CHAPTER SEVEN
December 19th
17 weeks
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Vega," Cat said as she walked into the flower shop with Tori.
"Hi, Cat - Tori told me about last week, how are you feeling?" Holly asked.
"Better. Still a little sore, but I think that's more because I haven't been moving around much."
"Well, you won't be here long today, I just wanna give you a run down and you girls can go back to the house. It's pretty self explanatory. This is the cash register, the refrigerated flowers are right there, there's another fridge in the back where we keep all the custom orders, and you really just need to make sure you're displaying a good mood to the customers. Come back here, I'll show you how to work the register."
Cat walked behind the counter and she stood next to Holly, watching her type something into the keyboard on her computer.
"So, you'll log into your own profile, but we'll get that all set up for you tomorrow. When you log in, it automatically clocks you in, and when you log out, it clocks you out. Tori, bring me a bush daisy."
Tori stared at Holly for a few seconds, extending her arms to the side. "I'm allergic to bush daisies!" she exclaimed.
"Right - bring me a daffodil."
Tori plucked a daffodil out of a bouquet and brought it to the counter. "Bush daisies..."
"I forgot, sue me. Alright, we have every flower labeled with a picture and they're in alphabetical order, so you should have no problem finding them," Holly said, scrolling down to the picture of a daffodil and clicking it. "So, you'll select 'daffodil' and under quantity, you'll type in however many they're purchasing, in this case would be 'one'. And then you'll click 'okay' and it'll take you back to the list of flowers and you'll do the same thing with each type. Are you following so far?"
Cat nodded. "Yep, keep going."
"Alright, counting the flowers is important because the prices jump. A singular flower is 85 cents. If you have a customer that's getting nine flowers, that'll be 85 cents times nine, plus tax which is... let me think -"
"8.22."
"Right. However, if they have ten, that's considered a bundle, and a bundle is ten dollars, and a bouquet would be thirteen or more flowers, which would be twenty-five dollars. So, if a customer has twelve flowers, that's a bundle plus two single flowers, which would come out to... hm..."
"11.70 plus tax, which is 7.5 percent, making tax 88 cents bringing the total to 12.58."
Holly looked at her for a few seconds. "...How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Math."
"I do it in my head."
"How?"
"With my brain..."
Holly and Cat stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Anyways," Holly said. "The prices are listed right here on the desk next to the register just so you know the bouquets and bundles. A twenty count bouquet jumps from twenty-five to thirty-five, and every ten flowers from there it goes up."
"Thirty count is forty-five, forty count is fifty-five."
"Exactly. You seem like you're already a pro. It's very simple work, but if you ever have any questions don't be afraid to ask. Do you have a driver's license?"
"Oh, um..." Cat stayed quiet for a few seconds. "No, I don't, I... I'm scared of vehicles. I don't even like riding in them, let alone driving."
"Why's that?"
"My dad... died. In a car accident."
"She wasn't in the car," Tori said. "But, it still freaks her out."
"I'm very sorry to hear that, Cat. I'm sorry if asking about it upset you," Holly said.
"No, it's fine," Cat said. "You didn't know, it's okay. Why do you ask?"
"Well, we have deliveries, but I can keep the same people doing them now."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Deliveries are a couple times a day, my drivers can handle it. Tomorrow I'll show you around the back and introduce you to everybody, but that's pretty much it for today. You might do some light housekeeping here out front, but other than that you'll have a pretty light load."
"Sounds great, Mrs. Vega."
"Alright. You girls can go do whatever, I just wanted to show you as much as I could before I had to buckle down."
"See you at home tonight, Mom," Tori said as Cat followed her towards the door.
As they walked out of the shop, Cat rested her hand on her growing belly. "Man, I wish she'd come out."
"Already? You're not that far along, are you?"
"No. I'm not even half way there yet. I'm seventeen weeks."
"And that's..."
"Four months."
"You're so big for four months -"
"I know. April reminds me every day that I'm fat. Thank you."
"You're not fat - don't listen to her."
"She's only playing when she says it, but it still bothers me, yanno? I can't tell if it's because of the hormones or if it's because I just don't like to be made fun of."
"I thought she was cooling it with talking down to you about the baby."
"She has. A lot. She doesn't say 'well if you weren't pregnant' or 'maybe you should have thought about that' or anything like that anymore. And she's been a lot more helpful. She holds my hair back if I get sick, she caters me, helps me off the floor."
"Why are you on the floor?"
"Because I fall. Duh."
December 25th
17 weeks
Cat stared at the gravemarker in front of her, picking at the grass as she sniffled. She'd been at the cemetery for a while. She lost track of time. She told her mom she was going on a walk after they had breakfast and when she got there, she sat down right in front of her father's grave and she just sat and cried her heart out.
"I miss you, Daddy..." Cat whispered. "Christmas isn't the same without you. We don't listen to the songs you liked. We don't watch It's A Wonderful Life. We don't open presents at midnight... It's just different. I hate Christmas..."
