2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) (4 page)

“What a total load of crap,” Catherine growled, scrubbing
at the scorched leftovers in the casserole dish. The rest had already been disposed
of. In the trash. Even a forkful dangled in front of Magnus’s nose had lived to
survive the experience. So much for its 5-star rating.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Fynn said, hovering nearby, a
dishtowel at the ready.

“I’m not talking about the stuffing.” Catherine
scrubbed and scrubbed, then scrubbed more furiously still, finally
understanding a small part of her mother’s cleaning fetish. It was definitely a
safer way to unleash her aggressions.

“Are you okay? You’re huffing and puffing—”

“Like the Big Bad Wolf!” Cara exclaimed, coming to
stand in line, her own dishtowel in hand to dry that which was unbreakable when
dropped.  

“Cara, sweetie, you’ve been a big help, now why don’t
you go watch some TV?” Catherine offered, needing the space to vent or even
just
breathe
her frustration like the Big Bad Wolf she was.

“But what about the rest?” So sweet and innocent and
completely unaware that she had delivered a crushing blow at dinner, at the
behest of the teacher she adored.

“I’ll try my best to manage,” Fynn assured her.

Cara didn’t have to be told twice, dropping her towel
into his waiting hand and galloping away, Magnus scrambling up off the floor to
follow her.

Fynn turned back to Catherine, slinging the extra
towel over his shoulder in a move that said “Elizabeth Hemmings” so clearly that
she huffed again. If her mother were here, she’d be judging her for not using a
scouring pad on the dish, the ones she always had in stock and within reach under
the kitchen sink. That’s what a mess like this called for. But Catherine wasn’t
her mother.

“Do you have to do that?” she demanded, reaching for a
butter knife out of the cache of dirty ones in the dishwasher and attacking the
char with it.

“Do what?”

“Stand there… like that… with the—” She gestured with
the knife in the air rather than continuing.

“What’s your problem?”

“The towel. There. On your—God, you know what I mean.”

“This?” He reached for the towel on his shoulder
carefully—no sudden movements to scare the crazy person with the weapon.

“You look like my mother with that,” she snapped.

“And you look like a nutty version of my wife,” he
chuckled lightheartedly. Unflappable.

“You know she just doesn’t want me planning the
party,” she blurted.

“Your mother? What party?”

Catherine hated that he was oblivious to her pain on
any and every front. Actually, he was just plain oblivious. “Mrs. Karnes,” she
said lowly, trying not to let Cara overhear. Cara loved Mrs. Karnes and she
didn’t want to make her feel like she needed to choose sides—afraid Cara might
choose the wrong one.

“Not much of a segue,” he pointed out.

Catherine chose to ignore him. “She doesn’t think I
can do anything right.”

“Your mother?” he guessed. Another fifty-fifty shot
and still wrong.

“Mrs. Karnes.” Gruffer still.

“I’ve gotta tell you, you’ve lost me. All you ever
talk about is how your mother judges everything—”

“Leave my mother out of it. This is between me and
Mrs. Karnes.” But of course Fynn was too busy thinking the woman was a saint
for easing his wife’s pain by taking the Thanksgiving party off her plate… (at
least that was pretty much what he’d said at dinner, give or take a few words
about being overwhelmed and running herself ragged and all those things about
“the last time”—yada-yada-yada and gobbledygook, as far as she was concerned).

“Don’t tell me you’re planning some girl-on-girl
action,” he said, bemused.

“Oh, I’ll fight her alright. This whole class party
thing has
nothing
to do with being kind and ‘saving me’ the overwhelming
responsibility of so many holiday parties this time of year. This is about my
fitness as a mother—a room mother. She would never do this to Sophie Watts.”

“But you don’t even like being room mother,” he
pointed out.

“Yes I do.”

“No. You don’t. You said it enough times before the
Halloween fiasco.”

“You mean party,” she said bitterly.

“No, I think I have the right word. You were driving
yourself nuts about it. And us too.”

“
That
was just a time management problem. It
was my first big event. The first big holiday of the school year. There’s a
learning curve.”

Fynn gave her a dubious look. “If I remember there was
a lot of bitching and a fair amount of moaning and definitely some tears.”

