Pumpkin
Pete Riddell watched his best friend enter the dusty office. Clearly the guys thought the dust was an acceptable accent to the rustic decor. "Hey boss, the Carter boys called. They need an extra week before we can set up the scaffolding. Byron landscaping needs the scaffolding off the Plager's lot or he will tear it down himself!"
"Anything else, Pumpkin?" Jeremy pulled his faded ball cap from his head, placing it on the folders of completed jobs.
"Yeah. Why'd you give the tickets to Saturday's game to the Doc?" Pete walked to Jeremy's desk. "I love the Yankees! You know I love the Yankees! Still, you crushed me by giving the tickets away." He looked at his boss.
Jeremy looked back at his lifelong buddy. "Pumpkin, you would take the Thompson twins and their cousin, Pansy."
"Mandy!"
"Mandy to the game so you could have better odds of scoring with one or more of them." Jeremy shook his head.
"Yeah, you already know this. That's my M.O. baby!" Pete sandwiched his hands together and began to rub. "I have a lot to offer."
"Pfft!" Jeremy shook his head yet again then rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the great plan! Too bad, I need you to work Saturday."
In his best New York accent, Pete grabbed his Yankees baseball cap. "Forget about it! I don't do Saturdays." He proudly described his weekend. "If it's not the game ~ it's the cottage. If it's not the cottage ~ it's Lopez's pool party."
"I get it. I get it!" Jeremy paused. "Saturday morning or I have to let you go." He raised his eyebrows. The boss played tried to motivate his friend.
"Ah really man! The 'let-you-go' card with your buddy?" Pete fell to his knees and ripped his cap from his balding head.
"Get off the fucking floor! You look like the Wicked Witch of the East, 'I'm melting, I'm melting'!" Jeremy held firm. "Get the fuck up, Pete."
Pete gave his boss a serious look. He only called him Pete once since grade six and that was to tell him his girlfriend took off with the town drunk and they were killed in a fiery accident. "What is it, Jeremy?"
"Sit your ass down." Jeremy looked at his friend as Pete scrambled to roll his office chair under his butt.
"Fuck me!" Pete connected the dots. "What did Francis tell you?"
Jeremy twitched, looked away then back to his friend. "Ahh..." He didn't know how to say it so he just spit it out as he shrugged. "It's cancer. It's fucking lung cancer, okay?"
Pete bolted from his chair. "What the hell do you mean, okay? Of course, it's not okay! Getting herpes is okay. Finding out a girlfriend is pregnant is okay." Pete winced at that suggestion. "I am even okay if you want to horn dog your way in with the twins. But I am not okay with you having cancer!"
Jeremy stood face-to-face with his friend. "Well, I don't get that option, Pete! It's not like I can say, 'Francis, I'm gonna pass on this lung cancer thing. Pete can't do Saturdays and I really need to get out of this fucking town!"
"You are like the guy who saved me from David Franken after I slept with his sister."
"His girlfriend." Jeremy shook his head.
"No, you slept with his girlfriend, I slept with his sister." Pete corrected his friend.
"I never slept with his girlfriend."
"You didn't?" Pete looked confused.
"No, I didn't. Wait. We are talking about grade eleven, the first school dance you asked to borrow my truck."
Pete laughed then corrected Jeremy again. "That was grade twelve. Remember? We drove by David's house and his girlfriend Sandra ran out screaming that he cheated on her." Pete pointed at Jeremy. "Now do you remember?"
"Yeah!" It all came back to him. "You got jiggy with his girlfriend at the bonfire and..." Jeremy smiled. "There's a reason he haunted you the entire year, Pumpkin!"
"Come to think of it, you may be right, Boss." Pete agreed.
The two old friends settled down into their dusty office chairs both shaking their heads. "That was a year to remember, Pumpkin."
"For you maybe!" Pete laughed. "And who says, 'get jiggy' anymore?"
