2 Days 'Til Sundae (2 'Til Series Book 1) Page 7

  The garage sales had dredged up even less on the “antique” toy front and cost her even more. She’d dropped forty bucks on an assortment of picture frames, books, a lamp, a chip and dip bowl shaped like a sombrero, a jacket, and a dress she would probably never wear and was already considering giving to Tara—though if she ever encountered Mitchell Anderson III again she would have to borrow it back. She looked guiltily over at the wrinkled plastic bags that held her purchases for the day—people’s leftover grocery bags stashed with people’s leftover, ill-fitting, unwanted stuff. More money she hadn’t needed to spend.

  Catherine sat in the growing darkness, trying to tell herself that this Caramellie phase would pass much like acne and her secret crush on Donnie from New Kids on the Block and her love for jelly shoes. Caramellie would end up in the pile of intense passions that had been extinguished. But even as she said it, she was gravitating toward the keyboard again.

  It had only been two days since the auction closed. The winner couldn’t possibly even have received the item yet. Maybe tROVESoFsTUFF hadn’t even paid for the item yet. Perhaps the seller was already considering relisting due to lack of payment. She pulled up the completed auction page and checked the payment details. Five days! Who gives someone five days to cough up the dough? It should only be a day at most, minutes really—PayPal people! She checked the feedback on tROVESoFsTUFF. Sure enough the last entry was a huge thank you to a perfect buyer for such an expedient payment. MyKidsMyLife, the seller, was kissing tROVESoFsTUFF’s ass—complete with capital letters and entirely overboard with the pluses.

  HemmCat entertained the brief notion of contacting the seller—offering double, pleading. It was totally unethical and against all eBay rules and regulations, but she was desperate enough to lose her account over it. With a user ID like MyKidsMyLife, the seller would probably be weak to sob stories and easily swayed, but would also probably be more ethically bound and unlikely to screw over tROVESoFsTUFF—something that at this point HemmCat had absolutely no compunction about.

  The only real option she had was to contact the winner and hope for clemency. Maybe tROVESoFsTUFF—her nemesis—would be less interested in that particular doll set and more than willing to make a quick and tidy profit. She pulled up the buyer’s info, noting that he or she was also an active seller with an eBay storefront. Plus there was an address to a brick and mortar business, Troves of Stuff, in Minnesota. Catherine clicked on the business email address that was provided, allowing her to bypass eBay’s email program.

  Dear tROVESoFsTUFF,

  I am contacting you about an auction you won on eBay (item # 300923439437), the Tiny Ice Cream Dollhouse. I was the other bidder on this item and I am extremely interested in purchasing it. If you bought it to resell, I would be willing to purchase it from you at your asking price. If you bought it for your own collection, I would be willing to purchase it and also replace the item for you. Please accept my apologies for my forwardness, but this is a matter of life and death.

  HemmCat

  HemmCat22@live.com

  She sat back and looked at the screen. This was the best she could do after countless writes and rewrites where she went off on a tangent about how her awful parents had given away her favorite toy after her sister died over twenty years ago, and to this day they still weren’t even the tiniest bit sorry. She wanted to seem earnest, not absolutely nuts or possibly even murderous. Reading over the words now, she wondered if maybe the life and death part was a smidge over the top. She pressed delete and gobbled up those words, replacing them with her more benign hopes that they could do business. She realized she was asking for a huge markup, but since she was desperate, that much only seemed fair. She pressed send and then tried to distract herself, wondering if tROVESoFsTUFF could possibly be as pitiful as she was, sitting home alone in front of the computer on a Saturday night—pitiful enough to answer her.

  Her phone rang, dancing slightly on the table at the pure intensity of the ringtone that matched her friend Tara perfectly—“Cum on Feel the Noize.”

  “Yo, Cat!” her friend screamed in her ear, obviously not realizing that other people were ensconced in silence and not expecting to be blasted like that.

  “Where are you?” Catherine yelled back.

  “I’m outside.”

  “Outside where? On a runway?” The sound seemed deafening.

  “Outside your place.”

  Catherine got up and stole a peek out her window. A white hand in the darkness flashed a wave.

  “What are you doing out there? You could have just come up.”

  “I’m not coming up and risking that I will be drawn into your black-hole abyss of anti-socialism. No, I want you to come down to me.”

  “I’m busy.” She stared at the bottom of the screen, willing the mailbox to show up.

  “No you’re not. It’s Saturday night. The only kind of busy on a Saturday night happens outside your apartment. Unless you’ve got a man in there?” Tara asked hopefully.

  “Come on, Tara. I’m tired. Let me have a night off.”

  “Weren’t you the one complaining about getting older and still being single? An attitude like that ain’t gonna help you tie the knot any sooner. Plus your vow of celibacy is just going to make you forget what you’re doing in the sack.”

  “It’s like riding a bike,” Catherine said, reasonably confident.

  “Not anymore,” her friend screamed back.

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? “Next time, Tara,” she choked out, unnerved.

  “No. Right now. And if you don’t come out willingly, I’ll send Drake up to get you. Believe me, he won’t mind getting sucked into your black hole… and you’ll thank me later.”

