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

  “Where is Fynn anyway?” Connor piped up, opening a whole new can of worms. Catherine looked at him, wondering if he knew that something was up and was stirring the pot. But his face was wholly devoid of mischief.

  “Snowed in…. Or maybe I’m snowed in….” She hadn’t paid attention to that petty detail in the middle of the breakup mess—it was snowing here, there, and everywhere right now, what was the difference? “The flight was canceled,” she mumbled evasively, hoping to leave it at that.

  “Classic!” Connor guffawed. “Anything that could go wrong will happen to you, sis.”

  “Thanks,” she groused.

  “Life is real, not ideal,” Elizabeth said sadly, making Catherine wonder if the sad part of that was pity for her plight or if her mother was speaking of her own misfortune of having an unexpected and uninvited guest for the night—a useless daughter who couldn’t just settle down and have a family already.

  With that welcome, she couldn’t help but realize that it would have been easier if her parents had never given up their log cabin dream of moving to Wyoming. Then she wouldn’t have had a home to run home to now that her life was in the shits. But as far as Elizabeth Hemmings was concerned, in no uncertain terms, a grandchild was too precious a resource to waste from half a country away—Damn you, Connor, and your procreating self!

  “Catherine Marie, where are your shoes?” her mother exclaimed, in the same tone she had often used over the years when she caught her daughter wearing shoes in the house—muddy shoes… on the carpet. Elizabeth Hemmings was known to invoke Catherine Marie whenever she thought Catherine was being insouciant about the rules of the house or life in general. It seemed that was the whole purpose of having a middle name, using that Christian name to shame children into submission. Catherine Marie always fell in line; she always did whatever her mother said.

  Catherine Marie was a ninny.

  -2-

  All she’d wanted was to come back home and gorge herself on a home-cooked meal, like the good old days when she’d also had no life and no prospects but at least had a whole heart. Instead she was surrounded by all of Chesterton, dressed in their casual holiday finest, while she was trapped in the wrong generational dimension, dressed in her mother’s casual holiday finest. But there’d been no fighting Elizabeth Hemmings’ supreme forces of order and event etiquette when she threw her dishtowel over her shoulder and whisked Catherine upstairs to the master closet before guests arrived and saw her unkempt daughter. Fifteen minutes later she had been transformed from head to toe, clomping downstairs in her mother’s clunky old-lady heels to find the house practically standing room, like guests had materialized out of thin air—everyone wondering why one of the Hemmings kids was such a loser without a spouse or a family or even her own clothes to wear.

  Her mother was still slender and stylish for a woman in her sixties and for all intents and purposes her sophisticated-senior look was an upgrade—slightly short burgundy slacks and a silver-threaded twinset designed to bring out the gray highlights that, if they actually existed, would certainly make Catherine suicidal. But she felt like she was playing dress-up against her will when all she really wanted was to run back upstairs and throw herself across her childhood bed in a full-bodied tantrum of self-absorbed grief. That was what she’d come dressed for in the first place—yoga pants and a sweatshirt that would have afforded her the most flexibility for kicking and screaming. Fitting fashion for a woman who had just yanked the reins on her relationship and brought it stumbling and sputtering to a stop in that place where she’d said, “Maybe the cancelation is for the best. Maybe it’s just what we need to wake up to the reality of this whole situation. We’re different people. Worlds apart.” So dramatic! “Maybe we should take some time and see other people and figure out what we really want.”

  Idiot!

  All because of a stupid freak snow storm that proved to her that she and Fynn shouldn’t be together. That they had to stop fooling themselves and wake up to the reality that their weekends-only relationship was just too crazy to keep up with. Besides, it was obvious that Fynn was hardly broken up about not seeing her on New Year’s Eve—he’d been completely level and calm and ridiculously even-keeled when he told her all flights were grounded because of the weather. He even made platitudes that they’d seen each other for an extra-long weekend at Christmas, like that would somehow make up for missing out on seeing each other entirely this weekend—it was something like that; she’d blacked out with frustration somewhere along the way. Whatever it was that he’d said it was obvious he wouldn’t be pining away for her, threatening to hop a snowplow and drive all the way from Minnesota to New York just to be with her. He sounded more like we’ll-try-again-next-weekend guy than he did like snowplow man. So she did the only thing she could do: she dumped him.

