"Hiii Hope!" Lauren's nasally voice wafted from the kitchen the minute I opened the front door.
"Hi Lauren," I called back and shrugged off my shoes.
"Is she really that bad?" Billie whispered as he proceeded to hide behind me.
"Yes, yes she is. Now stop hiding and be a man," I whispered back at him as his head appeared over my shoulder, a slow jack-in-the-box.
"Mhm, mhm, mhm," he said and furrowed his brows together.
"Are you going to come in or not?" Lauren yelled. Ah yes, the bossy, know-it-all Lauren that we all know and not love.
"Yeah," I said and walked into the kitchen.
She looked up at me and smiled her vulture smile. People say that brown is supposed to be a warm color. But in my opinion brown is also the color of hard ground, and looking at her in this moment, I thought, if only just for an instant, that her eyes were as empty as the barren earth.
"We're leaving for the mall in 5 minutes, I'm just waiting for you mom to change her clothes," she said in an offhand tone, her attention stuck on me long enough to finish her sentence, and then zeroed in on Billie.
"Well hello there, I don't think we've met," she said, getting off the chair and walking over to Billie. He stuck out his hand, but she went in straight for the hug. She engulfed him in a hug the way the lion pounces on a tiny gazelle. Slowly, then all at once.
And now you see why she didn't meet him earlier. My mom is stupid, but she's not that stupid. As if on cue, I heard my mom clamoring down the stairs, singing something under her breath.
"I'm ready!" she yelled as she reached the first floor landing and looked up. I saw the Medusa glare she shot at Billie and Lauren. Then, like a hawk she was on them, with one expert twist and pull she had Billie away from Lauren and with another she had me positioned in front of her, obstructing Lauren from them.
"Let's go," she said and half-dragged, half-carried Billie towards the front door, with me in tow.
Once outside the house I walked over to my mom's car, a beat up Volvo, and turned around just in time to catch Billie, whom she pushed with so much force that he stumbled and fell on top of me, almost making me lose balance.
"I'll ride with Lauren, you go with Billie," she said curtly and faced the front door again.
"Yay, I'm stuck with you," I grumbled at him and pushed him until he finally got his balance back.
"Yay! Bonding time!" he yelled happily into my ear and dragged me off to his stupid car, a not so beat up black Mercedes-Benz.
I ignored the impulse to slam my head against the hood of his car, and once inside the impulse to stick my head through the gap and slam the car door in hopes of snapping my neck.
"Don't look so angry, this will be fun!" he said, trying to sound cheerful.
"Weren't you just attacked by Lauren? Shouldn't you be the one to be against this?" I asked.
"Who cares, who cares, the dress –"
"That you can't see until the wedding because it's bad luck." I finished before he got going.
"Well slippery fuck, why am I even coming then?" he whined.
"How do I know? If it was up to me you wouldn't be around at all," I grumbled.
"Why do you hate me so? I promise I'm not going to be the evil stepfather you expect me to be," he said, a trace of sadness in his voice.
Oh no, not this crap again.
I ignored him completely, resisting the urge to roll my eyes at the fact that he seemingly repeats that same old statement every goddamn day and turned the radio to some mindless pop station, turning the volume up to almost unbearable when Billie tried vainly to say something.
***
It took us 15 extremely long minutes to get to the mall. I switched the station off and sighed loudly.
"You just love to be dramatic don't you?" he asked.
"Yes Billie. That's it. I'm dramatic," I rolled my eyes at him.
"Woah, sassy as well! You're on a roll today aren't you?"
"Shut up," I grumbled at him and opened the car door.
Making sure to slam the door a little too loudly, I turned towards the mall, the array of stores looming over me with their products and prices, the monster of consumerism at its finest.
Just then my mom drove up to Billie's car almost killing me in the process.
"Next time don't be so humble in your swerves, you may finally put me out of my misery," I grumbled under my breath simultaneously dusting off my dress.
"You okay?" Billie asked reaching my side.
"I'm fine," I said, pushing his hands away.
"I swear, she's going to be the death of me," mom said getting out of the car. I couldn't help but think, 'you deserve it, you totally deserve it'. It felt bad but not bad enough.
***
People should come with warnings, like cigarette packs or alcohol bottles: commitment would kill over time. Surely but slowly. Too slowly.
As we see in Exhibit A.
As I stood on a tiny stool that barely fit my giant feet while simultaneously being stuck with a million needles in a million possible places (props to my mother who wanted completely new dresses, right from scratch) I understood that statement on a whole new level and cursed the day mom met Lauren.
"Stand still honey, almost done," the homely woman with a grandmother voice and demeanor said to me as she stuck another needle into my thigh.
"Mmm,"
"I swear to God Lauren, you're such a bitch!" my mom hollered from the other dressing room/torture chamber.
As if on cue, my torturer sighed and asked me, "Is she always like this?"
"No, she's finally coming to a realization that some parts of her life are a lie,"
"Ah, that always happens right before the wedding doesn't it, and...all done!" she said.
"I swear to God Hope, if you don't get yourself and Billie out of here you'll see me murdering that freaken hoe,"
Wow mom, language, language!
But I gladly stripped out of the dress and after grabbing Billie by the arm, dragged him out of that god forsaken place.
"What are we doing? Where are we going? Oh, do you want to go out to that little dining place and get pancakes with butter and bacon and stuff like that?" he rattled off one question after the other.
This is going to be one long ass day.