Up until that very second, no such thought had even remotely crossed my mind. But after Tammy Jeeter planted that insidious little seed in my brain, I couldn’t stop watering it. As I lay in bed that night with my eyes wide open, my thoughts sped down two diverging roads like twin, runaway monster trucks.
Did I want that little seed to sprout? Or did I want it to drown?
Chapter Six
I DREAMED I WAS HIKING in the forest with Tom. We strolled, hand in hand, along a winding path of magnificent redwoods. A mountain vista peered at us between the tree limbs. A cool breeze tickled my face. The ground was a soft, spongy pad of reddish-brown pine needles. We came upon a rusty metal sign nailed to a tree. It read; Private Property. Keep Out. Tom tugged on my arm, pulling me toward the tree. I yanked loose of his grip and ran a few steps, but a loud noise made me stop and turn around. Tom was ripping through the sign with a chainsaw....
I awoke with a jolt. My left hand fumbled in the sheets for Tom. He wasn’t there. A horrid, deafening noise resonated from the hallway. It sounded like a death match was underway between a roaring lion and an asthmatic bear. A flood of memories washed over me.
Tom isn’t here. Tammy Jeeter is.
From the sound of it, the ball-busting woman was no Princess and the Pea. Despite the dilapidated mattress, Tammy was snoring loud enough to resurrect roadkill.
I sat up and sighed. Maybe Tom is right. Maybe she’ll be different today.
I drug myself out of bed and brewed a cappuccino, then put on a pot of coffee for ‘Tantalizing Tammy.’ I had no idea if Tammy drank coffee or not, but I figured I’d at least try to be a charitable hostess.
One glance over at the trashed living room made me rescind my charitable offer.
I’d gone to bed last night and left Tammy sprawled on the couch, checking out MatchMate men on her cellphone. She’d gone to bed and left me her freaking mess to clean up. I picked up the pizza box from the coffee table. Beside it was a white ring from a beer bottle, which was now lying on its side in a puddle on the floor. Great. I picked up the magazine tossed on my new couch. Underneath it was a greasy pizza sauce smear. Like the Grinch’s heart at Christmas, Tammy’s rasping snore suddenly grew fifty times more annoying.
Arrgh! Who the hell did she think I was? Her freaking maid?
I marched into my bedroom, yanked a sundress over my head and pulled my hair into a ponytail. Back in the kitchen, I grabbed my cappuccino and stomped off into the backyard. I hoped there I could escape the reaches of Tammy’s irritating, rasping existence.
I’D JUST SETTLED INTO a lounge chair by the fire pit when I heard my next-door neighbor call my name. Crap on a cracker. I’d wanted some time to myself. The last thing I needed at the moment was more company.
“Mornin’, Val!” said a voice too cheery for this early hour.
“Hey, Laverne,” I grunted.
“See you’ve got a visitor. Family?”
“Yes. A cousin. Once removed,” I grumbled.
“What does that mean?”
I sighed. “It means I hope to have some peace, once she’s removed.”
Laverne laughed. “Why is it relatives seem to spoil faster than sushi in the sunshine?”
I looked over and cracked a reluctant smile. Long-legged Laverne was wearing her favorite, gold-thong bikini. Stretched out in a beach lounger, her leathery, 70-something-year-old shriveled butt cheeks were soaking up the glorious rays of the morning sun.
“That’s a good question, Laverne. Why is it that relatives make the worst house guests?”
Laverne sat up and shrugged her thin, brown shoulders. She ran a liver-spotted hand through her strawberry-blonde curls. “Family comes with a sense of entitlement, I guess. They know you have to take ‘em in, no matter what.”
I heard the sliding glass door roll open. Tammy stuck her squinty-eyed, frizzy haired head out and yelled, “What’s for breakfast?”
“There’s coffee in the pot,” I called back. “Grab yourself a cup.”
The sliding glass door closed again with a bang. My blood pressure ticked up twenty points.
“Laverne, she’s been here one night and I’m already plotting her murder.”
The whites of Laverne’s eyes doubled. “My word, sugar!”
“She’s hitting on Tom,” I grumbled. “She’s wrecking my house. She’s rude to everybody. And she expects me to wait on her hand and foot. I hate to say it, but she might be worse than my mother!”