  Why can’t I have it all? Georgia found the love of her life in New York, in the next apartment building. And now they have a house in the Jersey suburbs and a kid and a dog. The whole nine. Why was my guy in Nekoyah, Minnesota? Why did it have to be so complicated—all those miles, all that vacation time? My relationship was on credit! I had to stop buying shoes just to keep seeing him! It was economically infeasible. Any business professional would have said to steer clear of our stock from the beginning. A shaky foundation—

  “Mom, where do you want these?”

  Catherine whirled in place in the living room, facing Connor, who stood before her with a platter in each hand.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed.

  “Did you just call me Mom?” she seethed.

  “It was just—I mean the clothes… and the hair,” he stammered, confused.

  Catherine touched the twisted updo self-consciously. She’d let her mother have carte blanche on her whole façade, going into some alternate state of being uncharacteristically agreeable just so she didn’t have to admit why she was really here looking like hell. She certainly hadn’t wanted to admit that this was just the first of what would be many Fynn-less holidays in her daughter’s future.

  “How did I know that you aged thirty years in the last twenty minutes?” he chortled. “Remind me not to have what you’re having.” He nodded toward her wine glass—her chalice of security in the midst of the party masses.

  “Yeah, well you’re going bald,” she retorted.

  He touched his ever-thinning hair. “Well, at least I was invited.”

  “At least I’m not a total ass-hat.”

  “Catherine!” her mother gasped.

  Out of her periphery she could see her mother’s dishtowel drop to the carpet. “But he was the one—” she pleaded.

  “You know better than that.”

  “But—”

  Catherine watched her mother as she picked up the dishtowel and walked out of the room, folding it as she went. Folding was calming to Elizabeth Hemmings. She folded anything and everything. Once she folded Catherine’s homework because it was sitting nearby during a tense phone conversation. Catherine didn’t even fold her laundry.

  “Now look what you did. You upset our dear mother,” Connor taunted, putting the platters down on the coffee table. As he straightened he took several mushroom caps with him and popped them into his mouth, asking around them, “So, you married yet?” His joker grin made even more so by inflated mushroom cheeks.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, hoping the truth of her relationship status was undetectable under the color of her growing anger.

  “After the whole proposal incident last spring… dinner at Trivor’s with Mom and Dad, I figured you and Fynn had to have gotten hitched by now,” he said, hardly finishing what was in his mouth before adding a few more.

  “That wasn’t a proposal; it was an introduction,” she growled lowly, wanting to keep the conversation out of party circulation. If they weren’t among company she would have already pounced on him, slapping and biting.

  “Mom, Dad… this is my fiancé,” he guffawed. “I’d say that’s a passive ag
gressive proposal if I ever heard one.”

  “Like you’ve ever heard one,” she barked. Hardly a pithy comeback.

  “Like I just said, though, I did hear one,” he jabbed again. “By the way, how long were you dating before you popped the—”

  “It wasn’t a proposal!” she screeched, stopping everything in the room for a moment and turning all eyes on her. “I wasn’t a proponent of that proposal,” she corrected loudly, trying to throw everyone off her scent.

  When all eyes had finally turned away and the hum of background conversations began again, she shot him a look to kill. “I said Fynn-ancé,” she admitted through gritted teeth, setting the record straight. “An honest mistake.”

  “Priceless,” he said, a satisfied smile on his lips.

  She should have known it would only be a matter of time before he would bring the whole humiliating thing up again. But what did it matter anyhow? She’d done that less than forty-eight hours into their relationship and Fynn was still with her… or had been with her right up until a few hours ago—

  “If meeting the parents under those circumstances didn’t scare him off, I guess he’s around for the long haul, God bless him.”

