2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (23 page)

Catherine sat in the exam room, waiting for the
doctor. She’d made it through the last weigh-in and wouldn’t have to see Nurse
Ratched again, possibly ever. She wouldn’t miss that woman. At. All.

Her mother had opted to stay outside in the waiting
room instead of accompanying her into the back, standoffish about the birth
process and seemingly anything leading to it. Catherine had foolishly been
concerned about gently breaking the news that she only wanted Fynn in the
delivery room with her, but when she’d told her, Elizabeth Hemmings had waved it
off like it needn’t be said because she had no intention of being there. No
way. No how. Even though she was getting her way, Catherine was taken aback
and, honestly, hardly soothed by Fynn’s reasoning that her mother’s generation
had come through the labor and delivery realm when even husbands didn’t join
them for the birth, let alone grandparents and sisters and friends and the guy
off the street who sold sandwiches out of the back of his truck in nice weather.

She twiddled her thumbs, adjusted the gap in her gown
to seal off the draft that was slipping down her cleavage.
Those
she
would miss after all was said and done. Not that her breasts had been small
before, but they were never this perky. Just enough added volume to make them
defy gravity with pride. Although she guessed she had another year with them if
she was able to make it nursing that long, barring all the obstacles between
here and there. Like the horror stories about leaking and spraying and
tenderness that picked off the weak before they even got started.

Her phone buzzed from across the room and she slid off
the exam table to answer it, certain it was Fynn checking in.

The message was as expected: How was your appointment?

But it was from Georgia. Catherine could have been
knocked over with a feather. How did she know? Was she tracking her movements
on some surveillance app, or did Fynn tell her, or—did it even matter?

Catherine texted back: Still here.

Georgia: Nurse still on your case?

Catherine: LOL (not that she had, but she did crack a
smile)

Georgia: Let me know how it goes.

Catherine: Sure.

A dry and superficial conversation when you looked at
the words; yet Catherine was still teary, the screen blurring before her. She
had begun to think that Georgia would never talk to her again, and she was
stubborn enough to return the favor. Not even her mother’s words had been able
to break through her crusty self-righteousness. Now she felt even worse,
not
being the one to cave on their ridiculous silence stalemate. Maybe she
should go the extra mile, add something more meaningful like a
miss you
or
a
great to hear from you
or a
talk soon
or—

The phone chirped, her default ringtone for anyone who
was no one in particular, and she answered without thinking.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Trager?”

“Yes,” Cautious, recognizing the voice but not
immediately who it belonged to.

“Hi, yes, I’m calling about Cara.”

“Oh my God, is everything alright? Is she—”

“She’s just fine.”

Catherine heaved a calming breath, only to feel her
heartbeat kick up a notch all over again as she realized it was Cara’s teacher,
Mrs. Karnes, who never had good news to report. 

“Well, Mrs. Trager, we’re concerned—”

“I thought you said she’s fine.”
And who is the rest
of this ‘we’? Sophie Watts? The mouse in your pocket?

“Yes, of course she is. Nothing happened and I don’t
want to alarm you; I’m just touching base.”

“About?”
I swear if you tell me the other parents
staged a coupe and overthrew Sophie Watts, I still won’t step in and take over
as room mom again. Not after what you did.

“Cara has been telling the other students that she has
a talking cat,” Mrs. Karnes said, tossing it out like an accusation.

“A talking cat?” The question, stilted, like it was
both a ridiculous supposition and also so bizarre that it didn’t seem possible
it was being made up.

“Yes.” There were several beats of silence on the
other end, space Catherine wasn’t willing to take although Mrs. Karnes was
relinquishing it, so the teacher continued, “It seems that she listens to
whatever her cat says and does whatever her cat tells her to do.”

“But she doesn’t even have a cat—we don’t have a cat.”

Mrs. Karnes didn’t engage the pronouncement, as if it
was neither here nor there. A talking real cat or a talking imaginary cat,
either way, just as crazy. “We wonder if maybe it would be best—”

There was that damn
we
again.

“—if she talked to someone.”

Other than her cat.
That’s what Mrs. Karnes
meant, though she pussyfooted around it.

“Our counseling department at the school is available
for any child who needs a little extra… attention. They could refer you to a—”

Psychiatrist? Psych ward?
Catherine’s fears
filled in the blank, drowning out Mrs. Karnes’s words.

