2 Days 'Til Sundae (2 'Til Series Book 1)

by Heather Muzik

“Now you guys are ganging up on me?” Catherine asked, suddenly smug.

  “We’re worried about you,” Georgia assured her. “You took off without a word—”

  “I called you.”

  “After you already took off.”

  “Because I figured you would think I was nuts.”

  “So then why are you surprised that we do think you’re nuts?” Tara piped up.

  “I’m fine guys. Nothing to worry about. I’ll be back at work come Monday. I’ll be back in good old NYC even earlier,” she added with her fingers crossed.

  Silence. Like no one wanted to call a lie what it was.

  “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we come to you?” Tara asked, a careful note of surprise in her voice as if it just came to her.

  “Yeah!” Georgia agreed excitedly. “Thomas is caught up in a big case so I’m free.”

  Catherine could hear right through to the truth. This was a setup. An intervention. Her two friends did not see eye-to-eye about most anything and a spontaneous trip was not something they would agree to on the fly.

  “Guys, seriously, I don’t need you here. I’ll be home soon enough.”

  “We just don’t want you to find that you like it there so much that you forget about us,” Georgia said lightly.

  “Liar,” Catherine blurted.

  “Takes one to know one,” they responded in scary unison.

  “Listen, you can put the straightjacket away. I won’t be needing it. I’m not going to hurt myself or anyone else. I’ll just finish up what I’m doing and come home.” Catherine made sure to use her most calm and even tone with them, knowing full well that she might have to start cracking skulls—Joel Trager’s to be exact—to close the deal and get out of here.

  “Catherine Marie—”

  “I will call you if anything comes up,” she interrupted Georgia quickly. “Otherwise, I swear I will see you at work on Monday, Tara. And Georgia, we need to get together for dinner next week and celebrate the newest addition coming to the Love clan.”

  After hanging up the phone she heaved a deep sigh, wondering whether she had just dodged a pretty worrisome bullet or if she had just called off the needed cavalry.

  She crawled across the mattress and stretched out flat, oozing into the glorious space, entertaining thoughts of going back to sleep in the bed this time, what with the safety of daylight peeking through the cracks in the blinds. Her vacation so far had been sorely lacking in the recommended daily allowance of oversleeping… or sleeping at all. But the smell of the plastic frosting on the mini-cupcakes sitting out on the nightstand tickled her insides, reminding her of how long it had been since her last meal, seeing as how last night’s great shame had stolen her will and appetite to eat dessert. Hardly a balanced breakfast, she thought, eyeing them. The frosting was certainly crusty by now from sitting out in the open air. Not to mention the fact that the cupcakes were probably bland and tasteless on a good day and completely stale a day later—talk about empty calories. She thought of the spectacular cupcakes Georgia had gotten that were presently going to waste in New Jersey. She would have to make it up to Georgia later. And there was Tara to think about. She owed her an explanation… an apology—more than both of those things, actually.

  Catherine got up and shuffled to the bathroom, wondering if there was a chance in hell that she would get out of here today. She doubted it. After Joel Trager left last night she had percolated over the problem at hand—namely him—and knew that she couldn’t handle facing him again. Not after the breast-a-palooza she’d put on for him. That limited her options to a half-baked plan of either a smash-and-grab or cat-burgling—the only difference being the amount of commotion she planned on making. Of course there were kinks to work out, namely the fact that if she were to be caught in either instance, she wouldn’t be able to outrun an able-bodied man (seriously able-bodied) on foot or in her car. But she wasn’t going to be deterred. This mission to procure Caramellie couldn’t be completely impossible or that would mean that she had wasted half a week and a bunch of money on nothing.

  As she washed her face and peered in the mirror she was actually thankful for her continued case of insomnia last night. At the very least it had sparked her into a trek to Walmart at one in the morning to get some cleaning solution and a contact case while most of Nekoyah was tucked away safely in their beds. Walking the aisles had been exceedingly less humiliating with limited witnesses. Now her vision was clear and her eyes weren’t holding a grudge from the trauma. This pair of contacts would make it until she got home, barring even worse calamities in her future. Her mother’s words of wisdom hovered nearby constantly now, reminding her that reality was a bitch and even best-laid plans were constantly at risk of falling apart. So what about half-baked ones?

  She swiped on her minimalist makeup, avoiding the dried-out mascara and crumbly eye pencil for fear that using them might just be instigating a fight with her eyes. She appraised her wild-ish eyebrows—ugh! To be without a set of tweezers—the humanity! She found herself pining for all the tubes and bottles and brushes that surrounded her sink at home. She missed having choices. This totally sucked: one lipstick, one shadow, bronzer instead of blush—which gave her a too-summery glow. It was too early in the season for that, still spring for that matter. But her most recent boyfriend was from last summer, so her go-bag had been stocked for the season though the relationship lasted a mere third that long.

