2 Months 'Til Mrs. (2 'Til Series) (25 page)

“I told you to be ready,” Tara snapped the moment Catherine
opened the door to slip in the passenger side.

“I
am
ready.”

“I’ve been waiting in the car for fifteen minutes.”

“It was five minutes.”

“Still, this is time-sensitive and—” Tara sniffed at
the air. “Why do you smell like maple syrup and cinnamon and… is that nutmeg?
You had French toast, didn’t you?”

“Are you some kind of bloodhound?”

“I know my breakfast foods.”

Catherine ignored her. “So, where are we going?”

Tara turned off the car and unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Into the happy Hemmings home for some French toast.”

“But I thought this was time sensitive.”

“I can’t shop with you smelling like breakfast. It’s
too distracting. Besides, if you deserve a home-cooked breakfast, then I
certainly do too.” With that she was out of the car and halfway up the walk,
and within moments she was swallowed inside the house.

Catherine took in the dashboard in front of her,
played with some of the knobs, when it suddenly hit her—Tara didn’t even have a
car. So whose was this?
And it smells
…. But before she could think any
further about it she saw Tara coming down the walk with a fistful of French
toast, a coffee, and a little Tupperware container.

Once she was seated, Catherine asked, “How did
Elizabeth take to you running in and snatching breakfast?”

“She was sweet as can be. Gave me syrup to go,” Tara
said, holding up the Tupperware.

“Sweet?”

“Yup. I don’t know what you’re always complaining
about when it comes to your mom.”

What the hell is happening here? She used to ream
me up and down for trying to eat and run, or eat on the run, or mix any two
verbs together at one time. First Cara and now my friends? Everyone else
catches a break but me?

Trying her best to disregarding her friend’s hasty and
French-toasted-tainted view of Elizabeth Hemmings, Catherine asked, “How did
you get here so fast, anyway?”

“You know that new guy I was going to meet up with
last night? He lives near here. We saw a band in Philly and I crashed with
him,” she said with a wink.

“Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Because he could have killed you in your sleep.”

“Killed me with orgasms maybe. But I’m not sure I
would mind going that way.”

“You are unbelievable,” Catherine groaned.

“Just lucky I guess.”

“So where’d you get the car?”

“Nice, right? It’s brand new.”

Catherine snapped her fingers.
That
was it—the
smell of
new
; she hadn’t smelled that in her car since the last
millennium. But there were more important things to consider right now. “You
bought a car?”

“Pfft, no. This is Nick’s car,” Tara said, like she
was being ridiculous.

“Nick?”

“From last night.”

“One ‘date’ and the guy lets you take his car?”
Catherine asked, clearly impressed and unnerved all at once.

“It
was
a date, Cat, so you can holster your
air quotes. And in case you’re implying that I stole the car, I didn’t. I left
him a note,” she said simply, as if telling and asking were entirely
interchangeable in this situation.

“What if he calls the cops?” The question a mere notch
below screech.

“He wouldn’t do that…. He
is
a cop, so if he
really had a problem with it—”

“You took a cop’s car?” Catherine asked incredulously,
wondering if Tara’s realm of stupidity knew no bounds.

“I borrowed his wheels. No big deal. You don’t have to
blow everything out of proportion. After we’re done I’ll take it back.”

“Done doing what?” she asked warily, fearing this car
might end up being the least of their worries.

“I got wind of a sale,” Tara said out the side of her
face, eyes on the road, French toast filling the other cheek to bursting.

“What kind of sale?”

“A wedding dress sale—brand name designers up to
eighty percent off!”

“Sounds hinky.”

“Vinnie swears by it. He sends all of his brides
there.”

“He never mentioned anything to me.”

“Pops up a few times a year. Never the same place
twice.”

“Sounds more like a rave,” Catherine groused.

“Listen, he called me last night. Told me to get your
ass to the river.”  

