As Far As Far Enough

by Claire Rooney

  “We’re living proof of that. And speaking of stranger things, what time is it?”

  Meri glanced at the wall clock. “It’s almost nine.”

  “Oh, darn it,” I said very precisely and smiled when Meri rolled her eyes. “I have to get ready for work.” I picked up my teacup and took it over to the sink. “I told Taylor I’d be in by eleven today.”

  “Bea,” Meri started.

  “Yes, dear?” I asked with a grin.

  She picked up my plate and set it on the kitchen counter. “Do you really have to work with Taylor at the garage?”

  “No. I don’t have to. I like to. Fixing things makes me feel useful, and it’s good for me to bring in a little money.”

  She shifted the plate to a new spot on the counter. “You could fix things around here.”

  I turned to look at her. “Do you need me to do more of the chores than I’m doing?” I asked her. “You want me to start cooking dinner?”

  “God, no,” she said with a shudder.

  I stepped close to her and put my hands on her waist. “Do you miss me when I’m gone, or are you starting to get all jealous again?”

  She stood stiffly and scowled at my chin. “You’re having his baby. How am I supposed to feel when you run off and spend all day with him?”

  “I’m having our baby, Meri, and he’s hardly ever at the garage at the same time I am.” I brushed a stray wig fiber off her cheek. “It’s only three days out of the week, and it gives him the chance to make house calls for sick old farm trucks. Besides, he says he’s still tail over teakettle for you, whatever the hell that means.”

  Her shoulders slumped. She leaned into me as best she could with my stomach poking into hers and put her head on my shoulder. I stroked the nape of her neck and she shivered.

  “I’m sorry, Bea.”

  “I’m not.” I pressed my cheek against her wig. “I kind of like you being all possessive of me.”

  “You’re really strange,” she said lifting her head.

  I gently slid her wig off and set it on the counter. I ran my hands over her head. Her hair, about a half inch long now, tickled my palms. There was still a raw patch of scalp near the top of her head that had no hair and probably never would again. It was still beautiful to me. “I think you’re the most gorgeous woman in whole world, Meri.” I leaned in to kiss the burn scar that trailed off into her hair.

  “Prove it,” she said, sliding her hands into the back pockets of my jeans. They weren’t buttoned or zipped and they sagged across my hips.

  I slid my arms around her and pressed my palms flat across her spine. “Are the blinds closed?”

  “Who cares?” she asked, tilting her head and kissing me lightly, her mouth nibbling at mine, pancake and sausage flavors still on her tongue. The press of her mouth set my toes to tingling, and I kissed her with an eagerness that melted her against me. “What about Taylor?” she whispered.

  “Taylor can wait. What about the groceries?”

  “Oh, damn!” she said, pulling away from me. “Your ice cream’s going to melt.”

  I pulled her back. “The ice cream can wait.”

  She laughed. “It couldn’t wait an hour ago.”

  “You should have kissed me then,” I said, circling my hands around her waist. “I would have forgotten all about it.”

  “I’ll remember that for next time.” She tugged on my jeans. They fell off my hips and pooled around my ankles. Her hands slid into my underwear and rubbed across my butt. She squeezed and sank to her knees, pulling my panties down with her. I rubbed my hands over her head, her hair whispering against my palms. She leaned forward and I gasped.

  Chapter Seven: MISTLETOE

  “There are no such things as fashionable maternity clothes,” I said to myself standing naked and shivering inside the closet, fresh and still damp from my morning bath. Christmas was just a few weeks away, and I had nothing to wear to any of the parties that Meri and I were invited to. We received a zillion invitations, mostly from people I’d never heard of, for dinners, galas and balls, but we were only going to two of them, Taylor’s Garage Shop Hop for New Year’s and Aunt Beatrice’s Family Informal on Christmas Day. I thumbed my way through the clothes hanging on my side of the closet, scowling at the scant pickings. There wasn’t anything I wanted to put on. I fingered a favorite pair of blue jeans that I hadn’t been able to slide on over my bulging backside for about three weeks now. Maybe I could do a Scarlet O’Hara and wrap myself in a curtain. I looked over my shoulder at the curtains hanging in the bedroom window. They were very floral. Ick.