“—a strong imagination is nothing to squelch, but
considering what Cara has gone through over the last months, this could be a
sign of something deeper, therefore I thought it imperative to share with you.”

A talking cat? Telling her what to do? Don’t tell
me it’s the beginnings of Schizophrenia.

Catherine boosted herself back up on the cold table, the
hygienic paper crinkling underneath her, staring at her phone, stunned. She
didn’t know what to think or how to feel. People always said that having an
imaginary friend was perfectly inbounds of normal. So if that was the case
then—

“Mrs. Trager, how are we doing today?” Doctor
Sombrarian asked as he walked in the room, startling her and making her juggle
and almost drop her phone. Obviously he hadn’t gotten the latest memo that she
didn’t want to deal with anymore
we’s
today.

She looked around for someplace to put her phone now
that the doctor and his tailing nurse were in the room with her. Alas, no
pockets in her gown and she wasn’t a kangaroo. All she had was socks on her
cold feet.

“I’ll take that,” the nurse offered, placing it onto
her pile of clothes that she’d messily folded and left on the chair in the
corner.

“So it seems this is our last meeting until the big
day,” the doctor announced as he peered through her chart.

“Yup, seems so.” Catherine held her gown closed around
her even though this man had seen everything God gave her many times over.

“Well, I guess we should see how things are
progressing then, considering it could feasibly be any day now.”

Any day now
she would be mom to an
all-consuming baby daughter while she was still struggling as a not-quite-mom
to a little girl who now had an imaginary kitty controlling her every movement.

“So, what now? Any shopping you want to do? Maybe go
to an early lunch?” her mother offered from the passenger seat.

“I’m not really hungry.” Not hungry? Catherine Marie? A
news flash in and of itself!

“Everything went okay in there?” Elizabeth Hemmings
glanced worriedly out the window at the building that housed the doctor’s
office that had taken her daughter’s appetite away.

“The usual.”

The appointment had been as ho-hum as she’d expected
it to be. Nothing new to report but for the news that Elizabeth Hemmings’
granddaughter had “found” or “rescued” or “adopted” an imaginary talking kitty.
Which was weighing on Catherine considering she’d seen enough psychological
thrillers to know that the psychopaths in them spent a lot of time either
talking to themselves or the people (and possibly cats) in their heads as they
went about plotting their murderous ways, and what she didn’t need at all right
now was to be raising a serial killer. 

“Well, then, I guess that’s it.” Brusque.

“No. Mom. I’m sorry. I just got a call while I was in
there and it kind of spun me out,” she admitted.

Her mother chewed on that for a moment. “You know what
your father would say to that?”

“What?” Catherine tried to minimize the sigh that
erupted with it.

“That’s reason number eighty-two why cell phones are
destroying our lives.”

Catherine burst out laughing. The kind of
uncontrollable joy that made it a good thing she was still safely parked in a
perfect spot, deep in the parking lot, on the end of a row, next to a curb, and
well away from other cars with their capriciously swinging doors. She turned
and looked at her mother through her bleary eyes and found her laughing right
along.

When they finally came back to their senses, Elizabeth
glanced at her watch. “You know, we could meet up with the boys at the diner.
My guess is they’re probably on their way there right now.”

“I don’t think Fynn was planning to go there.”
If
he was reading my vibe at all.

“If there is one thing I know about your father, he is
going to a diner any chance he gets. He will be there. And I say we go and try
to horn in on their lunch and get your father to pay for it.”

Catherine smirked in spite of herself, considering her
father’s money was their money was her mother’s money. Her parents had always
been completely joined in mind, body, and wallet. There was no differentiation.
Which was why she had never considered maintaining separate accounts in her own
relationship either. If you couldn’t share bank accounts, how could you share a
full life and a bed and all that came with it? She knew that Connor and Lacey
kept separate accounts, both contributing fifty-fifty to the household
expenses, and flying in the face of everything marriage was to Elizabeth and
William Hemmings. Her brother and his wife were creatures of a new kind of
marriage. But thankfully Fynn was on Catherine’s same page, and better yet, he
was an extremely low-maintenance kind of man whose financial ground was strong
and steady, something she had learned, dating later in life like she had, was
hard to come by. There was a lot more baggage than simply old girlfriends or
cranky ex-wives to deal with in the dating pool these days. There were
financial black holes and borderline bankruptcies too. Credit history was right
up there with medical history these days. Too bad she wasn’t quite the same
shiny apple for him, but it was just a little debt, all current, all on the
up-and-up.