“Standard party frustrations,” she waved him off. “And
the hormones.”

“Which are still with you. Seriously, Catherine, you
were ready to pack your bags and run away.”

“But I didn’t.”

“And the baking… into the wee hours of the morning…”

Catherine winced. She’d tried to make cupcakes from
scratch. But there was that whole confusion between flour and all-purpose flour
and self-rising flour. And then the baking powder versus baking soda dilemma…. She’d
gone with her gut and her gut was wrong, all wrong, dead wrong—or at least
flat
wrong. And this from a woman with a mother who made
everything
from
scratch.

The saddest part? She’d been so cocky, so certain that
she could crush Sophie Watts with homemade treats after being laughed out of
the first PTO bake sale for bringing a store-bought cake (not a bakery-bought
masterpiece like other non-baking mothers who knew proper protocol, but a
grocery store special complete with its shameful “2 for” sticker that blared
cheap and tacky and also called into question where the second cake was—the answer
to
that
even more shameful still) that she hadn’t even bought a boxed
mix to back her up. Even her own mother,
the
Elizabeth Hemmings, who had
never made a boxed mix in her life, still had boxed mixes on hand. An emergency
stash to back up her emergency raw cake ingredients stash, because you never
knew when you might have a cake emergency. And this was the second cake
emergency Catherine had had in a year! She should have known better. She was
obviously prone.
Hello, I’m Catherine Marie Trager, and I have a cake
problem
. She definitely needed to find some kind of support group. And get
a twenty-four-hour bakery on speed dial.

She’d persevered though. Made peanut butter chocolate
chip cookies. Stayed up all night to get enough that were presentable. At least
with cookies, they were supposed to be flat, so she had that part covered. Flat
as pancakes. And ultimately no one could fault her for—

“… Those cookies,” he shuddered. “One of the kids
chipped a tooth.”

“Baby tooth,” she clarified.

A look of disbelief that she would split hairs like
that.

“I think it was something with the chocolate chips.
They were obviously made wrong at the factory. They didn’t melt right. Hard,
like little rocks. And it’s a known fact that kids are softer these days. Not
as tough. Their teeth are probably softer too.”

“Not your baking fault at all then?”

“Nope. I might have burned a few of them, but beyond
that—”

“What about those mutant seven-legged spiders you made?”
he continued.

“Now
that
was an accident.”

“Nuclear?” he smirked.

“They fell off.”

“Every single one lost the same leg?”

“I was tired. I didn’t attach the pipe cleaners
right.”

“Or at all. Let me remind you that those ‘missing’
legs were never found.”

“You can prove nothing, Mr. Trager,” she warned. “Besides,
those decorations were even scarier that way, I think.

“So I guess they hit the mark,” he offered.

“Exactly.”

“Seriously, Catherine, why do you care? The whole
thing is a nightmare…. Which is what you gave the whole class with your ghost
stories you told. In the dark.”

“Pansies,” she mumbled. “It was the middle of the day
with the shades drawn. Besides, I didn’t hear Cara whining.”

“Cara is an odd fish,” Fynn noted.

She shrugged. “Halloween is for ghost stories and
haunted houses. Those kids need to learn that. The sooner the better.”

He wrapped his arms around her, softened his voice to the
consistency of melted butter. “Why can’t we just consider this a blessing? Less
to worry about. Less craziness when the holidays are crazy enough.”

“Being ousted, a blessing? It is one thing to walk
away, but to be nudged out?” She shook her head. “
I
will choose when I’m
ready to go.”

“Just like you chose to sign up in the first place?”

“Right,” she choked out.

“You know, we still aren’t on that class email list,”
he chuckled.

“We don’t need to be. I’m the room mother and I know
everything that’s going on,” she said smartly.

“Oh, by all means, that’s a good reason to keep the
title.”

“That and the fact that I need something to do!” she
exclaimed. “If you haven’t noticed I’ve been diminished to sitting around here
and getting ever fatter, like I have no aspirations at all.”

“You’re growing a child. Our child. And I love you for
that,” he cooed.

“A
fat
child,” she grumbled, pulling out of his
embrace, back to scrubbing—now piteously.

