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“You know, we could always just turn around…” Lucy Chen playfully suggests, gently tapping her fingernails on the passenger side window of Tim Bradford’s truck.
“Baby, we’re almost there,” Tim sighs with a soft smile. He reaches his hand out and grabs his wife’s, holding it tight in an attempt to calm her nerves.
Today was Lucy’s 20 year High School reunion, and while she had very little motivation to attend the event, a part of her couldn’t resist showing everyone how far she had come over the past decade. And as class valedictorian she was asked to give a speech at the reunion, which was hard to pass up for someone as prideful as Lucy Chen.
“I know, I know,” Lucy shakes her head regretfully.
“Plus, we spent forever getting the kids ready,” Tim adds, pointing to the two extremely well behaved kids in the back. Well, ‘extremely well behaved’ for now, because they have a T.V. show playing to entertain them. Once they actually get inside, well… that’s the real judgement time.
“Alright, we’re here,” Tim announces as they pull into the dingy parking lot of Lucy’s high school. Surprisingly, there are almost no decorations or lights; it almost looks more like a prison than a school.
“Hasn’t changed one bit,” Lucy huffs as she jumps out of the car. She brushes off her skirt, and makes sure to take a real deep sigh before swinging open the back door to grab her eldest daughter. “Ready to go in, Andie?”
“Mommy!” the 4 year old immediately wales as her mother turns off her tablet. “I wasn’t done!”
“You’re going to make tonight extremely difficult, aren’t you?” Lucy mutters to herself as she fights against her daughter's abnormally strong grip. It takes more effort than she expects, but she thankfully overpowers her daughter and hoists her out of her car seat.
“Maybe bringing 2 toddlers to a high school reunion wasn’t the smartest move,” Lucy chuckles dryly as she and Tim make their way inside.
“Maybe… but they do look pretty cute,” Tim admits. Both girls are in matching sequin dresses with boys along their pigtails.
“Of course they do, I dressed them,” his wife winks. Lucy loved to dress her girls up like dolls, even though they fought her on it most of the time. How could a 2 and a 4 year old have such strong opinions?
_______
The second that the Bradford’s step inside the high school gym they’re met with flashing lights and blaring music.
“It’s really loud in here,” the littlest Bradford, Ivie, complains as she covers her ears with her hands.
“I know baby, I’m sorry,” Tim comforts her gently, rubbing his hand up and down her tiny back.
“I’ll go tell them to turn it down,” Lucy reassures her daughter. It takes for 6 extremely long minutes to find the DJ - why would they hire a DJ for a high school reunion?- but the music eventually gets lowered. When she returns to the scene, she finds Tim in conversation with one of her classmates.
“And that’s why you have to monitor your investments every single hour,” the man tells an extremely uninterested Tim, who is nodding his head politely.
“Alex, I see you’ve met my husband, Tim,” Lucy interrupts gently. Tim mouths a quick “thanks” as she takes over the conversation, catching up with her old friend.
“He’s always been into stocks and investing,” Lucy pauses and bites her lip, “though I don’t think some of it is legal.”
“I think it’s safe to assume that he doesn’t know we’re both law enforcement officers?” Tim jokes.
“Nope.”
For the most part, the night goes as smoothly as it can. Both girls complain every few minutes about their hunger, exhaustion, and boredom, though this is a daily occurrence in the Bradford household, no matter where they are. Lucy says her quick “hello’s” to people she hadn’t seen in 20 years, catching up with them vaguely. Tim stands behind her awkwardly, nodding along to everything she says and admiring her social battery.
“I’m ready to bounce,” Tim admits after an hour.
“Yeah me too,” Lucy sighs. “I don’t know how many more cookies I can shove in Andie’s mouth to keep her quiet.”
Ivie, who was barely 2 years old, had fallen asleep on Tim’s shoulder within 10 minutes of the event. Andie had been okay so far, but she was becoming restless and the couple knew that their little girl wouldn’t last much longer into the night.
“Alright, let me give my speech and then we can run out of here,” Lucy rolls her eyes jokingly. She sets her older daughter down and grabs her by the hand as she shuffles around the gym. It takes a couple of minutes, but they set the microphone up and prepare the small stage for her.
