All of Me Loves All of You - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“Drunk in Love”

O

f course, Karen got too drunk to drive and Evelyn had to take the wheel. John practically carried her to the car as she sang a loud, slurred re-indention of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. A group of inebriated men and women cheered her on and requested an encore. They were either totally wasted, stoned or suckers for punishment.

Evelyn slid behind the wheel and let out an annoyed growl. She would have to spend the night at her sister’s place, which she didn’t want to do. She longed for home and her own bed. She never should have let Karen talk her into going out. It usually ended badly. At least this time, she hadn’t had to pepper spray anyone. She had attached the vial of mace onto her keychain just in case, though.

Karen and her new friend, John, sat in the back seat so they could make out as she drove. She turned on the music to drown out their drunk in love slurps, moans and giggles.

The two sucked face all the way until they got inside Karen’s apartment where they continued to suck face.

Karen came up for air long enough to say, “You can take the couch, Sis. There’s a spare blanket in the hall closet.” She and John entered her bedroom and Karen closed the door with her foot.

After thirty minutes of listening to Karen and John do the horizontal shuffle in the bedroom, banging against the headboard and eliciting screams and shouts of ecstasy, Evelyn decided to leave. She couldn’t sleep on Karen’s leather couch anyway. It was harder than a prison cot.

She got up, slipped her feet back into her platform heels and scribbled a quick note explaining she’d be back in the morning. She grabbed her purse off the table and picked up her sister’s set of keys.

No way was she going to be able to sleep with them going at it all night. Besides, hearing them doing it made her that more conscious of the fact that she wasn’t doing it… and never had done it!

Fifteen minutes later, she sighed aloud as she pulled into a parking space in front of her apartment building. As she got out of her sister’s car, something caught her eye. It was a flyer stuck underneath the windshield wiper. Someone from the club had probably shoved it there and she hadn’t noticed it earlier. She grabbed it from under the blade with the intention of throwing it in the garbage when she went inside.

Now that it was after 3 a.m. and she was still awake, of course she was hungry. She rummaged around in the refrigerator and grabbed the left-over pizza. She tossed two slices into the microwave then gobbled them up, washing them down with soda.

Once she finished eating, she flipped through the cable television channels and settled on an episode of Forensic Files. She watched until her eyelids drooped. Too lazy to get up and go into her bedroom, she fell asleep on the couch and woke up to the vibrating of her cell phone the next morning.

“Hello?” she answered groggily.

“Good morning, Dear Sister,” Karen sang cheerfully. “Please bring me my auto so I can get John home to his wife.”

“What?” Nutmeg chose that second to leap up on the couch and turn her ass up in Evelyn’s face. She never did understand why the cat did that every time her litter box needed emptying.

“He’s married. He just decided to tell me this after I cooked him breakfast. Can you believe I wasted my precious time making French toast?”

She shooed the cat away and sat up. “You made French toast? You’re joking, right?”

“About the toast or about him being married?” Karen asked.

“Both.”

“I wish I was, but I’m not. So, I just want him out of here and out of my face ASAP.”

“Well, you did meet him online,” Evelyn said.

“Don’t remind me. I see I’m going to have to start doing background checks on these men. They are all such lying scum buckets.”

“You’re just figuring that out at age twenty-six?”

“Evelyn. My heart is bruised over here. Please, don’t patronize me right now.”

“OK. OK. No need for the melodramatics. I’m on my way. Try not to kill him.”

“I wouldn’t think of harming a hair on his head, but cutting his dick off at the balls sounds lovely.”

Evelyn took a quick shower and got dressed. She made sure to change Nutmeg’s litter box because it looked like her furry friend wanted to claw her eyes out.

“There you go. Now you can go potty.” Nutmeg glared at her as she dug her paws into the cat litter. She proceeded to do a number two with her back turned and her butt in the air pointing towards Evelyn.

“You’re the meanest cat I know, but I still love you. See you when I get back.”

