A Bump in the Road (2 page)

“I do, too. I’ve read a teenager’s patience window is around ten minutes. Sam won’t hesitate to use her Tiffany heart bracelet as a weapon if pissed off.”

In the car after we collected our bags, Sam began to rant. “Holy shit! You are majorly, effing kidding me right now, aren’t you? What a loser! He is such a complete freak show! He’s so totally emo it’s not even funny.” She flicked her long blond hair, perfectly straightened due to a several-hundred-dollar Japanese straightening treatment, rolled her eyes, and snapped her Swarovski-encrusted Sidekick closed. She threw it into the backseat, narrowly missing Jake’s right temple. “So what the eff took you so long? I had to go around the airport forever and this ginormously obese policeman kept blowing his whistle thingy at me.”

“Sorry. We were at baggage claim for a while. The airline lost one of our bags.”

Oh, but Rosemary and her baby sure got their bags promptly.

Jake leaned forward from the backseat and whispered, “What does ‘emo’ mean?”

“How should I know? I don’t speak teenager,” I hissed at him.

Sam’s blue eyes narrowed as she sized me up. “Did you guys get fatter over the weekend or something? You look all puffy.”

“Probably just the hangover. It’s great to see you, too. Where’s Mom and Dad? I thought they were coming.”

“Hel-
lo
, do you think their lives, like,
revolve
around picking you up from the airport? They’re being so annoying today. I have, like, a jillion things to do tonight and they made me come and get you. How am I supposed to get Chris to ask me to KOH when I look like a corpse?”

“What’s KOH?”

“
Duh!
King of Hearts? You know, the dance? God, how freaking old are you, anyway?”

“I’m twenty-seven, Sam.”

“I effing know how old you are, OK? It’s called sarcasm, ever heard of it?”

Assuming her question was rhetorical, I glanced back at Jake with a slightly amused smile. He didn’t miss a beat.

“So, Sam, did you go out and get
wasted
this weekend?” He held up his right hand, his fingers making the Rock On! symbol.

“You guys are so weird.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed her M.A.C. Lipglass out of her Coach purse and applied some using the rearview mirror.

“Um. Sam. Car. Look.”

“What? Oh, whoops,” she said as she swerved away from a parked car.

“Pay attention, OK? I don’t want to die in a massive pileup. Besides, I think this hangover is enough to kill me.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but the Blackeyed Peas’ “Don’t Phunk With My Heart” started blaring in the backseat and she reached behind her to grab her phone while cruising through a red light and nearly ramming into an open car door.

Jake handed her the phone and the last thing I heard before I drifted off was “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. So fugly.”

I jolted awake when we reached my parents’ house and Sam flattened the newspaper in the driveway.

“OK, bitches. Get out,” she said, and jerked her head, her palette earrings swishing back and forth.

My parents were inside, putting away groceries. Sam immediately went upstairs to her room to lie down from the extreme effort it took to drive us home.

“Welcome home!” my mom shouted, her head halfway in the fridge.

“Hey! There they are! The two Vegas whales!” my dad said, slapping Jake on the back.

“Oh, right. We’re up two hundred bucks. I’d hardly call us whales,” I said.

“You two want a beer?” my dad asked.

“No way. I’ve had enough beer for a while,” Jake said, pointedly grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge as my mom closed it.

“We’re so hungover,” I moaned, and laid my head down on the kitchen island.

“Three Tylenols, flat soda with lots of ice, frozen peas on the head, and a little hair of the dog. You know this stuff. Didn’t I teach you anything?” My mom thrust a two-liter bottle of Coke in front of me.

“Mom, this hangover is impervious to the effects of caffeine or sugar. It’s like I’m dying.”

“What the hell did you expect to feel like after coming home from Vegas?”

“Like shit. She’s just whining,” Jake said.

“Has your sinus infection gotten any better?” my mom asked.

“The horse-pill antibiotics cleared it right up. Now, instead of my head exploding from sinus pressure, it’s throbbing due to the virtual bottle of vodka I drank last night.”

