It took her a moment to locate her target in the mess of bodies on the floor, but eventually, she spotted his bronze-haired head at the back of the group. Even after she had him within her sights, she stalled for a moment, watching him interact with his environment.
But patience had never been her strong suit. Annie half-tiptoed over to where the boy sat, legs criss-cross and as still as one could expect, then leaned down. "How are you, sweetie?" she asked, quiet as to not disturb the other students.
"Mommy!" Ronan spun around and hugged her.
Annie returned the embrace, smiling. Now, if only he could always be so happy to see her. "Shh," she said, then dropped her voice to a whisper. "I'm going to go drop off some stuff, then I'll be right back and sit with you. While I'm gone, I need you to be really quiet and be a good listener for Mrs. Donaghue."
He nodded with all the gravity a five-year-old could muster, and with a quick kiss to his forehead and a nod towards his teacher, she hurried over to the other side of the room.
The treats table was like a Pinterest board come to life. Next to the Santa cookies and snowman almond-bark Oreos – complete with tiny top hats, scarves, and pipes – her store-bought sugar cookies, still in their plastic wrapping, looked absolutely pitiful. But they weren't going to waste – and the other moms, the ones who always walked their kids to school and wore mascara and non-linty exercise pants every day – had already seen her over here, so there was really no choice. Annie stuck them right in the middle. They weren't cute, but they'd taste good, and that was what really mattered, right?
She had to keep telling herself that as she took the napkins out of the bag. Well, not taste, but usefulness, and the basic message was the same. The plain ones worked just as well as the patterned ones. Though she'd admit that she'd been in a bit of a rush when she picked these out, all the other designs had seemed a bit too obviously Christmas-y. Santa, Christmas trees, angels, no plausible deniability with any of them, and this was a public school. Didn't seem like any of the other mothers, with their cute matching Rudolph plates and cups, cared, but still. Maybe she was just more sensitive to these sorts of things than most - growing up the only half-Jewish kid around will do that to you – but they could at least try.
"That's not the point, Annie," she muttered under her breath.
"Sorry? I didn't quite hear you." Damn it, even her voice sounded nicer than Annie's.
She made sure a smile was firmly in place before she turned to talk to the other mom. "I was just saying how pretty all the treats are. They must have taken forever."
"I guess. I can only speak for the snowmen and the gingerbread cookies, but the twins were taking a nap, and, well, y'know." She shrugged, making her silky blond hair catch the light in a way Annie could only dream of.
"They're darling. You stay home, then?" This woman had introduced herself at some point, she just knew it. The name wasn't coming to her, but that didn't mean Annie was going to ask. That would be the same as admitting defeat, and the Crestas were a proud people. Though thinking about it, that trait never seemed to work out too well for them in the end. Oh well, no time to rethink her entire life now.
Belatedly, Annie realized that she'd tuned out of the conversation. "I just didn't want to miss out on that time with the kids, y'know? They're so precious at this age, and if there was any way we could swing it, my husband and I thought it was worth a little scraping by. How about you, Annie? Don't you find staying home rewarding?"
Way to make her feel about two feet tall. "Oh, I work in accounting. I just took the afternoon off to help with the class party."
Cashmere – yeah, that was it, Annie remembered thinking it was something stupid – gave her a tight, awkward half-smile. "Having a career is lovely."
"It really is. I told Ronan I'd hurry back once I'd dropped off my stuff, so…" Annie shrugged and got away as quickly as possible.
Off-tune versions of "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Her own voice, repeating "we're frosting the cookies now, not our classmates" over and over. The lid flying off the jar of sprinkles in a perfect arc as the little girl tipped it upside down.
Annie cringed. What had happened to the whole 'visions of sugar plums' thing?
"Babe, if you still want Christmas ideas, I think a tranquilizer gun would be a good one." Finnick collapsed down onto the couch next to her. "Cookies after dinner was a bad plan."
Of course it was. She'd suggested it. The prudent path here was probably to not bring that up. "I could've used one of those today."
Finnick snorted. "I forgot you had Ronan's class party today. Hyper kids, huh?"
"God, yes." Know what sounded really good right now? Wine. Lots of it. "And a few of the adults could've used it too," she added.
"So the Yoga Pants Committee showed."
"Indeed they did." She rubbed at the center of her forehead, right where it'd been hurting for the last couple hours despite the Advil, but after a second, she turned to face Finnick. "Wait, Yoga Pants Committee?" Finnick checking out the hot moms when he dropped off and picked up Ronan was just what she needed. Great. Just great.
Finnick shrugged. "Those ladies who hang out and talk in front of the door every day? You've gotta admit, they do wear a lot of yoga pants."
"I suppose so." Fingers crossed, he'd realize that this would be a good time to shut up about the whole thing.
No such luck. "I'm glad you didn't go all Heathers on them." Finnick's voice was soft, and he had that false-serious tone down to a science, but it sent her into a peal of giggles. "Hey, it's a real worry!"
She gave him a shove. "I wasn't going to kill them!"
"You were the one who wanted to shoot them with a tranq gun!"
He deserved a couple more pokes to the ribs. "If Ronan or Maggie comes down after hearing us, I'm blaming you."
"Nobody wants that." He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "How was the party?"
Annie snuggled up a little closer against her husband's side. "It was kinda nice. I really liked seeing how Ronan's getting along at school. It seems like he has a lot of friends."
"That's good. It sure seems like he's adjusting well."
"I think he is." A comfortable silence fell between the two of them, broken only by Finnick getting up to go into the kitchen. Annie followed him. "It was good to be able to spend some time not really one-on-one, but just with him, y'know?"
"Yeah. I wonder sometimes if we don't do enough of that."
She nodded absentmindedly as she watched him grab two glasses and some eggnog. "We should make a point of being better about it next year."
"Definitely." He added a shot of whiskey to both glasses, then offered one to her. "Drink to it?"
She raised her glass. "And to surviving the holidays."
"And not killing the class mom."
"I was going to go with us or word peace or good will towards man next, but I suppose that works too."
If Ronan or Maggie came down now, their laughter would be really difficult to explain, but they were being loud enough that she should really start coming up with her excuses now.