When she grabbed Karen’s car keys off the coffee table, the club flyer from the night before caught her attention.

“I thought I threw that in the trash,” she said aloud.

She scanned it briefly. It was something about pole dancing for fitness. She didn’t have time to read it because she needed to save John from being Lorena Bobbitted. She left it on the table with the thought of reading it when she returned to the apartment.

On the way to Karen’s apartment, she stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru and ordered two breakfast burritos, an egg McMuffin, and coffee. She wanted a hash brown, but they were out. She wondered why that particular McDonald’s always ran out of something. Once, they hadn’t had syrup for the hotcakes and she’d had to drive back home to get some, which made her five minutes late to work. Another time, they’d had the syrup but not the hotcakes. Go figure. She wouldn’t be an ass about them running out of hash browns, though. She’d seen a video posted on Facebook of a blogger getting upset because they hadn’t had her fresh baked chocolate chips cookies, and they’d asked her to wait two minutes. The woman had flipped out and recorded the entire melt down. She’d almost blown a fuse for some chocolate chip cookies that she could have baked herself. When she’d posted the video on social media, it hadn’t gotten her the sympathy she’d probably craved. It actually backfired and had people commenting on how silly and rude she’d been. The posters had even attacked her personally because she had either acne, burns or a birthmark on her face.

Evelyn choked down the two burritos as she drove, and she gobbled up the egg McMuffin when she parked in front of Karen’s place. She washed it down with the coffee that had become lukewarm, which was probably a good thing since she didn’t want to burn her mouth.

Evelyn brushed the crumbs off her lap then got out of the car. Thankful that Karen lived on the first floor, she knocked on the apartment door even though Karen’s door key was on the keychain. She didn’t hear any loud voices or glass shattering so she took that as a good sign. She didn’t know what to expect when she walked in, but definitely not what she saw.

Karen and her online date were snuggled up on the couch playing footsies and singing along, off-key to the theme song of The Golden Girls.

“Um, hey,” Evelyn greeted over their loud, scratchy voices.

“Thank you for being a friiiiiiiiiiend!,” Karen croaked then turned when she hard her sister. “Oh, hey, Sis. John and I are going to Busch Gardens. Do you want to go with us?”

“No, thanks.” She hated amusement parks. And of course she felt self-conscious because she always thought she couldn’t fit on any of the rides. What if she got stuck in one?

She nodded her head for Karen to join her in the kitchen. Her sister untangled her legs from John’s and got up from the couch.

“What’s up?”

“I thought you were getting rid of him,” she said, nodding in John’s direction. “Didn’t you say you found out he was married?”

“Oh, we worked things out. He’s almost divorced and doesn’t live with his soon-to-be ex.”

She gave her sister an incredulous look. “And you actually believe that?”

“Yes. Why not? Anyway, since you don’t want to go with us to Busch Gardens, will you do me a huge favor?” She betted her eyelashes and gave a pitiful hound dog look.

“Mm. It depends.”

“Come on, Ev.”

“What is it?”

“I kind of promised Mom I’d make lasagna for Sunday’s dinner. Being that I won’t be here to cook it—”

“You always get out of cooking Sunday dinner. The last time you were supposed to make the potato salad, and I ended up doing it.”

“Yeah. That’s right and Mom was suspicious. You know, I leave a few egg shells in mine, just to give it an extra crunch. Remember that next time.”

“Lasagna takes so long,” she complained.

“Please. I’ll come over and give you a mani and pedi the next time you need one.” Bribery usually worked and this time was no exception.

Karen was in school training to become a nail technician. So far, she hadn’t ditched the school or the trade for the next best thing. Evelyn had to admit, her sister was actually good at doing nails, unlike the time she’d taken phlebotomy. She’d pass out every time she had to draw blood from a patient. Of course, she dropped out before she’d received her certification.

“I’ll even give you a foot massage,” she added.

