Mom Over Miami Part 9

More thumping, b.u.mping and grumbling came from the next room.

She sc.r.a.ped the frosting from the edge of the blade, releasing the sweet scent of sugar and vanilla into the air. "Hey, Sam."

He peeked around the corner.

"How's it looking?"

"I can't tell. Everything's in plastic, but the big couch looks kinda small."

"Really?" She plunked the spatula down and stretched to peer around the corner at the plastic-covered lump in her living room. "Must be the love seat."

"Is that what it's called?"

"Yup. You can pull the plastic off if you want-I have to make this frosting work."

She heard the plastic ripping. Sam let out a whoop.

"At least someone is having a good time, huh, Tessa?" She stabbed the spatula in the tub and tackled the cake once again, but this time the thick white icing went on smooth and gorgeous. "It's working!"

She didn't dare stop now, not even when a loud whump whump shook the walls. shook the walls.

"What was that, Sam?"

"It's big and wooden-must be that arm ware."

"Armoire. It's-it's not important. Are they putting it in the right place?"

"Yes."

She took a deep breath and smiled down at the suddenly flawless waves of frosting on top of her soccer celebration cake. "At least something is going right today."

"h.e.l.lo? Hannah? It's Lauren."

"Come on in. I'm in the kitchen."

"I see you've got your furniture."

"Today's the day for early arrivals. We didn't expect it until this afternoon. Pardon the chaos, by the way!"

"Don't give it another thought. Everyone's had some days when their house looked like-"

"Wow!"

Wow? Hannah mouthed Stilton's reaction. The furniture must look better than she remembered. She couldn't wait any longer; she wanted to see. If it wowed an eight-year-old, it must be... Hannah mouthed Stilton's reaction. The furniture must look better than she remembered. She couldn't wait any longer; she wanted to see. If it wowed an eight-year-old, it must be...

"Retro chic?" Lauren skimmed her fingertips over the high-gloss finish of a full-fledged wet bar. Right there in her living room where her Mission-style armoire should have rested. "Is that what they call this, Hannah?"

"No! No, no, no, no! They call this a mistake. This is not not our furniture!" our furniture!"

Hannah made a quick tally of the things deposited in her home. A leopard-print futon-the thing she'd thought was her love seat. A giant orange ottoman, on wheels, no less. A bar, with a gla.s.s back and rack to hang gla.s.ses overhead. And a pair of stools with dice and drinks on the cus.h.i.+ons!

"This is not my home. This is somebody's rec room!"

Lauren touched her, shoulder to shoulder, and murmured, "Somebody with very...interesting taste."

Hannah looked at the open doorway. "Where are those delivery guys?"

Sam pointed. "Inside the truck."

"Maybe I should just get the cake and get out of your way so you can sort this out."

"Oh, yes, good." The sooner Lauren left, the sooner Hannah could fall apart. She motioned for the woman to follow her into the kitchen.

"I didn't have time to decorate it, but I bought some of those premade sugar decorations as a backup, so you can take those with you and put them on as soon as the icing sets a little more."

Lauren swiped her finger along the edge where some frosting stuck to the foil. "Um, Hannah, if this frosting sets anymore, it will be ready for wallpapering, not sprinkling with candy soccer b.a.l.l.s."

"Oh, no." She couldn't have. Could she? She took a quick sniff of the flawless covering. "Oh, no!"

"What is it?"

"I had the frosting and some s.p.a.ckling compound for repairing the walls in the same kind of container."

"You frosted the kids' cake with s.p.a.ckling compound?"

"Not at first." She didn't know what made her feel worse-that she'd pulled another dumb stunt in front of Lauren or that her frosting hadn't been as smooth or as moist as a home-improvement product.

"You're having a rotten day, aren't you?" Lauren laughed, but not too much. Then put her arm around Hannah and added, "Don't worry. I'll take care of the snack."

"Let me guess. It will be something homemade?"

"Probably. If you don't think the kids will mind."

She opened her mouth to say something, though she had no idea how she could both convey her frustration over the ease with which Lauren handled everything and still sound grateful. Before she could compose a single comment, a commotion started in the living room.

A commotion. The spot-on perfect term for a seventy-something fireball with chopsticks protruding from her red topknot, wearing a pink dress and work boots.

"Surprise!"

"Aunt Phiz!" Hannah leaned back against the counter for support. "You said you were sending sending something." something."

"Yes!" She wrapped Hannah in her arms and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I make it a policy to always send the best, so I sent...myself! Ta-da!"

Sam laughed.

"This must be Sam!" She swooped down to envelop the boy in her expansive arms. Then, looking up at Stilton, said, "And this must be...?"

"A friend." Hannah patted the boy on the back. "You really did pick a dilly of a time to pop in all the way from China, Aunt Phiz."

"Oh, my! Did I throw a monkey wrench into the works?"

Sam's eyes went all starry and bright. "Did you bring a monkey?"

"No, she did not bring a monkey." Hannah raised her gaze from the boy to her aunt. "Please, please, tell me you didn't bring a monkey."

Phyllis Amaryllis Shelnutt Shaffer Wentz burst into an uproarious gale of laughter.

Lauren joined in, politely covering her mouth with her manicured hand, but laughing all the same.

The boys began to leap about shouting, "Monkey! Monkey!"

Before Hannah could calm them, a bald man with sweat dripping down his thick neck crossed the threshold, his hands behind him gripping something huge. "Okay, lady," he asked. "Where do you want the Ping-Pong table?"

