Page 48 of The Dating Charade

“Married. I never said it was happily.” Edie sprayed the air again.

“And her marriage lasted half a century—”

“Forty-two years. Not a day longer.”

“And you do want to marry him, Patsy, don’t you?” Donna Gene unwrapped a Tootsie Roll. “Now I haven’t talked official with Edie yet, but on her behalf and mine, I’d like to offer our little patch of earth for the ceremony. It’s not much, what we have up there, but there’s a nice good space in the woods that would make for a marvelous backdrop with the snow.”

If Donna Gene wasn’t gripping Cassie’s hand, she would’ve stumbled out of her chair. “Whoa, now. I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here.”

“You thinkin’ spring?” Donna Gene replied. “Well, you’ll have to hide the children that much longer, but if that’s what you want to do, I suppose you could keep them in the basement—”

“That’s what I always did.” Edie primly popped a mint in her mouth.

“And just eyeballing it here, I’d say you’re a size 6? Or 8?”

They were talking dresses now? And harboring children in basements? Cassie stood abruptly, the conversation sixty miles beyond the point of control. “Oh look, there went Santa. Parade’s over. Girls! Deidre! Kennedy!” Cassie beckoned them over, and with baskets overflowing, they readily jumped to her side. She then called to the teen leaders, “Haven teens, let’s assist all our new friends to the bus.”

Cassie tried her best to delegate any tasks related to the two women to the teens, and between gathering thirty people and packing them into the borrowed church bus, she had just about succeeded in avoiding Donna Gene and Edie the rest of the evening. They dropped every man and woman off one at a time, Donna Gene and Edie seated in the row farthest back. Star and Bailey sat in the row ahead of them like angelic guards at the entrance of Eden.

But as Cassie turned the steering wheel onto Rattlesnake Hollow, she heard the squirt of sanitizer behind her and felt the distinct smell of disinfectant tickle her nose. She looked into the wide, overhead mirror and jumped at the sudden figures seated behind her. So much for them being elderly.

Edie readjusted her vintage hat.

“Now, where were we?” With hovering pen, Donna Gene lay the crumpled back of a receipt across the top of the bus seat as though it were a doctor’s legal pad. “You’ll need flowers, of course. You can’t have a good wedding without flowers.”

Cassie checked the mirror for the back seats. Were her teens alive?

“And we’ll need a cake.” Donna Gene pointed her pen in her partner’s direction. “Edie, I trust you can take care of that. She’s a wonderful cook. Watches Cake or Steak regular, don’t you?”

Edie lifted her chin. “Fondant or funfetti?”

“Ladies, thank you so much for wanting to coordinate my—” (unscheduled and absurdly forecasted) “—wedding. But I’ve only been seeing Jett two and a half weeks. Barely two and a half weeks. And that’s counting a date that lasted all of five minutes.”

Edie sniffed. “I had Frank at the altar in twelve hours.”

“And yours is . . . quite the example. But I’m going to need more time. Who knows what he’ll think after I tell the man who hates kids that I just added three? He’ll probably run for the hills.”

Donna Gene watched Cassie closely, then patted her shoulder. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it anymore. You just leave it up to us. We’ll see that everything gets sorted out.”

Leave it up to them?

“No, really, that’s not necessary,” Cassie started to say, but when she looked in the mirror, the seat behind her was empty, only the scent of alcohol disinfectant lingering in the air. Inching her chin down, Cassie saw both women securely back in the farthest row, looking as though they’d never moved a muscle.

14

Jett

He was going to church 40 percent for all the appropriate reasons, 60 percent for the free babysitting. And no, at this point of sleep deprivation and sanity loss, he didn’t feel bad about it.

Sunny tucked his slightly rumpled button-up into his jeans. “You sure you don’t want to come with Sarah and me?”

“Yes.”

Kneeling in his grey slacks, Jett crammed Drew’s wiggling toes into socks and then pushed his feet into lime-green sandals. Everything in his life felt like it had to be done quickly. Quickly he pushed feet into socks or else Drew would wiggle himself out of his grip and be running down the hall yelling like a wild monkey. Quickly Jett had to throw cereal into a bowl or else the twins fell into hysterics of hunger. Quickly he had to mix formula. Quickly he had to pick up Dakota when she fell down. Quickly he had to grab Drew before he squeezed through the porch bars and fell two stories.

It was incredible how he could watch his roommate talking, walking, dressing at a snail’s pace with a snail’s attitude all while he himself was running with a blood pressure of 170 over 90. Work was a break. These days, knocking down a door in a burning building of 1,100-degree heat was a day at the beach.

Grabbing Drew by the underarms and lifting him to stand, Jett held a firm grip and reviewed the trio beside the door. Dakota had a lopsided ponytail, a pink sweater, and a lollipop she’d been licking passively the past twenty-four hours. Drew had a Cheerio on his cheek, a Thomas the Train T-shirt on, and socks peeking through sandals. TJ was in his car seat, a large stain on the same fuzzy sleeper he’d worn to bed. Time to roll.