December 23rd: Got fired today, one week before my probationary period was up. When I asked the HR rep what I did wrong, I was informed that my sister was caught making a pass at my boss when she came to visit me yesterday (I’d been at the doctor’s for my monthly checkup, and Susan knew it). “What kind of pass?” I’d asked, explaining that my sister was a perpetual flirt. The kind involving her sitting on his lap in a dress, sans her underwear. “That was probably an accident,” I explained, straight-faced. Susan sometimes forgot she wasn’t wearing underwear—she never has worn them, claiming an allergy to elastic. The HR rep went on to explain that my boss accidentally had his pants down, too. Yikes! Needless to say, after being told that sisters are usually cut from the same cloth and reminded that I was an unwed mother with no baby-father in sight, I was given a week’s severance and asked to pack my things and join my boss at the unemployment office. Susan was at my parents’ place when I pulled in the drive. Had I been able to catch her, I might have given her a fat lip. Stupid waddle. She swears he came on to her first, and I think Mom even believes her. Criminy! Who is going to hire an almost twenty-eight-week-pregnant mother-to-be? I can’t even reach past my belly to the glasses in the kitchen cupboard anymore.
It turned out that the only place that would hire a twenty-eight-week-pregnant woman was a twenty-four-hour gas and carryout store. I’d worked there for a full month before my father pulled me aside and begged me to have mercy on him and quit. The stress caused by thinking of his pregnant daughter all alone in a gas station every night had his blood pressure red-lining. I told him that I had to pay rent. He asked me to consider relocating to his basement. He and my mom had talked, and agreed they would support me for the first six months of the kids’ lives, and then help with babysitting as I got rolling again. My eyes grew misty even now thinking about that conversation with him.
Teary-eyed, I’d told him I’d think about it, which I did three nights later after a red-eyed freak came into the gas station and asked if I needed a foot rub. When I turned him down, he asked if I’d rather practice making another baby. I quit the next morning. My brother moved me back home the following weekend before heading off to the Gobi desert—his next photojournalist gig.
I’d written a lot in my diary during my unemployment. I scanned through lines filled with deep thoughts about the kids, my life, and my aching feet and back. I also plotted revenge schemes, like making a voodoo doll that looked like the sperm donor and backing over it with my car or shaving Susan’s head while she slept.
Susan and I had managed to be civil during family dinners, but I stayed in my basement hideout whenever she came to visit the folks. Mom knew better than to ask me to be the bigger person. I was bigger. I was huge, in fact. But there was no way I could get past the crap Susan had pulled.
As Valentine’s Day neared, the thoughts in my diary grew darker, full of worries and anxieties over the two little watermelons that would soon need to be pushed out through a rather small opening in my body. I remember wondering what man would ever want me and my deflated body after the babies had come. Short of rubbing bacon all over my pulse points and wearing barbecued pork-rib earrings, I figured I’d be spending the rest of my life sans men.
February 9th: Cool! I found this small box waiting for me at the table this morning with a card that had my name and a smiley face on it. Inside was a necklace with a daisy pendant. The petals are made of little diamonds—it looks like—and the yellow center is a piece of amber or a yellow sapphire. It looks vintage. I’ll have to show it to Aunt Zoe; she’s going to love it. She digs this kind of jewelry. Oh, and it came with a matching ring—bonus! Mom and Dad are the best parents ever!
It turned out that they were as surprised as I was by the necklace and ring. I asked all around, but the gift giver remained anonymous, everyone in denial. That should have been my first clue. I blame the pregnancy hormones for my stupidity.
I turned the page, knowing what came next, but got caught up in the past anyway.
