Futures and Frosting (18 page)

Okay, so it
can’t be that bad if George is here.

I leave Drew
with Jenny so I can go in search of Claire.  Jenny isn’t going to stop crying
until she sees Claire with her own eyes and realizes she hasn’t been eaten.

Only in MY life
would those words make perfect sense.

Claire and Liz
share an office and it is situated right in the middle of their connecting stores. 
They each have a door that leads into the office.  It's really no bigger than a
walk-in closet.  It houses a computer table and chair, a loveseat, and two
metal filing cabinets.  I walk over to the closed door and press my ear against
it trying to figure out if Claire and her father are in some deep discussion
while all hell breaks loose in her kitchen.  I’m pretty sure her father still
plots fun and exciting ways to kill me so there is no way I'm going to
interrupt them if that's the case.  I don’t hear anything so I turn the knob
and slowly open the door.

I had to do a
double-take when I see George curled up in a ball on the loveseat.  How he had
managed to get his six foot frame wedged in between the arms of that thing I
will never know.  I decide to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment and turn in
a full circle, my eyes finally coming to rest on Claire.

She's sitting on
the floor behind the door with her knees pulled up to her chest.  She has a
spatula in one hand held out from her body with chocolate frosting dripping off
of it and what looks like Drew’s iPhone pressed up against the wall with her
other hand.  Her eyes are glassy and vacant as she stares off into space, never
once blinking as I walk up to her and crouch down in front of her.

I don’t know
what I'm dealing with here so I speak in a soft, calming voice. “Hey there,
Claire.  How are you doing sweetie?”

She moans in
response, but still doesn’t blink.

I look over my
shoulder and see George is still fast asleep.  Obviously he isn’t going to be
any help here.

“Can you tell me
what happened here tonight?”

Another moan
coupled with a bit of a whimper.  Still no blinking.

How long can
someone go without blinking before they go blind?

I feel like I
walked into a horror movie and found the sole survivor of a serial killer
rampage.  I'm afraid to say the wrong thing for fear I’ll spook her and will
never get to the bottom of the truth.

“I ate cookies,”
she finally mutters.

“Wow, that’s
great, sweetie,” I tell her kindly. 

I don’t really
know if that’s great or not but at least she has ingested something that will
sop up whatever it is that's turned these guys into chocolate covered zombies.

“I don’t want to
feel this anymore,” she says in a pitiful voice.  “Make it stop.”

Maybe I
should try and get her to throw up.  Should I stick my fingers down her
throat?  I’ve never done that before.  Not even to myself.  I’ve only ever
tried to make Drew throw up, and usually all I have to do is talk about his
grandmother having sex.

I reach over and
take the dripping spatula out of her hand and set it on the floor.  I do the
same with Drew’s cell phone, flipping it over first and noticing it's set to
the BIC Lighter app, the fake flame flickering back and forth on the screen.

“Honey, why are
you holding Drew’s phone against the wall?”

“I wanted to
make hot.  Stupid fight wouldn’t lire.  Flight wouldn’t flier.  Fire wouldn’t
fire.  Fire.  Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire-”

Sweet Jesus.

I slide an arm
between Claire’s back and the wall and bring her forward so she's leaning over
her bent knees.  Hoping she won’t hate me for this or bite me, I push my finger
passed her lips and into her mouth.  She blinks then and looks up at me, trying
to focus on my face.  My finger is in her mouth but she won’t open her lips,
they just stay wrapped around my finger while she squints and tries to see me
better.

I wiggle my hand
and try to push my finger in further.  Her throat has to be in there
somewhere.  If I can just get back there far enough I'm sure she will puke.

“Come on,
Claire. Open up wider.  I can’t get it in.”

I grunt with the
effort of holding her up and trying to get the knuckle of my first finger past
her teeth.

“Don’t bite me. 
You’ll feel much better after this is done, I promise.  I’ve done this a bunch
of times, just let me in.”

Either she isn’t
hearing me or she doesn’t care.  I move my hand around her mouth and try every
angle I can but she just won’t open her mouth so I could reach her throat. Her
tongue presses against the tip of my finger preventing it from moving.