Laverne cocked her horsey head and smiled with sympathy. “Well, she is on vacation, honey.”
“Huh?”
“Hey, aren’t you going up to visit your mom for Christmas?”
I scowled. “Yes.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Six days, twenty-one hours and thirty-odd minutes from now.”
Laverne scratched her head and smiled. “Can’t wait, huh?”
I sneered. “Something like that.”
“Listen, before you take off, I’d like to have you and Tom over for a nice, holiday dinner. The guys, too. Could you make it this coming Thursday or Friday?”
“Sure. What have you got planned?”
Laverne beamed her perfect, horsey dentures at me. “Turkey and all the trimmings! I want to show off what I learned at my culinary class.”
A vision of the last time I’d eaten Laverne’s cooking popped into my mind. A Skinny Dip frozen entrée, still in its paper carton, circled aimlessly in a microwave until it started to blacken and smolder....
Oh boy. This is going to be awesome. “What can I bring?”
“Nothing, honey,” Laverne said. A hint of worry crossed her brow. “Unless you want to bring dessert or something?”
I smiled and took the last sip of my cappuccino. “Okay. I can do that. I’ll talk to Tom and get back with you about which day works best. Is that okay?”
Laverne grinned like a Publisher’s Clearing House winner. “That sounds great, honey!”
Something crashed inside my house. Laverne’s grin faded to a grimace – probably inspired by my own.
“I guess I better go see about that,” I said.
I’m not sure how she’d managed it, but in the two minutes since her head had peeked out the back door, Tammy had trashed my kitchen. Coffee and sugar were strewn all over the counter top and floor. The silverware drawer was open, and the carton of milk was left out to sour next to the fridge. A trail of brown coffee drips led away from the scene of the crime, down the hallway and to the closed door of the second bedroom. I nearly lost it.
What an ungrateful freaking slob!
I took a deep breath and tried to regain my composure, then rapped lightly on the door to the guest bedroom. “Tammy? Are you up?”
The gruff voice of a non-morning person barked at me. “Yeah. What are you gonna do about breakfast?”
I love you, too, cousin. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”
I WAS RELIEVED TO SEE the old blue van in the parking lot of Davie’s Donuts as we pulled up. I figured if I was going to have to do battle with my cousin Tammy, I might as well do it on friendly territory, and with reinforcements.
“Hey, Val Pal!” Winky grinned and hollered at me from his shiny chrome stool at the old-fashioned dining counter. I never thought I’d be so grateful to hear his countrified twang.
“Hi, Winky. Good to see you! This is my cousin, Tammy Jeeter.”
I held the door open for Queen Tammy to make her royal entrance. She turned her nose up at me as she picked her way inside.
Winky smiled, revealing his lack of dental insurance. “Well, howdy, Miss Tammy. Pleased to meet you.”
Like a dime-store mood ring, Tammy’s ungrateful glower at me switched to a simpering smile for Winky. She clomped toward my freckled, pot-bellied friend in her shin-high red boots. Her sagging, middle-aged butt cheeks hung out the bottom of her cut-off denim short-shorts like deflated, flesh-colored balloons. I stared in shock as Tammy sidled up to Winky like a two-bit prostitute.
She removed her sunglasses with dramatic flair and held out a limp hand for Winky to kiss.
What the hell is up with the hand kissing? Something on reality TV I don’t know about?
I guess Winky didn’t get it either. He swiveled his chubby torso around on his stool until his back was to us. A second later, he twirled around to face us again. In his chubby, freckled paw was a plate of assorted donut pieces. He held the plate out toward Tammy and gave a gracious, hillbilly nod.
“Care for a donut, Miss Tammy?” he asked.
I recognized the donut chunks as the handy work of Winky’s girlfriend, Winnie. As head waitress at Davie’s Donuts, she had the wait staff save all customers’ uneaten donut parts for “recycling.” She’d explained it in all seriousness to me one morning over coffee. “Val, there’s no use wasting perfectly good donut remains when I’ve got a hungry boyfriend to feed.”
I opened my mouth to warn Tammy about the pedigree of the secondhand sweets, but before I could say a word, she’d already grabbed the plate.