“That one, my dear, is your own fault. No sympathy here. And stop complaining, you’re not the one who has to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to make a six
A.M.
flight,” my mom said while trying to shove a container of ice cream into the already bulging fridge.

“Flying out?”

“Yep.”

“Where to this time?”

“Hospital in Austin, Texas. We’re implementing a new HR database.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“Always. I’ll be gone all week so your father has to wrangle Sam himself. I know he has a couple of late meetings so keep your phone on in case she needs to get ahold of you.”

“When are you going to realize she’s seventeen and not six?”

“When I stop watching my oldest daughter’s cat while she’s getting drunk in Vegas over the weekend.”

“Funny. Hey, guess what? A fan recognized me at the airport,” I said.

“That’s so great, honey! Your last blog entry was hysterical. Very funny. How’s the car, Jake?”

“Fixed, thankfully. But I have a feeling the accident is going to live on via Internet lore.” He turned to my dad and said, “Is the game on?”

“Let’s go,” my dad said, and they walked into the other room to commandeer the big-screen television and watch whatever game was referenced.

“Staying for dinner?”

“Of course. Free meals taste the best. What are we having?”

“Pepperoni, sausage, and cheese.”

“Is Mark coming?”

“No. He’s staying in the city. It’s one of his roommates’ birthdays.” She paused. “At least, I think that’s what he said. I think it’s just an excuse to go out on a Sunday night.”

“Mom, when you’re twenty-two you don’t need an excuse. The fact you’re legally allowed to drink in bars still has some luster.”

“Just as long as he doesn’t end up in the gutter somewhere.”

“Clearly you haven’t heard some of his college stories.”

As we sat down to eat pizza an hour later, I watched as Sam picked at the cheese on her plate, not daring to touch the crust for fear of osmotically ingesting a carb. She felt me watching her and snapped her head in my direction and narrowed her eyes. “Do you know your cat is gay?”

“What?” I said. Jake choked a little on his pizza.

“Your. Cat. Gay. Did you know?”

“What is she talking about?” I turned to my parents.

My father had an amused smile on his face.

“What?” I asked him.

“Oh. Nothing. I have no idea what she’s talking about,” he said.

“Mom?”

“Well, let’s just say Butterscotch is
very
interested in women’s fashion.”

“Huh?”

“We came home from dinner the other night and—”

“
No!
Let me tell the story. Mom and Dad came home the other night and your totally weird cat was all bored while you were in Vegas
and we were stuck watching him. Did you know he is so fat and afraid of everything?” Sam said.

“Point?”

“Jeez, relax, psycho. I wasn’t done yet. Way to interrupt me. Anyway, he went into everyone’s rooms while we were gone and brought stuff downstairs and left it on the kitchen floor. Like presents or something. He brought down your old ugly frilly prom dress, mom’s gross black underwear, and my thongs. Mom and Dad came home with the Andersons and tried to explain why there was lingerie and weird crap all over the kitchen.” She took a swig of her water and sat back in her chair, arms crossed.

“Seriously?” I said, and looked back and forth.

“Unfortunately,” my dad said. “It was pretty difficult trying to blame all of that on the cat.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Andersons any time soon. They left pretty quickly,” my mom said.

“I’m so sorry, he’s never done—,” I started to say.

“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, maybe he’s just interested in fashion,” my mom said.

“Why couldn’t you have a cat that was interested in normal fashion, like Citizen Jeans or something, rather than ugly nineties prom dresses and lingerie? Your cat is a freak show.”

As if on cue, we heard the unmistakable sound of Butterscotch howling. We all froze and looked at each other, cautious smiles on our faces. We waited, silent and still, as the howling got louder. I took a sharp breath in and my mom elbowed me to be quiet. Butterscotch rounded the corner into the kitchen, dragging Sam’s hot pink, sparkly feather boa from Halloween behind him.

We jumped up and cheered and Sam let out a snort. “What is wrong with you people? Hel-
lo
, that cat has serious problems. He is so freaking annoying. Aren’t you like totally embarrassed to be associated with him?” she said, turning to me.

