Page 20 of December Wishes
“The one with that one who was in the Thor movie… Nat… Natalie Portman.”
“What about it?”
“You don’t remember? The Wal-Mart Baby movie?”
Lorri’s eyes widened to astronomical proportions. “Don’t you dare!”
“I ain’t the one doing anything! It’s the baby!” Joan grabbed the handrail. “Anyway, if you don’t want our kid to be a real-life Wal-Mart Baby, I’m thinking we better get our asses over to the hospital. Whatever the nearest one is…”
She almost couldn’t finish her sentence. The awkward pain crawling up her body and about to explode out of her mouth was too much to bear.Where the hell did this come from, and why does it gotta happen now?
How far along was she again? Was her baby still premature?
“Lorri!”
“Yeah, yeah! Got it! Getting the wheelchair!”
There was, of course, a commotion to do with all the product in the wheelchair basket and Lorri attempting to take it into the bathroom. Yet as soon as she screamed,“My partner’s going into labor, you numb nuts!”Joan was flanked by employees in blinding blue and one woman with a thick accent yelling into a phone, “Yeah hun I think we gots us a code three in the ladies’ john! Yeah! Uh huh! Gotcha!”
Joan didn’t know what was worse. Was it going into labor in a freakin’ store bathroom? Or having a ton of strangers in polyester vests and hair held up with chemicals watching her as she lifted from a toilet and left behind one helluva mess for somebody to clean up?
Better here than at home, I guess.That was the only time she thought that for the next twenty-four hours. Unlike Lorri, who spent that same amount of time running around in circles and making panicked phone calls to her friends.
One day, their kid would ask Joan how labor went.“Well, you know,”Joan would say, whether cooking dinner, driving to the library, or shopping for school clothes.“It wasn’t that special, I guess. Was out shopping for Oreos when suddenly you came shooting down the tunnel like you were a puppy seeing snow for the first time.”
Thank God it wasn’t snowing that cold December day. Not even the ambulance drivers were used to it in that town. Bad enough they had one pregnant woman screaming bloody murder and another woman praying to God for the first time in her life.
Chapter 12
KRYS & SIOBHAN
It was the same argument every week.
“I changed it last time!” Quimby shouted from the couch in the lounge. “Last Thursday! Check the chore wheel!”
You are literally full of crap.Krys was looking at the wall of chores right now, which was a glorified white board with a grid and magnets. Between “clean the kitchen” and “scrub the toilets” was “change the litterbox.” By some miracle, the magnet representing any of Paradise Valley’s fine firefighters was always under “Done!” or some other task that wasn’t as gross as changing out the litterboxes shared by four rambunctious kittens.
Here came little Miss Meg right now.
“Oh, my God,” Krys could hardly believe what she saw. There went Meg, the kitten with the hairiest bottom. She walked with the curious pride of a juvenile cat who had plenty to check out around the firehouse, but that dingleberry hanging from her haunches did not do much for her image. “Young!”
The biggest guy in the firehouse poked his head around the kitchen wall. “What?”
“Grab Meg while I get the scissors!”
“Don’t tell me…”
Trimming the gross out of Meg’s fur was a common enough occurrence in the firehouse that they had a routine. Young, who was impervious to cat bites and scratches, scooped her into his arms and held her in place while the lucky winner of that day’s Butt Roulette trimmed the gunk out of the cat’s fur. It was either that or let the girl run around the fire station with poop bouncing in the wind or, worse, scooting from one end of the station to the other.
Really the graceful one, aren’t you?Krys forever regretted naming her after Megan Rapinoe. She liked to think Meg’s namesake was way more hygienic than this.
“You know,” came a voice behind Krys, as she attempted the delicate extraction of poop from cat fur, “there’s a way better way to do that.”
Krys didn’t let that voice distract her as she stared at Meg’s butt. “Keep a good hold on her, buddy,” she said to Young.
“Oh, she’s an absolute darling. My cat would have ripped off my arm by now. Maybe she knows you’re trying to help her.” Here came the kissy noises. “Who’s a good girl? Meg’s a good girl. I would die for you, Meg. You know that, right?”
Krys had to refrain from groaning, lest she slip up with the scissors.
