I wasn’t totally against the jars of baby food, but I preferred to make my own for her so that she was getting fresh, healthy, homemade food. I was feeling a bit shitty just now because I’d noticed this morning that my milk was stopping, so I had a heaviness inside me I wasn’t going to be physically giving her anything from me anymore, and was offsetting it with home-cooked meals, apparently. I’d done it since she’d started weaning, but today I was on a mission as a baby food goddess, creating yummy goodness for my poosplosion princess.
“Nope,” I replied, chopping up sweet potato chunks and putting them in the pot with normal potatoes, squash, and carrots. “And we’re not talking about that.”
Reaching in, Tabby picked up a chunk of orange and held it in the air between us. “Why not? I’d tell you if you asked me.”
Shaking my head, I snickered and gave her a quick look out of the corner of my eye. “And do I ask you?”
She knew the answer to that was no, and that I’d never ask her for the finer details of her and Dave’s sex life, so she didn’t answer my question. Rolling her eyes, she popped the vegetable chunk in her mouth and started chewing on it. Just as I was about to ask her how long she’d been in jail for last night, she screwed her face up, and started spitting it back out again into the sink.
“Not carrot, not carrot…” she squealed, turning on the faucet and trying to rinse her mouth out. The problem was, the faucet was one of those spray ones, and it didn’t have a fine stream of water, it had a psycho explosion of water instead. As she pulled up the lever, out came that explosion, drenching her whole face as she stuck her head under it, and making her choke as it went up her nose, too. Yanking her head away from it, she stood up spluttering and sneezing, then turned to look for the paper towel. What greeted me when I looked at her was like something out of a horror movie. The girl really needed to invest in a decent waterproof mascara because, yet again, it was all over her face, and some of the color had even gone into her eyes, turning patches of the whites of them light gray. Every time she blinked, she stirred up tiny black chunks of the stuff and more leaked off her top lashes into her eyes. How old was that mascara?
“Um, honey, you’ve got a little something here,” I whispered, pointing at my eyes so she knew where to go. Who was I kidding, she knew she looked a mess and where, but it was an automatic thing to do given the situation.
Tearing off a new piece of paper towel, she wiped under her eyes, clearing her cheeks and some of the mess under them, but smearing it from her eye to her hairline instead. Holy chimichanga, how did that look even worse? Every time she wiped, she pulled her eyelid slightly to the side, making it easier for even more of the mascara to go in her eye. I’d only seen something like it the time I’d gotten my eyelashes dyed at college with my roommate and she’d had her contacts in. Because we’d had our eyes closed, the dye had gone into her eye, and stained the contacts a blue-black color, so we’d all screamed when she opened her eyes, and the lady doing them had tried to run out the door. That shit still haunted me, and I hadn’t been back to get them done since. Tabby’s weren’t as bad as that, but they sure as hell weren’t anywhere near good, either.
“Did I get it all?” she asked, just as the door opened and Ellis’s parents arrived with Rose and Raoul.
I was facing a dilemma. On one hand, I didn’t want my sister to be embarrassed. On the other, I didn’t want his parents to think I was rude if I didn’t come out to say hello immediately. I was sure there was a protocol for this, but I’d only ever been with Larry and his had passed away, so I didn’t know what the hell the protocol was. Looking from the doorway to the wreck in front of me, I made my choice.
“How old was that mascara?” I hissed, ripping off another piece of towel and passing it to her. “You’ve got chunks in your eyes, and you look possessed.” I tore another piece and got to work on the sides of her eyes.
“It’s brand new,” she muttered, dabbing – actually dabbing – at her top lashes. “It’s that fiber stuff that’s meant to make them look thick and beautiful.”
“Well, it’s failing hugely,” I muttered, rubbing and getting nowhere. “Why is it stuck to your face now? Why didn’t it stick to your eyelashes like this?”