Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2) (6 page)

Despite River’s pep talk, I’m doubting that I can handle this whole school thing. The rest of the afternoon was a blur after I go home. Of course, we ended up ordering take-out; nobody could agree on what to eat so in the end, everyone complained except for Evan who will eat just about anything.

After dinner, nobody wanted to do their homework; Lexie actually spent the better part of an hour whining about how unfair fractions were and how they were ruining her life. Yes, she said
ruining her life
.

Colt literally had six sentences to write and it took him two hours and forty two minutes because he left the table after each word that he reluctantly imprinted on the page. I have no idea what Allie did as far as homework was concerned because she shut herself up in her bedroom and blasted her music. But I had to assume she had been doing school work because after our ordeal last year, Allie had started to perform surprisingly well in school for the remainder of the year. By June, Roger and I were actually beaming with pride at her report card. We chalked it up to the whole
seeing your life flash before your eyes and it ain’t that great
situation she had found herself in.

Roger wasn’t any help with wrangling the kids to do their homework as he grumbled that he had his own homework. I found him asleep in his chair, TV blasting, shortly after that.

He’s now reclining in our bed on his back, gently snoring and making it extremely difficult for me to concentrate on reading. As if the reading material weren’t dull enough, I find my mind wandering to my mental to do list for the morning.

Roger groans, snorts, and flops over on his side, smacking my iPad out of my hand. I glower at him, resisting the urge to cover his face with my pillow. Sighing, I take that as a cue to give up for the night. I place the iPad on the bedside table and click off the light, wondering what the heck I’ve gotten myself into.

~Four~

“Hello, Amy.”

My breath hitches as I hear his voice on the other end of the phone. My pulse quickens and my palms are starting to sweat.

I lick my dry and cracked lips before I answer in the sultriest voice that I can muster. “Hello, Jason.” Part of me is praying he cannot hear the desire in my voice, while the other half of me is wishing he would leap through the receiver and scoop me up in his arms.

“I heard that you were taking college classes and that you are going for a criminal justice degree?”

Crap. Where did he hear that? Who told him? Then, I realize that he is an agent and he has other secret agent friends everywhere. My heart skips a beat at the notion that he may be spying on me or having one of his friends spy on me.

“That is correct,” I reply, attempting to sound matter of fact and not the least bit affected by his sexy voice.

“Why are you even bothering?” he asks abruptly.

“Excuse me?” My defensive feathers are ruffled. Is he insinuating that I have no business in law enforcement? That I would not cut it? Oh, the nerve of him! After he had told me I would be a good agent! Why I ought to-

“Why are you wasting time with those paper pushers? They’re only book smart. They don’t have what it takes to be a real cop or agent. You know that old saying, ‘those who can’t…teach’?”

I did in fact know that saying. I often applied it to some of my children’s teachers who had rubbed me the wrong way with their superior attitude and know it all condescension.  Just because I got Cs in high school and only made it through one semester of college didn’t make them any better than me.

“I think the best way for you to learn would be more of a hands on approach,” Jason is saying.

I am brought back to reality by his sensual voice. “What do you mean?” I ask, clearly confused.

“You learn by experiencing, by
doing
,” Jason explains, managing to make the word
doing
sound incredibly erogenous.

“Oh, I understand,” I reply, blushing from his tone.

Jason lowers his voice and my skin prickles with anticipation. “And who better to give you hands on experience than me?”

“Oh, Jason, that’s quite kind of you,” I hear myself purring. “But seriously, you don’t have to.”

“Oh, but I insist-”

My fantasy is interrupted by the shrill ringing of my car phone. I whimper reading the name on the screen. I don’t have the stamina for this today. I have spent the entire day rushing from class to class, each one more exhausting than the first. But none of them nearly as bad as Professor Cummings’ class. Thank goodness I only have to deal with that once a week. A few weeks into this semester and I am already wishing it were December. Reluctantly, I press the button to accept the call.

“Hello!” Beth’s chirpy voice fills the car as I pull away from Evan’s school.

Resisting the urge to groan out loud, I attempt to sound cheerful. “Hello, Beth. What’s up?”

“Oh nothing,” Beth remarks in that casually breezy tone that she reserves for when something
definitely
is up and she is looking for the proper segue into that conversation. “How are classes going? You teach those young kids a thing or two yet?”

