Noel
I’m setting a small, carved pumpkin in the middle of a table when a Braxton Hicks contraction hits me. I grab my stomach and focus on my breathing.
“You okay?”
I nod at Scheva as she walks over, taking a few deep breaths until the tightness in my belly finally goes away.
“I’m fine. Just getting these stupid things more and more lately,” I tell her, glancing around the yard and changing the subject. “This place looks amazing. We did a pretty awesome job.”
Scheva smiles in agreement as we take in the transformation of my parents’ backyard. Since Scheva’s parents suck and couldn’t be bothered to come home from their vacation in Barbados for the wedding, naturally my parents immediately agreed to have the wedding here. Scheva and Alex rented the same giant white tent that Sam and I used for our wedding. Underneath it is a bunch of round tables with dark brown tablecloths. In the center of each tablecloth is a cluster of fake leaves in every fall color, and nestled on those are jack-o’-lanterns containing candles we’ll light right before the guests arrive, in two days. We decided to set everything up today, instead of tomorrow, so we won’t be exhausted rushing around the day before the wedding, scrambling to get everything ready.
My dad, Alex, and Sam strung orange lights all around the ceiling of the tent, and bows made from orange and brown plaid fabric are tied around the backs of all the chairs. My mom and Aunt Bobbie are currently sticking black wrought-iron stakes into the ground all around the outer edge of the tent. The stakes are topped with small orange-glass pumpkins, which will also hold lit candles.
It’s beautiful and not over-the-top crazy with decorations, like I initially imagined it would be when Scheva announced she wanted a Halloween wedding.
“Honey, are you okay? You look a little pale,” my mom states as she walks up next to us with a box of treat bags for us to start putting at every place setting.
“Just some Braxton Hicks contractions, I’m fine.”
I’m exhausted is what I am. Sam, true to his word, brought out all of my Halloween decorations the other day, and I immediately went to work putting out pumpkins and ghosts, hanging leaf garlands from every doorway, and stringing orange and purple lights wherever I could find room. And now I’ve been here all day, helping Scheva get ready for her wedding when what I really want to do is take a nap with a giant container of cookie-dough ice cream.
Mom sets the box down on the table in front of us and gives me a stern look.
“You should be taking it easy. Didn’t you learn anything in that What to Expect When You’re Expecting book I gave you at the start of your pregnancy?”
“Yes. I learned not to jump on a trampoline, smoke meth, or handle a firearm while pregnant,” I deadpan.
“All excellent suggestions,” Scheva muses.
“Did you read the chapter about having more sex to induce labor? Are you and Sam having enough sex? Your father and I did it at least three times a day when I was pregnant with you. This one time he even used a spatula to—”
I hold up my hand to stop her from talking, her eyes—the same bright green shade as mine—blinking in confusion when I cut her off. With her long red hair pulled back into a low bun that she doesn’t even need to touch up with color to hide the grays, we could easily pass for sisters. The thought that my child will be blessed with good genes makes me smile to myself, before I realize I was getting ready to scold my mother and now is not the time for distractions.
“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you to stop telling me about your and Dad’s sex life? A daughter does not need to know these things about her mother. Ever.”
“Will you tell your daughter about these things?” she asks with an excited smile.
“Nice try. Not falling for it. We’re not telling you what we’re having because we don’t even know what we’re having,” I remind her.
My mom has not been pleased that we haven’t found out the sex of the baby. She insists we’ve been lying to her this whole time and really do know what we’re having. I know it’s unusual in this day and age not to find out, but there aren’t that many surprises in life. Sam and I want to enjoy every minute of the day our child is born, including the moment when the doctor tells us what’s been growing inside of me for the last nine months, wreaking havoc on my body and making me feel more psychotic than usual.
“Regardless, I think you should just have more sex with Sam. It will put some color back into your cheeks and remove that permanent scowl from your face,” Mom informs me.
“It’s called a resting bitch face, Bev,” Scheva adds with a smile.
