2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series)

by Heather Muzik

  The first steps were cleansing, the morning air was fresher than what came later in the day, and the audio track of the city was eerily subdued. Beautiful actually. By the time she rounded the first corner, though, the internal commotion started—her joints first, and then the stitch in her side, lethargy in her arms that she feared might be some kind of attack (heart or maybe a stroke)—all of this over a steady backbeat of wincing pain in her feet that explained why Keds were not in any way, shape, or form meant for athletic activity. She made the next two turns through a combination of running and walking and jogging and dragging herself along. Then the final turn, an impressive uptick in her pace in spite of the blisters on her feet. She found herself driven by thoughts of scoring some pre-breakfast goodies—maybe something smothered in butter and covered with—

  Stop it!

  Lo and behold, the downside of exercising. The little talked about but dangerous syndrome of eating more than usual. She was starving and ready to add an extra meal to her day, one she wouldn’t have even been awake for if not for this whole shaping up thing.

  She was halfway up the stairs to her apartment when her phone rang on her hip.

  “Hello?” she said in between heaving breaths.

  “Catherine?” The voice, fittingly, sounded far away.

  She tried to catch her breath before saying anything further.

  “Are you okay? You sound like you’ve been running. Are you being chased?” Fynn chuckled at his wittiness.

  Way to kick a girl on her last breath. “I’m great… fine… well, hanging in there.” Each description less confident as she quite literally clung to the railing for dear life, hoping not to pass out as her body seemed on the verge of revolt from exertion. This running thing was entirely overrated. Everybody’s doing it, Tara’s voice in her head reminded her. But she feared that if she remained a disciple of Tara’s philosophies she was going to end up in the paper. She could just see it now—above the fold: Woman Dies Trying; below the fold: To Fit Her Wedding Dress. All of it next to a picture of her sprawled, chalk-outlined body.

  “I actually can’t believe you answered this early. I was just calling to leave a message on your voice mail that I was on my way back home. Sorry I didn’t call last night but it was kind of late when I got Cara settled. A neighbor is staying with her until Renée is released from the hospital. It should be just a few more days.”

  “Did Cara get a chance to see her?” Her breathing was finally normalizing.

  “Yes. She told her everything you guys did. Wouldn’t stop talking.”

  Great, Catherine thought, gritting her teeth. Some of what happened over the weekend could be entirely misconstrued when told through the voice of a young child.

  “You know, Renée thinks that maybe you’re—” His voice suddenly cut out and she pressed her phone closer to her ear as if that would make him come back to her. “She didn’t like—” More static. “—and when Cara showed her the drops—” Total silence. “—mad. It’s too much—thankful that Cara is back—”

  “Fynn? You keep cutting out,” Catherine said, frustrated by technology… and Fynn… and everything. So Renée thinks I’m totally inept now? Over a tiny case of swimmer’s ear that was probably brewing even before she was handed off to me?

  “I’m going to—” Static. “I think we need to—” More static. “But we can figure that out—I’ll call when—” Silence.

  The connection was completely lost now, but she was no idiot. She could fill in the blanks. We need to talk was never good. And just what do we need to figure out? She bristled with anger. How to let me down easy? How to tell me that even though he loves me, he loves Renée and Cara, too… and they win? All over a bunch of circumstantial evidence that I’m a bad caregiver… and the word of a five-year-old who believes goshmillion is an actual number?

  The aching, pinching, wincing thrill of victory suddenly became the crushing agony of defeat. She definitely deserved a big honking muffin what with the morning she was having.

  Friday, February 4th

  -47-

  Every time the phone rang her heart jumped into her throat. She checked the screen; it was Georgia.

  “Hey, what’s up?” She fought to keep her voice light when she was actually drowning in heavy, plugging away at her desk, swimming neck deep in files and misgivings—all her time off was catching up to her.

  “What’s this about you having a dress already?” her friend challenged.

  “I was going to call you—” She stopped, not knowing what exactly to say to excuse herself, or how Georgia knew anything about the dress. Obviously she had more than one leak in her camp. Either Tara had blabbed all about it or her mother had mentioned the dress to Lacey, who would have immediately called her buddy Georgia. She’d been screwed over yet again.

  Of course Georgia was eventually going to find out that she’d picked out a dress without her, but she had planned to be the one to tell her. In fact, she would have told her right away if the damn thing fit her. Wedding-girl that she was, Georgia wouldn’t have been able to hold a grudge over a to-die-for Oleg Cassini. But what Catherine had was a to-die-in Oleg Cassini that would cut off her respiration if she actually tried to wear it. She couldn’t admit that she’d screwed up—gone out behind her best friend’s back and let Tara steer her completely wrong. That her only option for making the dress work was a cape or a crash diet, because she still had the blisters from running and hadn’t been able to exercise again since…. Plus she might have even gained a few pounds since she bought the dress, what with the stress she’d been under.

  “You’ve been avoiding me and you know it,” Georgia charged.

