A Little Rhine Must Fall (17 page)

Chapter Sixteen:

Outing

After making the girls as non-sticky as possible, kissing Mark goodbye as he headed out the door for work, and throwing dishes in the dishwasher, I was ready to talk alien invasion. There had to be some way to convince alien/Karen
not
to send a message back to Endrung.

I had just sat down with a second cup of coffee (yes, it was that sort of day) to start a little heart-to-heart when there was a knock at the door. A key turned in the outside lock before I could even get to the front hall. It was my mother and a very sleepy, bedraggled Sarah. Or maybe her hair was
supposed
to look like that. It was hard to tell these days.

“Hello, darlings!” my mother called, letting herself in. “Sarah and I thought we’d have a ‘Girls’ Day Out!’”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I want to do,” Sarah yawned.

Mom glared at her. “I am not passing up this opportunity to spend time with all my daughters.”

Sarah snorted and made wide eyes at me.

I glanced behind me to the kitchen table where my sister Karen was
not
sitting, eating another slice of cake. This had all the hallmarks of a disaster. It’s not that Sarah and I couldn’t fix whatever problems would crop up when Mom inevitably realized that there was something off about her eldest daughter. It was just that I didn’t want to use my ability any more than I had to, and definitely not on my Mom.

Megan and Cassidy came galumphing into the room and danced and jumped and generally made enough noise for thirty children.

“Who wants to go shopping!” my mom called.

Megan stopped and folded her arms. “We no like shopping,” she said.

Mom was horrified. How could anyone who was related to her not enjoy shopping? “Why not, sweetie?”

I explained. “I call Walmart, shopping. They’re not fond of grocery shopping.”

“Oh,” Mom was relieved. “That explains it. Well girls, this is
not
grocery shopping. And we’ll have lunch out!”

“Yay!” Megan and Cassidy screamed.

I slipped into the kitchen after Sarah. She was cutting herself a slice of cake as well. Just smelling the cake was making me feel a little queasy. The coffee was not sitting well with the baby.

“Sarah!” I whispered. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

Sarah yawned again and mumbled around a bite, “How?”

I gave her a stink-eye.

She smiled evilly, “You said I wasn’t to alter Mom’s memories.”

My fingers twitched. I wanted to slap her. No. That was not mature. I was a grown woman and there was no reason for me to resort to violence. “We can’t all go shopping!”

Alien/Karen looked up, “Why not?”

“Why not?” I was hysterical. “If you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly human
or
my sister!”

“So?”

“So! My mother is bound to notice that you are not Karen!”

We all stopped to listen to my mom and the girls. “I think ice cream sundaes are an excellent idea for lunch!” Mom was saying.

“Okay,” I backpedaled. “Maybe she won’t notice. But she might! And then what do we do?”

Sarah brushed crumbs off the counter onto the floor. “We take care of it, Piper. Stop being such a nervous Nellie.”

“Who’s ready to go?” Mom sang out from the living room. “Honestly, you girls take as long to get ready now as you did when you were kids!”

“Coming!” I yelled. Okay. Maybe this could work. We’d go out and show the alien a good time. She’d be so overwhelmed with how wonderful life on Earth was that she wouldn’t call in the troops to destroy us. Yes. This had definite possibilities.

Good grief. Who was I kidding? This was doomed from the start. Even if showing alien/Karen a good time was the way to save Earth, I doubted that a day out with my mom and daughters would classify as a “good time.” More like, she’d stumble home exhausted and stressed and decide to tell her home planet to just go ahead and nuke us all; there’s no intelligent life here.

Events were happening too fast for me to control so I decided to just roll with it.

:Can we come?:
Bastet had wandered back into the kitchen.

“Really?” I asked sarcastically. “You really think that it’s okay for a
cat
to come shopping? Nobody would see anything odd about that?”

“Piper?” Mom was standing right behind me. “Are you talking to the cat?”

“Me? Nope. I wasn’t talking to the cat. Not me.” I looked around frantically. “Umm, I need to run to the bathroom and walk Harvey and then we can go.” I disappeared as quickly as I could before she could ask any more embarrassing questions.