“Kiss my ass, fuck truck,” I mutter, giving her the finger. “You try carrying around an extra thirty pounds of weight and feeling like you’re sweating from every inch of your body. My thighs are sweating, my back is sweating, my pits are sweating, my vagina is sweating. . . . I’m sweating from places I didn’t even know could sweat.”
Scheva scrunches up her face in disgust.
“No thank you. You couldn’t pay me enough to push a human out of my body and ruin my vagina forever. How does that thing even go back to normal after something like that? You know how? It doesn’t. Ever. It’s just a bunch of loose, flappy skin that gets in the way and scares penises,” Scheva says, though she immediately clamps her mouth shut when she sees the look of horror on my face. “I mean, for other women,” she continues. “Not you, obviously. You’ll have the perfect birth, and the perfect vagina, and your life will be awesome!”
She holds up her palm for me to give her a high five, dropping it after a few seconds when I refuse to smack my hand with hers.
“Bobbie! What did you do to these treat bags?” Mom suddenly yells as she busily paws through the box on the table.
Scheva and I move closer, peering into the box as Mom brings out one of the bags, digs around inside, and pulls out a handful of pills.
“Are these Xanax, Ecstasy, or pot pills? Noel, smell these and tell me what they are,” she orders, sticking her hand up to my nose.
“That’s not how you know the difference between pills, Mom. And how in the hell would I know the difference anyway?”
“Do you really want me to bring up the day you tried to take off your clothes during a job interview?” she asks.
“I WAS ROOFIED! THAT WASN’T MY FAULT!” I scream.
“And the time you ate a pot cookie and peed standing up?” she adds.
“I was using a she-funnel, and it was convenient and time-saving,” I inform her. “Besides, that was the night I was drunk. The night I ate a pot cookie, Sam and I had sex on your washing machine, he found a pair of crotchless panties that were yours, and we both almost curled up in the fetal position and never had sex again.”
My mom wipes an imaginary tear from her eye and smiles at me.
“You had sex on a washing machine? You really are my daughter. I was so proud, up until the crotchless panties part. They’re very sexy and freeing. I’ll buy you a pair.” She drops the handful of pills into the box and grabs her phone from the table.
“Do not buy me a pair.”
“I’m buying you a pair. I bet they have them on Amazon. They have everything on Amazon. I got your dad assless chaps with two-day free shipping,” she states.
“What’s all the yelling about? You’re killing my buzz,” Aunt Bobbie complains, coming up next to us with a full martini glass in her hand.
“Bobbie, did you put pot pills in the treat bags for the guests?” Mom asks, setting down her phone and forgetting all about buying me crotchless panties, thank God.
“What the hell are pot pills? And no, I most certainly did not put anything like that into the treat bags,” Bobbie replies, taking a sip of her drink.
Mom reaches back into the box and grabs the pills, holding them out for Aunt Bobbie to see.
“Oh, okay, yeah. I totally put those in there.”
She leans down and sniffs the pills in the palm of my mom’s hand.
“Yep, those are Ecstasy,” Aunt Bobbie confirms.
“See! I knew you could smell the difference, Noel!” Mom scolds me.
“Seriously? That’s what you’re worried about right now? Aunt Bobbie tried to roofie an entire wedding!”
“And possibly the neighborhood. We might want to check on the treat bags we put aside for the kids. Also, I can’t find the pot brownies I had in a Tupperware container in the fridge,” Aunt Bobbie adds.
We all stare at her for a few seconds, none of us able to come up with anything to say that will make the situation any better.
“What?” she asks. “So a few kids get a little high. There are worse things that could happen, like a killer clown on the loose. Look at it this way: If he creeps in their bedroom window, they won’t even care!”
With a groan, we all make our way up to the house, each of us grabbing boxes of treat bags set aside for the guests. We now have to go through them all, as well as the more than three hundred trick-or-treat bags inside the house.
I take back everything I said about wanting to live closer to my parents. Whoever bought the house across the street can have it, along with my sympathies.