2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3)

  2 Weeks ‘Til Eve

  a novel

  by

  Heather Muzik

  (Book Three in the 2 ‘Til Series)

  2 Weeks ‘Til Eve

  © 2014 by Heather Muzik

  @HeatherMuzik

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, nor stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, except for brief quotations in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintended.

  Cover Illustration by J. Muzik

  To the Fam

  Table of Contents

  -1-

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  -3-

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  -7-

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  -9-

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  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

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  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-

  -23-

  -24-

  -25-

  -26-

  -27-

  -28-

  -29-

  -30-

  -31-

  -32-

  -33-

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  -35-

  -36-

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  -38-

  -39-

  -40-

  -41-

  -42-

  -43-

  -44-

  -45-

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  -47-

  -48-

  -49-

  -50-

  -51-

  -52-

  -53-

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  -55-

  -56-

  -57-

  Let It Snow

  Monday, November 13th

  -1-

  The dome was stationed just a few feet away, and Catherine eyed it warily, knowing that what whispered from within would start hollering and clamoring soon enough. It was inevitable. She never made it out of here anymore without “raising the dome”—which was what she had come to call her complete lack of self-control these days.

  She averted her eyes the best she could, trying to focus on anything else—the walls, floor, counter. She pulled a sugar packet from the caddy of sweeteners in front of her and fingered it nervously, wishing she had taken a table instead, someplace that didn’t have a direct line of sight to the tiered desserts. But singles at tables were frowned upon—that’s what the counter is for. Catherine had been on the receiving end of that admonishment before, seeing as how the owner was less the-customer-is-always-right and more my-way-or-the-highway.

  “So, what’ll it be?”

  Speak of the devil. Mel. Waitress, hostess, busboy, and owner all in one. And that wasn’t a nickname. She wasn’t a Melanie or Melody or Melissa. Just plain Mel. A chronically bored and moody Mel at that. Though from the constant stream of customers in the tiny diner on a tiny length of Main Street at the heart of this tiny town, her attitude wasn’t hurting her bottom line in the least.

  But her food is hurting my bottom line.

  Catherine was ballooning, which was something pregnant women had a tendency to do, but not at quite such an alarming pace, or at least that was what the nurse practitioner at her regular OB appointments kept pointing out every time she stepped on the scale (which she’d just been forced to do again, like walking the plank). Ms. Meany-Pants had that way she shoved the weights around and the tsk-tsk shake of her head as she noted the tally for the record right before launching into her spiel of threats to send her to a dietician, as if that would scare her straight onto the path of healthy eating when all it did was send her right back here, depressed and contemplating food suicide.

  She’s just jealous. Always an N.P., never a patient.

  Not that Catherine knew her story. Maybe she wasn’t a childless old maid. Maybe she was bitter for a whole different reason. She could have a bunch of kids… with her lesbian lover… who carried them all to term after having mad monkey sex with her handsome ex-boyfriend from college… who agreed to donate his sperm as long as it was the natural way. And perhaps she only saw those kids every other weekend now because the love of her life had fallen in love with that man and his massive endowment.

  “Hey, New York, I don’t have all day,” Mel grumbled, snapping her fingers.

  It didn’t matter that Catherine had been a genuine citizen of Nekoyah, Minnesota for eight months. That she had fallen hard and fast for a respected member of their community. That she was a regular customer now, who did her part to keep the doors open and lights on. Mel continued to call her New York, like she was still that woman who’d had the audacity to come in here for a meal and then ask for exact specs on the thickness of bacon slices and method of cooking said bacon; the one who wanted specialty bread and all the things that made plainspoken, plain-living people want to crack skulls. Mel was borderline Soup Nazi, but instead of refusing to serve her, she chose to serve her with a side of scorn and a heavy dollop of derision, because her money was still as green as the next guy’s.

  Besides, Mel was wrong about her. Catherine wasn’t one of those people. She might have come to Nekoyah by way of New York City, but she wasn’t actually from there. She didn’t stare down her nose at Middle America; she was Middle America. Born and raised in Chesterton, Pennsylvania, a place that was only marginally bigger than Nekoyah. That was something rational people called common ground. Not that Mel wanted to hear about such things. She wanted the skinny on your order and that was all. Short and to the point. No substitutions; no “holds”. Don’t like mayo? Tough. Want extra pickles? Good luck. Prefer well-done? Not a chance. Forget R.I.P., “No Subs” should be chiseled on her tombstone.

  Mel cleared her throat in a final warning that Catherine was wasting her time, though a quick glance around the restaurant verified that all Mel had was time at this point in the day. Too late for the lunch crowd and still short of the flock of early birds. Just Catherine and a small knot of Nekoyah natives who preferred sipping their daily brew out of speckled stoneware mugs with honest-to-god handles rather than out of Grande paper cups with paper sleeves and plastic tops—people who preferred coffee and liked it named as such, not that rat’s maze of menu options on the other side of town.