February 14th: Guess where I spent the night, diary? In jail. Happy Valentine’s Day to me. That’s right, eight months pregnant, and there I sat in a damned jail cell. Granted it was only for a half hour before Mom bailed me out, but still—jail. Why, you ask, my dear diary? Because of my PSYCHO SISTER! What started out with me getting pulled over in my parents’ pickup for a taillight being out, turned into the truck being listed as stolen, which then became a VIN record showing over a thousand dollars worth of unpaid parking tickets and fines. To top it off, while I sat at the police station trying to convince them that I had nothing to do with any of this, one of the officers noticed my pretty new necklace and ring and showed me a photo of the very same pieces—reported stolen. Strike three. I went to jail. A half hour later, my mother dragged my sister into the station. She confessed to having reported my parents’ truck stolen seven months ago while she was borrowing it for a few weeks. One of her druggy ex-boyfriends had taken off with the truck for days and racked up all kinds of tickets on it. As for the jewelry, they were hand-me-down gifts from her as a way of apologizing for making me lose my job. She’d scored them from another loser boyfriend who’d ripped off a jewelry store weeks ago and bought her affection with them and other sparkly gifts.
That had been the last entry I’d made in the diary before I had my twins, the last entry period. That night, I’d gotten into a huge fight with Susan. I told her to never come near me again, and then I spilled the beans about something that still makes shame warm my cheeks.
With my stress level through the roof, I’d gone into labor—a month early. Hours later, the doctor pulled Addy out first and then Layne minutes later. I could still hear their teeny, tiny screeches.
Actually, I could hear them now as they fought with each other from opposite sides of the bathroom door.
“Addy!” I yelled loud enough for the tourists down on Deadwood’s historic Main Street to hear me. “Let him in to brush his teeth, dang it!”
I looked back at the diary, touching the picture I’d glued onto the page of both of them snuggled together in the little plastic heating bed. I flipped the page and straightened the wrinkled corner of a picture of Natalie—who’d held my hand through it all—snuggling both babies at once, her face split in a huge grin. The next page had a shot of Aunt Zoe leaning over me while I held my babies. She’d stayed with me in the room until I was cleared to go home and promised me that she’d always have room in Deadwood for all of us if we ever wanted to stay with her.
The poor woman; she probably rued that day now that we’d taken over her home.
“Mom?” Addy hollered, the sound of her footsteps coming toward my room.
I closed and locked the book, shoving it under my mattress for safekeeping before she stepped through the doorway.
“What do you need, Addy?”
She came in and sat on the bed next to me. “I’ve been wondering something.”
“What’s that?” I pulled her toward me, tucking her against my side. She smelled like bubble gum-flavored toothpaste.
“How old were you when you wrote in that diary?”
“In my twenties.”
“Am I in there?”
“Yeah, at the end.”
“How come I can’t read it?”
I decided to be honest. “Because it takes place during a time in my life when I did something I’m not really proud of.”
“You mean getting pregnant with me and Layne?”
“No, Sweetie. It’s not that. I’m very proud of you two.” When she just stared at me with her golden-brown eyes, so like her father’s, I explained. “I haven’t always been as nice as I am now.”
“When are you nice?” I poked her in the ribs, making her giggle. When she sobered, she asked, “Were you mean to someone?”
“Yes. Your Aunt Susan.”
“What happened?”
“I made her cry.”
“How?”
By telling her the family secret—that Dad
would never love her like he loved me because she wasn’t really his daughter.
“I said something hurtful to her that I can never take back.”
“Is that why you two don’t ever talk?”
It’s part of the reason. “Yes.”
Addy was quiet for a moment. “Do you think you’ll ever love someone besides my dad?”
I never loved the jerk, but I didn’t mention that. “I already have—you and your brother.”
“What if my dad came back around and wanted to spend the rest of his life with you?”
I’d probably end up at the Deadwood police station charged with assault and battery. “That’s not going to happen, Addy.”
She sighed. “Do you think I’ll ever find someone to spend my life with?”
“Well, there’s Layne.”
“He smells.”
“And Elvis.” Long live the King—or queen, in this case.
“Mom, she’s a chicken.”
“And me.”
