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Noodle stared down at the crib in front of her. Inside it was a baby. A baby lying on its... his (she had to remind herself that babies are actual human beings and not just god awful creatures) stomach fast asleep. He had fine, curly, blue hair and was wearing a onesie pajama that was decorated with cartoon cats. She had to think about how she found herself in this situation. For one, she had never watched over a child, much less a baby; secondly, she didn't really care for humans who were much younger than her.
Oh, right, this was an exchange with Stu.
"Please, please please, Noodle!" Stu begged with his hands clasped in front of him as he stared down at Noodle with a pleading look. He was inside her room while she glared up at him. She couldn't believe what he had just told her, but it sounded perfectly like him.
"Why should I help you? It's not my fault you waited until the last minute to get a babysitter, and why didn't Nina get one?"
"'Cause she was busy with work an' plannin' for tomorrow. Usually she does do this, but she told me to find one an' I didn't think it'd be this hard, but everybody I've called said they don't have any openings."
Noodle sighed. It had been nine months since Nina and Stu had their baby, and yet it seemed that even with the addition of a baby, Stu had yet to mature. She had to wonder if it was hell for Nina to care for both a baby and a manchild. Stu was still muttering out his pleas in a whisper when she responded, "Okay."
Stu quieted down and stared at her in confusion, "Okay? You'll agree to?"
"On one condition. You buy me new noise-canceling headphones and not the cheap ones."
Stu grinned at her, and before she knew it, Stu was hugging her tightly, "Thanks, Noodle. You're a lifesaver."
Noodle took one last look at the baby (what was his name anyway? Dean? Darren? It started with a D), saw that his back was slowly rising and falling, before she turned away and looked around the room. She remembered Nina telling her that the cat room had to be revamped into the nursery. There were still remnants of her cats on the floor from hard-to-reach corners that had cat fluff and a small cat bed tucked beside the rocking chair. The walls were painted a solid pastel green, with the wall the crib was by containing polka dots of varying pastel colors. Noodle walked over to a floating shelf that contained different baby books with the ends having a small rabbit figurine to hold the books in place. As Noodle glanced over the book titles, one of them caught her eye, and she took it out. It looked as if it was handmade, as it was different Blur CD pamphlets cut out and glued onto pages, each page containing two songs' worth of lyrics. In between the gaps were small doodles, some of them pills, some of them stars. When Noodle finished looking through it, she carefully placed the book back (Damon. That was the baby's name. Named after Stu's best friend, the singer of Blur, who was tragically gunned down).
Now that Noodle thinks about it, she has never been inside Nina and Stu's home. After she kicked Stu out of the abandoned hotel and he came back the next week for band rehearsal, he chatted away with her, talking about all the things that he and Nina did, how Nina made home-cooked meals every day, how the cats slept with them, so sometimes it's hard to get comfortable in the bed. At the time, Noodle didn't care and either blocked him while she tuned her guitar or made dismissive sounds to act like she was listening. Now that she walked down the hallway of the house and looked inside the bedroom, she could envision them trying to fit on the bed as the four small cats took up as much room as possible (the bedroom itself had a distinctive line on whose side was who's. One side was perfectly neat with shoes lined up on a shoe rack and a book on the nightstand, while the other side was littered with forgotten clothes and beanies, and the other nightstand was covered with cigarette butts and pill bottles). She made her way to the kitchen and, upon entering, saw a basket filled with different bags of chips, green tea Kit Kats, and in the center, a box that contained noise-cancelling headphones. As she got closer, she saw that there was an envelope with her name neatly written (Nina's handwriting. Stu does not write neatly at all). She opened the envelope and read it.
Noodle,
Thank you so much for watching Damon last minute. Stu told me the deal that you made with him, so I set off to find what you wanted while he decided to get you the snacks that you like. Help yourself to any food in the fridge, as I made some enchiladas for you as well as white chocolate cookies. There are baby bottles filled with formula in the fridge (microwave them for fifteen seconds and check to see if the formula is lukewarm. If it isn't, repeat), and there are jars of baby food on the counter for Damon. We'll be home around 10:00 pm. Call me if you need anything.
Nina
Noodle looked at the counters and saw a line of baby food jars ranging from fruits and vegetables, such as pear, zucchini, corn, to even baby food with meat, like sweet potato turkey with oats. Beside them were multiple baby bibs and baby wipes. She had even noticed the high chair that was placed at the table. It looked as if it belonged there, and Noodle could see the happy family of Nina cooking at the stove while Stu chatted with her while sitting at the table, feeding the baby. Stu seemed like the person who would pretend the spoon was an airplane.
