Don't Rhine on My Parade

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  The next night I dolled up and admired myself in the mirror. I decided that I cleaned up pretty good. Although, compared to my usual garb of jeans and a t-shirt, I supposed anything would look good.

  Since Mark was there, Carolyn had to be on better behavior. “Why, don’t you look nice, Piper!” she greeted me, sounding shocked.

  “You look lovely too, Carolyn!” I answered with equal shock in my voice.

  Mark beamed at us both, happy that the two most important women in his life were so nice to each other. Men. It must be nice to be oblivious.

  The girls, as usual, went crazy with joy at the thought of spending the evening with Granny and she only managed to make us feel slightly guilty for mentioning that we might go to a movie after dinner.

  “Try not to be too late,” she murmured, looking frail and tired. In reality, she just hated to babysit after the girls had gone to bed. She loved spoiling them rotten and keeping them up late, but after they went to bed, she was bored. Mark was fooled though, and told her that we would hurry home after dinner. I glared at him, after all I had gone through to get her here I was planning on staying out all night.

  Carolyn smiled a sweet, self-sacrificing smile, “Now, now, Mark. I don’t mind staying up past my bedtime for you!” she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You go have a wonderful time; go see a movie or something and don’t worry about me at all.”

  Kudos to her. Now, not only were we grateful to her for letting us go, but we also felt guilty, and would continue to do so for the rest of the evening, thus taking away a lot of the fun. Urrrgh. I was not going to let her spoil our evening out. We would eat, drink, and be merry, and not spend a second’s thought about Carolyn or our kids.

  I do have to admit that leaving the girls with family is a lot less nerve-wracking than leaving them with a babysitter. Maybe it was all worth it.

  Since this whole outing was to assuage my guilt about using the Voice on Mark, I let him pick the restaurant and the movie. Neither were ones that I would pick, but I took pleasure in doing something I didn’t like for Mark. By the time the movie was over I was feeling very virtuous and self-sacrificing so I suggested walking next door to the coffee shop for a latte before going home.

  “That movie was totally ridiculous!” I said, sitting down with my drink.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be true to life,” Mark defended.

  “Oh, come on!” I did my best evil villain voice, “’I’m the bad guy and I’m going to kill you! But first, let me tell you my entire evil plot, give away all my weaknesses, and then leave you here in this room that is slowly filling up with water to drown you. Oh drat! I don’t have time to make sure you’re dead thus allowing you to escape and save the day!’”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Mark laughed.

  “No, but it was clo-” I trailed off.

  “Honey? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” my husband asked quietly, concerned by the look that had just crossed my face.

  I was staring at a young Goth couple, engaged in a heavy lip and tongue lock, three tables over. The young man was dressed all in black, with short green spiked hair. His nose, eyebrows, lip, and ears were pierced. He looked like someone had mistaken him for a pincushion. His pale arms were covered with tattoos and his shirt was extremely creative in that its slogan was both profane and obscene. His hand on top of the table had black painted fingernails while his other hand was under the table attempting to sneak up his date’s skirt.

  The girl was considerably younger than her date and also dressed in black: black knee-high boots, black fishnet stockings, black, almost non-existent skirt, and a black bustier. She had escaped the pincushion piercings and merely wore tiny skulls dangling from each ear. From what I could see as she came up for air, she was also wearing black lipstick.

  It was my little sister.