Jeremy frowned before recalling something Pete said earlier. "You're okay with me getting herpes?" He shook his head as he tossed a pencil at his friend.
"You want to get out of this town?" Pete countered tossing the pencil back at Jeremy.
"Yeah well, there are no women left here. The ones on the dating apps don't want to move out of the city until they retire. Go figure!" Jeremy leaned on his desk. "I don't know ~ I guess that's a moot point now if I don't survive the big C."
"You'll beat it, man! It's a done deal. They can cure just about anything nowadays." Pete did something he swore he would never do. "And ~ and I will freely give up this one Saturday to work...for you."
Jeremy jokingly fell off his chair and Pete rushed to him.
"Jeremy!" He looked down at his lifelong friend holding his stomach. "Boss, are you okay?"
"Pumpkin?"
"Yeah." Pete move closer and crouched down with concern for his friend.
"Stop calling me, Boss!" He frowned. "We've been best friends since God knows when. And..." Jeremy winced.
"And what, Boss. I mean ~ Jeremy." Pete self-corrected.
"And you're standing on my fucking hand, you moron!" Jeremy ripped his hand from beneath Pete's dirty boot.
The Kids
Chastity, Austin & Harmony
Gwen sat in her SUV, staring straight ahead. "Geezus, I can't go out like this. Chast needs me to get through her teen years. Austin doesn't have a father figure in his life. And Harmony can't be a princess the rest of her life! They need me ~ here!"
A text alert sounded bringing her back to reality. She sighed deeply then her eyes flashed open. "The kids!" Gwen feverishly hunted for her cellphone inside her oversized purse she calls a family bag.
Gwen pushed aside the makeup for her and her daughters, the whistle for safety and for refereeing family squabbles in the SUV. Her wallet. A clutch for those late invitations to dinner after work. Sanitary wipes, makeup wipes, facial tissues, and the tickets to the Blue Jays game.
"Gotcha!" She held the cellphone up as if she had won a trophy. Gwen read the text from her eldest child.
Mom, there's spring dance for girls only!!!! Can I?
Gwen responded. Chast, honey...we will C. Okay?
A short time passed before the return text.
I guess. We took a vote. Pizza for dinner will you pick it up?
Sure Chast. Be home about 7.
At that precise moment in time, the diagnosis hit Gwen hard. She clutched her cellphone in her right hand, and the steering wheel in her left hand then broke down. She sobbed as if her heart broke into a million pieces.
When Gwen finished feeling vulnerable she cleaned herself up, reapplied her makeup, and headed for the salon. She looked into the rearview mirror and spoke to herself as if she were a coach. "That's it for the tears, Gwen. You are going to beat this! All hands on deck, nothing to blah blah blah! I never really listened to the coaches. You're just gonna have to wing it, Baby!"
She bit down on her lip and drove on. Her assistant, Kaylee called. "Where the hell are you, Gwen? Your one o'clock is waiting in your chair."
"Shit!" Gwen checked the dash clock. It read one-forty-five. "My God, where did the time go?! Okay okay okay. I am flying there now! I'll be there in five!"
Kaylee smiled as she turned to Gwen's client. "She is hurtling towards us as we speak!"
Gwen rushed through the door, threw her family bag behind the counter knocking over a few boxes of newly arrived hair products. "Shit!" She rushed to her client. "Mrs. Fairfield, I don't know what to say. I am truly sorry for making you wait so, so long." Consoling her client.
"I assume it's free." The older woman believed she should be compensated.
"Mrs. Fairfield this is not the pizzeria." She chuckled. "My time will be free but the products are not." Gwen looked into the mirror at her client. "Fair?"
"I feel embarrassed waiting here in the chair." Mrs Fairfield looked away. "I feel it should be free." Though she did not come across as it being a hard line.
"I'm trying to feed my kids here. You can take the discount but nothing in life is free." She raised an eyebrow to Mrs. Fairfield.
