CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My morning wakeup call this morning is not a gentle thing. I sit bolt upright at 645 as an ear piercing scream from the room next door shatters the silence.
Sometime during the course of the night Doj has given up on his bed and he's currently sprawled behind me, on his back with his legs in the air, his head is upside down and his mouth has flopped backwards so all I see is the inner pink of his jowls. The screaming hasn't disturbed him at all "Some guard dog you are!" I snort, throwing back the blankets and jumping out of bed.
Heading into the room next door I spot Donna already there, trying desperately to calm her screaming child. I'm not sure what to do about it, I was only ever around these 2 children while they were still inside my best friend, a thought that strikes me as comical and gross at the same time.
Doj has used my getting out of bed to roll onto his legs and I hear him come in behind me, the tags on his collar a giveaway.
Miraculously the appearance of my golden brown animal seems to make Ellie stop her screaming in mid breath. It sort of stutters to a halt then "Doggy?" comes out like she can't believe her eyes.
Donna looks at me, and I know it's to check that Doj will be okay with her, and I know that she will be fine, on days when I was too tired to function after school and work Cam would take him with her to the park, where inevitably they would end up the centre of a huge group of children. Doj, the attention whore that he is, loved every second of it and used to protest going home in case more kids wanted to pat him.
Ellie inches over, her footie pyjamas wrinkled from the night's sleep and her hair sticking in all directions, but I ignore her for a second, giving a verbal command to Doj for him to lie down so he's not towering over her so much.
Ellie reaches the point where she can stick a hand out and almost touch Doj's nose, and he does the rest of the work for her, his massive pink tongue comes out and licks the palm of her hand, suddenly an eruption of giggles fill the ear as Ellie takes another step forward, plonking down on the ground beside the dog.
Donna smiles at the sight of her small child, almost eclipsed by the size of the dog who is now trying to crawl his way around her so that Ellie's little hands can pat the bits he likes the best, the top of his head and right between his shoulder blades.
Another giggle brings our attention to the other bed where Kenny is sitting watching, but before we can get him up he's thrown himself out of bed, run over to Ellie and is sitting with her, both of them patting him, chatting away in that 'twin speak' they've got.
Watching while Donna makes their beds and does a quick tidy round the room we let the twins have a few minutes playing before we each collect a twin from the floor and head towards the kitchen with Doj in tow.
Leaving Donna to settle the kids in their chairs I start pottering round their small kitchen, feeding the dog his breakfast, opening the back door for him before pulling out ingredients for breakfast, the knowledge that its party night at the club still weighing on my mind, but I know a decent breakfast will mean a late lunch, which will help with any alcohol I will likely consume tonight having learnt from several very nasty hangovers in my teen years.
30 minutes later, I'm just setting the stuffed French toast on the table as the coffee pot finishes and Opie stumbles in fresh out of the shower, he sniffs the air as Donna pushes a cup of coffee over, he takes a massive mouthful, shakes his head and his eyes open.
Picking up his knife and fork he attacks the giant pile of French toast in front of him, pausing between bites to issue a list of things that need to be done today I chew my way through the breakfast I've made.
Half way through the meal I'm still half-listening to Opie as he reminds Donna that she has to be at the Clubhouse at 5 to help with the food. He looks over at me and tells me that I am welcome, as are my friends. "After all," he says, "many hands make light work."
I nod, but I'm not sure if I'll make it much before I think everyone is too drunk to recognise me, and likewise I'm not sure if my friends will want to go having only arrived last night.
He heads off to work while Donna and I clean the kitchen, and then bath the kids...who knew fruity chocolate French toast could get behind ears?
About 3 hours after our unnatural wakeup call my phone chimes from my bag, fishing it out I am surprised that Al is awake at this hour, knowing her she'd think that 10am was far too early to be awake, let alone using a phone.
She sounds remarkably awake as she informs me they're on their way over and how do they get to where I am. I give them detailed directions, only being corrected twice as I tell them where to turn (apparently in 4 years only 2 businesses have changed names).
Heading back to the kitchen I pull the French toast I'd put aside and pop it in the oven for my 'we don't eat breakfast' friends. They don't eat breakfast, unless I've cooked it. That's something that only took me a month to realise after Al moved into an apartment on the same floor as Cam and I in the middle of Manhattan.
A few short minutes later they are pulling into the drive, Donna lets them in and shows them to the kitchen where they almost snatch the plates out of my hands. They're at the table eating before I even get a 'Hello' and I begin to think maybe they haven't eaten since I left, which starts the feelings of guilt again.
Donna brings a pot of coffee to the table with cups, sugar and milk and we sit round chatting for a while, Cam confirms the thought that they hadn't been eating very well, but they'd packed up the apartments the day after I left and left New York as soon as they could so had been living on take out since then.
I promise them a few good home cooked meals as a thank you for the cleaning and packing they had to do. Cam shrugs, "I'm sure you will more than make up for it. And on the way down I rang Daddy and told him I was coming here. He's going to put the apartments into the rental market and let me know when they have re-leased."
Cam doesn't like to make a big deal of it, but her father has more money than Jeff Bezos, the guy who founded Amazon, she doesn't have to work, her father is perfectly happy to support her life, but she studied interior design, clothing design and business management before she finally found what she wanted to do when she started cosmetology, but she made her father promise that he wouldn't interfere and help her be successful, she wanted to achieve that on her own. Before I left she was starting to do okay having worked on several movie sets doing the hair and makeup, but I'm not sure how being in the middle of small town USA will help her now.
Al looks incredibly thankful that she became such good friends with the person who owned her leased apartment, and truthfully, the whole floor we lived on in our building in Manhattan. It made breaking her lease to leave that much easier.
The pair of them has finished eating and we're just sitting quietly round the table drinking coffee when Neeta comes in the door, having arrived later seeing she'll be staying with the kids till the following morning.
Neeta ushers us all out the door letting me know that it won't be a problem the dog hanging around, as long as he doesn't mind her singing off-key. Al and Cam both burst out laughing and let Neeta know that Doj is used to being sung to badly as I do it all the time.
Heading out in my Nitro to run errands it's 2pm when Gemma rings and asks for us to pick up the meat order for tonight, we head towards Stockton and end up arriving there just before 3. With the meat order not due to be ready till 5 we end up the time in between wandering around Webstertown Mall before heading to the butcher who loads 4 massive chilled boxes in the back of my car.
I can't believe that all the meat just dumped in my luggage compartment will be consumed that night, but I figure after all these years Gemma must know what she's doing and the 4 of us climb back in the car and return to Charming, new outfits purchased and tucked in their bags between white polystyrene.