  Catherine noticed that her hair was rebelling, reverting to its natural state in the wild. Without her normal shampoo and conditioner and styling products, it had become considerably less tame. The slight wave she was genetically prone to—that she had spent years training into submission—was back, making her head just look messy. She had been carefully hiding behind pounds of product and straighteners and blowouts, all for naught. Two days—two friggin’ days!—had undone all of that progress. She pulled her hair back into a noticeably thicker ponytail, which was her only option without her styling agents. When she looked in the mirror she was shocked to see glimpses of her teenage self staring back at her and couldn’t suppress a goofy grin—ma’am that, bee-atch!

  She was dressed in her original outfit and ready to go, a simple trip out to buy some food that would last her through the next twenty-four hours in an attempt to stem the bleeding on the trip’s expenses while at the same time limiting the amount she showed her face around town. With what she was considering doing to get her hands on the dollhouse, the less people who were able to identify her later, the better.

  -25-

  She wandered the aisles of the market in the old part of town, carrying a basket and leisurely perusing the options for convenient foods that required little to no preparation, considering she had a kitchen efficiency with only a small dorm-size fridge and sink—the microwaves for the cabins were on order along with the stovetops that would replace the already discarded hotplates that had been in use up until this year. Soon enough she was laden with Pop-Tarts, cracker packs, Lunchables, peanut butter, bread, ready-made tuna, chocolate milk, mini cereal boxes that could be sliced open and eaten out of like a little cardboard bowl, a six pack of Mr. Pibb, plastic Sporks and knives, a bottle of their cheapest white zinfandel, a king-size Zero bar, Cheetos—the essentials. It might not be pretty but it would get her through the next few “meals.”

  When she got to the front of the store, it was empty of customers and employees. She noticed the self-serve sign in front of one of the cash registers, though, like they had converted a standard checkout into a self-check in order to compete with all the upgrades in the stores that were encroaching from the new end of town.

  Catherine put her basket on the counter and stepped around to the register to scan her purchases, readily slipping back into her days as a checkout girl working her way through college. She bagged the groceries as she went, noticing they hadn’t gone so far as to put a scale under the bag holder, relying instead on the honor system. When she’d emptied the basket, she pulled u
p the total and reached in her purse for her wallet. She entered forty dollars and fifty-six cents into the register and the drawer slid open exposing a full till. She faced the dough and placed it inside, then dropped the coins in their proper compartments and pulled out her change.

  “I have some coupons for you.”

  A hand held them out to her over the conveyor between them, but her eyes were trained on her wallet, focused on shoving her change—four unruly dollars—inside. “Oh, thank you, but I’m already done here,” she said, thinking how nice it was that someone would offer her coupons for her purchase.

  “These are my coupons.”

  This time she recognized the smooth voice with a side of smugness and had to steel herself before looking up at those crystal blue eyes. Joel Trager’s voice, his gaze, his basic appearance, was already conjuring up the fight-or-flight response in her physiology. It was like she was standing there naked all over again. He knew everything that was going on under her clothes, at least on the half of her he could see right now, and it was humiliating and unnerving. Is that humor in his eyes—on his lips? He’s getting a kick out of this!

  “Decided to get a job and stick around?” he asked.

  “Look, I don’t have time for small talk, Fynn,” she stressed nastily, knowing he hadn’t taken kindly to the name earlier. Last time it had clammed him up quickly.

  “Oh, so no chatting allowed except break time.” He nodded his head lightly and pressing his lips together in an overt show of compliance.

  Break time! A job! What the hell kind of joke is that? It isn’t even funny!

  He was filling the conveyor belt with his cartload of groceries using one hand, while the other still offered her a stack of coupons. And now a line was forming behind him.

  “Careful with the bread, please,” he noted, pointing at the three loaves at the head of the conveyor.”

  “Excuse me, but I didn’t go near your bread,” she said haughtily, thinking that the bread alone was evidence of his family life—no single guy could eat that much Sunbeam.

  “I mean when you’re bagging it.”

  “Bag your own groceries!” she bellowed in shock. The gall of this guy!

  “Is that any way to talk to a paying customer?”

  “As a paying customer I can talk to another customer any way I want!”

  He smiled then, flashing his perfect teeth, just as a cashier came up from behind and eased past her at the register.

  Catherine felt her face redden to the point of boiling as the actual certified and tagged employee forced her ample figure into position. Thankfully, Leah was young enough to be too awkward to say anything like, you can’t be back here! I’m calling the police! Instead, she just started ringing up groceries, seeming about as embarrassed as Catherine herself.

  “I’m sorry….” she mumbled to the cashier. “I thought it was a self-checkout. You know the sign up there?” She pointed to the sign on top of the rack at the head of the checkout lane. Her voice sounded far away, drowned out by supreme humiliation.

  “That’s for the candy bins on the other side. You fill the bag and I weigh it when you check out,” Leah said, refusing to look her in the eye as she rang up the intriguing selection of groceries traveling down the belt toward her.

  Catherine noticed can after can of Alpo, along with steak and potatoes and all kinds of real food—plain milk to her chocolate and Grape-Nuts to her Froot Loops—making her own junk-food binge look even more ridiculous. Again she reminded herself that he was the reason she was living like this and eating like this and—stuck here!