"I'll take the discount, Gwen. How are your kids?" The hard feelings Mrs. Fairfield had simply vanished. The truth is she came to the shop for the gossip more than her hair.
"You know kids, they grow up so quickly. Chastity believes she will be a professional dancer. Austin wants to run the Canadian Space Agency and Harmony...well, I think she wants to be a princess forever!" Gwen sighed as she prepped the older woman's hair for her highlights.
"Harmony wants to be a princess?" Mrs. Fairfield scoffed.
"We should let them ~ at least ~ try. Life is too short. Waaaay too short." Gwen began to tear up but continued on with Mrs. Fairfield. She looked around her shop filled with the people she had known even before her kids were born.
Gwen finished her day a half-hour later than she wanted but she still needed to provide for her children. She checked the big clock on the wall. "Shit, dinner's gonna be late!"
Chastity called Gwen "Hey Mom, where are you? The pizza place called wondering where you were."
"Just leaving now, Chast, be home soon. Okay? Love you!"
She rushed to grab the pizza, then home to chaos. The kids found something to argue over. Maybe one looked at another with a funny face, who knows? Kids are unpredictable at the best of times.
"Chastity, you're the oldest, why are they running around like world war three?!" Gwen searched for an answer from her eldest but was met with a teenage girl dilemma.
"Mom! I need thirty dollars for a dance outfit, Tricia wants to know if I can stay over Friday night and..." Chastity watched as her mother fell into a kitchen chair burying her face.
"Mom?" Chastity looked up at her fighting siblings. "Guys! Shut the hell up! Something's wrong with Mom!"
Harmony ran to her mother first while Austin dropped his Star Wars lightsaber and followed his younger sister. "Mom." Gwen did not lookup. "Mom?" She ran her little fingers over Gwen's hair, then the youngest looked at Chastity.
The eldest daughter never witnessed her mother so vulnerable. "Mom. What is it?" Chastity spoke slowly, awaiting her mother's answer.
Gwen looked up with swollen red eyes then stood. "Come with me." She led them to the big sofa, and pulled Harmony to her lap. "Sit down, guys."
Austin looked to his older sister who frowned at him in response. The two sat on either side of their mother and the youngest sibling.
"I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it." Gwen took a deep breath. "I have cancer."
How could she not know those three words would cause a tsunami of questions? Austin jumped up. The overlapping voices seemed to drown each other out until Gwen took control like an alpha dog in the pack.
"Okay okay okay! Settle down! Austin sit!" Gwen pointed to the open space next to her. "Chastity, not another word!" She kissed her youngest. "Harmony, look at me." Ever so slightly her youngest child looked up. "Let's not rush to any conclusions here, guys. There are great treatment options."
Chastity tugged on Gwen's blouse. "What...what's going to happen?"
"Well, you kids are going to a Jays game Saturday with your uncle Bobby. So Chast, you can't go to Tricia's Friday night."
Chastity rolled her eyes but held her tongue.
"I will be leaving for the city Tuesday morning and will meet with another doctor. We'll know more then."
Gwen watched Austin shake his head and walk to the kitchen. He grabbed a slice of pizza. "Great idea, let's eat guys!"
Harmony helped her mom up from the sofa. "Come on, Mom. You need to eat too!"
"Argh, coming Baby." Gwen pulled her daughter close and began to tickle her youngest who tried to wiggle away.
"Noooooooo! Mooooooooommmmm!" Harmony howled and the other kids returned to tickle their mom in defense of their baby sister. Austin pushed the coffee table aside to have more room for the match.
"Oh, you think so?" Gwen watched the older kids rush in. "The queen of Tickleland will not lose!" She is the queen because she could not be tickled while her children were defenseless to her fingers. Exhausted, the four lay on the floor in front of their television.
Bedtime came quickly for Harmony then Austin and finally Chastity kissed her mom good night leaving the mother of three at the kitchen table. She checked the calendar, then her scheduler on her cellphone. "How do I possibly get through this?"