“Fat or not, I will love him or her just as much.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Because trying to get Fynn to see the
forest for the trees when it came to idle hurtful chitchat was impossible. He
never passed any of those tests. New haircuts went unnoticed. When asked if
something fit right, he was painfully honest. He wasn’t about making her feel
better. Just the facts. Raw and uncensored.

“I’ll support you, but I still don’t understand why
you would do this to yourself, and especially after you almost quit two weeks
into the year.”

“Because no one likes to be kicked out, even if they
want to leave.”

“This from the girl who broke up with a guy when she
thought
he might break up with her first.”

She colored in embarrassment and retorted, “You’re too
much of a guy to get it.”

“I’ve been called worse,” he shrugged. “Can you just
promise to remember that this is Cara’s class for the duration of first grade?
The same teacher.” Like she was an idiot who didn’t know that.

Tuesday, November 14
^th

“I think it is just wonderful that Sophie Watts
offered to help—”

“Sophie Watts?” Catherine blurted into Mrs. Karnes’
ear, gripping the phone tighter like she could strangle it and
that woman
by
association.

She’d tried to let it all roll off her back, let
bygones be bygones, allow cooler heads to prevail, and all the other clichés
that she’d now learned Fynn had in common with her mother—which was another sore
spot. She made it fourteen whole hours. Tossed and turned through the night.
Almost called Georgia at two a.m. to vent without regard for baby Nell or her
husband Thomas or the fact that Georgia had been too busy with her
New
friends who lived in
New
York or in the upper reaches of suburban
New
Jersey just like the Love family, to bother with her old friend Catherine being
blackballed out here in Nekoyah, Minnesota. Heck, she almost called Tara, but
feared that
she
would actually answer and get her even more riled up…
possibly enough to call Cara’s teacher right then and there rather than waiting
till morning like a civilized human being. Which she had. A perfectly
reasonable time for a perfectly reasonable conversation.

And all that reasonableness wasted!

But of course it was Sophie Watts behind this.
Maligning her. Ginning up the story about her past failures to make a case for
her future failures. For the good of the children who were at risk if Catherine
Trager was left in charge of anything.

“She has so much experience with these things and she thought
that she could help ease the burden on you,” Cara’s teacher gushed, the bias
apparent.

That bitch.

“We thought that we could give you a little break. Let
you put your feet up. This time of year is just so busy with back-to-back
parties and in your condition—”

“You’re firing me because I’m pregnant?” Disbelief. This
was discrimination for sure, and by other mothers who’d been in her shoes at
that. Her stretched-out sensible shoes.

“Of course not,” Mrs. Karnes said quickly, smelling a
lawsuit. “We appreciate
all
volunteers. And that you would give so much
of your time is just wonderful. You’re still room mother, certainly. We just
know that you are juggling so much right now. You’re due any day now, and a
newborn is a lot of work on top of every—”

“I have a
month
before my due date.”

“Oh.”

There was so much in that curt utterance that
Catherine wanted to punch her right through the phone. This chick thought she
was a whale
and
an imbecile who couldn’t juggle a big belly and one measly
party, while Sophie Watts could handle her three rightful class parties for her
other children plus steal a forth right out from under Catherine’s fat ass. Like
that
.

She gritted her teeth against saying all the unsavory
things on her mind. “Believe me, Mrs. Karnes, I am not overwhelmed. I have it
all planned out already. Started right after Halloween.” Lying with righteous
indignation.

“You did?” Shock.

“Yup. All planned and ready to go. Nothing
overlooked.”

“Oh, well, I… guess that’s… great.” No enthusiasm
whatsoever.

“I’m really looking forward to it.”

“And you’re
sure
you have everything covered?” Mrs.
Karnes, hoping her uncertainty would be catching.

“Absolutely everything.” Not wavering one iota. Not
giving her the satisfaction.

“And you know about the list of food allergies?”

“Of course.”
Now.
Thankfully little Johnny
Capshaw could sniff out a peanut from across the room and, better yet, knew to
avoid them. Otherwise the chipped baby tooth back at Halloween wouldn’t have
been the only casualty of the party and she would have been thrown off her post
rather than being patronizingly usurped. “No peanuts on the menu whatsoever.”

