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3.
April hates a lot of things, even for a five-year old.
She hates broccoli and carrots and peas. But she also hates Barney and Power Rangers and Goodnight Moon, which seems to have her mother concerned. She doesn’t care much. She kind of hates her mother, too, and her father and the little brother or sister that she’s getting can join the club.
“Zuzu,” her mom says, putting April in the front of the shopping cart. “If you’re good, you can get a treat.”
“I don’t want a treat.” April scowls.
“Well, what do you want?”
She crosses her arms and gives a mighty pout, which never seems to have the effect she thinks it should. Adults find her cute, which is weird. She’s not cute. She’s a demon.
“I want a pitchfork.”
Her mother laughs, like it’s a joke, and they head into the store. There’s a little boy with his mother, standing in the vegetable aisle. April hates him.
The boy is jabbering at full volume, singing a song that April thinks is dumb, about how much he loves broccoli and carrots.
The boy is wrong, and Aprils says so to her mother.
“Carrots and broccoli are yucky,” she says, wishing she knew a better word to describe how much she hates them. More than the boy, but less than Miss Charlotte at kindergarten.
The boy hears her, through some miracle, over his shouting and singing. He makes a face, sticking out his tongue at her.
April makes one back as her mother picks up tomatoes.
April hates tomatoes.
2.
Derek thinks it’s funny to go to clubs on weekends, and April thinks it’s dumb, but if she doesn’t go with him, he’ll go with Ben. And April’s feelings on Ben are well documented.
So that’s how she ends up at The Bulge on a Saturday night, when she could be at home, throwing hammers through mirrors and listening to reggae.
“This is dumb!” she insists, but Ben got the bartender to serve him, so she has a whiskey sour and a slight buzz, and there’s really not all that much she can complain about.
“We’re going to dance,” Derek says. “Do you want to dance with us?”
There are things April hates more than dancing, but most of them involve brightly colored ponies singing about friendship, so she shakes her head. “Go dance. I hate dancing.”
“You hate everything,” Ben says, rolling his head. Some people roll their eyes. Ben, the most annoying man on the planet, rolls his whole head.
“I’m gonna drink your beer,” she says, lifting it to her lips, but they get up and head towards the floor anyway leaving April alone.
The man who comes over doesn’t look gay. He looks like he lives in a hole in the ground, and she’s not sure about the general sexuality of people who live in the tunnels the mole people carve out to spy on the land dwellers. If she cared about other people, she might be curious what a man like him was doing at a gay bar, but she doesn’t, so she isn’t.
“Are you using this chair?” he shouts over the music. April shakes her head no. Technically, she’s not. Ben is, but she hates Ben.
“Thanks!” the disheveled guys says and takes it away with him.
1.
The guy on the couch is gross, but not as gross as the house itself. The idea of a fact-finding mission is gross, too, but it’s the kind of thing Leslie makes her do. And it’s the kind of thing she does because maybe they’ll find a body or a stash of used needles and she can take pictures of them.
But no, it’s a boring house on a boring street with a boring set of people inside. And maybe the guy’s broken legs are kinda cool, but there’s not any bone showing, and she’s pretty sure Leslie will yell at her if she asks to poke them, so the appeal doesn’t really last.
(He does have an itch stick, which is pretty gross and cool, but that’s beside the point.)
And then Leslie falls in the pit, and there are pictures of that, which kinda push the gross broken-leg man out of her mind so she and Tom can figure out which one they want to get made into a jigsaw puzzle.
(It’s not the upskirt.)
(Yes it is.)
0.
April is waiting.
Andy knows she’s waiting, and he’s trying to get to her. But today there were two Johnny Karate shows, and it’s always hard to get out afterwards, always hard to say goodbye to the kids who crowd his knees and clamor for his attention. He feels guilty if he doesn’t talk to every one, doesn’t make sure to remind them that karate is for bad guys. And they all seem so happy.
By the time he’s extracted himself from the throng, she’s texted him a million messages, and only half of them are boob pictures. And only like three of those are her boobs.
On my way :R he taps.
That’s not an emoticon she responds, as he’s stowing his guitar in the back of the car.
Guy playing a guitar he sends back, and he smiles. No matter how many times he sends her that one, she still hates it. He loves finding the things she hates, because it’s really just something she can learn to love. Like camping, and rainy days, and him.
The meeting spot isn’t far, but it’s Pawnee, so nothing is very far. It’s only a few minutes before he’s pulling into a spot at Pioneer Hall, turning off the car and fixing his hair in the rear-view mirror. It has to look like he slept in a bag, he thinks. That’s how she likes it.
“Hey, babe,” she smiles, when he rounds the corner. She’s sitting in the chair of his old shoe shining station, behind the rope that signals that it’s closed.
“Deputy Director Ludgate,” he says. “You ready?”
She picks up a folder of papers from the chair next to her. “Ready.”
They hold hands on their way to the elevator, and he laughs when she punches the button for the forth floor.
“I can’t believe we’re getting divorced,” he says, shaking his head.
“I always wanted to get divorced,” she says. “Since I was a little girl.”
“And you got the application for the marriage license?”
She rolls her eyes and pulls it out of the folder. “We’re getting married, babe.”
“I love you so much, babe,” he says, bending to kiss her. “You are the best fifth wife a guy could ask for.”
“Yeah,” April says. “I definitely don’t hate you.”