Ten Too Many

prologue

"Who, now?"

My dad smiled wanly. "Your Aunt Coral?"

I pulled a face. "I have no recollection of this woman."

Dad laughed. "She lives in Montana, remember?"

"And she wants to see me? Why?"

My stepmom, Ruby, crossed her legs primly and gave me a stern, eyebrows raised look. I sucked my front teeth in an effort not to stick my tongue out at her. God, that woman drove me batty.

My dad didn't see the exchange between us as he put more soap over the dishes in the sink, wedding presents. "She hasn't since you were a baby, and I figured it'd be fun for you to go out of state, get out of Atlanta for a while. They live on a ranch."

I thought about this while I dried a piece of hideous china. I'd contemplated dropping it just to get rid of it, but the She-Witch would go ballistic.

"Hm. Cows smell like wombat breath, remember?"

He laughed as Ruby frowned. "Wombats probably don't even have bad breath."

I smiled and turned my back on her. "I'll have to trust your expertise on that one."

He flicked the excess water from his wrist and dried them on a towel. "Well, you can read the email if you'd like, but it does sound fun. They've got a nice place, but I wanted to know if you'd rather come with your stepmom and I. For our honeymoon trip."

Hmm. I flicked the water from my own hands and ignored the towel. "I'll talk to my lawyer."

Inside, I was ecstatic. The whole summer without once seeing the old hag, much less having her criticize whatever I did or didn't do.

He smiled wryly. "You do that. I'm going to go into the office later, you need anything?"

I shook my head. "I'll let you know if I do."

He nodded and went up the stairs, leaving the matron towering over me. That was another thing I couldn't stand. It was one thing being short, but when your stepmom was at least a foot taller than you? Ridiculous.

"What do you think, Lexis?"

I ignored the dumb pet-name and grabbed a tub of sorbet. Usually it would be ice cream, but she was on a 'low carb' diet trend. Even so, she wrinkled her nose when I sat down across from her. "Sounds fun. I'll go."

She brushed her bangs from her face briskly. "Awesome. You need help packing? I can book your plane ticket with my credit. I get a lot, flying job to job."

I nodded mutely and licked my spoon. My stepmom eyed the tub with envy, and I almost felt bad for her. Modeling was brutal, even the short amount of time I'd been reeled into doing it by her. She was a big-shot, Gucci model and worked incredibly long hours on a job. Her manager was a round, quite loud Frenchman who had no problem humiliating you in front of the entire cast.

I'd been saved from him the first time by his assistant, a young redhead. We'd sat on the fire-escape and traded chocolate for stories while everyone went crazy searching for us inside. I went back in time for my next shoot, but they were still miffed at my disappearing act.

I sighed and slid the tub across to her, with my spoon. "Your next shoot isn't for a month. I doubt sorbet will kill you."

I stood and left upstairs to my room before she could answer. Inside, I walked around it a couple times before I decided to do some research on whether or not cows smelled like bat barf and settled on my bed with my laptop.

Montana had some pretty landscape, and a creek ran near the location Dad gave me. He left before I could zoom in enough on the houses, but I inspected each one on the road to get an idea of which house was the Wheelers.

There were several that counted as ranches, but my favorite was one covered in trees, with no fields surrounding the house like most of the others.

"Hm."

I scrolled in to examine the land. It was a well-kept property, from what I could see, and there were several large pastures and a classic red barn. Back in a clump of trees was what looked like a pond, and the ground coverage was all green.

Overall, it was a great idea. School was out, Dad would be occupied with Ruby, and I could go live out in the country on a ranch. My friends would be disappointed, but maybe it would be fun.

I closed my computer and went into the kitchen after I heard Ruby leave. There was a stack of mail on the bar, but other than that, it was sparkling. I'd been tasked to scrubbing it down the day before, and I was glad I hadn't missed anything. I was tired of yellow gloves and cleaning supplies.

The empty sorbet tub was in the trash, which startled me. She'd listened for once.

I crossed the living room and entered my dad's study. He said I could read the email my aunt had sent, so I flopped into his cushy leather desk chair and spun a few times as the laptop booted up.

My dad's Gmail was the first thing to pop up, which would be extremely convenient if I were a hacker trying to steal his case information. I rolled my eyes and clicked on the most recent.

I scanned the first part to get past the pleasantries, blah blah, until I got to the actual invitation. It was pretty standard, but I couldn't help but smile. She sounded genuinely excited, even through text. She left her number at the bottom, and signed off with 'Love, Cookie'.

I put my socked feet on the edge of the desk and closed the laptop. She sounded sweet, and for the first time in a while, I was excited.  

I had no idea as to when I was leaving, but my stepmom had offered to help me pack, so it was probably soon. Perfecto.

One less day I spent with her, one less chance of me losing my mind.