2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (20 page)

Tuesday, January 18
^th

Catherine hurried to her desk, clutching the thick, creamy
white envelopes tight to her chest. The plans and directions to her future as
Mrs. Trager were sealed safely inside, just awaiting addresses and stamps to be
on their way. Easier said than done, though. She’d already had three close
calls with her precious cargo on the way here. First, when the canvas bag she’d
been carrying them in fell apart—ripped wide open on the sidewalk. No one
stopped to help her. No one cared that her destiny depended on it. Insensitive
to a bride in need, they trampled her pristine envelopes.
Damn New Yorkers.
Damn bag.

The tote bag had been a free gift she’d gotten when
she bought a magazine subscription to
Glamour
. Now she had another
reason to hate that she’d ever subscribed. She’d certainly never gotten any more
glamorous in those twelve months and she’d spent enough money on products from
their pages to know what she was talking about. Obviously the bag was
constructed out of subpar materials—any decent canvas tote could handle a tiny
tear like the one from the counter at the coffee shop where she’d stopped for a
coffee and that blueberry muffin she’d been eating when her bag fell apart in
front of God and everybody.

I guess you get what you pay for.

At least at that point she had thought to head to the nearest
mailbox and mail the ten completed invitations, tread marks and all, saving
them from any more trauma. Then she headed to the nearest trashcan and tossed
the mutinous tote inside. In hindsight, she should have thrown out her coffee right
then and there as well. But she was a slave to the vicious brew that now
stained several of the remaining envelopes and her favorite wool coat—that curb
came out of nowhere. She’d walked the rest of the way to work in her sheer
blouse and camisole, her proper outer-coating balled up in a plastic bag she’d
begged off a bum in the street—exchanging it for her muffin, so now she was
starving too (not that she should be eating pastry of any sort, what with that wedding
dress she still had to find, fit, and wear in less than seven weeks).

Not to worry, though, she had some extra envelopes
from the printer that could replace the coffee’d ones—Vinnie was nothing if not
professional in his printing endeavors—and she was certain she could fix
everything once she got to work, which was exactly what she had been thinking
as she looked through the invitations to see how many envelopes she would need.
Admittedly her eyes were on the stationary and not on where she was going… but
five
dogs? That right there was what was wrong with New York. Dog packs. An
epidemic. How many dogs can anybody really walk at once? It seemed like someone
was always testing that theory on the streets. She was mere feet from the
safety of her office building when she was accosted, wrapped in a puzzle of
leashes and tongues and fur. She got goosed several times and took more than a
few kisses to the cheeks and mouth—basically a better work-over than she’d had
in weeks. And all the while she fought to juggle the invitations, losing a few
in the battle, but keeping a firm hold on the bag that held her coat safely out
of the dogs’ reach. Maybe she should have thought the whole thing through a
little better—put the
invitations
in the safety of protective plastic and
worn the coffee-covered coat to keep
herself
protected in the dead of a
New York City winter…. There was that hindsight thing again.

But she was here now. Safe at work. No frostbite of
which to speak…. And doggie footprints could be an endearing ornament to a
wedding invite—her parents’ neighbors, Miss Kitty’s owners, would certainly love
it. And there had to be a few more dog owners on the guest list.

Look at me, making lemonade!
A lesser bride
would have read all kinds of awfulness into this. She would have given up.
Called things off. Deemed the wedding a failure before it even got off the
ground, believing the universe was against her. But not me. I am strong. I am capable.
I can make this happen.

“What happened to you?” Tara asked, coming into their
cubicle with a coffee in hand.

“Step away,” she growled, gesturing at the coffee and
shielding the invitations nervously.

“You look like hell.”

Catherine glimpsed her reflection in the small mirror
she kept on her pin board to catch errant food between her teeth and other
minor appearance emergencies. She smoothed at the rat’s nest where a gently
waved coif had last been, and then rubbed at the dark smudges under her eyes
were her mascara had migrated since she’d left her apartment.

“Have you been crying?”