“It’ll be nice. Besides, I could go for another one of
those Reubens while we’re here,” her mother reasoned.

Catherine groaned. Nice wasn’t really the word for it.

“And afterward, I can take the old man home if you
want, and you and Fynn can have the afternoon to yourselves. We’ll be there for
Cara when she gets off the bus.”

And don’t forget her cat, since we can’t be too hopeful
that she’ll lose it on the way home.

She shook her head to clear it of the newest obstacle
to her efforts for a smooth-sailing life. Who was Mrs. Karnes to judge how well-adjusted
Cara was, anyway? Catherine was the one who had been with her every moment
within the legal limits since her mom died. She would know if the girl had a problem.
But there
was
one problem that she knew of without a doubt. She needed
to get her ass shopping so Christmas was taken care of.

“So? What do you think?” her mother prodded.

“I think that I have some shopping to do this
afternoon while I can still do it. The doctor says I’m free and clear. No
worries that I will be dropping this kid in the middle of the aisle at Target
or anything, so I think I need to take advantage of that.

Elizabeth Hemmings winced, “Catherine Marie, that is
an awful image.”

“It happens, Mom. I’ve heard about it on the news.
Heck, I’ve seen it on YouTube.”

“Now don’t go getting your father started on that
YouTube stuff. He doesn’t even fully know what it is, but he’ll tell you all
about why he thinks it’s terrible.”

“Ten-four.” Catherine pulled out her phone and tapped
away at the screen.

Alarmed. “Don’t pull up a video.” Her hand to her
throat.

“I’m just texting Tara,” she assured her.

“I’m glad that you two are back to normal.”

“Normal?” Catherine blurted. “There is no normal with
Tara, Mom.”

“Well, she is a friend. Oh, and how is Georgia while
we are at it?”

“I have to talk to her later, actually. I tried to
catch up in the doctor’s office.” Almost true. No need to share who reached
whom first?

“That’s not what put you in such a mood, is it?”

“What? No.” She waved her mother off. “I just hadn’t
seen the doctor yet, so I need to tell her all’s well and nothing’s new on the
baby front.”

“Yo, bitch, lookin’, sweet! How much for a couple
hours?” Tara whistled out her open car window as she rolled up next to the curb
where Catherine was waiting outside the diner. Fynn had already taken her
parents home and Catherine was still trying to shake off the looks she’d gotten
from Mel at lunch that said,
how did such nice, regular, salt-of-the-earth
people raise someone like you?
… or something like that.

“Very funny,” Catherine growled through her scarf,
stepping down off the curb and getting in the passenger side, noting the
new-car smell. “So what happened to
my
car?”

“You mean that old thing you gave me right before it
died?”

“Died?” Catherine choked out.

“Yup. Dead. As a doornail. Conked out a few months
ago.”

“Oh.” That was all she could say, needing a moment of
silence for the car that had gotten her all the way from college graduation to
her life with Fynn. The one she had left behind for her friend to unceremoniously
junk. She wondered if Tara had even tried to fix it. Wondered why she hadn’t
called and offered it up to her. Wondered why it mattered so much when she’d left
it behind with Tara because she didn’t need it anymore.

“Is this a mini SUV or something?” Catherine asked,
inspecting the space.

“A crossover. Just what I need for hauling stuff
around to work on the house. I figured if I need a truck I can always borrow
yours,” Tara said breezily.

“Oh.” Again, one syllable that allowed her time to
swallow some of the sharp opinions she had about everything Tara had just said
and all of her recent choices, for that matter—like fixing up a house when she
was a city girl who’d always lived in rented spaces without ever doing so much
as fixing a squeaky hinge. Oh, and figuring their relationship had
what’s-mine-is-yours status.

“So where’re we off to?”  

“Well, you know Cara’s list,” Catherine said carefully,
a sore spot. “I need to do some shopping.”

“I’m game, where do we go?” Like nothing had ever transpired
between them. The joy of Tara.

She took the letter out of her purse, looking it over
again. “We need a board game, a Gingermelon elephant, a fryer, a—”

“A friar? Is it Tuck? From Robin Hood? Or will just
any old friar do? Is she in some kind of religious phase?”

“A deep fryer.”

“Well that makes more sense—wait, that doesn’t make any
more sense. What does a six-year-old want with a deep fryer?”

