Since Sheen won"t be going to work and it"s a school event she"s attending, she decided to go with sneakers, tattered jeans and a simple blouse to be a little formal."I"ll call you if it"s an emergency, so have fun," Mr. White a.s.sures Cj and Sheen.
They are all in the underground parking lot of the condominium.
Mr. Rogers will be driving Sheen and Cj while Mr. White will use his personal car and drive himself.
"Bye, Daddy!" Cj waves goodbye at Mr. White.
"Let"s go!" Sheen calls Cj to get in the car while she texts Mr. White to drive safely and that she"ll report what is happening.
"Yep!"
As they drive, Cj tells stories about the past mother"s day he attended in school.
He jokes about different kinds of Mom and how they dress.
"We"re here! Mr. Rogers, please come back later!" CJ pulls Sheen to the entrance of the campus while Mr. Rogers just nods.
"Wait, Mr. Rogers and Cj, can I take a photo of you guys, I"ll send it to Mr. White later," She made Cj stand with Mr. Roger beside their car and took a photo.
"Okay, thank you!" Sheen smiles while looking at the smiles she captured.
"Let me take a picture of you and Cj as well, Miss Sheen," Mr. Rogers offered.
"Oh, okay, thank you, Sir," Sheen handed her phone and went beside Cj.
"Smile!" Mr. Rogers said as he took the photo.
"We"ll get going," Sheen waves her hand at Mr. Rogers who rides the car.
There are a lot of mothers arriving with their child.
And Sheen does look like a mom.
Since her age match with the other mothers.
And what Cj told her about mothers was right.
Some overdid their outfits, some wore their luxurious pieces of jewelry and bags.
She forgot that the school is a prestigious one and the people who send their children to this type of school are, most probably, prestigious as well.
And she looks like a nanny with her outfit.
"Uh..." she stops from walking, making Cj gets pulled by her hand.
"Mommy?" He called out as he b.u.mps to Sheen"s leg.
"Wait, let me clear my mind," She convinced herself that she"s not there to look good but to be with Cj.
"Yeah..." she mutters, "Let"s get going!" Sheen was the one who leads the way now, making CJ smile.
As they pa.s.s by people, some whispers while looking at Sheen, while some looks at her from her shoe up to her face but she didn"t mind.
"Where"s your room again?" Sheen stops when she"s in the hallway where Cj went on his own when she went with him.
"Here!" Cj runs in front of the door and pointed it.
Sheen followed him and entered the room.
The room wasn"t filled by mothers, it"s full of children with their nanny.
"They"re waiting for their mom," Cj sits while pulling Sheen to sit beside him on a bench.
"Even though there were lots of mothers outside, it doesn"t mean that all of the kids have theirs," she thought.
There were a few mothers with them.
As they wait for the program to start which is in the first hour is by cla.s.sroom event and for the next 2 hours, is a program for the whole campus, the mothers of the other kids arrived.
You can sense that each mother is judging each other with their stares and smiles.
After a few minutes more, the teacher arrived.
"Good Morning, Ladies. Happy mother"s day," she greeted.
It"s a young teacher who"s around 23 years old.
"Let"s do this fast, kids, please introduce your mothers," seems like she"s having a hard time.
She kept on looking at her phone and frowning.
"YES!!" The kids shouted.
"Okay... uh, let"s start with Frank," the teacher called.
"His last name starts with A that"s why he"s first," Cj explained.
The kid went in front and called his mother to stand and greet the people.
The other mothers whisper at each other and the mother beside Sheen even did the same with her.
"Her outfit is so out of season," she said and continued on doing the same with the others.
Sheen didn"t say anything.
"See? Told you," Cj whispers.
"Yeah, don"t worry, I won"t do that, it"s bad."
They continued watching the same expressions from the mothers as they went on until the teacher called CJ"s name.
Cj stands up first, "Good Morning!" he greeted with the cutest smile he can give.
The mothers" swoon over his cuteness while his female cla.s.smates shriek and the boys just blankly stare at him.
Sheen giggles with the reaction and took a photo of Cj telling her name.
"I"m here with Miss Sheen, she"s my daddy"s friend," some mothers suddenly whispered at each other, making Sheen feel a bit insecure.
Cj looks at her, signaling her to stand up and let the people see her.
As she stands up, she heard a clap.
It"s from the teacher.
"You"re an author, right? I love your books!" The teacher exclaimed.
"Can I get an autograph later?"
Sheen smiles and nods at the teacher.
"Yeah, that"s her," she heard the moms agree.
"But she never let people see her, but we"re so lucky!"
"She"s so simple and beautiful."
"It"s a bad thing to be talked about sometimes," she thought.
She sits when Cj he ran to her and gave her a big warm hug.
The next thing they did was for the children to perform what they prepared for their mothers.
Some did singing, some did dancing, while some just hugged their mothers.
"Okay, what do you have for Miss Sheen, Cj?" The teacher asks.
Cj suddenly took out a thin book from his bag and went in front.
You can see that he"s confident with how he stands and how he looks at the audience.
