Chapter 341: Mimi XXXV—Convenient Inconveniences

Jana couldn’t stop talking in the car as Michele drove home. The car practically shook with the girl’s bouncing enthusiasm and Michele barely listened to Jana’s excited words, she just understood the tone of it. Jana’s sentences kept falling from French to English back to French again sometimes words alternating within the same sentence that it sounded as if the girl had created her own language. It was almost impossible for her to follow the conversation at all.

“I’m glad you had fun,” Michele said calmly.

“But MOM! You’re not listening!”

“Of course I am,” Michele replied and it struck her that she’d forgotten to barricade Gigi in the sports room with newspapers just in case the puppy had any accidents. She almost brought Gigi with her to the ice rink but the puppy had outgrown her original pocket size cuteness so establishments weren’t as kind about letting her in with her.

“Noo!” Jana squeaked. “You didn’t get mad about Ember?”

“Which one is Ember?” Michele asked.

“See!” Jana snapped.

“What did Ember do to you?”

“Well nothing, yet,” Jana said after a sigh, “But I bet she’ll try something I can get a six scents about this,” Michele knew, somehow she knew that Jana was saying “scents” and not “sense”, “Ember will try something cause she’s stuck up and she thinks she can boss me around.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Michele murmured wondering how big Gigi’s bladder would be by now, and calculating the time she had been gone. “But Ember or not you had fun yes?”

“Yeah!” Jana breathed and the little girl went into a repeat of her winded descriptions of her on ice antics as if Michele hadn’t seen them at all, as if she hadn’t been standing by that glass, watching. She had ignored the woman next to her, the sister of the state’s governor, and she had thought about how irritating it was to already be at odds with a woman who certainly held the top status amongst these mothers. If Jana were to be serious in this figure skating, it wouldn’t do for her mother to be alienated within the group she would crave friends in.

“Ooo Cecile’s here!” Jana peeped excitedly, bouncing in her seat and tugging at her safety belt as they came up the driveway. Cecile’s little white car, mud splashed and quiet, sat in the far corner of the driveway. Parked right next to it was Patrick’s car, already he was back with the boys. “Mom can I sleep with her tonight please! Please, please! I don’t have bad dreams when she’s around.”

“You’ll have to ask her, angel,” Michele said. She wondered if Cecile had thought to let Gigi outside.

Michele had barely parked the car when Jana swung the door open and jumped out, dragging her skating bag behind her. “Cecile!” She cried. “Cecile I’m home! Cecile!”

Gigi barked and met her at the door. Michele talked in baby talk to her as she collected Jana’s coat and mittens and hung her own in the closet. She smiled at Cecile who appeared in the hallway, her hand trailing behind her, hanging onto Danny’s. She didn’t make eye contact with Hinote, not wanting to encourage the boy and seem, well too easy for him.

“Hi Mrs. Roy,” Cecile said.

Michele tilted her head. “Hello Cecile, how are you feeling.” Obviously the girl had been crying, her cheeks and her eyes were pink. Crying or in the throes of some other emotion, passion perhaps? Oh heaven forbid, she thought with an inward smirk. Would she hold it that much against the girl if she actually broke down and allowed her own fiancée to seduce her, sealing her ownership on what was rightfully hers?

“Just fine,” Cecile nodded, one of her arms crossed across her tummy and held onto the elbow of her opposite arm. “Was figure skating good?”

“Danny!” Jana grinned and she ran past Cecile and forced him away from her, jumping into his arms and hugging him. “Figure skating was great! I can’t do jumps yet but I can spin in circles!”

“Already?” Danny grinned. “Hey that’s cool squirt!”

Jana grinned with a jack o’lantern’s grin and hugged him, closing her eyes and settling herself quite comfortably. “Jana you’re too heavy to be held like that,” Michele said lightly. “You’ll break Daniel’s arms.”

“Oh hey it’s okay,” Danny gasped and he leaned over, letting the girl to the ground. “She’s light as a feather.”