  Actually, she’d been avoiding pretty much everybody the past few days, starting with Fynn. She was conveniently busy whenever he called. She cut their conversations to the quick, trying not to let him get much of a word in edgewise. About the only talking she let him do was to her voice mail. She just needed some time to think. She didn’t want him to start the “we need to talk” conversation she knew was coming when she hadn’t had the chance to figure out her own side of things yet.

  And who here should really be reconsidering things anyway? She was the one taking on more of the burden. She was having to get to know two people to his one. He was expecting her to pick up her life and move to be with him, just like he’d always expected her to come and see him for all the months they’d been dating. She was the one making all the sacrifices and now he needed to talk?

  “Cat?” Georgia said, prodding her out of her silent turmoil.

  “I’ve just been really busy.” She tried her best to sound rushed to prove it.

  “Too busy to call your best friend and ask her to come over and see your wedding dress?” Utter shock at the travesty of such a thought.

  She didn’t answer—feeling suitably put in her place.

  “Well, is it perfect?” Georgia asked.

  Surprisingly Catherine didn’t detect a stitch of jealousy or mad or hurt in her voice at all. She even seemed excited. “I should have called you,” she relented.

  “Yeah, you should have. But answer the question. Is it absolutely the most perfect dress for the biggest day of your life?”

  “It’s Oleg Cassini,” she said, figuring that alone answered the question.

  “You can’t go wrong there.”

  You wouldn’t think.

  “What’s it look like? When can I see it?” Georgia asked giddily.

  “Now’s not a good time. I’m at work.”

  “I wasn’t asking to come over now.”

  “I just mean… I’ll call you and we’ll set up something,” Catherine said evasively.

  “Are you giving me a ‘let’s do lunch’?”

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “What’s going on, Cat?”

  “Nothing,” she practically squealed.

  “You sound—”

  “Listen, I’ll probably be working until forever tonight. Can I call you ba
ck over the weekend?”

  “Sure I—”

  Catherine hung up the phone before Georgia could say any more or pull anything further out of her. She was dangerously close to breaking down and telling her friend everything. And she didn’t even have it sorted out for herself yet.

  She definitely didn’t need Georgia’s opinion on weddings or marriage or what the hell she’d been thinking getting involved with Fynn in the first place. Ever since last spring she’d thrown all caution to the wind and rolled with love. If love was to blame for getting her caught up in this ridiculously complicated relationship in the first place, she didn’t want Georgia Love’s advice about what to do now, especially when Georgia’s Love-life had never been anything but smooth sailing.

  Maybe she just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to everything she’d always known of herself and settle down into Fynn’s ideal of what their life should be. Life is real, not ideal, right? If Renée didn’t think she was good enough for Cara and he was siding with her, maybe she needed to reconsider what she was willing to give up….

  -48-

  Brooding and moping aside, she’d hardly gotten anything done this week. Little to show for all her late hours at work. But anything was better than going home and being alone with herself.

  And now it was Friday. She had nothing to rush home for—nowhere to rush off to—while it seemed everyone else in her proximity had plans. Her outlook was so grim that she didn’t even care that there were delays on the subway, or that she almost sat in something that looked suspiciously vomit-like once she finally got on the train. It didn’t matter. Just another day in The Big Shitty. At least delays and general grossness were things she could count on. No curveballs there.

  When she finally reached her street, she started scrounging in her bag for her keys, her eyes on that task, just wanting to get upstairs and melt into her couch and sleep through the weekend.

  “Hey there, sweet cheeks.”

  She looked up, incensed, but at the same time her ears pricked as the words flowed like butter—

  “I thought I was going to have to wait here forever,” Fynn said, stepping down off the stairs and coming toward her.

  “Why are you here?” she demanded before he could get too close. She felt unnaturally nervous seeing him, a combination of stomach butterflies and heart palpitations.

  “Well that’s a fine how do you do. What happened to squealing and throwing yourself in my arms?” His eyes twinkled with good nature.

  “I mean twice in less than a week. Here.” She stopped herself before she said, on my turf.

  “I figured it was the only way I’d get to talk to you, seeing as how you’ve been too busy to take my calls.”

  “It’s been a… tough week,” she said, which was certainly true, though it fell far short of a reason or an excuse for avoiding him. There was no excuse. They were engaged. They were supposed to be each other’s everything. They should be able to talk about… anything. She shouldn’t have to, or even want to, hide her feelings from him. They were supposed to be an us. Instead she felt like they were unnervingly intimate strangers—like she knew every inch of his body but hardly a skosh of his brain. Maybe eight months is too short for forever.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he offered.

  She searched his words for meaning and tone and intensity, trying to read in between the lines to find that place where cordial sympathy became uncertainty—second thoughts.

  “That’s not the only reason I’m here, though,” he said slyly.

  She braced herself. Here it comes—the awful “we need to talk” truth.

  “I hope you didn’t forget what today is,” he prodded.