  I thumbed through Meri’s clothes and picked out a pair of black stretchy sweatpants and a red extra large sweatshirt with the faded logo of some football team crumbling on the front. It was better than the muumuus I’d be forced into in another month or two. I was not liking this pregnant thing, and the more bloated my body became, the more I began to resent it. I felt big and slow and stupid. My appetites weren’t my own, and I didn’t like being controlled by the fluttery thing in my belly. I couldn’t ever tell if I was hungry, horny or just had gas.

  I heard the bedroom door open and close. A waft of chilly air blew across my butt. Meri stuck her head into the closet. “Hey, Bea, come downstairs and give me a hand with the decorations.” She stopped and stared at me. I turned around to give her the full frontal and had to smile at the look on her face. “Better put some clothes on first,” she said, her voice going low and husky, “or we’ll never get anything done.”

  My smile faded. “I don’t have any clothes.” I waved the sweatpants at her. “I’m wearing your fat clothes, and I won’t even fit into those pretty soon.”

  “I suppose you could run around naked,” she said with something close to a leer. “I wouldn’t object.”

  “But it’s cold.” I crossed my arms and shivered. “I hate this, Meri. I don’t like what’s happening to me. I’m getting so big that my underwear doesn’t fit anymore.”

  Meri stepped inside the closet. “Bea, I told you we could go shopping for clothes anytime you’re ready.”

  “I don’t want new clothes,” I said with a sniff. “I want my old clothes. I want to be like I used to be.”

  Meri grabbed the sleeve of a shirt hanging nearby. She used it to dab at the corner of my eye. “You’ve just got to deal with it for a few more months,” she said and tickled my chin with the shirt cuff. “I’m right here to help you.”

  I pushed her hand away from my face. “It’s easy for you. You’re not walking around like a bloated walrus.”

  Her lips twitched as she tried not to laugh. “You’re not that big yet.”

  “Yet, Meri. This is only going to get worse,” I said. “I don’t want to do this. Too many things are changing.”

  She stepped into me and laid her hands on my stomach, rubbing soft round circles over my belly. Her hands slid up and cupped my breasts. She ran her thumbs over cold-puckered nipples. “Here’s something that won’t ever change,” she said gently.

  I dropped the sweats and leaned into her hands. She squeezed and I gave a little gasp. It hurt in such a wonderful way.

  “Touch me,” I said, leaning in harder against her hands.

  She kissed me lightly, soft lips, the slight tip of her tongue and then she pulled away. “We can’t, Bea. Taylor’s coming over in just a little while. He’s bringing some of the cousins to finish clearing away what’s left of the barn.”

  “Please,” I said, pulling her against me and nuzzling at her neck. “Just a quickie.”

  Meri laughed against my cheek. “Since when have we ever been able to have a quickie?”

  She was right about that. Hours could disappear at the touch of her hands. She kissed me again and sank to her knees. At first, I thought she had changed her mind, but she picked up the sweatpants and held them out for me to step into. I gave her another little groan, one of disappointment and frustration. She watched me as I slid my feet into the leg holes.

  “You
r underwear really doesn’t fit anymore?” she asked tugging the pants up to my thighs.

  I finished pulling them up and settled them low on my hips, the waistband catching me on the down slope of my protrusion. “Nothing fits me anymore.”

  She pursed her lips and nodded. She leaned forward and kissed my bellybutton. A quick flick of her tongue sent shivers skittering all over my skin. “We’re going shopping tomorrow.” She picked the sweatshirt up off the floor, stood and handed it to me.

  “You hate shopping.”

  “I hate you being unhappy more than I hate shopping.”

  I slipped the sweatshirt on over my head. “Maternity clothes are ugly.”

  “Why don’t you wait until you’ve tried some on before deciding to hate them all?” Meri tugged on the hem of the shirt, pulling it over my stomach.

  “Do you always have to be the voice of reason?”