“The girl likes fries, what can I say?”
She also
likes invisible cats, by the way, so on the bright side, at least she isn’t
asking for a litter box and a scratching post for Christmas.

“Well, it isn’t the thing that’s on every little
girl’s wish list, so I can’t imagine there’s been a run on them,” Tara
reasoned.

“There’s that,” Catherine agreed.

“So point me in the direction you want to go. This is
your town.”

“Like you don’t live here?”

***

“Now that guy loves clams,” Tara said, tugging on
Catherine’s coat sleeve.

She looked up from the deep fryer box she was trying
to read, wondering who on earth would be eating clams in the middle of Target’s
small appliances. Her bewildered and mildly grossed-out gaze took in only two
men in the vicinity, neither one currently scarfing down food of any sort, let
alone seafood. Which was good since she’d had more than a mild aversion to
shelled or gilled creatures since Eve decided against them.

“And that one over there is only
acting
like he
likes ‘em,” Tara added.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded, following
it up with an “
Ouch!
”

“The word is heck, Catherine Marie,” Tara said snorted.

“That was just plain wrong,” she huffed, rubbing her stinging
cheek. At least it was an ass cheek, a direct smack. But of all people to cop
an “Elizabeth Hemmings” tone with her, she never should have admitted that she
was trying to become a reformed trash mouth before her daughters ended up in
reform school or whatever it was that people did with the unsavory youth of the
nation now. Tara was like a dirty cop, policing her out of one side of her face
and unleashing a storm of obscenities out of the other.

“Ooh, check that guy out… what do you think of him?”

Catherine directed her gaze at the man who had stopped
to look at the endcap of the aisle they were in. Good looking. Maybe a bit too
clean cut, which had always been kind of off-putting to her sensibilities. She
certainly didn’t understand what Tara would see in that type. She shrugged to
show her give-or-take feelings.

“I think he’s a pregophile. The way he was walking
past and looked down here and suddenly became totally interested in those
quesadilla makers over there. No guy is that into a quesadilla maker.”

“Maybe it’s for his mother. It
is
Christmas.”

“That’s a whole different problem then.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Either he’s a momma’s boy or the guy was checking you
out. Which makes him a pregophile.” When she didn’t respond Tara added, “A guy
who’s into pregnant chicks.”

Catherine looked over at him uncertainly. “You make it
sound gross or illegal or something. Why couldn’t he just be into me?”

“So you’re saying you’d be into that?” she challenged.

“Of course I wouldn’t be into that. I’m married. I
have
Fynn,
remember?”

“I’m just saying, hypothetically speaking, would you be
into that?”

“No.”

“’Cuz there are all types of problems with the whole situation.
I mean, what happens when you aren’t pregnant anymore? You pop the puppy out
and then he’s on to the next fattest chick. I mean, maybe you could stay
knocked up for most of the relationship; pop out a kid every year to eighteen
months if you’re lucky. But guys like that want noticeably pregnant chicks. You
know, like five months and up. So there’s just no way you could satisfy his
needs. He’d end up cheating and you’d end up alone with eleven kids to support.”

“What is the point of this conversation?”

“I’m just saying,
that
is where the guy goes
from normal to ‘phile’.”

Catherine’s face screwed up in distaste.

“It’s like a guy who loves blonde hair so much that
his woman dyes it for him. All seems well, they marry, have the whole family
thing, and then she goes down into his workshop basement one day to find blonde
hair in the cabinets—I mean they’re full of it—and entire blonde ponytails
hanging on a peg board in the storage room. A total freak, see? And
that
guy right there has pregnant bellies in his closet,” she added.

Catherine shivered, cradling her own belly.

“No, I mean pregnant bellies for his dates to wear
when they screw.”

“Eew.”

“Sssh, quiet, he’s talking to clam lover.”

“Who?”

“Sssh! I can read lips.”

“How does me talking get in the way of that?”
Catherine whispered.

“Sssh!”

She turned back to the deep fryer. Basic model. No
bells and whistles. Except, wait, there was a pink one. Twice the price, but
all gussied up for breast cancer awareness. It couldn’t be more perfect for
Cara—her love of pink, plus proceeds to breast cancer research in honor of her
mother. Sold.

“Either they know each other or they just made a deal
for pregophile to sleep with clam lover’s wife before she shoots out that
monster pup she’s carrying.” Tara pointed to the pregnant woman slipping her
arm through clam lover’s arm.