That imagery made her frown.
She went to the fridge, opened it, and indeed did see the baby bottles of formula in the fridge and a plastic container filled with enchiladas. More roughly than she should, she yanked the container out of the fridge, slammed the fridge shut, and started fixing herself a plate. So what if Stu and Nina are a happy couple and they're raising a happy baby? Shouldn't she be happy for them? As air-headed as Stu was, he was still her friend. As Noodle watched the plate of food rotate in the microwave, she was reminded of her own past; how now she barely remembered her biological mother and father, how the foster parents she was placed with abused and used her as a means to get government money, how the foster father would always want to see her alone...
The dinging of the microwave brought her out of her thoughts. Right, she wasn't with them anymore. She was eighteen years old, and she had made a name for herself. She was babysitting Stu and Nina's baby, who had loving parents. She should be happy that no child is going to have the same childhood as her.
Noodle had eaten two forkfuls of her enchilada when the sound of a baby crying as loudly as he could was heard. She stood up and started to walk away, but then saw a cat sitting at the entrance of the kitchen. Noodle looked between the cat and her plate of food. "On second thought. I should move my food." Quickly, she moved her plate to the counter and then went to the nursery. The first thing she noticed was the foul scent of feces. She covered her nose with a hand as she walked inside, but then noticed that Damon's onesie had a wet stain all on his backside. Noodle stood in front of the crib and watched as the baby paused in its crying to catch a breath and then resumed.
"Hey, they. I'm not your mom or dad, so you have to settle with me." Hearing herself out loud, she felt idiotic, "What am I doing talking to a baby? He can't understand me." Noodle looked over to the changing station and saw that the changing table rested on top of drawers. She felt as if Nina was the one who mainly arranged the nursery, so it was safe to bet that inside the drawers were diapers, baby wipes, and of course, his clothes. Noodle reached into the crib and placed her hands underneath Damon's underarms and, when she had a good grip, lifted him. She had never foreseen herself holding a baby, and even as she did so now, it felt like a foreign concept as the baby dangled in the air, outstretched from her body, until Noodle lay his back flat on the changing table. As Damon continued to wail, Noodle set about unbuttoning his onesie, and then stopped. She had expected him to, at least, wiggle his limbs out of the legs and sleeves, but instead, he just flailed his arms and squirmed in place.
"Oh, I guess you don't have that much control yet."
Carefully, she guided the baby's arms and legs out of the soiled onesie. She lifted the baby back up to toss the onesie into the hamper and lay him back down. Then it dawned on her.
She was going to have to clean him up.
"Okay, it's not going to be hard. It's just poop. Just wiping him with baby wipes and putting a new diaper on him."
She unfastened the diaper, opened it up, and immediately felt the little bit of enchiladas that she had eaten shoot up into her mouth, but she was not about to tell Nina and Stu that she threw up on their child, so she forced herself to swallow it back down. "You're a fucking baby! How do you shit so much and so rancid?!" As if to match her loud astonishment, Damon cried even harder and louder. Noodle could feel her nerves getting the best of her. She had to act fast. Opening the top drawer, she was graced with the wipes and diapers being neatly inside. She would have breathed a sigh of relief if she felt like she could, but given how her ears felt like they were being stabbed, she set about getting the task in front of her done. Grabbing the baby's feet, she lifted his bottom to move the dirty diaper out of the way and then set about wiping him before placing the clean diaper on the table, him back down, and just like that, he was clean again. Now she had to put him in clean clothes. Noodle opened the second drawer and saw that there were onesies inside. None of them was of the pajama type that he was wearing, but that was okay. Noodle was not picky about what clothes this baby wore. She grabbed any onesie she could grab and then proceeded to feel like she was wrestling with an animal as she tried to coordinate limbs into going inside sleeves. When she buttoned the onesie, she lifted Damon off the table just as she had held him before, outstretched in front of her, and stared at him as he continued to cry.
"Are you hungry? Are you thirsty?"