  She gulped; her stomach a roiling pit of regret.

  “What’s your problem? You sick or something?” he asked, reaching down with both hands, one on each tray, double-fisting hors d’oeuvres.

  “Those aren’t your own personal plates you know.” She gestured at the serving platters he’d demolished, her only defense to act like he disgusted her completely.

  “What are you going to do about it?” he challenged.

  “Tell Mom,” she threatened, battling back with all the grace of a five-year-old.

  “Well, I see you two are up to your old tricks.”

  “Dad!” Catherine exclaimed, snuggling into his strong, warm, and welcoming embrace—the smell of Polo engulfing her like a force field of protection.

  “You know how perfect your mother likes things to be. Can’t you guys behave for just a few hours?” he asked, pulling out of the hug and leveling a “humor her” warning upon each of them.

  Catherine felt properly put in her place.

  “So what do I owe the honor of a visit from my dear daughter?” William Hemmings asked. “Nobody even told me you were here!”

  “That’s ‘cuz you were in the basement, Pop. Hiding,” Connor said knowingly.

  They all knew that William Hemmings was entirely antisocial. A singular homebody to the core, his home was his sanctuary. On occasions when his wife’s socializing energies overwhelmed the home, William went to the basement or some other far corner of the house to putz. The scope of tonight’s events was far beyond anything her mother had hosted in years. If he can handle this for a night, I can handle this.

  “Is everything okay?” her father asked, ignoring his son in favor of his daughter.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” she said quickly.

  “No problems getting here? You know I hate you driving in the snow.”

  “No problems at all.”

  Lacey came into the room with her porcelain skin and silky brown hair that was just on this side of black, bringing Niki and that same stunning but cold exterior she always had. She nodded toward Catherine. “I could run home to get you something to wear, you know. I wouldn’t mind at all,” she offered.

  “I’m fine,” Catherine said. It seemed fine was about the best she could do for her emotional vocabulary this evening.

  “It wouldn’t be any trouble,” she assured her.

  Catherine didn’t really know what to make of the offer. Lacey was stuffy and stiff and she found her to be absolutely grating. Is she really trying to be nice or is she just saying that I look like a total douche?

  “I think you look beautiful, sweetheart,” her father said, kissing her French twist.

  But of course he’d said the same thing when she wore the culottes that Aunt Judy made for her… to a birthday party… where everyone else was in designer jeans. And the same words when she got that awful mullet when she was twelve. And so many times, without the slightest hitch, even though her face was one blaring case of acne in her teens. He was completely biased.

  “She needs to be changed,” Lacey announced, handing Niki off to Connor.

  “Aw, come on.”

  “I fed her. You change her.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Grow some boobs and I’ll gladly start changing her,” Lacey laughed.

  “I’ll do it,” William piped up, making them all stop in their tracks and stare at him. Catherine wasn’t sure he had ever changed a single diaper in his life. But he ignored their shock and awe and grabbed his granddaughter lovingly. I’ll be in the basement,” he said, winking and taking the diaper bag off Lacey’s shoulder. He marched out of the room with a mission he seemed all too happy to accept.

  “But it’s too cold down—”

  Connor touched his wife’s arm and shook his head. “He isn’t actually taking her to the basement. He just means that he’s taking a breather from the party for a while. Niki could probably use one too.”

  Catherine watched her brother gather his wife into a hug and suddenly it was like she no longer existed anymore. Get a room, she thought snarkily.

  -3-

  Each guest was worse than the last, poking their nose in her business or bringing up bad missteps and memories of her youth. She only wished she’d been smart enough to jump on diaper duty when she had the chance. Her father had been MIA for at least twenty minutes. And come to think of it, Connor and Lacey had disappeared too, leaving her to mingle alone. She could have done the whole alone thing back in New York without an audience.

  “Catherine Marie Hemmings.”

