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

  2 Months ‘Til Mrs.

  a novel

  by

  Heather Muzik

  (Book Two in the 2 ‘Til series)

  2 Months ‘Til Mrs.

  © 2011 by Heather Muzik

  www.HeatherMuzik.com

  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 Michelle Black

  www.acoloraffair.com

  To CMH

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank all the early readers who gave 2 Days ‘Til Sundae a whirl and then hounded me for a sequel—here’s to you! Also… Kristie Worrell (http://needcoffeeplease.blogspot.com), for your friendship and support; Michelle Black, for bringing Catherine to color and life yet again—beautifully. To my most trusted and brutally honest advisor, Margaret Moyle—it just keeps getting better. To my family: Jack, Jaxon, and Dustin, for your patience.

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  Happy Freakin’ New Year

  Friday, December 31st

  -1-

  Catherine stood on the gray stone step, wondering if this was truly, undeniably, indisputably, definitively what she had been reduced to. Sure it was good enough for the start of her life, but the start of her New Year? Was this really better than spending the night alone in her apartment in New York watching Times Square on TV as if it were a world away rather than a few subway stops? At least if she was alone she could wallow in self-pity and curse Mother Nature all night… because certainly Mother Nature deserved all the blame. If it hadn’t snowed she wouldn’t have completely, royally screwed everything up.

  But it had snowed. And because of that little unforecasted treasure of precipitation, she was standing here at the brink of no return. Turn back now, and another two-hour drive later she could have Sweet Home Alabama queued up on the DVD player and a bottle of wine in hand to keep her company through the night—the same little concoction that had gotten her into this whole “love” mess in the first place; back when she was alone enough, drunk enough, and desperate enough to believe that she could do what Reese Witherspoon had already proven to be impossible: jet in and out of a small town with no hitches and no troubles and leave with the exact thing she’d come for. So naïve. Joel “Fynn” Trager of Nekoyah, Minnesota had turned her life upside down with his buttery voice. She never had a chance.

  So maybe this was the better bet, or at least the safer one. Just one more step forward and she would land directly in Elizabeth Hemmings’ New Year’s Eve prime rib with a heavy helping of her specialty sides like judgment and criticism—It’s a little far for a drop-in Catherine Marie. To what do we owe this unexpected visit? A call would have been nice. Well, it’s a good thing I always make plenty for leftovers—you know how your father loves his leftovers. I guess he will just have to do without this time. Would you like an extra serving of mashed potatoes? You look like you could use them. And there is lemon meringue pie for dessert… I made it for Thanksgiving and Christmas and everyone loved it. This time it didn’t come out quite as well, but you will just have to take my word for it since you weren’t here to try the others. Speaking of holidays, I’m surprised you would bless us with some of your time for New Year’s….

  Catherine stared at the glossy black door that her father faithfully unhinged and repainted like clockwork every two years. She was torn. As soon as the door opened she would be sucked down the rabbit hole into that world where everything was the same and yet skewed in a fun house kind of way, proving you could never really go home again. Once you left it behind everything shrank and distorted like that blouse she’d bought off the sale rack at Saks last spring, wore once, spilled her cocktail on, and one trip through the wash later it was more fitting to a troll’s figure. That’s exactly how her hometown felt to her now—dumpy and misshapen.

  Not that any of this was new. At thirty-four she knew exactly what she was getting when she came back to Chesterton, but this time there would be extra helpings of guilt and shame, seeing as how she’d been too “in love” to go home for the holidays. And there would be questions, too, as she entered hostile territory alone. Funny how the misgivings didn’t start until she reached the front step. She’d had the whole drive during which to freak out, change her mind, bang a U-be, and go back. To slink away now—her father would be absolutely disgusted at the waste of gas at today’s prices!

  Don’t be such a baby, Catherine! Buck up! There’s real food on the other side—instead of the pink Hostess Sno Balls she’d probably be eating otherwise.

  She reached for the doorknob but stopped herself before touching the metal. Even though it was the same door she had burst through, snuck through, and been yelled at for slamming all the years of her young life, she didn’t feel right just walking in. Not that ringing the bell or knocking felt right either—

  “Jeez!” Connor exclaimed, grabbing his heart like he had a bum ticker. “What the hell?”

  “Nice greeting,” she deadpanned, hiding her own shock as the door swung open unexpectedly and her brother burst out at her like a jack-in-the-box before her knuckles even grazed wood.

  “I think I just crapped my pants,” he quipped.

  “Even nicer,” she swooned with fake admiration.

  “Man, you smell like shit… you sure you didn’t crap your pants?”