:You
are
going to lock that stinky dog up before you go, aren’t you?:
I heard in my head.

I stuck my head back out. “I’m going to walk Harvey and then lock him in the laundry room,” I announced.

“Yes, dear.” Mom looked puzzled. “You already said that.”

“Okay,” I laughed nervously. “Just letting you know.” Yup. This was going to be a
great
day.

Harvey was hiding under my bed. It was king-sized which meant that if he stayed in the middle I couldn’t reach him, even when I lay on my stomach and tried to squeeze under. For some reason I didn’t want to use the Voice on him. Irrationally, I felt that he should obey me without it.

I tried stern ordering, “Harvey! Come!”

I tried cajoling, “Did the big, nasty, Egyptian kitty say something mean to you? Come on out and I’ll take care of you.”

I gave up and used the Voice. “Harvey, get your little furry behind out here
now!
”

Another victory for patience and self-control.

My mom had the girls’ shoes on and Cassidy’s diaper changed and Sarah and “Karen” were also ready to go. I held back a bit and grabbed the alien’s arm as my daughters raced past me to the car.

“Remember,” I whispered. “You’re
Karen
. Try to act natural.”

She looked blank. “Why?”

Visions of bashing my head repeatedly into the wall distracted me. That was silly. I shouldn’t be dreaming of hitting my own head. I should be imagining hitting
her
head!

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“If my people are coming soon, then it does not matter if your mother knows that I am not Karen.” She sounded perfectly logical and calm.

“Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves here,” I growled. “You might change your mind; your alien buddies might have already found a better planet somewhere else. You never know. And until those alien ships show up at my doorstep, then I say that my mother stays in the dark. Got me?”

She stared at me for a long moment. “You are quite frightening for someone who appears so weak.”

I rolled my eyes. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” I said. It was true. I was all talk. She hadn’t seen anything, nor would she. My best plan right now was to convince her of the glories of materialism and hope that she changed her mind. As plans go, it lacked … just about everything.

My cell rang as I was backing out of the garage. I answered without looking at the display. Always a mistake.

“Hello, this is Piper!”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” a voice said dryly. It was Carolyn.

Rats! Was it too late to hang up and pretend I didn’t hear my phone? The girls squealed with laughter in the backseat at something my Mom said.

I covered the phone speaker, “Shhh!” I admonished the rest of the car. “Why, hello, Carolyn,” I greeted her warmly.

She cut to the chase. “Are you home right now?”

The wheels of the minivan hit the street, “No, I’m not,” I said truthfully. “Why? Did you need something?”

“When will you be home?” she asked.

“Umm,” I glanced at my Mom in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know. Later? Why?”

“Oh well. I suppose I will have to come over and let them in.” She sighed as if I had seriously inconvenienced her.

“Uh, Carolyn? Let
who
in?”

“The painters.”

It was a good thing I was at the stop sign because I had to close my eyes and bang my head lightly on the steering wheel.

When I could speak calmly, I asked, “What painters?”

“For the bathroom,” she explained. “The color doesn’t match with the new decor.”

I flexed my fingers on the wheel. “The walls matched with the
old
decor.”

“Yes. But they look hideous now. I arranged for some painters to come and repaint.”

“I really don’t want my bathroom repainted,” I said firmly. It was time to take a stand! Stop being a doormat! Plant my flag and claim the hill!

“They’re not going to repaint your bathroom,” she said as if I were an idiot.

The wind was taken out of my planted flag. “They’re not?”

“No,” I swear I could hear her eyes roll, “They’re going to repaint the
girls’
bathroom.”

A number of responses flew threw my head. Some of them were even appropriate to say in front of my toddlers. As I sorted through the most polite way to say “You’re a crazy, manipulative, and overbearing monster and I don’t want you redecorating my house,” she claimed the final victory.

“Mark said it was all right.”

“He did?” I squeaked.

“And I must say,” she continued, “that you seem
very
ungrateful.”

Mom said something in the back seat. I felt Carolyn’s unfairness radar fire up. “Is that Marion?” she asked tartly.

“Umm, yeah,” I said, hating that I felt like I had to hide the fact that I was spending time with my
mother.

“How nice for her,” Carolyn said. She hung up.