"No wonder he"s advance," Sheen thought as she excitedly waits for Cj to do what he prepared for her.
At first, she was nervous that Cj might not have prepared something for her since they only talked about this last night.
"I wrote this book for.. uh, Sheen," Cj was about to call her mom again but he knows Sheen will be embarra.s.sed.
"I know that she"s a great writer since my dad used to read her books."
Sheen got surprised with what Cj said.
"But I know, she"ll love this," Cj clears his throat.
"The morning greeted me with the sun shining bright. And after taking a shower, I just noticed my Nanny is out of my sight," Sheen giggles with the rhyme, making it sound like a poem.
"... and there I saw, the most beautiful girl my eyes had seen. Sheen was standing right in front of me."
The mothers and the teacher let out a big "Aw~" with his words.
Sheen just smile while videoing CJ who looks at the camera.
"And I know, I love her already with the smile she gave to me. I love you, Mommy," Cj runs to her and began crying.
She wasn"t able to stop the video and hugged Cj as well while the people were clapping.
"I love you too, you did great on your book," Sheen pats his back.
"I want you to be my real Mommy!" Cj cries.
This broke Sheen"s heart.
She knows she can only be called a Mommy and not his real one.
"Sh, don"t worry, you can call me Mommy."
After a few minutes of calming Cj, it was only then that she stops the video and forgot about what they were talking about.
While the others still perform, she decided to send the pictures and the video as well to Mr. White.
"Okay, we"re done with the cla.s.sroom activity, let"s go to the Campus hall and start the game!"
The teacher leads them to the hall.
She can hear the mothers talk about their child with how they performed but most of them praised Cj"s work.
"Oh, I hope my good son will write a book for me too," some of them said.
"See, they love your book," Sheen smiles at Cj who has puffy eyes.
"Yeah," he agreed while holding Sheen"s arm.
"Okay! Good Morning, Mothers and Nannies, happy mother"s day!"
The Emcee greeted while the children and staff shouted "Happy mothers day."
"Let"s start with the mechanics of the game," people started whispering to each other.
The kids as well did the same.
It"s as if they are having a meeting on their own, even Cj joined the talk.
"Eh, what?" Sheen suddenly said.
"No, no, no, no, I am not good with games," She waves her hands saying "no."
Each cla.s.sroom has to pick at least one representative to join the game.
They have to play charades.
It has to be a mother or nanny.
The whole cla.s.sroom then will have to guess what"s the word.
"Please, we"re so old that we can"t play anymore," one of the mothers said.
But Sheen knows that they are in the same age group.
It"s a compliment with a bit offending Sheen.
"Uh..." Sheen just watches the mother cheer her as well as the kids.
"Please?" CJ suddenly said with his puppy eyes and smile.
And, as usual, she just says yes.
"Okay! Thank you," The teacher wrote Sheen"s name on the players.
"Gosh, this is going to be embarra.s.sing," she thought while looking at Cj"s smile, "Ah, at least it"s worth his smile."
Her mother used to do the same to Clark when they were going to the same kindergarten.
She was Sheen and Clark"s mother on mother"s day.
"Okay! Let"s start the game!"
The Emcee started calling the names of the players until he said Sheen"s name.
"Oh, is this the author of The Day I Met Mei?" The emcee suddenly asks.
Cj"s teacher nods with a wide smile as if she"s proud to have a representative who"s famous.
Sheen just sweatdrops as the other mothers from other cla.s.ses whisper.
"Okay! Then, let"s start! Players come forward!"
"You can do it!" Cj clenched his fist in front of him.
Sheen just stands up with an awkward smile as the people look at her.
"Oh, she"s too plain."
"She"s just a writer, what"s good about that?"
"Does she works at home? So low..."
"What"s her relationship with Mr. White?"
"Is she a social climber?"
She heard some whispers that are not nice and it added nervousness.
"What if I don"t know how to act the word?" She whispers.
As they line up in front, Sheen can"t look straight to the audience.
She suddenly felt embarra.s.sed.
"I shouldn"t be like this," she whispers as she clings to her sling bag.
Cj noticed this.
He also heard the whispers.
"Hey, kid," the teacher called him.
"I think this may turn to what happened last year, you know?"
The P.E teacher sits on Sheen"s seat and whispered to Cj.
There was a similar case last year.
A mother who was famous during her times was badly talked about while she was playing.
Until the mothers who are quite ignorant wanted something to happen and they spread gossips about her that the other stupid mother believed and when the event was done, they confronted her with lies.
It turned into a scandal.
Slowly, the mother that was victimized got depressed.
She later ended her life with the scandal and lies that suffocated her.
"Yeah, but Sheen"s strong. She"s the best. She won"t let these people ruin herself," Cj looks at Sheen.
Little did he know that Sheen"s under depression and anxiety but chooses to be strong.
But only few can overcome things that slowly adds the weight of their problem.
Sheen wants to ignore it.
But after remembering how her relatives told her the same thing, seems like she might give up.
"I"ll call Dad then," Cj stands up and went outside for a moment.