  “It’s look like shit,” she admitted curtly, knowing her faded yoga pants were good for wallowing only and looked the part. “What are you suddenly the fashion police?” she jabbed back, wishing she’d taken a moment to straighten up before coming. If it was obvious to her clueless brother—

  “No, it’s smell like shit,” he said pointedly.

  Catherine tested the air lightly, trying not to let on that she might possibly believe what he was saying since most of what he sai
d was a load of exactly the thing she was trying to sniff out. But there it was. It did smell like shit. She looked down at her feet, lifting first one and then the other. Dammit! In the glow of the porch lights she could see what had been invisible when she cut across the dark lawn—another gift from Miss Kitty, the ancient, half-blind basset hound next door. Another pair of shoes ruined. Another reason to use the walkway, Catherine Marie.

  “Sweet!” he chuckled, seeing the smear of crap at the same time she did.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked, kicking off her shoes with more gusto than intended and sending them into the perfectly manicured bushes.

  “I was invited, duh,” he said simply.

  If Connor was here then Lacey was most definitely here, which meant the prized first and only grandchild was here. Her stomach rolled uncomfortably. A night with her folks was one thing, but a family reunion with her little brother and his wonderful little family—I’d rather be alone.

  “Mom! Catherine came to crash the party!” Connor yelled over his shoulder into the house before turning back to her and growling, “Now move, bitch, I’m on a mission.” He pushed her aside and walked out the door, his breath huffing out in front of him.

  “Party?” she called after him. But he didn’t respond. “Party?” she said again, quieter this time, rolling it around on her tongue like a peculiar new food with an unpleasant texture. She peered warily inside the house, careful not to cross the threshold. “Is that the Christmas tree?” she asked out loud, perplexed by the twinkling glow she saw deep within.

  “Yup,” Connor answered, trucking up behind her fast. “Out of the way. Let me get these in the house before I freeze and Mom and Lacey have a shit fit.” He shouldered past with several stacked platters of decidedly party-like food.

  “But it’s….” Catherine looked at her watch as if to register the date that she already knew. “The tree can’t still be up! It’s almost January!” she exclaimed weakly. The tree in the Hemmings household came down by December twenty-sixth. Always. Elizabeth Hemmings liked to put the tree up early and take it down early. The family joke was that the year would come when it would be down before Christmas even arrived, and one year when Catherine and Connor were particularly ornery teens, their mother had threatened just that.

  “Nary a needle, but it’s still there,” Connor refuted right before disappearing from sight, down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “A party?” she eked out again, feeling like Alice in Wonderland—nothing made sense in this topsy-turvy world.

  Suddenly there was a shriek from the kitchen. “Connor, you stacked them?” It was Lacey, her tone intimating death and dismemberment to come.

  “I am but one man, an efficient man,” he said plainly. Then there was silence followed by his own disbelief. “What? It’s butt-ass cold out there!”

  Catherine could just make out some unidentifiable grumbling coming from the same direction, probably a lecture from Lacey about the young ears in their midst. Both her sister-in-law and her best friend, Georgia, had invoked the same ridiculous no-swearing policy since conceiving, like a fetus could be born with a full vocabulary. And then they both had their babies within days of each other earlier in December, both little girls, both with four-letter names that started with “N”—first Georgia’s Nell and then Lacey’s Niki. It was all perfectly putrifical or maybe it was putrescent, she didn’t really care except that it made her gag involuntarily. Now her best friend was bosom buddies with her stuffy-ass sister-in-law, the two sharing all their prenatal and postnatal traumas and dramas and generally suffocating minutia of their experiences like they were the only women to ever successfully breed before.

  “You crushed the cookies with the deviled eggs and smooshed the eggs with the mushrooms!” Lacey’s squeal echoed through the house and out the door.

  “But the mushrooms are perfect,” Connor pointed out unhelpfully.

  “Really, Connor.” Her mother’s voice this time. “Didn’t I teach you better than that?”

  She could hear the hustle and bustle within like Grand Central Station. A party? And they didn’t invite me? Or even mention it? Righteous indignation fueled her to cross the threshold into the foyer. No matter what her mother might throw at her, this was beyond the pale. Perhaps Elizabeth Hemmings believed leaving her daughter off the guest list was suitable punishment for Catherine’s absence from all family-related events for the better part of the past year. But she’d been in the pursuit of love! And wasn’t her mother the one who was constantly reminding her in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that she was getting older with each passing day? Did she really want her daughter to follow in Cousin Constance’s footsteps—give up completely and enter the nunnery at thirty-six? … Although Elizabeth Hemmings preferred the term convent. Sure, her mother talked a big game that there was no shame in choosing God as your main squeeze… but really, no grandchildren? Catherine liked to believe that she still had hope, and the last eight months she’d been chasing a dream—no one should fault her that, least of all her mother.

