When the doorbell rang, I hollered to the kids to answer it. I was in the kitchen, cooking dinner (I forget what--probably tuna sandwiches again) so Jake answered the door. I glanced down and saw that the doorway was empty. "Someone left a Valentine!" Jake yelled as he ran up the stairs to me. I wiped my hands on my apron and inspected the stash. Jake held a little Hello Kitty paper valentine and a box of conversation hearts. Someone had written "To the hot babe" on the front, and signed it "Your Secret Valentines." Inside the card, Hello Kitty slid down a rainbow. I flipped the card over and looked at the writing. The letters were large, shakily written, and the author had used crayon. Definitely from a kid who was just learning to write. That meant that it had to be for Jake, although it did not sit well with me that an eight year old girl was calling my son a "hot babe." How did she even know what that meant?
"It must be from that little girl in your class," I told Jake, giving back the candy. He threw the card on the counter, ripped open the box of candy and threw some hearts in his mouth.
As he ran back to the basement I reflected on the little girl in question. For these purposes, I shall call her Sally. Sally had a history of love infatuation. The year before, she and another girl formed an exclusive "Love Club," with, as you might have guessed, love as the theme. They recruited from among the boys heavily. But there were so many recess tiffs and near fist fights over who was in love with who that the teacher finally had to dissolve the group, declaring that "We are all in the same club--the First Grade Club." This year, Sally has spent many a recess jumping out from the bushes to grab and kiss my son, who spends his time meandering the school grounds during his fifteen minutes of freedom. I can just picture Jake walking by the shrubbery, deep into an imaginary scenario involving karate and Pokemon, when kazaam! Sally leaps out and grabs him. I can hear the wet smack of her kiss against Jake's cheek and her wild laughter as Sally runs for her next victim. And I can see Jake wiping her spit from his cheek with the arm of his sweatshirt. "Yuck," he would mutter. But then again, he might grin and say, "Cool" instead.
By the next morning, I had forgotten about the Secret Valentine. But then, around dinnertime the doorbell rang again. This time I answered, as the boys were too "busy" playing the Wii. Sally sure is tenacious, I thought to myself as I opened the door. There on the welcome mat sat another box of conversation hearts, this time the sparkly kind. There were two notes next to it, one that read "To Suzy Lee" and another that said "To The Hot Mama." To the Hot Mama? Clearly these were not for Jake, as he is not a mama. But I am. Could the valentines be for me? Then who were they from? The cards were signed S.A. Who did I know with those initials? And who was calling me, a worn-out thirty-something mother of three, a hot mama?
That night at dinner, I asked if anyone had seen the Secret Admirer running away after ringing the doorbell. No one had, or so they claimed. "Maybe it's Dad," one of the kids suggested. I thought about that for a second, looking across the table at my husband.
"Nah," I said with a wave of my hand. "That's not Dad's handwriting."
We discussed the possibilities. The little girl across the street? Her name started with an S. But the "hot mama" thing didn't make sense. I wondered if the little girl's mom had suggested that one as a joke. But then there was the question of knowing my middle name. Hardly anyone knows that, my kids included. Briefly, I considered blogging about the mystery, posting a picture and asking, "Who left this on my doorstep?" But it was a busy week and I just didn't have time. One thing was for sure, though. Jake owed me a box of conversation hearts.
I thought that would be it for the week, but the day after the Suzy Lee Hot Mama Incident, there was more. As I sat chatting with my sister in the front room, the doorbell rang. I sprang from my chair.
"I'm gonna catch this person!" I said, running to the window. I peeped through the blinds and gasped at what--or rather who--I saw. There, sprinting down the sidewalk with hair flying, was my husband. I fell into the couch and laughed and laughed. And laughed some more. My husband and I are not terribly romantic people. We are not the type to sprinkle rose petals on the bed. We do not write each other love poems. We do not have a song; we do not dance. We do not eat dinner by candlelight. And ever since I had kids, the smell of cologne or perfume makes me nauseous, so gifts of eau de toilette are out. Valentine's Day has come and gone many times with little more than a kiss and/or dinner out for the last fifteen years. So needless to say, I wasn't expecting this.
