Mental Pause - chapter 6 (excerpts)

Here are a couple of excerpts from Chapter 6...  Only 4 1/2 weeks until launch day, March 8th! If you want me to send you a reminder, just let me know.

After yet another restless night, Abbie practically had to feel her way to the kitchen. Bleary-eyed she put on a pot of coffee and pulled out a box of waffles from the freezer. She left the door open and stuck her head in to cool off as the remnants of her last hot flash lingered.

“Anything good in there,” Conrad patted Abbie’s bum as he walked by.

“Just cooling down,” Abbie replied removing her head from the freezer.

She poured herself a glass of water and popped a couple of Tylenol into her mouth.

Both boys had already left to play golf with some friends. She was glad she didn’t have to face them this morning and try to explain her wild ranting and raving. They were teenagers. They’d have forgotten it already and be focusing on their golf swing and planning the party for grad night.

“Sorry about the drama last night,” Abbie slouched onto a bar stool at the kitchen counter.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve dealt with tougher thugs than you,” Conrad joked as he poured his coffee.

Abbie could feel a nasty retort building just as the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” relieved, she snatched up on the second ring. “Hey Joan… no, you didn’t wake us up… the boys are actually up and out already… lunch? Sure… I have no plans,” Abbie covered the mouth piece and mouthed to Conrad, “We don’t have plans today do we?”

“No, I’m headed down to the station so you go ahead,” Conrad poured his coffee into a thermal ‘to go’ cup.

“Yeah Joan, that would be great,” Abbie turned back to her phone conversation. “Where do you want to meet?... Okay, see you there at noon.”

Abbie hung up the phone and leaped off the stool, welcoming the distraction.

________________________________________________________________ 

   They walked into the tattoo parlor that actually looked a bit like a barbershop. It had the same type of chairs and there were even a couple of people reclining comfortably while the tattoo artists were jabbing ink-filled needles rapidly in and out of their arms. It looked like they were having matching tattoos done… a heart with an arrow through it and each other’s names inscribed across the bottom (at least that’s what Abbie assumed). 

   “Hi there, how’s it going?” Joan walked to the counter and started flipping through the catalogue of designs. “My friend here would like to get a tattoo.”

   Abbie felt like a real rebel. She was scared but a little excited too. She and her mom had always joked about going to Key West together to celebrate Abbie’s 50^th and her mom’s 80^th birthdays (their birthdays were in the same month and they had always celebrated together on the day that was exactly in between). But her mom had died before they could call each other on their bluff. As an only child, Abbie and her mother were extremely close and the memory of her passing still triggered a sharp pain in Abbie’s heart and a gnawing emptiness in her stomach.

   Thinking about how much she missed her mom Abbie absentmindedly started to flip through the catalogue Joan had passed to her. “It can’t be anything too big,” Abbie began. “I want it to be understated. She stopped at a whole page of tattoos with the word ‘mom’ in them. How appropriate would that be? If I did it in memory of my mother, how could Conrad get mad? Besides… she was still a mom too but she’d be a wild mom with a tatt!