  Catherine looked around her apartment and then back at the phone in a panic. She didn’t want some strange guy coming into her house. Every guy Tara ever introduced her to was a disaster. And to have one here? In her sacred space? Where she couldn’t get away?

  “I’ll be down in five,” she relented.

  “I thought so,” Tara sang proudly.

  *****

  She dragged her weary bones up the stairs, wiping her mouth of the slobbering kiss that she hadn’t been able to evade out on the sidewalk. Drake was twenty-four if he was a day, a decidedly inept kisser, and totally unschooled in countless other ways too, she was sure. What the hell is Tara thinking? He was way too young—way too rough around the edges. Quite simply, he was a project, and a woman of Catherine’s age had to have some standards.

  Once she was safely inside her apartment, she melted onto the floor in relief. At least Tara hadn’t begged out once the introductions had taken place, but considering it was a movie date, Catherine had basically been left alone with Drake anyway. And to make matters worse, it was a bloody flick that made her want to look anywhere other than the screen, but she had to watch the mayhem if she wanted to ward off the guy’s bumbling advances. Even with the massive tub of popcorn in her lap, an anonymous caller on her cell phone, and cigarette breaks even though she didn’t smoke, Drake had still managed to cop a quick feel. She had to give him points for persistence and ingenuity.

  Her eyes honed in on the pinpoint of light on the face of the sleeping computer, a beacon of hope that maybe in her absence she had struck a deal for Caramellie. She got up off the floor and went over, dropping herself in front of the screen and jiggling the mouse to life. She clicked on the internet icon. New mail! She checked her box. Ten new advertisements—a 24/7 thankless job—and a message from tROVESoFsTUFF that had arrived within minutes of her walking out the door.

  Dear HemmCat,

  I appreciate your interest, but I am unable to sell you the item in question.

  Sincerely,

  tROVESoFsTUFF

  Catherine scrolled down the screen, expecting to see something more… explanatory. The bitch might as well have just sent a big “NO” on the screen. The “Dear” and “Sincerely” were laughable empty words, if she didn’t feel like c
rying right now, that is.

  -10-

  Tara set down three drinks, clinking them up against the remains from the last round. Two impossibly blue concoctions promised headaches and memory loss in the morning for those not on doctor’s orders to prevent them from imbibing, while Georgia sat gingerly nursing all things virgin—ironic considering she was totally knocked up.

  “So, you’re gonna have a baby?” Tara yelled over the thumping music and throbbing conversational rhythms around them. Her face was screwed up in relative distaste, again her age showing clearly in her expression and stance.

  “Yup,” Georgia said, her eyes dancing with happiness as they reflected the pulse of the manic lighting system in the bar.

  Tara looked at her blankly as if to ask, why? But she kept it to herself and turned to Catherine instead. “What’s up with you, bee-atch?” she hollered.

  Catherine looked back at her dully, wondering where Tara found the energy.

  “You guys are a double downer. Why the hell did you want to come out?”

  “We didn’t. You made us come out,” Georgia corrected her.

  “I don’t recall making you do anything,” Tara countered.

  “Well I had plans to see Cat, so that makes it an us.”

  “Why don’t you two just pee on my leg and get it over with,” Catherine groused from across the tiny table.

  She watched her friends give each other a look that momentarily brought them closer together and pitted them against her instead, and she welcomed it. Ever since she’d started hanging out with Tara, after Georgia escaped the city with her knight in shining armor, there had been an uneasy rift. Georgia felt that she had first dibs—seniority—in the friendship department, and Tara didn’t like that she was a call to domestication for Catherine.

  “What crawled up your ass and died?” Tara demanded crossly.

  “Nothing. I just don’t want to be in the middle of it.”

  “But you happen to be the glue in this little threesome, which makes you in the middle of it,” Georgia pointed out.

  “I’m just not in the mood right now.”

  “And why the hell do you think I would be in the mood to hang out at a bar and watch you guys get plastered while I sit sipping Shirley Temples all night? I have better things to do you know.”

  “Then go do them,” Tara piped up helpfully.

  Georgia shot daggers at her and then turned back to Catherine. “Listen, I’m happy. Thomas and I are doing well, and now we’re about to start a family. I wanted to share this with my best friend in the world… and celebrate,” she said plainly.

  “I just don’t feel like celebrating,” Catherine said somberly, immediately regretting the words even as they were coming out of her mouth, but powerless to stop them in the midst of her self-absorbed pity party.

  Georgia narrowed her eyes, threw back the last of her soda and announced, “I need another drink.”

  “You sure you’re not going a little too fast with those?” Tara offered helpfully, trying to ease the chill that had suddenly descended over the table.

  Georgia gave her a cautioning glance and then got up and started for the bar, calling back over her shoulder, “Grow up while I’m gone!”

  Catherine looked guiltily at her drink, at the table, at the wall—unable to even venture a glance at Tara, whose gaze she could feel burning a hole right through her.

  “Just what the hell was that about?” Tara demanded.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, forcing innocence.