  “I caught thirteen mangy kids sledding on my lawn this morning. Thirteen!” The voice wafted like skunk scent from the depths of the house.

  Even Uncle Dick is here? On a holiday? She thought her father had drawn the line when it came to his wife’s predilection for feeding strays. A day or two each week was begrudgingly acceptable, but no holidays—widower or not. The neighborhood grinch was not going to ruin William Hemmings’ prime rib feast. What the hell is going on here?

  She headed for the family room, intent on having a look at the fabled New Year’s Eve Christmas tree for herself.

  “Catherine!” her mother called out as she passed by the kitchen doorway.

  She stopped and backtracked, noting the slight uptick in pitch of her mother’s voice—surprise at a level that wouldn’t even register on most people’s surprise scale. “Hi, Mom. What’s going on?” she asked, entering the kitchen and motioning at all the food, a slight cockiness in her step to mask the utter disbelief in her heart. She felt royally screwed over.

  “We’re having a New Year’s Eve party,” Elizabeth said, as if it was completely obvious, which of course it was. But Catherine’s point was that it was shamefully obvious and her mother was not reacting in kind. She didn’t seem embarrassed in the least at being caught potholder-handed with a cookie sheet full of hot hors d’oeuvres.

  “A party?” she asked innocently, her eyes trying to pin her mother on the spot, but Elizabeth Hemmings was wily and quick, setting the hors d’oeuvres on the stovetop, slipping off the oven mitt, and whipping the dishtowel off her shoulder en route to the dish drainer, where she immediately set to drying the dishes that were conveniently waiting there. Catherine looked toward her brother and Lacey for corroboration, but they were deep in a low-toned, lovers’ spat over the bite-size party foods Connor had destroyed.

  “We do entertain sometimes, Catherine,” she pointed out blandly.

  She looked at her mother dubiously. Sure they entertained, but not parties. Not in a long time. “Did my invitation get lost in the mail?” she prodded, still planning to make her point, hoping to put a chink in the imperturbable surface of Elizabeth Hemmings’ personality. She wasn’t going to be the bigger person—which served as another jab at her mother who had always tried to teach her to be just that.

  “Maybe in cyberspace—” Connor offered suddenly, their fight over with nary a whimper.

  “Mom made great e-vites,” Lacey gushed.

  Mom. Like they were equals in the family. Like they shared her. Catherine didn’t like to share. Just ask her kindergarten teacher, Miss Holmes—Catherine is a wonderful student, naturally inquisitive and excited to learn new things, but socially she has trouble getting along with her classmates, won’t play nicely, won’t share with others. She never liked to share toys and games, why on earth would she want to share her mother? No matter how hard her mother could be for her to take, sharing was even worse. Lacey used
to call her mother-in-law Elizabeth. Their relationship had always been strained and distant and outlaw-ish. Catherine had taken comfort in that. Niki had changed everything.

  “Really? E-vites?” Catherine narrowed her eyes at Lacey who most certainly had plenty to do with that effort considering her mother had no marketable “e-skills” whatsoever. She was a “from scratch” type of gal—no boxed mixes, no cell phone, no computer files—just her and a pantry full of raw goods; a phone that plugged into a jack (though at least it was cordless); and quality stationary that she covered with full sentences, using full words, all meted out in perfect Palmer penmanship. Elizabeth Hemmings hadn’t sunk to the level of even touching the internet once in her life until Lacey got pregnant and started sniffing around her mother-in-law, getting her on Facebook so she could be sure to have all the up-to-the-minute news about the pregnancy and now the growth of her granddaughter. And last time Catherine checked, her mother had more “friends” than she did! It was a travesty!

  Missing her point, Lacey added, “They were just so darling!”

  Nothing like giving yourself a pat on the back in the process. Catherine turned toward her mother. “I guess I just didn’t make the cut then.”

  “You made it quite clear at Thanksgiving and Christmas just where your priorities were, so I was giving you space for the holidays. My gift to you. That was what you wanted, right?” she offered, putting her daughter in her place.

  “My gift?” she asked incredulously. Her mother was a prizefighter. She knew this and yet she continued to be caught off-guard by a sneaky punch she never saw coming.

  “I couldn’t wrap it, but certainly you noticed,” Elizabeth led her. “I didn’t even ask you if you went to mass, let alone complain that you wouldn’t be coming to exchange gifts or have dinner with us. I left you to your long-distance thing.” The whole time she landed verbal jabs she continued to dry and stack dishes with alarming speed.