Aunt Phiz pulled herself together enough to pinch Hannah by the arm and shake her head. "You poor little thing. I guess I showed up at a very bad time."

"Actually?" Hannah looked around her at the laughter and the letdowns and couldn't help but think about her wish for something more exciting to write about. "You may have come at a moment of divine inspiration."

"How's that?" Lauren c.o.c.ked her head.

"Let me rephrase that." Hannah folded her arms and made a mental note of every last detail of the bedlam surrounding her. "Can I use your real names in my column?"

CHAPTER 7

Subject: Nacho Mama's House column To:

Big news!

We have a new addition to our family! No, not another child but rather someone with the faith of a child, the joy of a child...and the overblown, highly honed b.u.t.tinsky instincts of a full-grown Shelnutt in her prime.

My aunt Phiz has come to help me out.

Before you get the idea I am typing about her behind her back, let me a.s.sure you that my aunt is completely aware that showing up for a two-week visit and inviting yourself to move in is the kind of thing that will get a person talked about. Aunt Phiz loves to be talked about. Almost as much as she loves meddling in the lives of her brother, his three daughters and their a.s.sorted spouses and children. So she won't mind one bit when I tell you that she came all the way from China to Loveland, Ohio, for the express purpose of making my life simpler.

Then why do I have this nagging feeling that my life is about to get a lot more complicated?

NOTE TO SELF: FINISH COLUMN BEFORE SENDING.

"As to any special dietary needs?" Phiz paused to clear her throat.

Presented with the first gap in the morning's meandering monologue, Hannah dove in. "Not to worry, Aunt Phiz. Cincinnati has a little bit of everything. Whatever you need, we can find it here."

"Me? Oh, don't you concern yourself about me, dear." The stout old gal patted her rounded belly and stretched out her bird-thin legs. An egg perched on stilts, Daddy had once described her figure. "I have the stomach of a goat."

"Lucky you. Sadie is like that. That girl can eat anything. She's the one who taught Sam that concoction of chocolate milk over cereal topped with strawberries."

Hannah cuddled into her plump new couch. The salesperson had promised her that the cheery checkered upholstery would withstand the a.s.saults of two kids, a dog and whatever else they threw at it. She whisked the back of her hand over a berry-shaped chocolate stain and sighed. Obviously that man had never been to Hannah's house and seen what her family was capable of throwing.

Still...She smiled over her coffee cup and tucked her legs up under her. "That's right, you and Sadie and Sam, our family's very own three billy goats gruff, with stomachs to match. April has eyes like a hawk, and Daddy-"

"Your daddy is ornery as a skunk."

"I was going for crazy as a loon, but skunk works, too." Hannah laughed. "Meanwhile, me? I was blessed with hips like an elephant."

"Pfffttt." Aunt Phiz sputtered her distaste and scrunched up her deeply lined lips. "You have a darling figure."

"Yeah, darling if elephants are darling. Which I guess they can be, but mostly to other elephants."

"Stop that this instant." Aunt Phiz's delicate antique teacup, which she had hauled hither and yon around the world over the past two decades, clinked down into its saucer.

Hannah curled her heavy coffee mug, a freebie from a pharmaceutical rep calling on Payt's office, close to her chest. "Stop what?"

"Do you not know? Don't you even listen to yourself?"

"Why do people keep asking me that? Of course I hear myself. My voice comes right out of my mouth, conveniently located just inches away from my ears. I can't help hearing myself."

"Hearing and listening." She held both her index fingers up to demonstrate her point. She touched them together then whipped them apart, her jewelry jangling. "Not necessarily the same thing."

Hannah braced her bare foot against the edge of the new coffee table and pressed her lips together.

"And furthermore, your voice may come out of your mouth, young lady, but your words come from someplace else. Sometimes it's your mind. Sometimes it's your heart. Sometimes it's even your stomach." She patted her rounded belly and laughed. "Feed me chocolate now, and no one gets hurt."

Hannah's lips twitched, then relaxed into a hint of a smile.

"But in truth, what you say says more about you than simply the sounds you make. And, Hannah, what I hear you saying about yourself worries me."

"I just meant I'm not happy with my hips. That's all." But was it? But was it?

Hannah was no dummy. When two of the people she loved most in the world told her to her face that she needed to listen to herself more carefully, she had to take notice. But honestly, she didn't see how it would change a thing, especially about her hips.

She looked around at the new furniture that had taken six hours, three movers, eight phone calls and one near hissy fit to get installed in her living room. They'd been in Loveland such a short time, and while she loved the sweet little town, she had begun to wonder if she would ever settle in here. Every day some new thing confronted her that she felt ill equipped to handle. Even a simple discussion with her aunt had gone so off-kilter that she suddenly felt the need to defend her interior life, her sense of humor, her very cellulite!

All she wanted was one day where she didn't have to endure a lecture on her shortcomings. Or face an uphill battle or downhill slide into humiliation brought on by her shortcomings. Or...or go through a day where she would be called upon to demonstrate her shortcomings.

Apparently, today was not that day.

She smoothed her hands down the legs of her pink Capri pants but the b.u.mps and ripples and imperfections she saw there were not in the fabric. "Can we just drop the whole hearing and listening a.n.a.logy for now and suffice it to say that Tessa is almost seven months old and I still haven't lost all the weight I gained."

"Fine. Yes. Fine. Let's not quibble." Phiz raised her age-spotted hand, setting her stack of silver bracelets clattering as she gestured in staccato movements with each word she spoke. "That brings us back to my question, though."