“Don’t mind if I do, Winky,” Tammy said. She crinkled her turned up nose at me. “You know, I was just about to starve.” Tammy popped a chunk of slightly-used powdered donut into her impudent maw.
Something inside me did a little happy dance.
Tammy turned her back on me, as if to erase my existence. She climbed onto the stool next to ginger-haired Winky. “Why aren’t you the sweetest, most thoughtful man in the world!” she purred, in the way I figured a wayward waif in a cheap romance novel would. I smiled as Tammy popped a chunk of cruller in her mouth. But when she leaned over and gave Winky a gander at her goose eggs, I was caught off guard.
As I stood frozen in disgust, a blissfully unaware Winnie emerged from behind the kitchen door with a pot of coffee. Tammy whistled at her like she was a dog.
“Hey, you. Waitress. Cup of coffee here.”
Plump, black-haired Winnie squinted at Tammy through her red-framed glasses. She turned toward me and smiled in recognition. “Oh. Hi, Val!”
“I meant now,” Tammy demanded.
Winnie pursed her lips, then walked over to Tammy and poured her a cup.
“Is that decaf?” Tammy snarled.
“Um. No,” Winnie fumbled. “It’s regular.”
“I said decaf. Can’t you hear?”
Every fiber in my being wanted to bitch-slap Tammy right then and there. But for the moment, I decided to settle for an apologetic smile aimed in Winnie’s direction.
“Winnie, I want you to meet my cousin Tammy. Tammy, this is Winnie, Winky’s girlfriend,” I said with all the cheer I could muster. “I’ll take that cup of regular, Winnie.”
I plucked the mug of coffee from the counter in front of Tammy and took a sip, all the while shooting Tammy the evil eye. I turned to Winnie and smiled like a hundred-watt bulb. “Thanks, Winnie.” I set my coffee down in front of the empty stool next to my cousin. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
I didn’t need to pee. I needed to chill out. And vent. And figure out a way to gracefully ditch that hideous hillbilly from hell. I marched to the bathroom, closed the door behind me and punched Milly’s number on my cellphone.
“Milly? My cousin is a two-faced skank!”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me. Val.”
“Geeze! You sound like you’re in a tunnel. What are you talking about?”
“My cousin Tammy. She showed up on my doorstep last night. She’s horrible!”
“What’s she doing at your place? Where’d she come from?”
“I don’t know. Satan spawn, maybe?”
The bathroom door flew open. Winnie bustled in, red-faced and out of breath.
“Val! Quick! You’ve got to come help me!” she wheezed.
“Hold on, Milly,” I said into the phone. “I might need to call you back.”
Poor Winnie looked ready to burst. Whether it was into flames or tears, I couldn’t tell for sure. “What’s wrong, Winnie?”
“It’s your cousin Tammy!” she bellowed. “That tramp’s all over Winky like a piranha on a corndog!”
Chapter Seven
“WHAT DO YOU CALL THESE again?” Tammy slurred. She sucked on a straw until her cheeks caved in. Loud slurping sounds emanated from the bottom of her pineapple-shaped glass.
“Sex on the beach,” I answered for the third time.
Tammy laughed, then burped, then laughed even louder. “Ha ha! I know that. I just like to make you say it.”
I’d lured Tammy away from Davie’s Donuts with the promise of cocktails on the beach. Winnie had been grateful, even if Tammy had not. I glanced at my cellphone.
Good grief. It was barely noon.
Seven long hours of babysitting brat-nympho Tammy still loomed before I could escape with Tom and my friends for dinner tonight. Time hadn’t stood this still for humankind since the Paleozoic Era.
I wracked my brain for something to talk about with my cousin, but came up empty. Tammy’s only apparent interests were men and alcohol. Thought I enjoyed the two myself, our tastes in both couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed. She had an eye for scruffy, bearded bikers and booze hounds. And she drank – ugh – sweet, fruity cocktails with paper umbrellas in unnatural colors that glowed in the dark.