  She gave me another kiss. “No. Only when you’re being unreasonable. Will you come down now and help me decorate the tree?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’m not about to leave the icicles up to you. You have no sense of proportion.”

  Meri had set the tree in the parlor. It was a beautiful live fir with thick green branches and a crisp evergreen smell. I stood in front of it tossing the tinsel in the air in the hopes that when it floated down it would hang naturally. It wasn’t working, and I had to keep picking clumps of it out of the branches. I got tired of Meri snorting and rolling her eyes at me and told her to go do something more useful. She thought about it for a minute and then said she was going to go get more stuff from the attic. I didn’t think the tree needed anything else, it was already loaded with ornaments and garlands, but I was glad to get her out of the room for a few minutes.

  Taylor had already come over with about two dozen cousins in tow. Every one of them, girl and boy, was wearing a ball cap and a tool belt. They didn’t stop to chat but got right to work tearing down the burned remains of the barn. There wasn’t much of it left standing after the insurance people got done poking through it, just a part of one wall with a chunk of the roof still attached. The rest of it was burned to cinders. The remains of my poor bike were still in there somewhere, except for the charred gas tank that the insurance lady impounded as evidence. I think she just wanted a souvenir, but Meri told me to stop being so sour about it. We were lucky that they blamed the fire on Sergeant and his sparking horseshoes because, strange as that sounded, it was covered by her policy.

  I gave up on the tinsel and went into the kitchen to watch the cousins from out of the window. In spite of the chill, they were having a great time going at it with axes, sledgehammers, chain saws and one pint-sized bulldozer. It looked like a lot more fun than decorating, but both Meri and Taylor wouldn’t let me lift anything over five pounds. The two of them, being overly concerned about my delicate condition, would pitch a collective fit if I went out there and tried to swing a sledgehammer. I twitched the curtain back farther and watched Sergeant pace the temporary fence. It was just steel posts and chicken wire that we circled around the gap where the barn used to be. It would probably hold all right as long as he didn’t try to scratch his butt against it. He tossed his head, flipped his tail and tried to nip anyone who came too close to the fence. He was making it perfectly clear to everyone that he was unhappy with all the noise they were making. The silly horse had been insufferable since winning his lawsuit.

  “Hey, Bea, where’d you go?” I heard Meri calling from the parlor.

  “I’m in the kitchen,” I said. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”

  “No, I want you to come here and help me go through these things.”

  I went back to the parlor where Meri sat surrounded by dusty boxes. She had a smudge on her chin and cobwebs stuck in her stubble. Her hair was still only about an inch and half long, but she had stopped wearing the wig. I think she was far prettier without it.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  She was rummaging around inside a huge box marked X-MAS in bold red and green sparkly letters. She sneezed and wiped at her nose.

  “They’re house decorations. You know, for the shelves and the mantle and the front door and stuff. I haven’t pulled any of this out since the year before my parents died.” She gazed into the box with shiny eyes. I knew she would want me to think that it was just the dust, so I didn’t react to it. She reached a hand in and rustled through the tissue paper. “I wasn’t sure about dragging it out because I don’t know if any of this stuff is good enough.”

  “Good enough for what?”

  “For you,” she said. “I know you’re used to your holidays being far more elegant than this.” She held up a stuffed Santa doll wearing a crocheted hat and vest with a beard of curly white yarn. Wire-rimmed glasses, made out of a bent paperclip, sat sewn onto his nose.

  “Meri, I don’t know where you get such ridiculous ideas.” I took the doll out of her hands. “This is cute. Why would you think it wasn’t good enough for me?”

  She waved her hand at the boxes. “All these decorations are homemade. There isn’t anything here store-bought.”

  “That just makes it all the cuter. So, who made this one?” I asked as I straightened out Santa’s glasses and brushed my fingers through his beard.

  She blushed and bent over the box. “I did. Well, my mom did the crocheting and I did the stuffing and sewing.” She shrugged and rubbed at her cheek. “It was just something we did. She would have a Christmas project for us every year, and we’d work on it together.” She looked around at all the different boxes. “There’s a gingerbread house in here somewhere. Made with real gingerbread. My dad shellacked it so the mice wouldn’t eat it.” She reached behind her and picked up a large flat box. She opened it, reached inside the plastic wrapping and pulled out a wreath with intricately woven deep green holly leaves, bright red berries and a gold bow tied around a large plastic candy cane. She held it up to me.