“Wait a second. Is it at a
warehouse
on the
river?” Catherine asked, startled, remembering the strange text she’d gotten: have
what you want—old altap warehouse—sun. 7:30—cash in hand. “That was Vinnie? God,
I thought it was a ransom drop that someone sent me by accident.... I almost
called the police!”

“Boy would you have looked like a total idiot when
they busted up a wedding dress sample sale.”

“And are these samples stolen?” she prodded.

“How should I know!” Tara exclaimed. “And beggars
can’t really be choosers, now can they?”

*****

“That’s it!” Tara hollered triumphantly, diving through
the throbbing crowd of brides-to-be who were all sharp elbows and cutthroat
attitudes, reaching for the gown that another woman had just swung out from
between a crushing number of dresses along the rod.

“Excuse me,” the woman said brusquely, clutching the
fabric tightly in her manicured grip. Obviously she wasn’t new to this
no-holds-barred shopping game, standing there in her perfect jeans and
knee-high boots, and her perfect wool coat belted at her perfect waist, with a
jaunty plaid hat on her perfect blonde head—all of it probably acquired in
hand-to-hand-combat sales. “This is
my
dress.”

“It’s still on the rod,” Tara pointed out, obviously
not new to this either.

Catherine, on the other hand,
was
new to this.
She didn’t like to fight for her clothes, would rather pay full retail just to
avoid such jousts.

“I had my hands on it first,” the woman leveled.

“I had my eyes on it from across the room.”

“That doesn’t account for anything,” the woman
smirked.

Tara wasn’t one to back down even when she was unquestionably
in the wrong—like right now—so Catherine was pretty sure this was about to come
to fisticuffs. Not that she wanted to stop her friend—it
was
an
absolutely gorgeous dress (no bad juju at all). But seeing as how she was a
complete chickenshit, she was thinking more along the lines of diving under the
racks of dresses to hide rather than chance the possibility of ending up
tag-teamed into something. Maybe she could just slip out and wait in the alley
and hope that Tara won before the cops were called, or maybe she should pull up
to the door with the “borrowed” getaway car just in case they needed to make a
run for it.

“Listen, my friend is getting married in a month and
she wants nothing more than to be wearing—” Tara flicked the tag hanging from
the dress. “—Olaf Cassidy on that day.”

A wicked smile spread across the woman’s face, one
that said Tara had just made a serious misstep.

“
Oh
, Olaf Cassidy? … Well, since this is
Oleg
Cassini
, I’m guessing this isn’t what your friend is looking for.”

Catherine winced, waiting for the first punch, sure
the woman was about to take one right in the kisser. But Tara kept her cool.
“You don’t understand, my friend has amnesia—no short-term memory at all. She
doesn’t even remember the man she’s marrying. The only thing she does remember
is the dress she’s dreamed of since she was a little girl. It looks just like
this. See? She sent me this picture to find it for her.”

“You just took that picture from across the room,” the
woman said darkly. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“But my friend
feels
like she was born
yesterday,” Tara said sadly.

The woman looked past her to Catherine, giving her the
once-over.

“Oh, that’s not her,” Tara said quickly, smelling
weakness in Catherine’s improv abilities. “We’re the bridesmaids. She still knows
us because we’ve been friends since childhood. But she doesn’t even know her
fiancé who she is marrying in a month. She has to relearn everything about the
last few years of her life every single morning. Her fiancé made her a tape and
everything. She watches it every day to remind herself what happened to her and
what is going on in her life. That’s why she can’t be here shopping for her
dress, because at this very moment she is watching that tape and learning about
the tragic accident that took her memory.”

“That’s sad,” the woman said, looking from Tara to
Catherine. “This friend doesn’t just so happen to be Drew Barrymore, does it?”

Catherine cringed. Using the plot of a romantic comedy
on a woman was dangerous lying territory.

“Actually, it’s not Drew. You see, Drew’s an
actress
,”
Tara said, enunciating slowly like the woman was an idiot. “I’m friends with
the real woman. That movie,
Fifty First Dates
, was based on my friend’s
life. I met Drew during the filming, though. She was really great. Totally
down-to-earth. The type who would give up her wedding dress for my friend in a
heartbeat,” Tara said with shameless certainty.