She could feel that the baby was trying to thrust itself forward. It would be very awful if she had to call Nina from the hospital because she dropped the baby so slowly, she brought Damon to her until he was pressed up against her chest. She felt his head rest on her shoulder, and immediately the crying stopped. Noodle shifted her arms around until she felt comfortable and like she had a secure grasp of Damon. Suddenly, everything was quiet save for the pitter-patter of cat paws against the hardwood floor. In a way, it amazed Noodle that a baby could cause so much havoc. The baby hadn't even been awake for that long, and already she felt drained. Thank goodness there was a rocking chair in the nursery as she went over to it and felt herself drop into it. As she gently rocked herself, she could feel Damon relaxing against her. She looked down at him, now noticing that even though his hair was, in fact, not fine. His head was covered in thick, light blue curls. Noodle felt an amused chuckle bubble up inside her. She had barely known this baby, and she could already see Nina and Stu in him (Nina must have had curly hair before she decided to keep it as a buzzcut. It made her wonder how Nina looked when she was younger. If she asked, would Nina show her pictures?).
As Noodle continued to rock, she felt her stomach grumble. Ah, right. She was in the middle of eating when she had to clean up Damon. If she stopped rocking, would Damon start crying again? She didn't know if she could go through that again, but she was feeling just how hungry she was. Slowly, she brought herself to a standstill and eased herself into standing. She heard little coos from Damon, but nothing that alerted her that he was distressed. Noodle made her way towards the kitchen and carefully pulled the baby away from her and into the highchair. Damon started babbling, as if he were holding a conversation with her.
"Uh, yeah. Don't know what you're saying, but I guess you want food too."
Noodle grabbed her plate, placed it back in the microwave, and then looked for a baby spoon. When the microwave dinged, she had found one and grabbed a baby food jar, a bib, and sat back down at the table. She took a bite of her enchiladas first before opening up the jar, scooping some into the baby spoon, and then holding it out towards Damon. However, he didn't lean forward like she was expecting him to. Instead, he opened his mouth, waiting for the spoon.
"Oh, sorry." She put the spoon into his mouth and then pulled it out after he closed his mouth around it. Then she realized what she had said and felt a bit silly. Why did she feel the need to apologize to a baby? It wasn't as if he could understand her. She fell into a rhythm of taking a bite of her enchilada and giving Damon a spoonful of his baby food. She found herself thinking that this was an easy gig that she had gotten herself into, save for the earlier experience of changing and cleaning the baby. Maybe this wasn't as hard as she thought it was going to be. When she finished feeding Damon all of his food, she focused on finishing her meal. Babies, however, need your focus, and if they aren't given it, they will demand it. Noodle was jolted out of the comfort of the quietness by the banging of baby hands on the tray. She quickly turned to face him with a glare. Usually, people cowered when faced with a glare from her, but Damon is a baby and has not figured out that the facial expression she was making was a negative one. He stared back at her as he continued banging on the tray.
"You're just as annoying as your dad."
Noodle grabbed her plate, put it in the sink, and then went to unbuckled Damon from his high chair and picked him up. She felt that she was getting a bit better at holding him, as now, instead of him being outstretched and dangling in the air, she knew to bring him close to her so he could rest his head against her. As she walked back to the nursery, a cat came out and followed her inside the room and jumped into the crib. Noodle felt herself smiling at this as she watched the cat curl up and go to sleep. She tried to sit back down in the rocking chair, but Damon would not stay still, so she decided to put him on the floor. She looked around the nursery for some toys and found a folded playmat in the corner. Noodle walked over to it, unfolded it, placed it on the floor, and then moved Damon to be on top of it. Noodle sat on the floor and watched as Damon patted the mat, then scrunched the noisy material into his hand. Noodle had no idea what she had just put him on top of, but if it was in the nursery, then she figured that it was safe to assume that it was meant for him. The mat itself was brightly colored and had different, simple animal designs on it. It had nine large squares on it with, as she would discover from watching Damon play, each one having a different function, whether one had crinkly material inside it to make noise or another was velvety soft, with another one opening up like a window to reveal another animal inside. Even though Noodle saw cigarette butts on Stu's nightstand, she figured that the nursery was a smoke-free zone of the house. She wished that she could smoke one to add to the relaxing tone of the evening, but she could hold out for a bit longer. She watched as Damon crawled off the playmat and went towards a pile of plushies. Noodled noticed that all the plushies were cats of varying colors and fur lengths. As Damon pulled a long, furred gray cat plushie out and waved it in the air, Noodle looked around the room and noticed that whatever art decorations were hung up were also cat-themed, and even the lone plushie that was inside the crib was a black cat plushie. Noodle chuckled.