I opened the door. This time, my Secret Love had left a pack of gum with a note that read: Hubba hubba here's some Hubba Bubba for Susan.
Rick and I have had many discussions about the use of gum to communicate one's love to another. He had left a pack of gum on a girl's desk in elementary school, letting Wrigley's Doublemint say what he could not: Will you be my girlfriend? Her acceptance was communicated through a friend of a friend. Later, Rick discovered that his new girlfriend did not like a YES song that he admired and the relationship was over as soon as it had started. They did not speak of it, though. Actually, they did not speak at all during their time together, either at the beginning or the end of their relationship.
Standing there, holding the gum with a stupid grin on my face, my sister across from me saying, "How cute!", I realized that S.A. meant Secret Admirer. And who else but my husband would know my middle name. Well, how stupid am I? And how lucky?
Within a few minutes, Rick came up the stairs. His cheeks were pink, as if he had been jogging outside recently. But I paid that no mind. I wanted to play along with this for as long as possible.
"Look what I got," I said, holding out the gum and the card.
Rick gave it a cursory glance, his expression innocent, as if he had not just spent the last three days doorbell ditching me and leaving me sweets. But I knew he was guilty.
The next day the ruse was up. Again, the doorbell rang around dinner. Again, I answered the door. And again, there was no one there, only some candy and another Hello Kitty valentine.
This time Rick had written "Your eyes are like starbursts." And appropriately, he had included some Starburst candies to go along with it. This time, he didn't bother to sign it. But he didn't have to. Even if I didn't know my husband was my secret valentine, I would have figured out it wasn't the little girl across the street, and not her mother either. Eyes like starbursts? Little girls and women friends don't write that to each other. It was time to let him know I knew.
I found Rick sprawled out on the couch in the basement. "Hey," I said, sitting next to him. I patted his knee. "I know it's you," I said.
He looked up. "Huh?"
"I know it's you," I repeated. "You're my Secret Admirer."
He couldn't keep it in any longer. He smiled in the same way he smiled when we smooched for the first time. Whenever he does that, I have to kiss him immediately. So I did.
"But wait, there's more," he said. True to his word, I received a few more things, all left on the doorstep anonymously.
He gave me this:
Some Laffy Taffy with "You make my taffy laffy" written on the card:
And also some pop rocks, a childhood favorite of mine:
On Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang again. This time, when I opened the door, my husband was there. He had his hands behind his back and he was smiling.
"I thought you might be tired of little kid candy," he said. "So I bought you some jewelry."
For a second, I thought he was talking about an expensive necklace, something with diamonds and hearts probably. As a tightwad, I was worried he had gone and bought something outrageously expensive, something, no doubt, I would feel awkward wearing. So I plastered a tight smile on my face and waited. I knew whatever it was, he was excited about it, as he had paused for a long time to study my reaction.
Rick brought his arms out from behind his back. Cupped in his hand was a beautiful, big, emerald green… ring pop. He had given me a lolly pop shaped like a ring. This was too much. I laughed so hard that I slapped my leg a couple of times. Then I hugged him tightly and said, "I love you," in his ear. "It's perfect." And it was.
Rick has a friend at work, a single guy with impeccable and expensive taste. When Rick told him about how he had gone to the grocery store, picked out a box of valentine cards and a full week's worth of candy to go with them as a Valentine gift for me, his friend was not impressed. "You're just being cheap," he said.
But this friend is wrong, so very, very wrong. My husband is not cheap. He's thoughtful. He's creative. I mean, the man thought this all up weeks ago. He came up with cute little things to write. And to make it look like a child's note, he had written in crayon with his left hand. He had come home early to ring the bell, then dashed away before he could be caught. He gave me gum, the quintessential kid gift. And he gave me a ring, the quintessential grown-up gift, albeit in kid form. So you can keep your diamonds and roses. I've got something better. I've got my very own sugar daddy. And, according to him, he has himself a hot mama. I guess we're romantics after all.