Dr. Ficks’ office looked exactly the same as it always
had, but the nostalgia didn’t serve her well, transporting her back to memories
of being poked and prodded or feeling like absolute crap whenever she was in
this place. This time she was no longer the patient though—
so then why do I still
feel like absolute crap?

Because in two days flat she’d broken Cara.

She’d only had permission to take her to New York. To
her apartment. To watch her for the weekend. Now here she was in Pennsylvania,
at the doctor no less.
Could I be accused of kidnapping? What’s the rule
about crossing state lines with kids?
She should never have taken Cara gallivanting
all around New York City and back and forth to her parents’ house…. She should
never have taken her out of Nekoyah at all. Drew had capable mothering hands;
I’ve
got hands with a bad manicure and a tendency to sweat—like they are right now.
If Cara had just stayed in Nekoyah, where Fynn and Renée had intended her to
be, she probably wouldn’t have gotten an earache at all.

Catherine had been prone to bad luck all her life—
maybe
it’s catching.
Or this was karma, considering the dishonestly won wedding dress
hanging in her childhood closet at this very moment. Or maybe, just maybe, it
had nothing to do with her at all. A simple illness Cara had picked up back
when someone else was in charge—kids are carriers of all kinds of things; Fynn
had said as much.

Who am I kidding?

Whoever was to blame for this current state of
affairs, Catherine had totally panicked when she got back from shopping to find
the vibrant Cara she’d left behind had turned into the listless little girl lying
on the couch with her head in Elizabeth Hemmings’ lap.
Is it a tumor? Will
they have to operate? Will there be permanent damage? I can’t send her home deaf!
Not that she said any of this out loud. No, on the outside she was struck
dumb, entirely unsure what to do, who to call, what degree of responsibility
she should admit to if interrogated. But Elizabeth Hemmings knew exactly what
to do, her magic fingers calmly stroking through Cara’s little-girl hair, a
method that soothed sore throats and earaches and tummy aches into submission
and made you feel…
loved
. Plus, she’d already called Dr. Ficks’ office, and
Catherine saw “sick soda” on the coffee table—a glass of flat ginger ale.

A scrabbling sound on the other side of the door
incited a second of terror, a conditioned response Catherine had to being told
to strip down and put her feet in the stirrups. But then the door opened and a
familiar voice brought her back down to reality—confused reality.

“Well hello there, what seems to be the trouble?”

This was definitely
not
old Dr. Ficks.

Catherine had seen the man standing before her in
various stages of dress and undress—completely naked in fact (no one forgets
the sight of her first live penis!)—but to see him robed in a white lab coat? He
looked good. Better now even. Mature. Confident. Hardly the boy she’d dumped in
front of God and everybody. Certainly not broken down from her slight all those
years ago—he was a pediatrician for Christ’s sake! And married, too, judging
from the platinum ring on his hand. Actually, she’d heard that news several
years ago (must have blocked it out what with her ongoing singlehood). It was
all coming back to her now—the busty blonde wife and the kids, too. Sons. Twins
in fact. The spitting image of their father.

“Cat? Catherine Hemmings?” He looked at the patient
file in his hands, perplexed.

“Daniel freakin’ Bell?
Dr.
Bell?” Surprise was liberally
sprinkled in her words to mask the jealousy that was threatening to simmer over
the edges as she thought of the nameless, faceless wife who had gotten him
and
two of the four kids that she’d been certain she would have with him by now.
But
I didn’t even want him. I dumped him! And why the hell is he here now? In kind
old Dr. Ficks’ office—

“It’s Dr. Daniel, actually.” He pointed toward his
nametag. He must have read the confusion on her face because he added, “I’m
taking over the practice when Dr. Ficks retires. For now I just fill in on
holidays and weekends while he gets used to the idea.”