  “I mean that was like a verbal smackdown. A technical knockout. A—”

  “I get it. I get it,” Catherine relented, interrupting the onslaught of descriptive phrases that told her what a shit she was being.

  “I guess science is right and people become real assholes when they haven’t gotten laid for too long.”

  “Then what’s your excuse?” she grumbled.

  “Funny. A slut joke. You want to be sitting here all alone?” Tara eyed her seriously.

  “I’m just not good company right now,” Catherine admitted, looking at her miserably.

  “That’s an understatement. You’ve been acting like a bump on a log ever since… gosh, let me count the days.” Tara started holding up fingers to prove her point.

  When she reached a week, Catherine grabbed her hands to stop her from going any farther—no need for visual aids to prove the point that she’d been a complete tool for a while now.

  “Don’t tell me it’s about that stupid dollhouse,” Tara warned.

  “What dollhouse?” she gulped.

  “The one you’ve been scouring the internet for during work. The auction you lost. The thing that is slowly taking over your every waking moment….”

  “Oh, that one,” Catherine said, a look of embarrassed chagrin on her face.

  “Didn’t think I was paying attention, did you? Now listen, I don’t want to have to kick your ass, but I will. I won’t let you keep doing this to yourself.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Pining away about a toy.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. A toy is a toy.”

  “What toy?” Georgia asked, coming back and inserting herself in the middle of the lecture.

  “Are you going to tell her or should I?” Tara said, challenging Catherine to a game of verbal chicken.

  Catherine looked guiltily at Georgia. She didn’t keep secrets from her. And yet she hadn’t told her anything about Caramellie, not even last weekend when she’d dragged her around to all those garage sales and demanded they stop in antique shops along the way. She’d said she just wanted to spend time together. That she was in the mood for some bargains. That she loved quirky old shops that smelled like history. All of it just a lie to cover an ugly rash that she was scratching and causing to spread—the need to reclaim her old toy. And even worse, Tara did know. Not that Catherine had shared the information willingly, but Tara was a smart chick under all that leather.

  “She’s become addicted to her vibrator,” Tara said smartly. “I’m intervening.”

  “Cat, that was just a gag gift for your thirtieth! Is that why you no longer need a boyfriend?” Georgia laughed.

  Catherine wanted to sink down into the floor. She allowed her gaze to drift around their immediate perimeter, only to find that the whole table of guys next to them that so far hadn’t paid a bit of mind to their conversation was staring in her direction. Every last one of them. She felt like she was suddenly naked.

  “Nice comic relief, Tara,” she admitted through gritted teeth.

  “You weren’t going to tell her. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Maybe tell her what we were really talking about!” Catherine said loudly, hoping to get her point across to Tara and the guys next door, who were still stealing glances in her direction.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “What’s going on?” Georgia demanded suddenly, tired of being batted back and forth between them like a ping-pong ball.

  “First of all, the toy is a toy. A real toy. For kids,” Catherine said forcefully. “It’s a little dollhouse!” she yelled, for their neighbors’ benefit, watching them lose interest almost immediately.

  “She was trying to buy one on eBay and lost the auction,” Tara said, tattling on her. “Sixty bucks! Can you believe it?”

  It was $58.51! But Catherine didn’t say it, knowing it wouldn’t matter to them.

  “Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?” Georgia accused.

  “Well… I—I didn’t think… what with the pregnancy news… that you would really care.”

  “So this is why you’ve been a total witch about the pregnancy…. And that is what you think of me?”

  “It’s not that. I just—it’s not nearly as important as a baby.”

  “Obviously it’s important to you. Important enough that you withheld the information but not the bitchiness, huh?”

  “Georgia, I’m just not myself. Wi
th my parents moving and finding out they threw my stuff away or gave it away or whatever—”

  “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.”

  Catherine looked at her friends, seeing the same thing mirrored on both of their faces. She didn’t need them to agree with her, but it would be nice if they at least understood. Sure she might sound a little obsessed, crazy even, but they sounded like complete jerks. “Have you ever had anyone dispose of your worldly possessions without your knowledge or consent? Just sent them all off to the dump or some thrift store when you thought they were safely packed away in the attic?”

  “Worldly possessions?” Tara asked with a smirk.

  “I’m pretty sure I still saw all your shoes in your closet,” Georgia agreed.

  “Funny,” Catherine said grimly. “I don’t care what you think about toys. Maybe you never had a heart. Maybe you never had anything you really loved in your childhood. Maybe you guys were the type of kids I avoided—you know, the ones with all the broken toys and missing pieces. The ones who had everything but didn’t give a crap about any of it.”

  By the time Catherine was done with her rant, they were both comically leaned back on their stools like her breath was a swift wind that had blown them away.

  “I know it might sound ridiculous. Hell, it is ridiculous,” Catherine admitted. “But it happens to be important to me. I guess I am just a sappy sentimentalist.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of an –aholic,” Tara said.

  “As if!”

  “Maybe I should take this away from you too.” Tara pulled away the drink she had placed in front of Catherine. “You know, addicts are addicts. They will always find a way to indulge their addiction.”

  “It’s just one little toy,” she squeaked.