“No,” she said quickly, wondering if she had—her
commute had been cry-worthy, that was for sure. “No…” she said less certainly
this time. “Maybe it was all the kisses,” she offered questioningly.

“Who were you kissing?” Tara asked, intrigued.

“They were kissing me. The dogs.”

“Dogs?”

“I ran into a pack of dogs out on the sidewalk. Got a
little tangled. They got frisky,” she chuckled. She was so calm and relaxed
about the whole thing. Unflappable.

“If that’s what you’re into, who am I to judge?” Tara
shrugged.

Catherine waved her off and turned back to her
invitations. Never before had she ever had anything so completely amazingly
important to share with people. Something that took rich and luxurious paper to
announce. Too bad her penmanship was neither here nor there, so the outside would
be significantly less impressive than what lay within, but she’d already made
her bed with her print order.

“Are those the invitations?”

“Ya think?” Catherine asked snarkily, looking up at
Tara who was leaning over her desk nosily, coffee precariously poised in her hand.

“What’s that?” Tara pointed to the brown stained
envelopes, her lips curled in distaste.

“
That
is the reason you need to get out of here
with the coffee,” Catherine snapped.

“Can I at least have my invitation first?”

“I was going to mail it.”

“Save a stamp,” she said, her hand out.

And the addressing, Catherine realized, tossing her
one of the blank stained ones. “Here.” That was one less damaged envelope to
replace. After a cursory check she had five left with coffee stains, four with paw
prints, and another several with partial prints from a variety of shoes. Eight
extra envelopes wasn’t going to do it, but if she used the paw prints on pet
lovers and gave some of the partial prints to people she was closest to who
would understand that shit happens, then she could replace the worst of them
with fresh envelopes—

“You’re getting married at Penis Grove?” Tara asked.
“Sounds like my kind of place.”

“It’s not Penis Grove. It’s
Pettis
Grove,”
Catherine barked, wondering if Tara’s grade-school sense of humor would ever
catch up to her real age.

“No, that’s a penis if I ever saw one,” she noted.
“And I’ve seen all kinds in my lifetime.”

“Do you ever stop?” Catherine challenged, snatching
the card from her hand and reading it to her because obviously she was too
immature to do it herself. “Joel Fynn Trager and Catherine Marie Hemmings
cordially invite you to join them….” But as she read, her eyes skipped to the crux
of the matter. “… Penis Grove.” She breathed the words out and had a hard time sucking
her next breath back in—her heart pounding madly.

“Just like I said,” Tara gloated.

Catherine rubbed at the word with her thumb, hoping it
was a fluke. Maybe it was erasable, fixable, or perhaps not even there at all.
A trick of the mind because she hadn’t had enough sleep last night or any night
in the past two weeks. Maybe she hadn’t just sent ten invitations out to her
parents and their friends—
and God, Aunt Judy
—with “Penis” on them. Maybe
it was just this one invitation that fittingly ended up in Tara’s hands.
Maybe
the rest are totally fine—

She picked up another envelope and ripped it open
wide, her eyes latching onto the word quickly, too quickly—
Penis.
So she
grabbed another envelope and then another, ripping through them pell-mell,
certain this had to be an isolated typo. But there it was.
Penis
—over
and over again.

“Oh, look, it’s on the directions too,” Tara pointed
out in genuine surprise.

“What?” Catherine exclaimed.
She’d
been the one
to make the directions.
She’d
been the one who sent in the copy for the
invitations. “Did I really do that?” she mumbled, talking to herself.

But Tara the philosopher answered anyway. “If absence
makes the heart grow fonder, I guess
abstinence
makes the mind go in the
gutter.”

Thursday, January 20
^th

Catherine looked at her phone, not that she had to see
the screen to know her mother was calling, what with the good old-fashioned phone
ringtone telling her loud and clear. She’d been waiting for this moment. Expecting
it.

“Hello?” she said quickly, trying to sound busy on her
end and maybe prompting her mother to move in quickly for the kill and be done
with it.

“Catherine? We just got the wedding invitation in the
mail. It’s beautiful,” Elizabeth Hemmings said breezily.

Is this some kind of trap?
she wondered.
 