“What is wrong with you?”

Tara winked.

“And why do you keep calling him clam lover?”

“The guy is a total vagitarian.”

Catherine rolled her eyes.

“I’m surprised his wife is knocked up at all considering
he’s an eater not a poker.”

“You know that morning sickness I never got? I think
it just arrived,” Catherine said, gagging a little.

“You can see it in the lips. He’s obsessed with his
lips… and lips in general, if you know what I mean.” Elbowing her in the side
and raising her eyebrows in a passable Groucho Marx.

“Seriously, Tara, what the hell is wrong with you—
ouch!
”
She rubbed at her cheek, the left side of her face this time.

“Twice in less than five minutes. Same word, Cat. You’ve
got to wise up.”

“You’re the one getting nasty.”

“I haven’t said one bad word in all of that.”

“But a lot of gross ones.”

Tara shrugged like it couldn’t be avoided.

“What is your obsession with other people’s sexual
hobbies anyway?”

“I’m hard up. And when I get sexually frustrated, I
like to people-watch for sexual deviants. It helps keep me on the straight and
narrow. Otherwise I see every guy as potentially bangable and then I end up
sleeping with some loser just to get my rocks off.”

“Isn’t that more of a guy term for getting laid? You
know, since they have rocks or stones or whatever you want to call them.”

“I prefer balls, a nice handful, and a guy who trusts
me to juggle them a bit while we’re getting busy.”

“God, Tara, why do you have to put that picture in my
head?”

“Better than being in mine, because like I said, I’m
ready to screw just about anything that walks on two legs at this point, so
long as there is a fuzzy ball sack hanging between them.”

“I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. Unless you
want me hurling, you’ll stop. Now.” 

“Have at it. I can handle a little puke,” Tara said,
throwing down the gauntlet.

“I mean hurling things at you. Starting with this
fryer,” she said, brandishing the box.

Tara held both hands in the air in a show of surrender.

“Now, you still have the board games?” Catherine
asked.

“Yup. We’ve got HangMan, Clue, and Twister—I would
love
to see you try to play that.”

“I’m not going to be pregnant come Christmas,”
Catherine pointed out. “And I’m a Twister
champ
, fu—thank you very
much.”

Tara nodded in recognition of her quick catch before
dropping the worst of the worst of them all. “We’ll just see about that.”

Catherine shook her head. It wasn’t worth the battle.
“So, I have the fryer.” Hugging it against her belly. “Are you sure we checked
all the stuffed animals?”

A sharp nod.

“Well then, let’s check out and move along.”

Catherine led the way to the front, where there were
five lanes open and all were backed up. “Why do they even have twelve registers
if they never open them all up? What’s the point of that?”

“It’s just to bother people like you,” Tara said,
perusing the candy options.

“I mean, don’t people have jobs anymore?” Catherine
checked the time to see that it was indeed only two in the afternoon. Even
bankers’ hours were still in session. “There should be a law or something.”

“Wow, cranky much?”

“I hate lines.” Simple fact. “Doing this in the middle
of a weekday should be quick and easy.”

“Nothing’s quick and easy anymore, didn’t you know
that?” Tara joked. “Except me. I can be quick. And I can definitely be easy.”

“Tara!”

“I need sex, Cat. What can I say?”

“There are ways to take care of that,” she said under
her breath.

“Don’t you think I’ve been doing that much? That’s the
only reason I’ve made it this long. But eventually you just need a guy to ram
it on home.”

Catherine’s lips twisted in a grimace as the guy in
front of them turned on cue, ready to offer his services. She shook her head at
him.

“Come on. My boobs are practically virginal all over
again. It’s been way too long since they’ve been touched.”

“I’m not touching your boobs, Tara,” she said under
her breath.

“I’ll touch your boobs,” perv guy offered. And he was
buying condoms to boot—a massive box. A hopeful box most likely.

“I bet you would,” Tara said lasciviously. “But unless
you’re into blood sports, move along.”

The guy cringed like she’d just hit him over the head,
facing front and shifting his weight like he wanted out and fast.

“What did I miss?” Catherine whispered.

“Works every time. Guys don’t like to get freaky with
Aunt Flow. Shuts them down quick,” she whispered back.

“Eew.”

“Good to know when you’re single; that’s all I’m
sayin’.”