I recognize this tactic. Beth is buttering me up for a favor of some sort. Probably wants to stick her nose in about Thanksgiving. I do Thanksgiving every other year, and on those years Beth calls me up half a dozen times a day to tell me about a gorgeous centerpiece she saw that I should make (I don’t waste time on centerpieces…hell, my dishes don’t even match) or a recipe she stumbled upon that she
must
send me.  However, it’s about two weeks too early for her Thanksgiving calls. She usually lets my Halloween candy digest before she starts tormenting me. There must be some other agenda today, one I am highly suspicious of.

“Wonderful. I’m at the head of my class,” I lie, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “What did you need, Beth?”

“What? I can’t just ring up my little sister and see how she’s doing? What makes you think I need something?” My sister’s voice definitely rises an octave, belying her intentions. Now I am really suspicious. She sounds unnaturally nervous and sneaky, which is causing me to get my back up. This has got to be one doozy of a favor.

“Ok, well then, I’ve got to go. I only have four more minutes on my Onstar phone account…” I threaten, forcing my sister’s hand.

“Ok, ok, I
was
just wondering if you could do me a teensy weensy favor…” Beth remarks in her annoying sing song-y voice.

I sigh audibly, not bothering to hide it from Beth. Here we go. I am now eternally sucked into indentured servitude to my sister because she’s watching my kid for nine hours a week. A
week
, not a
day
. She’s going to call me up with these
teensy weensie
favors that include taking my mother to get her corns scraped and my dad to get his pupils dilated at the eye doctor.

Now, I’m not saying that having two kids is easier than four but…oh, who am I kidding. It
is
easier and it is definitely easier when you also have a full time housekeeper, gardener, and chef at your disposal. Oh yeah, Beth has a professional
chef
on speed dial that she uses at least three times a week to whip up a meal when she’s wiped out from playing tennis or having a massage. She claims it’s a “friend”, but I don’t know any friends like that. My friends don’t even pick up McDonald’s for me.

So needless to say, I tend to not feel too badly that the care of our aging parents often falls on her. She has much more free time on her hands than I do. But when I owe her a favor, they’re the first thing she dumps on me. Once, I had to take my dad for his prostate exam. It was the most humiliating experience of my life (outside of the time when I was sixteen and I needed him to buy tampons for me when my mother was on a girls’ weekend away with her friends).

“Go ahead,” I mutter. “Where do you need me to take them?”

But this time, Beth really surprises me.

“Oh, it’s actually Jillian. On November 4
th
, she has a playdate at her little friend Ellie’s house. I am supposed to retrieve her at 4:30 pm because Ellie needs to get to her Equestrian lessons, but I just got a phone call from Ana at my spa. She needs to reschedule my massage appointment. I simply cannot miss it, but I don’t want Jillian to miss her playdate.”

What? What is she getting at here? When does she throw the old folks in the mix?

“So anyway, I was wondering if you would be so kind as to pick her up at the girl’s house. I’ll give you the address the next time you drop Evan off.” Ooo, and there it is. The reminder that I
owe
her.

“Beth, November 4
th
is almost a month away. You have a playdate scheduled for a month from now?”
And a massage appointment?

Beth titters nervously. “Oh, Amy! Don’t be silly! Of course you must know that these things have to be scheduled far in advance! Jillian’s social calendar is very busy, as is mine. And all of our friends, too.”

Oh, of course. How silly of me. When I want to arrange a playdate for my kids I just shove them out the door and tell them to find someone in the neighborhood to play with and stay out of the street. But then again, I’m the Bad Mom and Beth is Mother Teresa.

“Sure, sure,” I tell her, just to get her off the phone. Beth seems a little nervous for this simple task and I am starting to think she may have an even bigger favor up her sleeve.

“Thanks a-”

I push the off button before Beth can finish her sentence and hit me up for something else. If all she wants is for me to pick up my niece from a friend’s house as a payback for watching Evan, I’ll take it. I was envisioning months of counting out my mother’s water pill or clipping my dad’s toenails. She was acting super weird, even for Beth.

Something about her nervous energy bothers me, but I quickly forget about it. I have to navigate this monstrosity of a minivan down a street with potholes the side of Buicks. In the rain. And they’re doing construction at the end of the main road, causing a traffic back up at the light. It is going to take me forever to get home.