“I really like the deep purple band along the side and
then repeated on the interior of the envelopes. A stunning choice.”

Are you serious, Mother?
 

“And the font is perfect. Did you choose that?”

“I did,” Catherine choked out, bowled over, still awaiting
the judgment that was sure to come.

“It’s just lovely.”

That’s it, she couldn’t take anymore. “You don’t think
it highlighted the
Penis
too much?” Catherine snapped. She could hear
her mother chuckling on the other end. “Laughing? You’re
laughing
, Mom?
Really?” she challenged. She’d expected as much from Fynn when she told him.
And he hadn’t let her down—didn’t even have the decency to stop when she blamed
him for the error because he had left it all up to her in the first place, just
like everything else regarding the wedding. Just kept laughing it off; no help
at all. So she’d blasted him even further, simply for being the reason she had penises
on the brain—at least
his
penis that she hadn’t seen in… forever. But
her
mother
found this funny? A cheap laugh? She thought Elizabeth
Hemmings had standards.

“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It was just such
a—”

“Horrible, awful, ridiculous mistake,” she elaborated
for her.

“It was
funny,
Catherine.”

“You wouldn’t laugh if you’d sent out invitations like
this. Hell, you would—”

“The word is
heck
, Catherine Marie.”

“No, it’s
hell
, Mom. I’m in
hell
right
now.”

“Did they all go out?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did all the invitations go out before you noticed?”

“Well… no.”

“So how many people are going to Penis Grove to see
your wedding?” her mother asked practically. She couldn’t believe how simply
and easily the word penis was escaping her mother’s mouth. 

“Ten, including you. Eleven actually, but Tara
wants
to go there,” Catherine groused.

“So hardly anybody then.”

“It’s a sixth of them,” Catherine stressed.

“Exactly. A mere fraction,” Elizabeth said plainly.

“But it’s
Penis
, Mom.”

“Who’s going to even notice? You didn’t.”

“But I’m a total basket case,” she admitted.

“It’s not the end of the world.”

“I wanted everything to be perfect.”

“Nothing is ever going to be perfect,” her mother
assured her.

“Says the woman who
bleeds
perfect.”

“Life is real, not ideal, Catherine. I’m not perfect
and nobody else is. This could have happened to anyone.”

“Tell that to Connor,” she moped, thinking of his kind
words as he laughed her right off the phone when he got his. “He’s having a field
day. He’s probably posted it on Facebook for all his friends to see—and their
friends—and the friends of their friends—”

“I’ll handle your brother…. Did you handle the
printer? Or do you need—” 

“The new invitations should be ready to go out early
next week.”

“Good. It sounds like you have it all under control.
Are they being done in New York?”

“No, I have to pick them up in Philly.”

“Tell me where and when, and give me your guest list.
I’ll have them addressed and out in no time.”

Catherine felt a prickling in her nose and her vision
blurred with tears. “You don’t have to do that—”

“I want to. Besides, you have other things to do.”

“Thanks, Mom. I could really use the help.”

“We’ll have you married off in no time.” Not a blip of
concern or worry to be found. Sometimes Elizabeth Hemmings’ calm and practical
certainty wrapped around her like a warm hug and made everything all right
again.

“I just wish that I hadn’t sent one to Aunt Judy,”
Catherine admitted with chagrin.

“Judy?” The slightest falter in her mother’s voice. “Any
of those other typos go out to people here in town?” Elizabeth asked.

“Uh… a few, I think.”

She heard her mother shift the phone. “William, grab
our coats. We’re going out!” she hollered.

“What are you doing?” Catherine asked, startled.

“We’re going to get those invitations back.”

“You can’t steal things out of people’s mailboxes,
Mom. It’s a federal offense.”

“I’m glad I taught you well, Catherine Marie, but some
things are more important.”

After she hung up the phone, she stared at it for a
while.
So this is where I get it from.
She’d believed that she was
nothing at all like her mother, and here Elizabeth Hemmings was en route to
burgling the mailboxes of family and friends to protect her daughter.
I
guess it’s genetic.