“Alright Andie, can you go stand by your daddy for me?” Lucy asks the little girl gently, but her tiny hand only tightens its grip.
“No! I want to stay with you!” Lucy wasn’t the least bit surprised by Andie’s insistence to stay with her mother. Andie was particularly attached to Lucy, and while it was usually a cute thing, it had its moments.
So, Lucy takes a very deep breath and walks onto the makeshift stage with her daughter to give a speech that she honestly no longer wanted to give.
“Hello everyone,” she starts off, staring into the audience in front of her. These were people that she spent 4 whole years of her life with, though she hadn’t seen most of them for two decades. There weren’t many people she was particularly fond of, and once she graduated, she never looked back. Though, it was nice to see how everyone she grew up around turned out.
Lucy gives a brief, yet eloquent speech, but keeps it short because she’s well aware of the audience’s disinterest in the topic. None of them were especially close to Lucy, so she didn’t have much to say to the crowd.
Once she finishes, Tim attempts to make his way through the gym to meet his wife, though wisps of a nearby conversation catch his attention.
“I can’t believe that Lucy is a police officer,” a male voice says.
“I know, she was such a nerd in high school. Must not be a very good one,” someone else joins in with a chuckle.
“It must be nice, to have some nice arm candy taking care of your kids while you waltz around and brag to your old classmates,” a female voice adds on.
And in true Tim fashion, he knows that he won’t be able to let these comments go, so he quickly inserts himself into the conversation.
“Tim Bradford,” he holds his free hand out carefully, making sure to hold his sleeping daughter tightly in the other. The female reluctantly shakes his hand, and everyone around is confused.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” one of them asks, furrowing his brow as he studies Tim.
“Oh no, my wife was actually the one who went to school here. I’m just her arm candy for the night.” Tim assumed that they’d have caught on at this point, but they were are as dumb as they sounded, so he decides to really spell it out for him.
“You know, you should really be careful when you’re talking about other people,” he suggests. He points to Lucy, who’s engaged in conversation with someone who looks to be an old friend. “See.. that’s my wife. We work together, and have been married for 6 years.”
Now it’s clicked.
“Oh, we’re sorry,” one of the idiots attempts to defend. “We didn’t mean to-”
“You know,” Tim interrupts apologetically, “Lucy is one of the top ranked detectives in the entire Los Angeles Police Department. She’s broken multiple records and won multiple awards throughout her career, all while raising two children and taking care of our household. What about you, are any of you married? Do you have impressive careers? Any children?”
He’s met with blank stares from the entire group.
“ Yeah, that’s what I thought, ” he scoffs, visibly rolling his eyes. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my wife and I have to be heading out. We’ve got early shifts tomorrow.”
He doesn’t wait for any response, and simply makes his way over to Lucy without another word.
“Everything okay over there?” Lucy, who had observed the heated conversation from afar, asks as they make a beeline for the door.
“Yeah, just making conversation while we waited for you,” Tim smiles.
“Alright,” Lucy shrugs. “Thanks for coming with me today. You didn’t have to.”
“I’m your husband, you don’t have to thank me,” he tells her, but he knows she always will. Because that’s who Lucy is: she appreciates any amount of effort, and never lets an act of kindness go unacknowledged, no matter how small.
“I never wanna see these people again,” she groans as they buckle the girls into their car seats.
“I have no idea how you spent every single day with these people, for four years,” Tim shakes his head.
“They weren’t always like this,” Lucy explains sadly. “Most of them were okay to be around. Growing up just changes you, I guess.”
“Well, it changed you for the better,” Tim smiles warmly at his wife.
“Yeah, I guess it did,” she agrees, resting her head on his shoulder as they watch their daughters drift off to sleep in the backseat.
“This is peaceful,” she says after a minute. Sure, having kids was havoc majority of the time, but the moments of pure bliss with them made up for it all.
“It is,” Tim murmurs in agreement. “But let’s get out of here. I might combust if one more person comes up to me and asks what I do for a living.”
“Good point, let’s go.”