“Crap, damn, shit,” I mumble under my breath. But apparently not low enough to escape Evan’s dog like hearing.

“Bad word, Mama,” he admonishes while clapping his hands together as if I have performed a circus trick.

I just picked him up from preschool. The other kids are due home any minute now via bus, which is why I am very anxious to get home before they do. They are very unhappy about the bus situation, especially Lexie who absolutely loves talking my ear off on the drive home. I explained to them we would have to make changes if I was going to go back to school.

There was no way I could pick Evan up at 2:30 from preschool, and then dash to three other schools that all let out within minutes of each other. The older kids sulked and complained about Evan being my favorite. They have forgotten all about the endless hours I have spent shuttling their asses from school to practices and games and lessons and classes. They have forgotten that Evan has gotten the short end of this proverbial stick simply by being the last of four. His activities consist of TV viewing and an occasional swim class at the Y. When I can remember to take him, that is.

By the time I get home, it’s pouring. I pull into the garage, something I rarely do, but I want to avoid dragging Evan through the rain. He loves to stop and splash in the puddles and I am a typical mother…I don’t have time for that fun nonsense.

Although, pulling into the garage seems to be a mistake too. In the garage, he has decided to touch the gas can, a circular saw, and what looks like the remains of a dead mouse. Thoroughly disgusted, I dig through my purse, searching for my keys and muttering to myself about rabies. I wish I just let him jump in a puddle.

As I unlock the side door and step inside, the front door bell immediately rings. I race to the door to discover Lexie and Colt huddled on the front porch. I open the door and they storm into the house, dripping water everywhere. The squeaking sound of their shoes on the hardwood floor is deafening.

“Take your shoes off!” I yell as a greeting. They kick their shoes off into the corner of the living room. I don’t have time to yell at them because just then, I realize from the sound in the house, or rather, lack thereof, that I have left our poor dog Misty outside…
again
. I quickly shuffle to the back door and see her pathetic wet, drippy puppy face plastered against the glass.

“Oh, damn it,” I curse, sliding the glass door open. The dog dashes in, shaking her soaked fur at me as if to tell me off for leaving her outside.

“I’m so sorry, Misty,” I crone, noticing that she has also decided to roll in a puddle of mud for good measure. “Stay still while I grab a towel so you don’t get mud everywhere.”

I toss my back pack onto the kitchen table, causing the pile of mail that has been accumulating for nearly two weeks, to flap to the floor. Misty thinks the mail is an offensive intruder and begins yapping uncontrollably and snarling at the fluttering envelopes. As I crouch down and reach for one of the bills, she snatches it up in her mouth and dashes away with it. I lunge for the tiny dog, but I miss as she heads full speed into the living room. She is not only tracking mud all over the kitchen floor, but onto the living room couch as well.

“Shit,” I yelp, right before falling flat on my face in Misty’s wake.

“Bad word again, Mama,” Evan warns me from the stool that he has pushed against the kitchen counter. “Money in the bad word jar,” he orders while pointing at the jar on top of the fridge.

I ignore him as I struggle to my feet. Right now Evan is undoubtedly on a mission to forage in the kitchen cabinet for food.

Once upon a time, I was pretty neurotic about what my kids were eating, especially when it was just Allie I had to worry about. I made homemade baby food way back when it wasn’t even trendy to do that (nor did I have one of those fancy baby food processor things like Beth did). When Allie started eating solid food, I would painstakingly cut up organic fruits and veggies every morning after buying them fresh from the Farmer’s Market once a week.  Allie and I only ate whole grains, while Roger shook his head in disgust and shoveled his over processed white flour into his mouth in front of us. Allie’s juice was 100% natural; everything that crossed her lips was carefully planned out to follow the then current food pyramid chart that hung in our pediatrician’s office in all its laminated glory.

And then, Lexie came along and it all went to hell. Well, I kept it up for a few months, but Lexie was a little colicky (I guess she was trying to talk my ear off even as a baby) and it was difficult to deal with a three year old and a kid who I had to constantly tote around just to shut her up. Even though I learned to do a lot of household chores with one hand, I barely had time to feed myself, let alone chop up little veggies in the shapes of stars and cantaloupe in the likeness of hearts. Lexie survived with premade baby food (and subsequently so did Colt and Evan) but I still didn’t let the girls have junk food.