  Picking up her grocery bags in a partial huff—for his benefit—and partial cringing embarrassment—for everyone else—she hurried out of the store, taking only a moment to think about the video cameras that were most likely stationed around the market, capturing her shining moment for the future enjoyment of the owner or manager or maybe even the world’s YouTube audience. This was not helpful in trying to remain as anonymous as possible.

  In the parking lot, she juggled her bags while trying to reach for her keys in her purse. When she finally got a hand on them, she found herself tied in a knot through the straps of her bags and purse. She grabbed the main ring with her teeth and used both hands to untie herself.

  “Need a hand there?” Joel Trager was suddenly in front of her, motioning toward the keys dangling from her face.

  She gave him the evil eye that warned him not to come near or she might bite, but he obviously read the signals all wrong and reached for the keys. He pressed the unlock button on the plastic fob and opened the hatchback door for her so she could set the bags inside. Unencumbered and totally embarrassed, she watched him warily, waiting for a false move, prepared to make a run for it.

  “What is this anyway? Is it one of those Buds… or a Leaf? What kind of crazy little windup toy are you driving?”

  “It’s not my car, remember?” she said, motioning toward the front end where he had so kindly pointed out the other day that it was a rental.

  “And you picked this on purpose?”

  “No.” She made herself busy, opening the door to the driver’s side.

  “You know you stick out like a sore thumb.” A fitting statement considering the car was cherry red. There was simply no denying that people stopped and stared at a car like this when it went by, and not for good reason. Unlike a Lamborghini or a Ferrari that generated jealousy and envy, this one generated a laugh, guffaw, even hysterics. Everyone wanted to glimpse the idiot driving the Smart car—parents stopped and pointed, and their children asked if the circus was coming to town.

  “What the hell do I care?” she asked, though she did. She would never drive a vehicle like this in real life. My dad drives a Buick for God’s sake! He’d disown me!

  Joel Trager dropped the keys on the driver’s seat for her and backed away with his hands out in an exaggerated show of submission.

  “Are you going to follow me everywhere I go now?” She practically spit the words at him, not wanting him to have the last say with that gesture that intimated she was some kind of raving lunatic.

  “If you plan to keep putting on shows like this… ooh, and the one last night,” he added with a wicked smile.

  The gorgeous show of teeth only pissed her off even more. “Listen, I just want what I came for. I’ll pay twice what you bought it for.”

  “It isn’t the money.”

  “Then what is it?” she almost squealed.

  Catherine noticed a faint sadness in his eyes and she thought she’d gotten the better of him, but it quickly faded in fiery resistance to her limited means. He peered at her with such intensity that even at a safe distance she felt emotionally exposed.

  “Do you really think that by searching out your prepubescent self you’ll be able to figure out why your adult life sucks?” he challenged.

  Her lips trembled slightly with the lie she wanted to voice—an absolute, categorical denial. He was kind of on the right scent, but there was so much more to it.

  Her silence left the floor open to him.

  “So what are you going to do when you don’t find answers in this childhood toy anyway? Go back to the womb to look? Or fast-forward to the age of braces and acne? …. Now that’s something I would love to see.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded, unable to stand there and take anymore. “You don’t know what I used to look like as a teenager.” She was smarting from the fact that he had actually hit the nail directly on the head instead of smashing his thumb in the realm of wrong—she did have braces and acne back in the day; ninth grade was hell.

  “That’s what you have a problem with? In all of this, your best defense is that I couldn’t possibly know what you looked like when you were a teenager?”

  “That among many other things. That’s just your latest affront,” she said, mustering what little self-righteousness she could on short notice.

  “Listen, why don’t you just get in your little ca
r and go back to the big city you came from,” he said distastefully. “That is, if it can get you all the way back home again.”

  She stared at him, her mouth open in shock at his utter disrespect. Joel Trager didn’t own this place. It was a free country.

  He turned to go, believing that the conversation was over, probably proud of himself for shutting her up.

  “You’re a total prick,” she called after him.

  He turned back, every bit as bewildered as if a statue had decided to speak to him. “Oh, I thought you were catching some flies for lunch. I figured I would leave you to your meal,” he said testily.

  “You’re unbelievable!”

  “Really? No one has ever treated you this way before? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Of course that’s what I’m trying to say! Were you raised in a barn? On another planet? Should I explain to you our customs of civility and politeness?”

  A smirk settled on his face. “I think being out here in the sticks is a bit too much roughing it for a citified girl like you.”

  “I’m not a city girl.”

  “Really? Where did you come from?”

  “That’s not the point,” she said, thinking about how two days ago she’d been running down the sidewalk in New York, trying to catch a cab to catch the plane that brought her to this godforsaken place. “I was raised in a little town in Pennsylvania actually.”

  “So then you should know better.”

  “Now what’s that supposed to mean?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “Because I am a small-town girl, I know for a fact that you’re just rude! It isn’t me or this place; it’s you, Fynn.” She saw her words land squarely with satisfaction. Whatever it was in that name, it seemed to have the power of a punch, and that was exactly what he made her want to do—haul off and punch him. He had her so rankled that even if he had a kidney to offer she’d refuse it. Not that she needed a kidney, but that was how pissed she was—even if he could save her life, she would tell him to fuck off. The nerve of the man to help her with her groceries.