“Claire, don’t
be difficult,” I groan.  “I need to do this deeper.”

Claire bites
down on my finger at the same time I feel a hand slap down on my shoulder.

I yank my finger
out of her mouth and whip my head around and up to find George towering over me
with his hands on his hips and a glare on his face.

“Carter,” George
greets.

“Hi, Mr.
Morgan,” I say as cheerfully as possible, considering he's looking at me like
I'm a bug he's getting ready to squash under his shoe.

“Have you seen
my shotgun?” he asks.

I gulp loudly
and try to remember all of the reasons it would be bad to piss my pants right
then.  Under normal circumstances, I'm quite used to the death stares and
silent threats I receive from Claire’s dad, but this seems a little excessive. 
I'm trying to save his daughter’s life.  How can he possible be angry with me
about that?  He had been asleep on the couch two seconds ago.  He must have
opened his eyes and seen me...

You’ll feel
much better once this is done.  Don’t be difficult, I need to do this deeper. 
Just let me in
…

Oh sweet Jesus. 
He had probably looked across the room and saw just the back of me trying to force
something in his daughter’s mouth.

Why the hell
couldn’t Rachel have been the one here tonight?  She would have woken up and
cheered me on, probably even booing me when she found out I was only trying to
make her daughter puke instead of forcing my penis in her mouth.

“I am NOT into
Necrophilia,” I state firmly to him.

“There is
something wrong with you,” he mutters.

“I just wanted
her to throw up,” I complain.

“I really don’t
want to know about the weird, kinky shit you’re into.”

“Yo, Mr. Morgan,
you’re awake!” Drew exclaims as he lounges in the doorway.  “And Carter, dude,
it’s called
Poutiphilia. 
You just told Claire’s dad you weren’t into
banging dead people.  Which is a good thing, but probably not what you were
going for.  Poutiphilia is a person who enjoys sexual relations with people who
are passed out.”

Drew is a
walking, talking Urbandictionary dot com.

“I was NOT
trying to have sexual relations with this woman!” I shout.

“Slow your roll
there, Clinton,” Drew says as he came further into the room and squats down
next to me.

“HOW ARE YOU
DOING, CLAIRE?” Drew yells, talking to her slow and loud like she doesn’t
understand English.  “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

He snaps his
fingers in front of her face a few times.  She finally blinks and looks up at
me.

“Make it stop,”
she whines.

I'm not sure if
she is referring to Drew or whatever is in her system.  I decide to err on the
side of caution and punch Drew in the arm.

“What the fuck
did you give her?”

“Just some
cookies.  My mom makes them for my uncle all the time and he loves them,” Drew
tells me.

“Did you guys
get food poisoning or something?  Why the hell is this place such a disaster
and Claire is almost comatose?”

I briefly wonder
if I should try again to make her puke, but I'm a little afraid George really
does have a shotgun hidden somewhere in the room.

“Claire wanted
some help coming up with some new ideas for things to cover in chocolate.  It
was a process.  A
creative
process.  You wouldn’t understand.  It’s an
artistic thing,” Drew explains.  “Chocolate covered carrots were a bust, but we
might have something with chocolate covered gummy bears.”

This still
doesn’t make any sense.  I'm obviously missing something.

“So you guys ate
some cookies and brainstormed.  What kind of cookies did you eat?  Were they
undercooked?”

Maybe Claire has
Salmonella poisoning.  Is that contagious?  Does she need to be vaccinated or
have her stomach pumped?  I feel like I should know the answer to this since I
have a kid.  What if Gavin eats some raw chicken and I don’t know whether to
give him mouth-to-mouth or Pepto Bismol?  Is he even allowed to have Pepto? 
And where the fuck is he getting raw chickens from?!

“Dude, I’m not
Betty fucking Crocker or anything.  I don’t know what was in the cookies.  They
were mocha coffee nut something or other.  Wait, maybe it was the nuts.  Is
Claire allergic to nuts?  She might be going into anal flaccid shock,” Drew
says nervously.

Oh my God. 
It’s like he shares a brain with Jenny.