  “It’s Friday,” she said curtly.

  “It happens to be our pre-monthiversary.”

  She looked at him, her face screwed up in confusion.

  “We are exactly one month before our wedding.” he said earnestly, searching her face carefully—trying to gauge my certainty—looking for an easy way out?

  She couldn’t understand why he would put on appearances like this. It was all just too sweet. Saccharine-sweet. Like Renée’s feelings about her weren’t right there under the surface, threatening everything they had together. Just be honest with me! Come out with it! She doesn’t think I’m good enough to be Cara’s mother and so you have to rethink this whole relationship.

  “Anyway,” he said, noticing she wasn’t softening, “since our weekend got cut short last time, I thought I would make it up to you. Besides, we never did get to our gift thing we were supposed to do.”

  “The registry?” she challenged, putting another checkmark on the mental list of things that were wrong with this whole relationship and where it was going. He didn’t even know what the “gift thing” was called, let alone realize that they’d already been too late getting that done last weekend when she’d tried to trap him into doing it with her.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “I did it,” she said firmly, leveling it like a charge against him. She’d picked out everything for their new life together…. With her mother.... While they were out getting Cara a booster seat. She was the one doing everything to prepare them for this marriage and he was—

  “What?” he seemed taken aback, like she’d pulled the rug out from under him.

  “The invitations went out almost two weeks ago,” she said plainly, hoping for a glimmer of understanding on his part.

  “I know that.” He looked back at her blankly.

  “People already have them in hand.” She fought to keep from screaming it out, but it felt like she was pulling teeth trying to get what she wanted from him—recognition that he was a day late and a dollar short to start caring about anything related to their wedding. “I couldn’t wait around for you,” she finally said, resigned.

  “Oh.”

  “That’s it?” she challenged. She couldn’t believe that even usurping his opinions on the type of canisters to use in their kitchen and towels to hang in the bathroom and sheets to sleep on for Christ’s sake didn’t bother him. Nothing about the wedding affected him at all. Except the goshmillion cost of it, she thought bitterly. Chalk that up to one more thing on the con side of their relationship list which was steadily outpacing the pros, where only love and that ever-after thing resided—and even those weren’t guaranteed considering the divorce rate.

  “If you thought it needed to get done then I guess it needed to get done,” he said simply and rationally, which aggravated the crap out of her.

  “And you completely trust my opinion and tastes on everything? You don’t want a say on anything?” she asked, her voice escalating, ready to pick a fight over lint if it would get a rise out of him. She wanted it all out in the open no matter how much it hurt. What was he really thinking?

  “I didn’t say that,” he pointed out.

  “Didn’t say what? That you trust me or that you don’t want a say?”

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  “Doing what?”

  “Trying to start a fight right here on the sidewalk.” He stood there, looking helpless, running his hand through his already tousled hair, a duffel bag at his feet. His eyes penetrated deep into her soul, and she saw a skating discomfort pass over his face. But then it was just Fynn again—her tired, slightly haggard Fynn-ancé. “Can we at least go upstairs to do this in private?”

  *****

  As soon as the door closed, hemming them in, he asked, “Now what?”

  But she just looked at him, challenging him to make the first move and start the conversation. After all, he’d been the one to come to her, wanting to talk.

  He punted. “Did you eat dinner yet?” It was like he had pressed a reset button and was ready to start over and forget the fight entirely.

  She shook her head no.

  “Do you want to go out?”

  She shook her head no again, feeling like there wasn’t enough air to breathe let alone speak.

>   “Do you have food here?”

  Again, no.

  “Are you going to speak to me or not?” he asked, frustration obvious this time.

  She stood her silent ground.

  “I came all the way here to see you. To talk to you. Don’t be like this,” he said, heavy-handed.

  All the way? Try going all the way every weekend! “I didn’t ask you to come,” she countered, putting it out there that hospitality was optional when dealing with a drop-in—not that Elizabeth Hemmings would approve (only civil judgment, not rudeness).

  “That never stopped you,” he jabbed lightly. “Isn’t that how we got here?”

  Of course he would go back to the beginning when she hounded him and hounded him and then fell for him. But that was in the past. And right now she couldn’t help wondering how she would possibly be able to handle living with him in the future if she felt like this now—suffocated. Plus her bee disease was acting up again, making her neck itch to high heaven, like maybe she was allergic to him.

  “Catherine, please. What’s wrong?”

  He looked so earnest and caring and she felt her resolve weakening, leaving her open to get hurt. She redoubled her efforts, steering the conversation into dangerous territory, forcing the inevitable to come to a head. “So, how is Cara doing?” she asked lightly, pushing him to say what he had come to say—Renée had misgivings about her as a mother figure for her daughter after her reckless trial run. Perhaps Fynn was just caught in the middle. Or maybe he sided with Renée. Either way, she had matching misgivings of her own—about him and parenthood and losing herself in this relationship. She had plenty to be concerned about on her end too.