  Her blood ran just a few degrees colder as she took in the vision of the old woman coming through the front door. “Mrs. Davis?” she eked out, feeling like that same little six-year-old who used to have nightmares about that buzzard face. Old Mrs. Davis had seemed ancient back then, but shockingly seemed not to have aged a day since—perfectly preserved for future generations of first graders. She always called all her students by their full given names. Catherine remembered Francis Ballzwacker Ramone; poor kid never had a chance…. Since when is Mrs. Davis friends with my parents? ... They probably hit it off at that parent-teacher conference when she told them how I tucked my dress into my tights after going to the bathroom and then traipsed coolly through the hallways giving the kindergarteners and my whole class a peep show…. Just me and Ballzwacker—the biggest losers of Loserville…. Although she’d heard that Ballzwacker joined the circus, married a trapeze artist, and had three trapezing little ones, so he was doing better than Catherine Marie Hemmings by a long shot.

  “You’re all grown up!” Mrs. Davis announced to the room, her voice still strong thanks to regular exercise yelling at little kids who won’t stop fidgeting in their little seats.

  Of course I’m grown up, Catherine thought bitterly. She couldn’t help but notice that the woman had stated a mere fact, no kind words or modifiers. Just plain grown up. It was going to be a banner start to the New Year.

  I need a drink—something much stiffer than the grape juice she’d been drinking. Unfortunately the “bar” was in the family room, a minefield of guests away. She made a break for it but within mere feet she was face-to-bosom with Mrs. Bertrand, the neighbor who’d seen her run straight into a lamppost while playing jailbreak. Big Boobs Bertrand had been quick to come to her aid, nursing her bloodied nose and icing the egg on her head with a frozen bag of peas. But she’d also been quick to share the story, telling everyone that Catherine never even swerved. Soon enough all the neighborhood kids knew, and then it spread through school, and then town, like a bad case of head lice, making her Peabrain Hemmings—too stupid to avoid a lamppost. Her parents took her to the doctor over that incident to find out if she was blind or suicidal. She’d worn glasses and now contacts ever since, which promptly put an end to her blu
rred vision. But it took years to overcome Peabrain. Not until seventh grade was she free of that nickname, only to fall right into notoriety all over again as Cats Domino, the girl who singlehandedly knocked down every last music stand in the orchestra room. In her defense, Breck Taylor had just spoken to her—asked if she could move out of his way so he could get to his locker (which she did). No self-respecting girl in the entire school could have kept her equilibrium after that.

  She craned her neck around Bertrand’s chest; sure she would see her old orchestra teacher, Mr. Savoy, somewhere nearby as well. Or another witness to the collective embarrassments of Catherine Marie Hemmings. It was like she was caught in a twisted Old-Home pinball machine, getting flippered and batted from one bad memory to another. She couldn’t step anywhere without another stumble and fall down memory lane—and man was she thirsty what with all the gabbing!

  Suddenly she spied a narrow winding path between the minglers, the kitchen doorway in view on the other end. If she could just make it there she could dip into the cooking sherry, if her mother even had such a thing. Worst case, her mother might commandeer her time to help out washing dishes or preparing platters, and even that was better than suffering in her past faux pas.

  Catherine surged forward, ducking slightly, bobbing and weaving, carefully averting her eyes from any wandering contact. She was almost to the foyer, the light from the kitchen beckoning from beyond—

  “Little Catherine Marie!” Aunt Judy cooed, weaving through the crowd from the other direction with a cocktail in hand and Uncle Al on her heels, blocking the only exit. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing without a husband on your arm?” She shook her head sadly, tsk-tsk-ing, and Al dutifully joined in.

  Catherine knew the skit well enough, having been through it every time she’d seen them ever since their youngest had married off. Brenda was coming up on her fourth wedding anniversary this spring, and she knew this because Aunt Judy made sure to keep a count of the years in her annual Christmas letter. Brenda was three years younger than her hopeless cousin, and as far as Aunt Judy was concerned, her daughter was a model of perfection (Brenda’s small shoplifting problem in high school paled in comparison to Catherine’s continued singlehood).