“Yeah, but you’re a smelly chicken.” She giggled again. “Will you let me read your diary someday?”
“Yeah, someday.”
“Coolio.” She hopped off the bed and slid in her stocking feet over to the door. “Elvis is lonely when I’m not home with her. Can we get a pet pig to keep her company?”
~~
Love Birds?
A Pet Whisperer…er…rrr Short Story
By Ben Hopkin
Wyatt winced as he took the left turn, the hand-over-hand motion pulling on his most recent injury. His finger still hurt from where Diablo, the aptly-named devil Chihuahua, had taken a chunk of flesh out of the protruding digit. Wyatt should really know better by now than to point at the tiny land-shark while scolding him. Or he could just stop scolding the little demon. It didn’t seem to make much difference.
One would think as a professional pet psychic, he could coerce the little rat, but, no. Of course, Wyatt wasn’t the real pet psychic, that was his uncle, but with Bodhi laid up at the hospital, it was up to Wyatt to do his muddle through.
As Wyatt rounded the corner, he saw his assistant, Jazmine, stepping out of the beat-up monstrosity she called a car. Jazmine flipped her red hair up and over her shoulder as she turned to look in his direction. She gave him a crooked smile, her teeth white against the deep red of her lips. His hand slipped a little on the wheel. He recovered and flipped her a quick wave before pulling up to the curb and launching himself from the car.
“So what we got?” Wyatt asked, checking in the rearview mirror to make sure his hair was mussed just so.
Jazmine opened a folder. “Looks like a problem with some lovebirds that are fighting.”
“Right,” Wyatt snorted. “Fighting lovebirds.”
Then that expressive eyebrow of Jazmine’s shot up.
“Seriously?” Wyatt asked. “lovebirds fighting…on Valentine’s Day?”
He chuckled, but that eyebrow just kept going up.
“Oh, okay. Dueling lovebirds it is.”
Jazmine flipped a sheet over. “The birds have been together for nearly six months and…”
Wyatt strode up to the house.
“Wait,” Jazmine protesting, rushed to catch up. “I haven’t even told you half the…”
Wyatt held up hand. “I don’t like to prejudice my first reading.”
His assistant stepped in front of him. “More like you have no idea what to do with the information.”
“Tomato. Tomaato,” Wyatt said with a shrug. “Besides we need to get a move on; I’ve got plans.” He checked his watch. Actually they needed to get through this appointment in under five minutes if he hoped to keep his first reservation.
“You?” Jazmine asked. “You have a Valentine?”
“Um, three,” Wyatt said, as he rubbed his fingernails against his shirt, then snagged the dog bite on his button. “Ouch.”
“Three? Isn’t that a little…Big Love, even for you?” Jazmine punched his arm, deadening it from the shoulder down. Man, that girl seriously didn’t know her own strength. He worked his shoulder, trying to get the frog out.
“Not all at the same time, Sugar Ray,” Wyatt responded. “I’m spacing out the goodness. I’m meeting one for lunch, one for dinner, and the last for dessert at her place. And by dessert, I mean a heaping helping of Wyatt.” He spun around in his best James Brown impersonation. “’Cause I’m all about the sweetness. Jump back. I wanna kiss myself. Heh!” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“I doubt if anybody is going to be asking for a second helping with those maneuvers,” Jazmine said, shaking her head.
“Hey, Valentine’s Day is an important national holiday. I’m just doing what I can to spread the love.” Wyatt pointed to his assistant, “What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatcha got goin’?” Wyatt asked, sure she had some swank dinner plans, then a long, slow, boring walk along the beach. You know, chick stuff. “What are your plans?”
“Um…” Jazmine wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Well, he’s older.”
“Oh, so you want to keep your guy a mystery. I feel ya.”
Jazmine turned away, heading to the house. “It’s about that time, yeah?”
“Definitely!” Wyatt began jumping up and down, slapping his arms around his chest, then did ten jumping jacks in quick succession.