  Her eyes darted from one of Mel’s pies, teed up under the nearest dome, whispering sweet nothings in her direction, to Mel’s much less inviting gaze. “I was just—”

  “You were just daydreaming at my counter,” she warned. “So, what’ll it be?”

  “I guess I’ll have…” pausing for casual effect, “… a Reuben.” Catherine used her most level and breezy I-could-eat-here-or-not voice, while inside she was jonesing for the food that she knew she shouldn’t be eating, her stomach grumbling for bad, bad, very bad goodness.

  “I had half a mind to put in the order when I saw you park out front.” Smug.

  Aren’t you just a mind reader, she thought snippily. Not that it took much of a psychic to pin her down these days. Same time. Same place. Same frigging sandwich.

  They had been doing this little dance for going on three months now. Up till then Catherine had never thought twice about the Reuben as a sandwich or corned beef as a food in general. She’d never hankered, desired, or dreamed about it. N
ever been tempted by it. And now, all other diner fare paled in comparison. One bite had done her in. Salty, meaty, dietary disaster.

  But what was a girl to do?

  The past year and a half of her life had been a strange ride. She’d gone from single to married in ten months’ time, dropped her whole adult existence as she knew it, quit her job in a grand gesture of googly-eyed smittenness, and moved to a fly speck on the map to start a new life with a man she’d met on a wholly misconceived lark any sane person would deem psych-ward crazy (normal people do not track down a childhood toy through an online auction, lose it to another bidder, then fly hundreds of miles and land on the doorstep of a complete stranger, demanding to get it back). And to top it off surprise! she was pregnant—so quickly, and at her age (which was what the heartless bastards like her friends and family had said when they’d shared the news, like thirty-five was the new fifty).

  Now here she sat, unemployed, in a strange land, in a strange and ever-expanding body; while her husband, the buttery-smooth-voiced Joel “Fynn” Trager was busy enjoying little change in his existence as he had chosen it before he even met her. Still living in relative obscurity, still building cabinetry and furniture on his quiet plot of land, except now with the added perk of having a woman around to cook his meals and do him sexual favors as well—no condom needed.

  Catherine’s day-to-day existence had slowed from Mach 2 down to twenty-five miles an hour. Safe, residential minivan speed. Everything that had driven her in the past—angst about her personal life, deadlines, dead ends—was all gone. Settled. She was no longer hurry—hurry—hurrying and seemingly getting nowhere…. She simply was nowhere. In hindsight, staring at the same four fake walls of her cubical ranked a scoshe more fulfilling than staring at the much nicer walls in Fynn’s place—that still felt like Fynn’s place, not hers.

  Cara was her saving grace.

  Cara, who was also suddenly dropped into this life.

  Cara, who had been living with them since the beginning of the summer.

  Catherine’s problems paled in comparison to a child losing her mother. And even though Fynn and Renée had prepared Cara for this eventuality, the end of Renée’s protracted battle with cancer that was ultimately a blessing for her at the same time it was the worst moment of Cara’s young life. A moment that had made them into a peculiar little family of three that was about to become four.

  Cara had forced Catherine to get out of her own way. Having this little girl who needed her comfort and guidance and time while she grieved her mother, served as a balm on that rash of uncertainties about her purpose in her new life. She was necessary. She was filling an important position, even if she didn’t have a title for it beyond “wife of legal guardian”.

  Ever since summer ended, though, Cara had more important things to do. A mere sixth of Catherine’s age and she had a purpose, a school bus to catch and a place to go each day. Catherine had no idea who she was anymore. Before this life, she hadn’t the time to consider who she was, plodding along with all the other worker bees, like finding true meaning was a luxury no one had. And she’d certainly never had time to cultivate any hobbies: never learned how to sew or knit, couldn’t paint, didn’t garden, hadn’t taken to stamp collecting… and she couldn’t churn her own butter (which she’d heard was nice and time-consuming, and great for that crazy waddle that was settling in her upper arms these days). Plus, there was only so much daytime TV she could stomach.

  She thought of her friend Georgia, a stay-at-home mom now herself. Georgia had a perfect marriage and a perfect life that she had taken to like Cinderella to her royal marriage. No hitches or disillusionment there. She was Georgia Love. Wife of Thomas Love. Now mother of Nell Love. Her friend would never understand her growing pains from her ivory tower with all her height and perfectly creamy pale skin (not translucently pale like her own) and all that strawberry blonde hair that screamed shine! bounce! volume! like a walking magazine advertisement, while hers muttered brown and dowdy, and even that came from a box. Plus there was Georgia’s better than pre-pregnancy, post-pregnancy body. Everything looked good on her, from bikinis to slinky cocktail dresses to jeans to wife- and now motherhood. It all fit like it was made for her. Catherine, on the other hand, always needed alterations. Nothing fit perfectly right off the rack.

