“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.
&
nbsp; “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’.”
-44-
This was their fourth stop of the day and Walmart, like the rest, had nothing for them by way of elephants, which left specialty stuffed animal shops, Catherine guessed. Although she didn’t even know if such things existed anymore. Back when she was Cara’s age they’d had an entire store at the mall devoted to stuffed animals in every shape, size, and species. A place like that would certainly have these Gingermelon animals, and probably elephants aplenty.
“We could always just go get that Elefun game we saw,” Tara offered.
“And that helps how?”
“At least it’s an elephant, right? And a game as well. A win-win if you think about it.”
Catherine ignored her, turning into the next aisle where the smell of rubber was overwhelming from volumes of bikes stocked on multilevel racks.
“How about a bike?”
“One with an elephant on it?” she smirked.
“Why not?”
“Because I think Cara will know the difference, let alone the fact that there are no elephant bikes either.”
“Just trying to be a problem solver,” Tara shrugged.
Catherine was close to giving up. Maybe this was what Christmas was destined to be like, not just this year but on into the future. A lot of hunting and gathering and little to show for it.
Tara grabbed her by the arm, stopping her, and Catherine’s heart skipped a beat that their search had just paid off.
“See the guy over there?” she whispered, pointing through to the next aisle from between the upper and lower racks of bikes.
Catherine took in the man perusing the mountain bikes—nice looking, dress pants, a crisp button down, no tie.
“He’s a classic snurge.”
“Snurge?”
Tara shuddered and nodded at once. “They get off on sniffing bicycle seats.”
“Eew,” Catherine whined.
“They prefer used bikes, ones that have just been ridden, but in this weather, I guess you take what you can get.”
“Oh my God, Tara, that’s so gross.”
“Don’t look at me; I’m not the one doing it.”
“But how do you even know about it?”
“All I’m going to say is I wouldn’t let a guy like that near my nethers,” gesturing at her lower half. “Never again.”
“You’ve slept with a snurge?” Catherine wrinkled her nose.
“In my defense, it’s hard to detect a fetish like that if you’re never around bikes. Unforeseeable, really. Then I saw him at the gym—”
“Again, eew.”
“I second that.”
“And you like being single, why exactly?” Catherine nudged.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t have its pitfalls,” Tara admitted.
An understatement as far as she saw it, but there were more pressing things to concern herself with. “Can we please just get back to what we’re doing here in the first place?”
“Alright, alright.” Tara whipped out her phone and started tapping away and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. “You know, I don’t even see a single Gingerfruity thing online. Nobody sells them.”
“Maybe that’s because I said Gingermelon.”
“Why it’s Catherine Trager!” The disembodied voice was too happy, too perky, too much like it was calling her down as a contestant on The Price is Right who should respond in kind, running and cheering with her hands in the air—so lucky to be spotted.
“Crap,” she said under her breath.
“That’s only marginally better than shit, you know,” Tara joked.
But Catherine didn’t have time for jokes right now, seeing as how the owner of the obnoxiously charged voice was heading in for the kill. “Well, if it isn’t Sophie Watts,” she said using her own brand of fake excitement.
The woman was closing the gap quickly, too quickly, and then she was right there in Catherine’s personal space, reaching out. She heard Tara say “What the—” but must have blacked out on the rest because Sophie Watts was hugging her now. A power play.
“Oh my goodness, you’re even bigger!” the woman chuckled, like it was sooo funny. “After the last time I saw you, I’d just assumed that you would have had the baby by now. You aren’t due yet?”
“Now that’s a bitch move. See, Cat, that’s what I’m talking about,” Tara asserted.
“Excuse me?” Sophie Watts asked in a well-I-never tone.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she explained, “we just dealt with some broad out in the parking lot over a parking space, and I was pointing out that it might have been a little questionable that she had the right of way for the spot, but this here is definitely out of line.”
Sophie Watts looked around like Tara had to be talking about someone or something else.
“Oh, I’m talking about you,” she assured her.
The woman’s expression turned cagey as she realized she was on enemy ground. “I didn’t mean anything by… anything.”
“Sure, of course, nothing at all,” Tara said offhandedly, searching through her purse like she had better things to do in there.
The cagey look morphed into outright concern, as if Sophie Watts saw her producing pepper spray or a knife or more likely brass knuckles. “Listen, I just wanted to say hi. Nothing more.”
“Oh? Really? Then go right on ahead.” Tara gestured that she had the floor.
Catherine’s eyes volleyed back to Sophie this time, who was trapped with her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“I, uh… already did.”
Tara laser-focused on the nervous woman. “Actually, you didn’t. Not a hey, hello, or how-do-you-do. I heard a slap and a slam and an outright jab. But no hi at all.”
Catherine could have kissed her henchman right there. On the lips. In the middle of the store. But Tara might like it a little too much considering her sexual frustrations at the moment, and there would definitely be lesbian rumors all around Nekoyah in minutes’ time, which was something she didn’t need to bring down on her family.
Sophie Watts recuperated all too quickly though, reclaiming her jaw from the floor and unleashing a blow Catherine hadn’t seen coming. “By the way, did I hear you two discussing Gingermelon animals a minute ago?”
Definitely a baited trap dangling there before her, but one that she didn’t know how to evade just the same. Kind of? Maybe? Or Tara’s likely response, What is it to you? All of the above sounded ridiculous, more like a politician trying to avoid answering a simple question that would show his true colors, a lily-livered shade.
“Yes.” Catherine tried to sound certain and sure of herself even though she knew the hammer was about to come down because she could see an ugly joy dancing in the woman’s eyes.
“But of course Cara is asking for one. Every little girl wants Gingermelons this year,” Sophie Watts tittered.
“They are popular,” she agreed, having no idea, seeing as how she had just learned of them yesterday and had since had no luck actually finding one, or finding anyone who knew anything about them. The fact that someone finally knew what she was searching for was a boon; the fact that it was Sophie Watts sucked total ass.
“I feel so sorry for those moms out there who don’t sew. They must be panicking over the whole craze.” Her tone so blatantly not sorry for anyone that Catherine was surprised Tara wasn’t already swinging.
“Sewing?” Catherine blurted.
“They’re handmade. Didn’t you know?” The woman’s eyes widened in the thrill of the moment.
“Of course she knew. Everyone knows that.” Tara waved her hand that held some kind of shiny metal and Sophie Watts took a step back, expecting more than the nail file that Tara started shaping her nails with. “Oh, did I scare you?” she asked innocently.
“No, not at all. I just have to get on my way. I have wrapping to do. A whole zoo of Gingermelons for that matter. Sally is getting one of everything.” And with that she sauntered off like only the wicked ice queen could.
“Gack!” Tara exclaimed in cartoon form. “What the hell was that? Like nails on a chalkboard. Awful. Just plain awful.”
“That was my own special version of hell,” Catherine said lowly, turning in the other direction to head deeper into the store even though they were obviously done here. No Gingermelons to buy. A total bust.
“Wait! Catherine!” The voice of the devil herself.
“She’s ba-ack,” Tara sang out like little Carol Anne in Poltergeist, the movie that had literally scared Catherine witless when she was about Cara’s age and saw it at a friend’s house.
Catherine turned back to Sophie who was keeping a definitive distance from Tara. “I meant to ask if you were going to be at the party on Friday?”
“Of course.” As if there was nowhere on earth she would rather be than there to observe Sophie’s party-planning perfection. There were a lot of other places, but Cara would be at the party so she would be there no matter what.
2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) Page 25