“It’s Anaphylaxis
Shock, dumbass, and no, she’s not allergic to nuts,” I say with a roll of my
eyes.

“My uncle begs
my mom for these cookies.  Seriously.  They actually STOP him from getting sick
so this makes absolutely no sense.  My mom makes them for him every couple of
weeks before he goes in for chemo.”

I stare at him
blankly and repeat in my head the words that just came out of his mouth just to
make sure I'm not hallucinating.

“Jesus fucking
Christ! You gave her POT COOKIES???

I whip my head
around and stare at George in disbelief.

“YOU ate a pot
cookie?” I ask incredulously.

“I was in Nam,”
he huffs like that's sufficient enough evidence this is perfectly okay. 
“Where’s my grandson?”

I stare at him
in wonder for a few minutes, realizing (not for the first time) that Claire’s
father is the epitome of the saying “The man, the myth, the legend”.  While
everyone else has been one step away from bath-salts-crazy, George has curled
up on the couch and slept off his pot cookie high.

“Gavin is with
my parents for the night.  They’re in town for a wedding and are keeping him
overnight at their hotel so he can swim in the pool,” I explain as I tighten my
hold on Claire and help her stand up.

“I’m hungry,”
Claire announces to no one in particular as she suddenly regains the use of all
of her faculties and pushes away from me.  Her eyes are bright and clear as she
walks out of the office, squeezing her way past Drew, like nothing is wrong.

“Well, it looks
like the problem is solved thanks to me.  Claire now has a new item to put on
her menu and rave about tomorrow during her magazine interview,” Drew states
proudly.

“She’s not
putting pot cookies on the menu,” I tell him with a shake of my head as we all
amble out of the office.  “It’s illegal.”

“You’re a real
buzz kill, you know that?” Drew complains.

“I eat my
poop.”

“Drew, I swear
to God if you don’t stop playing with that fucking computer, I’m going to shove
it up your ass,” I threaten as I finished chiseling the last bit of chocolate
off of the walls of the shop kitchen.

Drew has recently
learned how to turn on text-to-speech in Microsoft Excel.  Everything he types
into a box on the spreadsheet is repeated back to him in a computerized voice. 
He had stopped by my shop first thing this morning under the guise of helping
me clean but instead has spent the majority of his time making the computer say
random, stupid shit.

“I like to
touch boobs,”
the monotone, computerized voice announces.

“Boobs,
boobs, boobies, boobs.  I like boobies.”

Drew sticks his
head out of my office a few seconds later and smiles.

“Claire Bear, do
you have a pot hangover?”

I growl as I
throw the dirty rag into the sink and turn on the tap to wash my hands of the
sticky mess they’d become since I started cleaning up the mess we made of the
kitchen the previous night.

“After what you
did to me last night, you’re lucky I’m not shoving a spatula in your eye.

I turn off the
water and dry my hands on the towel next to the sink.  When I look back over my
shoulder to throw another insult at Drew, he isn’t there.

“Claire has
an angry vagina.”

I roll my eyes
and take one last look around the kitchen to make sure I haven’t missed a
spot.  In hindsight, I should know better than to eat anything Drew gives me. 
He always looks guilty and says stupid shit though, so when he hands me the
cookie and tells me to “Eat the entire thing or else,” I don’t think twice. 
All I had wanted was a nice, quiet evening of brainstorming and keeping my mind
off of anything to do with weddings and marrying the man of my dreams.

Be careful
what you wish for.

I had woken up
this morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I did
something stupid.  I rolled over and found Carter sitting on the edge of the
bed staring at me.

“I was just
getting ready to stick a mirror under your nose to make sure you were still
breathing,” Carter said with a laugh as he stood up from the bed and walked
over to the dresser to put on his watch and stick his wallet in his back
pocket.

“What the fuck
did I do last night?” I groaned with a raspy, morning after voice.

“Which part
exactly are you referring to?  Eating an entire pot cookie or redecorating the
shop by painting the walls with chocolate?”

“Okay, first of
all, I didn’t KNOW it was a pot cookie until after I took the first bite and
second…I don’t know.  I have no excuse for the rest of it,” I trailed off.