  Maybe she was doing something wrong. Maybe she wasn’t hardwired properly. Maybe she wasn’t “good mother” material, which was surprising considering she was cut from the pristine Elizabeth Hemmings cloth—high quality fabric. Which made her feel even worse. Her mother could have been pictured next to “mother” in the dictionary.

  Maybe I’m a late bloomer.

  —which was fine except she had less than four weeks left to bloom… so while she waited, it helped to drown all those stubborn uncertainties in Reubens and fries and pie from under those stupid glass domes.

  -2-

  So much for getting a doggie bag for Magnus and going halvsies on the Reuben. All that was left was a sprig of parsley, a scattering of salt and pepper, and a hasty smear of ketchup that if fingerprinted would prove she had attempted to finish by wiping it up and sucking it off her finger. Better than licking the plate, she would like to add in her defense. And also in her defense, Catherine Marie Hemmings-now-Trager had been taught to eat everything served to her by no one less than her mother, the aforementioned Elizabeth Hemmings (what with all the starving children in the world—as if her eating or not eating her meals in suburban Pennsylvania would have affected their plight).

  “Ready for dessert?”

  She looked up through the haze of her guilt and Reuben-induced shock and shook her head uncertainly, pretty sure she saw Mel lick her lips like she was purposely fattening her up for cannibalistic purposes.

  “Aw, no pie?” A double-dog dare if Catherine had ever heard one.

  “Um…” Her gaze slipped to the nearest dome of doom, where some sort of whipped topping was hiding the beauty of what was underneath, making her want it all the more. “Do you have anything like that,” she eked out, motioning toward it, “only less—” She stopped cold as Mel’s face screwed up in distaste that they were going there again. Back to that same place where Miss New York was too good for the simple pleasures of wholesome foods made with butter and sugar and eggs that were straight from the asses of chickens—unadulterated and unseparated—and bacon was made of pig rather than from something scientifically altered to sort of mimic pig…. And speaking of bacon, she wondered if that was candied bacon sprinkled on top of that whipped dream—

  “That is all I’ve got. Peanut butter pie.”

  “Oh.” It was more exhalation than word. A tiny recognition that she was not in charge here, and she couldn’t afford to piss off her supplier. Her dealer. Her go-to gal for all her cravings.

  “Hey there, stranger!”

  Catherine almost spun herself off her stool at the greeting. She hadn’t heard anyone approach over the sound of her own pity party.

  “What’s a girl got to do to see her sister these days?” Drew asked, hugging her where she sat.

  Fynn’s sister was the only family he had, and she had never taken to the formality of the in-law label, freely treating Catherine as if she were flesh and blood. She was also the one who helped her track Fynn down in the first place, and the one who more recently introduced her to Reuben, so Catherine had her to both thank and blame for her present state.

  “You just have to come here every day around two,” Mel shared from across the way, where she’d wandered off to fill empty coffee mugs of other patrons.

  Drew giggled and put a hand on Catherine’s ever-burgeoning belly. “Already loves the diner and hasn’t even taken a whiff of it yet?”

  “Good taste in food; bad taste in company,” she grunted.

  “So, why have you been giving me the slip for weeks?” Drew plopped down next to her, unwinding her scarf that was wrapped no less than eleven times around her neck.

  Catherine watched
in disbelief.

  “Oh, this?” Drew chuckled, eyes twinkling. “One of my regular customers at the pharmacy took up knitting. Trying something new at eighty. I only hope to be so inclined. She’s really getting the hang of the knitting but hasn’t quite perfected the stopping part.”

  “I guess it’s better than gloves.”

  “Oh, I got gloves too.” She whipped out a remotely hand-shaped pair in matching marled yarn. Five extra-long fingers lined up in a perfect row on each one. No thumbs.

  “Maybe she should have started with mittens.”

  “It’s the thought, right?” A c’est-la-vie tone and a shrug, shoving them back in her pockets. “And it beats the candy dish that Garrett made for me for Mother’s Day last year. You’ve seen it. Shaped like a heart—like a real heart. A diseased one at that.”

  “That thing?” Picturing the hideous sculpture on the bookshelf in Drew’s living room. “But why—”

  “Because men are notoriously bad gift givers and he’s getting a head start.” She rolled her eyes. “Boys. I’m up to my ears in them.”

  “You must be so proud,” Catherine swooned, rubbing her belly, thankful she had a little girl on the way who would certainly never give her internal organs. And Cara had already proven herself above that. She could imagine hand-beaded macaroni necklaces, giving way to gold-plated jewelry and drugstore perfumes, and eventually real jewelry and department store cosmetics and fragrances. Yes, girls knew how to do gift-giving properly. She actually felt a bit sorry for Drew, who had years’ worth of terrible gifts ahead with Garret, Lyle, and now Jake, who was just a couple months old yet. And her husband was no treasure either. Too practical. The-same-chocolates-cost-half-as-much-the-day-after-Valentine’s practical. No hope for her on the horizon.

  “So, are you guys coming to dinner this week?”

  “What? Oh, that… listen—”