I sighed and glanced around the soulless tourist trap called Barnacle Bill’s. Mass-produced beach “memorabilia” plastered its obscenely orange walls. A purple, plastic octopus held up a sign that read, “Free Beer Yesterday.” One look around the bar made me realize I was the actual oddball here. I had on age-appropriate clothes and was stone-cold sober. Everyone else, including Tammy, had put their desperation on display by drinking too much and wearing too little. Poor souls. They were probably trying to make up for a lifetime of doing the opposite.
I’d taken Tammy to Barnacle Bill’s “Disneyland for Drunks” to avoid desecrating my real favorite beach haunts. Still, when my snockered cousin started bellowing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, I was forced to put my foot down, even there.
“Might want to slow it down a bit with the booze, Tammy.”
“Why? I’m on vacation!” she said indignantly, as if that justified anything and everything.
If I’d had a drink myself, I might have found her comment amusing. But I hadn’t dared. I was the designated driver. Besides, it was hard enough to keep from slapping Tammy when I had full control of all my faculties.
I forced a smile. “It’s noon. How about some lunch?”
Tammy toyed with her straw and pouted with suspicion. “What do they have here?”
“Oh, no, Tammy. Not here. I know a much better place. Come on. Let’s go.”
I drug Tammy off her barstool and helped her stumble through the parking lot to my car. By the time we made it home, she’d lost her shoes and was almost comatose. I held her floppy torso up as she lurched and hobbled into the house. We’d just made it to the second bedroom before she collapsed onto the lumpy mattress. I turned her on her side and covered her with a blanket. Before I could step into the hall, Tammy was sawing logs like an industrial band saw.
I returned and put a bucket by her bedside, and checked in on her throughout the afternoon. When it appeared that she was going to survive, I jumped in the shower, got dressed and put on a touch of makeup. I wrote Tammy a note reminding her of my date with Tom and set it on the kitchen counter next to a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. I cut the volume on my cellphone and set it to vibrate, then texted Tom.
“Text me when you’re almost here.”
“Okay,” came his quick reply.
I didn’t have much in the fridge, so I set a couple of delivery menus from nearby restaurants on the counter next to the note. I was giving my face one last check in the mirror when I felt my phone vibrate. It was another text from Tom. “Here.”
I tucked my phone in my purse and glanced around like a teenage runaway. The coast was clear. I picked up my purse and shoes, and tiptoe
d barefoot across the living room and out the front door. Once outside, I turned the deadbolt key as slow as molasses, so as not to make a sound. When Tom pulled up behind me and tooted his horn as a joke, I about jumped out of my skin. I slipped into my sandals and bolted for his SUV.
“Hey there, good-looking,” Tom said in his slow, charming drawl.
“Hey!” I grunted as I scrambled into the passenger seat. I gave Tom a peck on the lips, then shot a worried glanced back at the house. I thought I saw the blinds in the second bedroom move. If a bloody guy in a hockey mask had appeared in the window, it wouldn’t have terrified me more.
“Hit the gas, Tom! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“What? Why?”
“Go! Now! Just do it!”
Tom shifted into reverse and peeled out. “Geeze! What’s gotten into you, Val?”
“Let’s just say I’ve got a bad case of the ‘Jeeters.’”
WOW. WHAT A DIFFERENCE the right company could make.
From our vantage point at a table on the wooden deck at Jimmy D’s Beach Bar, the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico was spectacular. The pink sky tinted everyone’s face with a sweet, rosy glow. A warm breeze blew my hair around and tickled my face like a frizzy feather. I smiled and breathed a giddy sigh of relief.
“As corny as it sounds, we live in paradise,” Vance said. He smiled at Milly, then raised his beer bottle to make a toast.
“We truly do,” Milly agreed. She raised her beer and returned his goofy smile.
“To paradise,” Vance said.
“To paradise,” Tom and I chimed in.
Milly and Vance had been dating for four months, and were in that google-eyed phase of a fresh, new romance. Blonde, fair-skinned, and wearing a white sundress, Milly looked like a ghost compared to tan, dark-haired Vance. Like a pair of kitschy salt-and-pepper shakers, the two looked so shiny and happy and hopeful it almost made me hurt inside. I remembered feeling that way, too. But as of late, it seemed all I could do was complain.
Family Fruitcake Frenzy Page 3