Catherine suddenly felt the supreme nakedness of her left
hand. Blindsided by her past and she didn’t even have
the ring
that
proved she was
happy
and
engaged
! She’d taken it off to moisturize
and then forgotten to put it back on. But soft hands were important. They made
a statement. Though not as big of a statement as a brilliantly sparkling engagement
ring did. Right about now she would give anything to be wearing the proof that
she wasn’t a still-unmarried loser but in fact a bona fide, marriageable
fiancée—

But this isn’t about me,
she reminded herself.

“This is Cara,” Catherine said, guiding her out from
behind the exam table where she was hiding with her Caramellie dollhouse set
that she’d brought with her because her mommy said not to play with the toys in
the doctor’s office—the ones the sick kids played with. Renée was obviously a
woman after Elizabeth Hemmings’ heart.

“There’s my patient!” he exclaimed, as if her little
invisible routine had really tricked him. His voice was so friendly and caring.
The perfect bedside manner.
If he were my doctor I would be putty in his
hands.
He had great hands… and that crooked smile, and the way his—

“Now, what seems to be the trouble that brings you
ladies in to see me today?” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and sat down with
the file, all business.

Catherine hoped he wouldn’t delve too deeply into said
file or the sketchy patient information she’d filled out. This process had
definitely taught her just how much she didn’t know about Cara, and there was
only so much a five-year-old knew about herself. Cara knew what shots were, but
what vaccinations she’d had or how many was beyond her—the only thing she knew
definitively was she didn’t want them to
shoot her today. And further
down the form things hadn’t gotten any easier. Catherine didn’t know if Cara
had broken any bones before or if she was a normal vaginal birth or what her
birth weight or length was… or if she had any allergies. She didn’t know
anything it seemed. But the last thing she wanted to do was call Fynn and ask. At
the very least she wanted to get the diagnosis before she worried anybody—make
sure it wasn’t something she had caused by feeding Cara ancient Pop-Tarts or using
a phone book as a booster seat.

“Her ear is bothering her,” Catherine offered.

“Why don’t I take a look at that,” Dr. Daniel said.
“If I could just have your—” He flipped through the pages of the file
uncertainly, then stopped and looked from Cara to Catherine. Under mother it
said Renée. And the father field was blank. And there was no place on the
patient forms to explain that she was the fiancée of the guardian-to-be of the patient
in question. “Could you help Cara up on the table?” he asked, looking
conflicted. Any other doctor would probably be inclined to report the situation
at this point rather than treating a minor with shady patient information. But
of course he knew she wasn’t a kidnapper or anything. Not Catherine Marie
Hemmings! They’d dated for a year, which was like forever in teenage years.
He
probably thinks I’m her nanny—a bad nanny at that.
    

Cara pressed up against her side, showing her complete
trust, and Catherine would have liked nothing better than to pull her into her
lap and hug her, but instead she dutifully picked her up and put her on the
exam table, keeping close.

“You hold her hand and keep her safe while I look in
your ear,” he said to Cara, giving her a wink.

But of course he can wink too. He’s just perfect
with his platinum ring and perfect family and all that winking….
Catherine
had never been able to wink at all with one of her eyes and could hardly do so
with the other. It was like her mind had no synapses that routed to her eyelids.
Of course Daniel Bell didn’t know this little tidbit. It wasn’t something she’d
shared with him as an awkward teen. Fynn, on the other hand, had known her much
less time and knew all about it. Taunted her about it whenever possible—winking
one eye and then the other in quick succession, claiming it was a sign that he
was gifted. Yeah, he was
special
all right.

“How long has she been complaining about it?”

Catherine shook herself back into the moment. “Just the
last few hours….”
While I was busy grifting a wedding dress… for my wedding…
because I’m getting married. Too bad I had to take the ring off; it’s just so
exhausting lugging that rock around.

“I see….” He pulled out his ear examining tool and
flicked on the light—very self-importantly it seemed. He peered in Cara’s ear. “Wow!
It’s dark in there,” he cajoled. “And messy. Looks like someone had a party
inside.”

Cara giggled and squirmed slightly.