"Training you early to love cats, aren't they?"
Damon looked at her and then quickly crawled towards her with the gray cat plushie in hand. When he reached her, he sat up and held the cat plushie out to her. She stared back at him.
"Are you giving it to me?"
Damon shook the cat plushie up and down, as if answering her back. Slowly, Noodle took the plushie from him and stared at it and then at him. Noodle had no idea what to do, and it felt as if the longer she went on not doing anything, the more frustrated Damon was getting as he let out a shriek. Quickly, Noodle covered her ears until he finished. Noodle handed him back the plushie and glared as he went back to playing with it. She stood up, picked up Damon, and then took him and placed him in his crib. She didn't dare shoo the cat away, instead opting to lay Damon's head at the other end of the crib. She stared down at him as he lay on his back with the cat plushie waving in the air. With that, she left and went to sit on the couch.
Noodle pulled a cigarette and lighter out of her pocket, lit it, took a drag, and then tilted her head back as she blew out the smoke. She knew how Nina could handle being a mother. Nina always seemed like she had her shit together. Stu, however, she wondered how the hell he was a father. It wasn't as if Stu was just somebody who was there. No, Noodle could see from how Stu made a Blur lyrics book for Damon that she could imagine him singing to the baby as he read it to the onesie that she happened to dress Damon in that had a picture of a guitar with the words, "Daddy's Little Rock Star" written on it, that Stu did care and do fatherly things. She wondered if Stu had as much of a learning adjustment when faced with Damon as she did. Nina was much older than him so she must have had some experience with children. She remembered Nina talking about how, growing up, her family seemed as if a new member was being born. Stu was only twenty-four and was a druggie on top of that. Or at least he used to be a druggie. Noodle had to wonder if he was clean. Did having a family change him for the better?
She hoped it did.
Stu wasn't just a member of Strayz to her. He was her friend, and she knew she was his friend as well. They had spent nights together talking and working on new music. Whenever she showed frustration, he knew when to give her space, but still checked on her to make sure she hadn't destroyed her room, and in turn, whenever she caught assholes making fun of the way he dressed whenever they were out, she would go over and tell them off. Now, though, he seemed to be in a new chapter of his life. Stu hasn't forgotten about her by any means, but his partying days are over, and with him not living in the same building as her anymore, they don't spend as much time together as they used to.
When she saw that she was down to the last cigarette butt, she got up, tossed the butt in the trash, and then went to the kitchen to prepare a baby bottle. She figured that if she just stuck her finger in the formula after microwaving it, then that should be fine, and thankfully, it worked. She went to the nursery and saw that Damon had flipped onto his stomach, crawled to the sleeping cat, and was patting the cat. Noodle couldn't help but smile.
"Yeah, you're going to grow up surrounded by cats and you're going to like them."
Noodle reached down to place Damon on his back and then gave him the bottle before leaving the room again.
Noodle heard keys twisting in the doorknob and then the door opening. She stood up, gathered her purse, and met Nina and Stu in the entryway. She was not expecting to see Stu leaning against Nina as if she were the only thing keeping him standing as he hid his face in the crook of her neck. Noodle raised an eyebrow.
"Guessing you two had fun?"
All she got out of Stu was a mumble and his pressing his face against Nina's neck. Nina rolled her eyes. "He's tired. I promise we haven't had anything to drink. He fell asleep on the drive home, and I had to wake him up." Nina reached up and ruffled Stu's hair, causing him to grumble, "Stu, Noodle's leaving. Tell her thank you."
Stu blearily opened one eye as he turned his head to look at Noodle. A lazy smile appeared on his face as he waved at her, "Thanks, Noodle. See ya later. Get home safe." At this, he closed his eyes and hid his face in the crook of Nina's neck again.
Nina rolled her eyes. "He doesn't even remember that you live out in the middle of nowhere. If you want, I can drive you back, or you can spend the night here."
Noodle shrugged, "I can get a taxi, and if not, I'll call Russel to come pick me up."
Nina looked as if she wanted to press the issue more, but decided against it. "Alright. Text me when you've made it home if you could."
"Alright. See ya."
As Noodle stepped out of the house, she turned back to see Nina waving at her while Stu hugged her before she closed the door. Noodle called a taxi cab and then sat at the curb while she smoked a cigarette.
They were a happy couple. Damon was in a loving family. Noodle wouldn't mind babysitting for them again.