“OK. I’ll do it.” She couldn’t resist. She loved when Karen massaged her feet. She had a way of not tickling her or causing her reflex action to be in full effect. Once, at a birthday party with male strippers, she’d kicked one of the dancers in the nose because he’d sucked her toes. No one could touch her feet without that reaction, except Karen.

“Cool. We don’t need to go grocery shopping because I already have all the ingredients. So, let’s take them to the car on our way out.” She headed to the refrigerator and grabbed a container of ricotta cheese, another of cottage cheese and some packages of shredded cheese. “Get that bag on the counter. It has the sauce, Parmesan, lasagna noodles and the rest of the stuff.”

John stood up and Evelyn finally got to see him in the light of day. He was extremely good-looking, tall and muscular. She could understand the appeal. The fact that he was married didn’t sit too well with her, but it was her sister’s life. She made it her business to keep her nose out of it. Not that Karen took her advice anyway.

Once Karen dropped her back at her place, Evelyn spent the majority of her Saturday preparing lasagna and doing laundry. As the lasagna noodles boiled, she went to toss a load of clothes into the washing machine.

By the time she’d mixed all of the ingredients for the pasta, the clothes had stopped and she threw them into the dryer. Returning to the kitchen, she finished the preparation of the lasagna and slid the oblong glass pan into the oven.

Minutes later, she heard the buzz of the dryer, signaling that the machine had stopped. She trudged back to the laundry room to attend to the clothes. When she took the items out of the dryer, she frowned at each piece of “fat girl” clothing. She tossed them almost angrily into the white plastic laundry basket.

“I wish I was thin,” she said. “Then maybe I could meet some hot man online or any man for that matter.” She exhaled and left the laundry room, closing the door so Nutmeg wouldn’t be able to get in. Once she’d fallen into the washing machine because Evelyn had forgotten to close the lid. Her screeches of anger of not being able to get out haunted Evelyn to that day. She didn’t want a repeat occurrence, although she was almost 100% certain, Nutmeg wouldn’t go near the machine again.

She carried the basket of clothes into the living room so she could fold them. As she sat on the couch, the club flyer caught her eye again. She placed the basket of clothes on the couch next to her and reached for the postcard.

“Pole Dancing for Fitness,” she read aloud. As she read the rest of the information on the card, she became more interested. It listed some benefits of pole dancing for fitness such as building and toning muscles, increasing flexibility, boosting confidence, and stripping away the pounds.

“I definitely need to strip away the pounds,” she said, thoughtfully, biting the side of her bottom lip. Maybe it was something she could do.

She placed the card back on the table and contemplated taking classes as she folded her laundry. By the time she’d finished folding all of her clothes and putting them away in the dresser drawer in her bedroom, she’d made up her mind. Doing anything would be better than continuing to do nothing. She’d call the number on Monday and set up an appointment for a consultation.

Now that Nutmeg was no longer constipated, she leaped up into Evelyn’s lap and rubbed against her, wanting to be petted. Evelyn catered to her for a while, rubbing her belly and caressing the white and nutmeg-colored fur until the cat purred her way to sleep.

She didn’t want to disturb Nutmeg, but she had to get up to check on the lasagna, which flagrant aroma floated in the air. Thankfully, when she placed the feline on the floor, she just yawned, stretched out her paws, snuggled into the carpet and went back to sleep.

She opened the oven door and took a step back fanning the hot fumes with a pair of green oven mitts that she’d slipped onto her hands until the vapors subsided. She bent to observe the pasta, seeing that the sauce was bubbling around the edges indicating it was done. She took the steaming lasagna out of the oven and placed it on a metal cooling rack.

Now that that’s done and the laundry is done, how will I spend the rest of my evening?

She already knew the answer to that. She would read on her Kindle until something caught her attention on the television then she’d go to bed. Another dull and boring day lay ahead. The truth was, quite a few dull, boring days stretched out ahead of her.

She sighed aloud and plopped down on the couch. A change had to come soon. It was either get busy living or get busy dying.