whole group, the kids and Kate were the only successful ones. The three kids also compared notes on their school Halloween parties. Being the oldest, Sarah Grace thought her party was the best overall-lots of treats and punch, and a costume contest in which she took second place. Nick insisted his party had the best treats, since they had real chocolate cupcakes with orange frosting and candy corn pieces that made jack-o-lantern faces on them. Lily declared her party the best because the preschool joined the elementary school for a big parade through the elementary school gym.
The party ended with a viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but the only one of the kids who made it through the whole thing was Sarah Grace. After the DVD ended, everyone said their good nights and left, gathering sleeping or sleepy children to carry them out, and when it was down to Kate and Rick, Lily, Reece and Jake, they changed the kids out of their Halloween costumes and into their pajamas. Reece and Jake didn't even stir, and Lily woke up just long enough to say good night to her parents before burrowing into her pillow and falling back to sleep.
Right before sleep claimed the exhausted Rick and Kate, Kate laid her head on his chest and said, "I enjoy Halloween so much more now than I ever did when I was a kid, and that's because of you."
She felt him smile. "It's my pleasure," he replied, kissing the top of her head before they both fell asleep.