“Good,” the teacher said tightly, making it obvious
that
she
still wasn’t over it. “And the gluten-free options?”

“Covered.” She remembered the days when she was in school
and parents brought whatever they wanted to the class party or for their kid’s birthday.
There was no list of approved snacks and there were no rules about allergies or
nutritional expectations. They just jacked the kids up on soda and dessert and
sent them outside for some extra recess. Even the dentist’s kid had brought
chocolate cupcakes with sky-high frosting, and then dispersed party favors of pencils
emblazoned with “Dr. Savitz, DDS, Cavity Cop” (should have said “The Dirty
Cavity Cop”, first giving you cavities and then filling them).

“Have you collected the funds yet?” the teacher asked in
a last-ditch effort to prove some oversight that would lead Catherine to
recognizing her need for assistance.

“I was going to send out an email to the parents
tomorrow, actually. I was holding off for the last of the expenditures rather
than over-collect.”

“Well…” A heavy pause. “I guess that’s it then.” Mrs.
Karnes dragged the words out slowly, leaving plenty of time for her to
reconsider.

“Yup. That’s it.” Catherine jabbed her finger at the
calendar on the side of the fridge. Wednesday the 22
^nd
. The day
before Thanksgiving. No problem. Plenty of time.

“So when will you be ready to set up on Friday?” A
note of resignation apparent.

Catherine was quiet.

“Mrs. Trager?”

She coughed, trying to expel any evidence of confusion
before speaking calmly and evenly. “Whenever you need me.” She peered closer at
the calendar where it was quite clearly marked and color-coded that this Friday
was the last day before Thanksgiving break. A whole week off. Not a four-day
thing like she’d had in school. Something a decent room mother or any mother of
school-aged kids would know. She flicked the calendar page loudly.  

“Is this Friday going to be a problem?” Hopeful all
over again.

“Of course not.” Hearty, upbeat, unfazed.

“Because I can certainly call—”

“No need to call anyone.”

Catherine hung up and dialed back out before the line even
fully disconnected, groaning and cutting off the phone again, listening for a
dial tone before pressing the eleven digits like lightning.

“Everything go okay?” Fynn asked, coming up behind her
and placing a hand on her back.

“Oh, fine. Just fine.” Though her
fines
were
not like all his fines. Definitely. Not. Fine. “Did you know that Cara is off from
school all next week?”

“Yes, why?”

“Could you maybe have told me?”

He reared back and away. “I thought you knew.”

“And how is it
you
know?” she accused.

He shrugged, like it was common knowledge he had
picked up along the way. Something any old idiot would know. Which made her
less than an idiot, or maybe it was more of one—whichever was worse.

“What’s up, chickadee?” Georgia’s voice rang in her
ear.

Catherine let out an audible sigh of relief to hear a
friendly voice, rolling her eyes at Fynn and walking away, uninterested in
reasoning with the rational male mind. “You won’t believe what I’m dealing with
here.” The words rushing into the phone before she even made it out of the
room.

“What did Fynn do this time?”

“It’s Sophie Watts.”

“Fynn did who?” Georgia exclaimed. “An affair?”

“No! Never!” Shocked that her friend would even go
there.

“Oh.” Noticeably less interested now.

“Anyway, she went to the teacher and told her I need
help; that I’m not right in the head and the kids will all end up—”

“Stop. Back up. Pull over. I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

“Sophie Watts! That bitchy mom from Cara’s school
who’s always breathing down my neck. She’s trying to weasel her way into my
position as room mother because she’s
always
room mother, for all of her
kids, and she thinks she’s the only one who can do it right.”

“The position you complain about every time you talk to
me?”

Catherine chose to ignore her question even though it
smelled more than a bit off. A little too Fynn-ish to be helpful right now. “I
just can’t believe someone would be so crazed about a stupid volunteer post like
room mom.”

“You sound a little crazed,” Georgia noted.

“Am not,” she blurted childishly. “I just don’t like
being undermined. That’s what I’m crazed about if I’m crazed at all.”
Which
you can’t prove.
“Someone needs to take this bitch down a peg.”

Silence greeted her and then words that made the
silence preferable. “… Are you sure you shouldn’t be talking to Tara about
this?”