  “Meri, that’s beautiful,” I said, though I wasn’t actually crazy about the plastic candy cane. Meri was still very sensitive about anything related to her parents, and I had learned a lot about discretion from mine.

  “You don’t mind it going on the front door? I thought it might be too tacky for you.”

  “No, of course I don’t mind. Did you and your mom make that?”

  She nodded and turned it around, pointing to a little tag at the back. “We made it when I was about thirteen.”

  “And you kept it all these years?”

  She nodded again and set the wreath back in its box. I looked down at the Santa and then at the wreath. I couldn’t imagine what it was like having a mother to talk to and who would do things with you. It seemed right though, that a mother and her daughter should spend time together like that. I thought of the baby growing inside me, about five and half months now, with ears and a nose, little hands and tiny toes as Meri kept me informed in her weekly progress reports. It occurred to me right then that this baby was going to be a real person, one who deserved a real mother. I wasn’t sure what a real mother was supposed to do, but I knew I wasn’t up to the task. I hoped Meri could be mother enough for the both of us, but somehow that didn’t seem fair to her or the baby.

  “Meri, is the Christmas project thing something that you’ll want to do with our daughter when she’s born?”

  She smiled at me, sad and happy at the same time. “Why don’t we all do it together? We’ll make it a family project.”

  I smiled too, touched by her sadness, and set the Santa on the mantle. If Meri wanted us to be a family, I would try my best, in spite of myself. “Is there a Mrs. Claus in there somewhere?”

  Meri shoved the box over to me with her foot. “All the reindeer and Rudolph, too.”

  I sat on the couch, pulled the box over to me and started rummaging through the tissue paper. The kitchen door slammed, and I lifted my head at the sound.

  “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?” Aunt Beatrice called from the kitchen.

>   I brushed the tinsel off my sweatshirt and ran quick fingers through my hair while Meri grimaced and swiped at her face with her sleeve, but it was more out of habit than anything else. We both enjoyed Auntie’s visits, within limits. We hadn’t seen very much of her lately and were overdue.

  “We’re in the parlor, Auntie,” Meri called out to her.

  Aunt Beatrice and her blue hair shuffled into the parlor, and plopped herself down in the wingback chair. She slumped back and gazed around the room.

  “What a lovely tree,” she said, “if just a tad clumpy with the tinsel. You know if you just throw a handful of it into the air it’ll hang more naturally.”

  I suppressed a sigh but Meri raised an eyebrow. Auntie was wearing slacks and a powder blue sweater with snowflakes on it, which, in itself, was unusual, even though the ensemble did match her hair. She usually dressed in her Sunday finest to go visiting. But more than that, she was such a strong believer in presence and decorum that seeing her shuffle, plop and slump was really very surprising.

  “Would you like some tea, Auntie?” Meri asked getting up from the floor.

  “No, thank you, dear. I hope you don’t mind me popping over like this. I know you prefer that I call first, but I knew Taylor was going to be over here, so I assumed it would be safe.”

  Meri’s eyebrows went up so high they would have disappeared into her bangs if she had still had any. Auntie had never before made even an indirect reference to the nature of our relationship unless it was in the vaguest of terms to tell us how much she disapproved.

  Auntie waved a hand at Meri. “Sit, child, sit. No need for you to stand there like a stop sign.”

  Meri blinked at her for a moment and then sat back down. “What can I do for you today, Auntie?”

  “Not a thing, my dear. I didn’t come here to see you.”

  I steeled myself for the inevitable. I could feel a mandatory dinner invitation coming my way, and I really didn’t have a thing to wear. After Thanksgiving, her invitations began to taper off since by then most of the excitement was already over. Even the paparazzi skulking in the bushes finally went home. The world had moved on to new faces and fresher stories, but Auntie still liked to show me off from time to time.