“She had no fever, but I gave her some ibuprofen for
the pain,” Catherine pointed out; self-importance right back at him. Of course
it was actually her mother who had nursed Cara, but she didn’t want to admit
that her mommy was taking care of things. Besides, she’d like to think she
could have done as much for Cara; give her a few pills. Not that she knew how
much to give… or if Cara could swallow them… or if her mom crushed them up and
served them in applesauce like she used to do when Catherine was little.
I know
nothing about being a mom.

“I see,” he said again. “Well, it looks like she has a
mild case of swimmer’s ear.” He turned off the ear-thingy tool and dropped it
back in his pocket, walking toward the counter where he’d left her file. “Has
she been swimming recently?”

“In the winter? Of course not,” she said stridently,
like just asking her that was implying she was a poor caregiver.

He looked at her, a bemused expression. “No swimming
lessons at the Y?”

Catherine felt her face flush with embarrassment and
looked to Cara for the answer. Maybe she
was
taking swimming
lessons—indoor lessons. And that would mean this wasn’t something that happened
on her watch.

“I haven’t gone swimming since the summer,” Cara
offered, blowing the whole theory right out of the water.

“No swimming except for in the tub then?” Dr. Daniel
asked kindly.

“I love to swim in the tub,” Cara said. “I can hold my
breath for hours.”

Dr. Daniel chuckled and looked to Catherine. “That
sounds about right.”

“Can you really get swimmer’s ear from the tub?”

“Any water that gets trapped in the ear can irritate
and eventually infect it. I would say she needs to keep her head above water.”

“Easier said than done,” Catherine said with chagrin.

He looked at the file again and scratched his head. “So
you are Cara’s—”

“I’m her… um… friend—I’m babysitting.” She stumbled on
her words, reaching for the locket at her neck and worrying it along the chain,
reminding herself that the man she loved gave her that gift and it didn’t
matter what Daniel Bell thought about her situation. “She’s my fiancé’s
daughter….” But of course that wasn’t right either. “He’s with her mother right
now and I was just looking after her while—” She stopped. There was no way to
define this relationship. Not while Cara’s mom was still alive. And she didn’t
want the woman to—
die already and make it quick so my place can be more cut
and dry.
What Fynn was doing was noble and good and decent, but when she
tried to explain it clinically or on a form or to Daniel Bell it just sounded—

“She’s going to be my mommy someday,” Cara piped up.
“My mommy is really sick and when she dies Cat will be my mommy.” The words
sounded so haunting out of such sweet little lips. Not resignation but
acceptance. 

Daniel Bell, her high school sweetheart, looked at her,
wounded surprise in his eyes. He wasn’t looking at her like she was some kind
of freak. He seemed… touched. “Ooh, don’t move… what is that?” He reached
toward her.

“What?” she asked, startled, certain he was about to
say she had a giant spider crawling on her. She froze, squinting her eyes
closed in wait.

“You’re all red along your neck there. Have you been
scratching at it?”

“No.” Her answer was definitive. Certainly it was just
the chain rubbing along her neck from fiddling with the locket…. But as soon as
her denial was out of her mouth, her hand went to the place he was looking and
absently scratched at it, making her realize she had been scratching at it on
and off all morning… all day for that matter.

“That looks like….”

Please don’t say poison ivy,
she thought,
remembering the one and only bout she’d ever had—last spring when she first met
Fynn. She didn’t have time for such things. She was planning a wedding! She was
getting married in just over a month—thirty-four days to be exact.

“Hives,” he said definitively, standing close—too
close. But of course he had to be close. He was examining her neck!

“Hives? How on earth did I get hives?”

“They are your body’s overreaction to something. A
food you’ve eaten. A soap or detergent you’re using. Often an outbreak is mental—”

“You saying I’m nuts?” she chortled, snorting in that
damn Liggans way. Her mother’s people were a regular laugh riot with that
trait.

“I’m saying that stress can bring them on. Are you
under a good deal of stress?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I just mean something more than the usual?”

Wedding—long-distance fiancé—sick kid—you name it.