“Maybe I should,” Catherine smarted.
Because
obviously you’ve forgotten how to be a friend.

“Seriously, Cat, you need to take it easy. You’re
pregnant. Hormonal. Irr—”

“Irrational?” she cut her off icily. “Nice, Georgia.
Really nice.”

“I was going to say irritable, but then again, irrational
sounds like it works.” Chilly right back.

Catherine was silent—blazingly silent—on her end.

“Seriously?
You
called
me
and now you
aren’t going to talk?” Incredulous, like this was a total waste of her time—the
call and their friendship.

“If I wanted to hear things like ‘calm down’ and
‘chill out’ I could talk to my husband. You’re supposed to be a friend.”

“I am. Friends tell friends when they are being nutty.
And you, my friend, are a big nutty nutball right now. You want to be room mom
just to spite this chick.”

“I want to be room mom because I signed up for it.”

“By accident!”

“Regardless, I got it fair and square. Unless I step
down or do something wholly inappropriate like punch a kid or something, I’m
it.”

Georgia sighed heavily all the way from New Jersey. “Maybe
you could learn something from this Sophie Whatshername—”

“You did
not
just say that,” she growled.

“I just mean that she’s been a mom and a room mom several
times over, right? Maybe if you went
to her
rather than fighting against
her, the whole class would benefit. Co-room-moms or something.”

Catherine mouthed nasty words on her end through the
whole awful, disgusting speech. Then waited through several seconds of silence,
hoping for a punch line that would take it all back.

“Cat?” Georgia prodded.

“So you don’t believe I can do this?” she challenged.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, basically, you did.”

“No, I didn’t. I said that rather than stumbling
through it, everyone would benefit—”

“Stumbling through? Clumsy Catherine? I’m getting it
loud and clear. You sound like my mother. You might as well say, ‘Room mother?
Really, Catherine Marie, organization has never been your strong suit.’ Come
right out with it. If there is one thing Elizabeth Hemmings would never do,
it’s mince words.”

“Your mother’s right.”

A gasp of indignation was all she could muster. She’d
been trying to shame Georgia into submission, and to think her best friend in
the whole world would take her mother’s side? Or the imaginings of what her mother’s
side would be… which was somehow even worse.

“Don’t forget,
you’re
the one who told me what
a nightmare the Halloween party was.”

“It was my first try. Who does anything perfect on the
first shot? These people are way too judgy. Nobody died.”

“I can tell you I would have been pretty pissed if my
kid chipped a tooth on one of those cookies,” Georgia asserted.

“So you’re one of them then.”

“I’m me. And that’s how I feel.”

“You’ve been a mother for five minutes longer than me,
Georgia. So don’t give me this holier-than-thou shit. If I wanted that I would
call my mother who has been at it a lot longer than you.”

Georgia hadn’t made a sound, but that didn’t stop
Catherine. “Call me when your daughter is in school and let me know how you
feel about the other mothers and all the politics of perfection… Oh, but
you’ll
probably be top dog,
Mrs. Love
. President of the PTO and queen of all
room mothers, since you aren’t a total screwup like me.” She took a deep
breath, dizzy with anger and hurt that she hadn’t found a kind and
accommodating ear to cry to. The silence was deafening on the other end. She
stared at the phone, embarrassed and shaking with adrenaline, uncertain what to
say or do now. But she didn’t have to say anything because Georgia had already hung
up on her.

Why does she have to be such a Sophie Watts?

Her best friend was turning into one of those women.
One of those mothers she couldn’t stand. They had always been different. Never
into the same kinds of guys. Georgia was steady and straight and true, while
Catherine was a nightmare of contradictions. They weren’t the same people at
all. But siding with Sophie Watts? Hell, if Georgia lived here in Nekoyah, she’d
probably be best friends with Sophie already.
And I would be the mother they
scorned.

Catherine would show them all a thing about parties,
though.
I’m Elizabeth Hemmings’ daughter, for Christ’s sake.
The perfect
hostess gene had to be in her somewhere. It only made sense. Latent maybe, not
missing. She’d gotten her first period late too, but it had come eventually. And
she was almost always late for everything, but she got where she was going. She
could do this. Three days was plenty of time if she put her mind to it.