“What’s up,” Sarah asked. She must have seen the smoke pouring from my ears.

“Nothing,” I snapped and dialed Mark.

“Hey, Babe!” he answered.

“Did you tell your mother it was okay for her to repaint
our
hall bathroom?” I snarled.

There was silence. “Umm, she said she talked to you about it and you said it was okay.”

“She. Did. Not. Talk. To. Me.”

More silence. “Umm. I’m sorry? What do you want me to do?”

“Do! Do! I want you to tell her that she can’t repaint our house! What’s next? She’s going to start picking out our furniture? How about our clothing? Where does it end!”

“Piper, I think you’re being a little overdramatic,” Mark said calmly.

“I am not being overdramatic!” I screeched.

“Yeah, you kind of are,” Sarah said.

“Shut up, Sarah!”

“Piper!” My mom finally tuned in from the backseat. “Don’t talk to your sister like that!”

“Let’s talk about this tonight,” Mark said. “It sounds like you’ve got a lot going on over there.”

“Fine!” I snapped. “But don’t blame me if you come home to a pink house!” I punched the disconnect button and tried to concentrate on my driving.

No one spoke in the car.

“What?” I yelled. “What?”

“Nothing,” Sarah shrugged. “You’re not being overdramatic or anything.”

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

“Do you want to talk about it, honey?” Mom asked, worried.

“No. I don’t want to talk about it.” I turned onto the main road. “Where are we going?

“The mall!” my mom said brightly.

Alien/Karen leaned forward from the middle captain’s seats, “What is a mall?” she whispered.

“You’ll see,” I whispered back and suppressed a sigh. Maybe I did need a touch of immortality. At this rate I was going to be grey-haired and wrinkled before I hit thirty.

The Melbourne Square Mall is not really much as malls go. There’s no second level with escalators and glass ceilings. No three-story high room with a gigantic carousel in the middle. Not even many fancy stores with one word names like “Coach” or “Prada.” We’ve got our JC Penney, our Macy’s, the token pet store with sad little puppies, a Payless, and an odd assortment of other little shops, and, my daughters’ favorite, the Food Court.

Where else can you get pizza, Chinese, Japanese, hotdogs, Greek, sandwiches, and fried chicken, all in one place? Since we’d just had breakfast, I vetoed stopping at the food court first and we compromised on each getting a cinnamon soft pretzel from Auntie Ann’s Pretzels.

Mom skipped ahead with Megan and Cassidy to throw pennies into the small fountain in the center of the mall and Sarah and the alien and I trailed behind, munching our treat.

“What is this?” alien/Karen asked.

“It’s a pretzel,” Sarah explained, wiping her fingers on her napkin. “Sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.”

“It is good,” the alien took another thoughtful bite, “but not as good as cake.”

Sarah snorted and sprayed crumbs. “You’re weird!”

“Speaking of weird,” I said, thinking it might be a good time to question Sarah on her Orlando activities.

“Yeah?” she was suspicious.

“What’s with the new doo?”

“Huh?”

“Your new look?” She was wearing pencil leg jeans, ballet flats, and a horizontally striped tank top. Her neon-pink striped bangs were hanging in her face.

“What do you mean,
look
?” she sounded hostile.

I backed off. “Umm. You just seem to have changed your style. Are you going for an emo look?” I tried to show how hip and cool I was by using the modern lingo.

“It’s not a
look
, Piper!” Sarah exclaimed with anger. “This is
me
! I’m just expressing who I am! I don’t have to look just like everyone else!”

God help me, I snickered.

“What? What! You think I can’t have my own style?” she was getting louder.

“I’m sure you can,” I was still smirking. “Funny how your style has a
name
and looks just like half the other confused teenagers here.” I pointed out a pair of guys walking by who were wearing the same pencil-legged jeans, horizontal striped tee (thankfully not tank-tops) and bangs in the face. The pants did
not
look good on them. For that matter, they didn’t look good on Sarah, and she had the body of curvy supermodel. If I ever felt the desire to wear skinny jeans I hoped I would have the sense to just pin a sign on my rear that said, “Look how big my butt is” instead. It would save money and accomplish the same result.