Jazmine cocked her head. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.”
“For what?”
Wyatt went into some hamstring stretches. “Remember the speed whispering event? Dumbo?” Wyatt shuddered. “I still have nightmares about that elephant’s trunk.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure a couple with fighting lovebirds is not going to require this much prep.”
“You may be right,” Wyatt replied. “But I’d rather be safe than sorry. Okay, let’s do this sucker!”
* * *
Walking up, Jazmine studied the architecture of the house. Anything to avoid watching Wyatt attempt deep knee bends.
The house was a saltbox colonial, red brick with white trim. The lawn was neatly kept, the edging razor sharp, the grass an emerald green. A silver Mercedes station wagon was parked in the driveway. The entire place screamed understated wealth and attention to detail, especially in the renovations. While most of it appeared done, she could still see evidence of paint drop cloths and discarded scaffolding.
No wonder the birds were upset. Change like that, the noise of repairs, and workmen streaming in and out of the house could challenge even a lovebird’s affection.
As they reached the front door, a loud screech sounded. Wyatt turned to Jazmine. “See?”
Jazmine rang the doorbell, not wanting to egg Wyatt on. How she had ended up in this job still baffled her. To act as an assistant to a man pretending to be a pet psychic? But that one hundred thousand dollars in student loans needed to get paid.
“It’s open!” a voice called out. “Come in!”
From all the screeching, maybe Wyatt was right. It did sound a little like a combat zone. Her “boss” puffed out three quick breaths, then opened the door.
“Hurry,” the voice called out. “Close the door before…”
Jazmine slammed the door closed just as a green and red bird streaked up, screaming all the way, its bright plumage a blur. It banked over their heads, then dove.
Straight for Wyatt. He ducked, covering his head, but somehow the bird landed right in the middle where Wyatt couldn’t reach. He stood up abruptly as Jazmine tried contained her laughter.
“What?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “What’s so funny?”
She pointed to the bird on his head, but Wyatt just couldn’t find the little thing as it settled down on the top of his head. Jazmine’s eyes teared up from suppressing the laughter.
“You’ve…you’ve got…”
“Got what?” Wyatt exclaimed, turning in a tight circle. “I’ve got a what?”
By now the lovebird was pr
eening its feathers, right on top of Wyatt’s head.
“You’ve got a…”
“A what?” Wyatt demanded.
“I am so sorry,” their client, Mrs. Haufman said, running up. “I don’t know what’s gotten into…”
Another huge screech and suddenly a second lovebird banked around the corner, zeroing in on Wyatt.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Wyatt yelled. trying to duck, but the second lovebird came at him, talons out. “Um, hey! A little help here? Ow! What the…”
“Shoo!” Jazmine said, waving at the two birds until they finally flew off, fighting all the way.
“I can’t possibly apologize enough,” Mrs. Haufman said, as she extended her hand.
“No. No, you couldn’t,” her boss said, shaking his head, sending green feathers everywhere.
“I’m Ragan.” The client explained, “They have been going at it for weeks. I can’t understand why.”
Jazmine was about to reply when a male voice called out, “Ragan! Have you seen the Goltz brief? I put it down on the mantel and now I can’t find it.”
Ragan’s lips fell into a hard frown as she yelled back. “I put it in your desk, Dan. You know. Desk? The place where paperwork’s supposed to be kept?” She grimaced at Jazmine, apparently looking for some feminine solidarity. “But how about you come and meet the pet psychic and his assistant?”
“Yeah, yeah… I’ll be there in a minute,” the husband responded. “I need to make a quick call.”
“Quick call,” Ragan muttered then raised her voice. “It’s never a quick call.” Their client turned her attention back to them. “I’m sorry. I really thought that doing this on Valentine’s Day would make it so that we could do this all together.”
8 Hearts Beat As One: A Romance Anthology Page 6