“But fierce like tiger!” Jana emphasized and she snatched ahold of Cecile’s hand, dragging her upstairs. “Come on and let me tell you all about figure skating!”

“Oof,” Cecile gasped and the girls disappeared, their steps clattering all the way up the stairs. “Danny I’ll be taking you home soon…..” Her voice faded away.

Michele glanced sideways at Danny as he looked down the hallway. Was he purposefully not looking at her, not trying to attract her attention? How awkward did he feel if he did at all? “I’ve got to get my coat…” He breathed and he turned without looking at her, well almost without looking at her. He glanced back just briefly, over his shoulder and he turned back around and into the kitchen.”

Michele yawned.

“You forgot to lock Gigi up before you left.”

Michele frowned and looked at Patrick who had probably come from the den or the living room. “Well hello to you, my love.”

Patrick wrinkled his nose, yes a mood hung on his features, a mood that when it settled and darkened made him seem boorish, oafish, almost like a Neanderthal, sulking and simian. Michele rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen, not even bothering to look behind her. Even though inside she felt a flutter in her stomach, when a mood like that settled on him, then it required only a small spark to send it the wrong direction. Not that she wasn’t used to it or sometimes even welcomed sparring with it, just that too many people were in the house, and well… they weren’t in the bedroom.

“She shit in the den, a few times.”

Michele sighed and turned on the coffee pot. “She’s a puppy,” She grinned and winked at him. “Shit happens.”

Briefly, Patrick’s eyes flickered with amusement. “But it wouldn’t be good to have her make a habit of this yes?”

“Of course not,” Michele agreed. “And she won’t.”

“Well how can she learn not to if we forget to put her in the room with newspapers?”

Michele scowled. She could sense well enough when he scouted for a fight. “The important word is WE, Patrick,” she snapped, speaking in French. “We! We! We forgot to lock her up, it isn’t just my responsibility, you forgot as well as I did, we left at the same time.”

“Well you’re the one who brought her home!” He exclaimed. “Why should I have to look after her every move?”

Gigi barked and Michele felt her furry body press into her legs. “Regardless of WHO brought her home, she’s everyone’s responsibility I don’t see why you should be acting like a child about this.”

“I just don’t like walking in shit when all I want to do is relax! It’s a zoo around here kids and dogshit!”

Michele crossed her arms. “Puppy shit, not even dogshit, Patrick. It’s a petty thing to be fighting over yes? If you’re so annoyed go to Adam’s house and nap there or fuck his wife, or him or both, I don’t care.”

Patrick’s jaw set, “I just asked if you could remember to lock the damn dog up.”

Michele narrowed her eyes. “Of course. Now what’s bothering you?”

Patrick shrugged. “Just shit.”

Michele held up her finger. “Ah puppy shit. Did Jonathan or Frederick have a bad practice? Jana did well today. How did they do?”

Patrick shrugged. “I’m going to go out I think, I’ll be back later.”

Michele didn’t say goodbye, she waggled her fingers, “Bring back a better mood.”

He grunted in reply as he left the kitchen, she could hear him putting on his coat and then the front door opening and closing. She sighed, and shook her head. Insanity ran in his family she supposed, she grinned, in her own as well at that. At any rate, if he came back in the same mood, Jana brimming over with joy should soften him up.

“Is everything okay?”

Michele looked at Hinote who peeked through the basement doorway. His large eyes blinked, his mouth grimaced just slightly. Of course he wouldn’t understand French, so he wouldn’t recognize a garden variety spat about puppy shit, the innocence of it. Really neither she nor Patrick should have gotten as worked up about it as they did, but, she grinned inwardly, how must that have looked to Danny? French did make things seem so much more dramatic to a romantically idealized American.

Michele blinked rapidly as if to hide tears that she wished to hide, “Why would you say that, Daniel?”

Oh Patrick you are so conveniently inconvenient!