“Not really. I’ve been associated with you for seventeen years. I’ll get used to it.”

“You’re such a loser. Just like your cat,” she said, and stomped off, wrenching the boa from Butterscotch, who looked confused that his latest present wasn’t gratefully accepted.

I turned to Jake, who looked positively thrilled.

“This. Is. So. Awesome. That cat can stay,” he said.

1:00
A.M.

Finally, back at our apartment, gay cat and all, I opened my computer and checked my blog’s comments. I yelled to Jake in the bedroom, “Wifey1025 offered to drive you to work tomorrow if your car isn’t fixed yet.”

“Thanks. Tell her I prefer to get hacked into little pieces next week instead of this week.”

“Will do,” I told him as I walked into the bedroom. I jumped into our fluffy marshmallow bed and snuggled underneath the comforter. “How great does it feel to get in bed?” I asked him, my face buried in a pillow.

“Pretty damn good,” he said, and stretched his arms over his head.

“I know, but Jake?” I poked him in his ribs.

“Yeah?”

“I’m kinda hungry again,” I said, and smiled at him.

“Jesus, we just ate a few hours ago.” He flipped on the television.

“I know, but it’s the hangover. I’ve gone from extreme nausea to ravenous hunger pains. My body is finally ready to accept food. There’s all that leftover pizza my mom gave us.”

“OK, fine,” he said as he casually turned off the television. He slowly sat up in bed. “The deep-dish slices are mine!” he yelled as he scrambled out of bed and nearly trucked over Butterscotch lying in the doorjamb.

“NOT COOL!” I yelled as I chased after him.

He got to the kitchen first and yanked out the pizza box so forcefully the leftover slices slid out onto the floor.

“Nice going,” I laughed.

He looked at me and shrugged. “Ten-second rule?”

We both paused and smirked at each other before diving onto the floor and trying to salvage the slices not covered in cat hair. We leaned against the kitchen cabinets and silently munched on the cold pizza.

“Leftover pizza is nothing short of amazing,” I mumbled as I wiped pizza sauce off my mouth.

“I’ll show you amazing.” Jake smiled wickedly at me as he took the pizza crust from my hand.

“Kitchen floor? I don’t think so. When’s the last time we actually cleaned this thing? Actually, have we ever cleaned this floor?” I said as I tried to grab the crust back.

“Probably not. Who cares? Let’s have fun.”

“Well . . . what the hell,” I said, and allowed him to pull me closer.

We didn’t get back to bed until almost two in the morning. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted tomorrow and find cat hair and dust in some very interesting places, but as Jake said, “Who cares?” We haven’t even been married a year—we’re still newlyweds. We can have sex on the kitchen floor until the crack of dawn while eating leftovers, right? By my calculations we only have a few more years to do things like that, so we might as well take advantage.

As I feared, getting out of bed this morning was quite difficult. Newlyweds or not, four hours of sleep after a weekend in Vegas isn’t a good idea. I slunk into Signature Events forty-five minutes late due to a steaming-cup-of-coffee/new-white-blouse debacle. Apparently, even though I have the high and mighty title of Event Director and regularly plan black-tie events with healthy six-figure budgets, I still have difficulty getting out the door without spilling something on myself.

I kept my head down as I tiptoed into my office, careful not to make my keys jangle as I set them in my purse. I threw off my coat
and shoved it under my desk; no time to walk over to the coat rack and hang it up.

I sat down at my desk and Mule Face immediately walked in. I looked up with my best
I have been here for an hour already, can I help you?
smile.

“Don’t worry. Christina’s not here yet,” Mule Face said, licking strawberry Pop-Tart frosting off her chubby index finger.

“Oh, um, er, OK.” I stared at her, waiting for whatever bomb she obviously had in her arsenal.

She took another bite of her Pop-Tart and the whole thing crumbled and fell to the floor. “Damn it!” She looked down and shrugged her shoulders at the pastry and jam mess sprinkling the carpet of my office. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you Carolyn Wittenberg came in on Friday when you were off.” She smiled, revealing the frighteningly large cosmetic veneers that inspired her moniker.