Cat's eyes filled with tears - she was surprised she was even able to still produce tears at this point. "I have something to tell you. You're gonna be disappointed. Maybe even a little upset... I'm pregnant. I'm... I'm having a baby. It's a little girl. She's Robbie's... we were really, really scared at first, but we've gotten used to it and he's really excited. He's gonna be a really good dad... I wish you were around to give him pointers. I wish you were around to give me advice... I just wish you were around..."
Her hand ran over her stomach until she covered her face with her hands, letting out a sob. "Why did you have to die on Christmas? Christmas! It's our favorite holiday, and you - you went and died!" she shouted. "We told you we didn't need orange juice for the turkey because we had apple juice, but no! You had to be fucking stubborn and go to the store anyways, and you got hit by a truck and you fucking died! On Christmas! On my fucking birthday! Why did it have to be on my birthday!"
When Cat left after breakfast, April knew exactly where she was going. So, she gave it about an hour and when Cat hadn't come back home, she decided to take a walk to the cemetery. When she saw her sister - her big sister - sitting at their father's grave, she didn't want to disturb her. She heard every word and her own tears were flowing freely down her cheeks, but she stayed still, behind Cat and letting her vent.
"You - you - you just left me!" Cat said. "You left! You don't understand how that hurts! Every day that you're gone, my heart breaks more and more, and especially now that I'm having my own baby, I'm devastated that she doesn't get to meet the single most important man in my life! You know what I get to tell my daughter when she's old enough to ask about her grandpa? I get to tell her that he died over orange juice. Fucking juice! That's stupid! It's fucking stupid!" she shouted before letting a rack of sobs take over.
April sniffled and walked over to her, finally having enough of it. She sat on her knees and pulled Cat into a hug, kissing her head. "Calm down," she said. "Yelling at him isn't going to change anything, you know that."
"He - I - it was -" Cat said through gasps.
"You're having a panic attack, you need to calm down," April's voice cracked. "You have to breathe, every time your breathing is altered, it happens to the baby, too."
Cat let out a sob. "He's so stupid... Who dies over orange juice?"
"I know, it's a stupid reason, but it happened and we can't change that, Catey. He's still with us. We have his memories. We have his love. He's always in our hearts and he's always watching over us, I promise."
"On our birthday... that's the worst birthday present..."
"I know, Catey... I know. It hurts me too. Sometimes I just - I get so pissed off at him, but it wasn't his fault that he died. You can't blame him for that. It was the truck's fault. The other driver ran a red light, that wasn't Dad's fault."
"We had apple juice..."
"I know," April said as tears slid down her cheeks. "I know we did..."
"Mom?" Cat asked, sitting on a stool at the island.
"Yeah," Tara said.
"...Would Daddy be upset with me?"
"For what, honey?"
"Being pregnant."
Tara shook her head. "I think he'd be disappointed at first... but he'd be understanding because it happened to us too. We were your age when we had Chris. He'd love that little girl more than anything, though."
"I told him about her today... He didn't rise from his grave, so I assume he was sorta okay with it."
Tara chuckled. "If your dad would still be alive by the time that baby's born, he'd be head over heels in love with her. I promise."
Cat sighed and got off of the stool before walking to the fridge and grabbing a water bottle. "I'm gonna take a nap before dinner."
"Okay," Tara said as Cat started out of the kitchen. "Caterina."
Cat stopped and looked at her. "Hm?"
"Happy birthday, baby."
She smiled. "Thanks."
Cat walked upstairs and instead of going to her room, she walked straight to April's, closing the door behind her. She set the water bottle on the nightstand and laid down on her sister's bed next to her and cuddling up to her while she scrolled through TheSlap on her phone.
"What's the matter?" April asked.
"Tired," Cat said.
"You're always tired. That baby sure does a lot to make you tired for just chillin' inside there."
"It's an energy sucker, I get tired just peeing."
"That's called laziness."
"Shut up."
April giggled and turned her camera on, turning it to the front camera option. "Smile, pretend you love me."
"No, I look like crap, I'm fat, I don't wanna take a picture."
"Well too bad, this is gonna be payback for all those pictures you took of me drunk off my ass at the party back in August."
Cat groaned and looked at the camera. When she saw the face April was making she let out a laugh and April snapped the picture before kissing her cheek.
"That's better," April said before placing her phone on the nightstand. "So... this is what seventeen feels like."
"...Like sixteen?"
"It's felt the same since we were ten, this growing up thing is total bullshit."
"I just don't feel the magic anymore, yanno? Birthdays used to be so much fun, but... it stopped feeling like that after Daddy died..."
"Yeah..." April whispered.
They were both silent, arms wrapped lightly around each other. That was until Cat let out a sob.
"I miss him so much, April..." Cat whispered.
"I know... me too."
"It's just not... right. It doesn't feel right celebrating anything without him. Especially our birthday, since he was half the reason we were born to begin with."
"Well come on now, don't give him too much credit. He did make Chris."
"Quit being mean to him, it hurts his feelers."
"His feelers."
"That's what he calls them, he thought he was turning into a bug because he accidentally ate a ladybug a couple weeks ago."
"How do you accidentally eat a ladybug?"
"I don't know. It's Chris."