Finally! The sequel to Waiting for Karl Rove is available. You can find the e-book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble... the paperback will be on Amazon soon. Here's an excerpt...
(... from Chapter 2)
Flash-forward.
Oh so bloody* forward. Let’s say, ten years from the moment Kat and I discuss
being turned into refrigerator magnets by a deranged killer.
(*I,
Jeni, have Brit language envy so I often pepper my writing with words like
“bangers & mash,” “gobsmacked” and “minge.” Look up minge. You’ll get a
chuckle.)
I’m in Lez
Salon in the Village, partaking of a pedicure while waiting for my wife,
Rachel Maddow, to return from the hipster record shop next door. She’s looking
for something by Louie Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald. We like listening to music
on vinyl while we do our scrapbooking.
Around
the time I was traipsing around Las Vegas with Kat Nove, Rachel had a
significant other, but that “other” has become insignificant now. We don’t even
think about her, except when we get those off-putting phone calls where Alanis
Morisette can be heard shrieking in the background from a state-of-the-art
sound system. Once, when Rach put it on speakerphone, the “other” referred to
me as a “jagged little pill.” I took it as a compliment.
What
happened to The Breadwinner and Thing One and Two, you ask? Sadly, they
perished in a freak meteor accident while on the way ice fishing one frigid
Michigan morning…
(*Okay,
I’m getting editorial feedback suggesting a gory death involving my husband and
two autistic children, even fictionally, is perhaps not the way to go if I want
to sell books. Yeesh, people are so fucking sensitive… as if The Breadwinner
would take Thing One and Thing Two anywhere without me there to chaperone.)
What actually
happened, in a nutshell, is this:
The
Breadwinner is now known as The Former Breadwinner since our book hit the New
York Times bestseller list. He spends a lot of time fishing and doesn’t ask
questions like, “Were those divorce papers I signed last month?”
Thing
One graduated from high school and went on to become a dog groomer. With all
the filthy lucre rolling in, I was able to purchase a corner shop downtown for
his new business —a business that’s thriving despite his penchant for tie-dying
the dogs various shades of blue. Once his customer base learned he was
autistic, they were hesitant to complain about it* so the fad took off. Our
small town is overrun with aqua, sea-foam and royal blue hippy dogs.
(*Americans
With Disabilities Act of 1990)
Thing
Two is presently directing a film in Yemen — accompanied by his
paraprofessional, of course. He still doesn’t speak in complete sentences, but
he manages to get his point across. Let’s face it, it’s not like you need to be
Mensa material to work in Hollywood these days.
My life
is good…
Later,
as I cook dinner for my gal, I hear her sigh into the phone before she pads
into the kitchen in her baggy sweatpants and wife-beater. She pushes the
speaker button and sets the phone down on the table before opening the refrigerator.
As she retrieves a can of V-8 and pops the top, a harried voice emanates from
the phone, choking out angsty lyrics along with Alanis…
*
“You
oughta know!” I startled awake, screaming a line from the famous breakup song.
I wiped the drool from my chin and turned to see Kat with my video camera
pointed at me, close enough to get a shot of each of my oversized pores.
“You
fell asleep leaning against the elevator doors,” Kat replied. “I was hoping
they’d open and I’d get to film you falling on your ass.”
I nudged
her with my elbow. “A little personal space, please.” My words were noticeably
slurred.
“I’m
hungry.” Kat’s declaration was equally garbled.
“You’re
drunk,” I giggled.
“I get
hungry when I’m drunk. Let’s find something to eat.”
I leaned
against the elevator doors and rubbed my temples. Eating was the last thing on
my mind. In fact, I was starting to get that feeling in my stomach that usually
precipitated—
A river
of chunky stomach effluent sprayed from my mouth, covering Kat’s shirt and the
camera just before the elevator doors opened and I landed in a tawdry heap in
front of a half dozen hotel guests.
Twelve
feet took a step back; six heads looked down at me in disgust.
Kat
laughed uproariously, crossed her legs, presumably in an effort to quell the
impending tide, and yanked her baggy t-shirt up to wipe a chunk of something
off the camera lens*. Then she panned down to get a shot of me rolling onto my
stomach and pulling myself up using someone’s legs for support.
(*Simultaneously
revealing her tattered bra and what looked like a very new tattoo on her
stomach: Eric Cartman from South Park, bent over and pulling his butt cheeks
open, her naval strategically placed in the center to form his puckered
bunghole. Tattoo: $78.50. A lifetime reminder of Vegas shame:
Priceless.)
The
circle of people who gasped as she flashed her new body art hadn’t clued Kat
in, so I decided to let her find out about the tattoo on her own. I’m pretty
sure she’d never have done it in her right mind, and about now I was wondering
what else we’d been up to.
I pushed
past the now whispering (judgmental) crowd and checked my watch. Just after one
AM. I had no idea what had transpired over the last hours - except that Kat had
a new tattoo.
“Hurry
up, I gotta pee.” Kat stumbled down the hallway toward our room as I fished in
my purse for the credit card key.
“I can’t
find the key,” I muttered.
Kat
danced in front of the door. “Seriously, Jen.”
“I’m
trying… wait, here it is.” I pulled it out and a receipt with a piece of chewed
up gum was stuck to my hand. “Oh, gross.”
Kat
grabbed the card, swiped it, opened the door, tossed my video camera on the
bed, then tripped into the bathroom. As the door closed behind her, I pondered
the gummy receipt from Club Tattoo.
Oh,
no… The crumpled piece of paper in my hand clearly showed two tattoos had
been paid for. For a brief second, I prayed Kat had an image of Kenny in his
red parka on her ass.
With
dread, I shoved the receipt into my purse, dropped it on the bed and turned to
the mirror over the dresser. I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted my shirt.
When I
opened my eyes, the reflection in the mirror revealed the same tattoo Kat had,
only mine was of Butters (wearing bunny ears) pulling his butt cheeks open to
reveal his pink li’l pucker - the pucker being my navel.
When I
screamed Kat ran out of the bathroom, still zipping up her jeans. “Wha—?” She
pointed at my belly. “AHAHAHAHAHHAHA.”
“You
think that’s funny, huh?” I asked as she snorted and guffawed in a very
unladylike manner.
I
grabbed the hem of her shirt, yanked her in front of the mirror and pulled the
shirt up to her chin.
Her
laughter cut off abruptly.
“How the
hell did that happen?” she shrieked.
“I’m
guessing all the Creepy Crawlies* had something to do with it!” I shrieked
back.
(*Kat’s
drink of choice since it was Halloween. We had more than a few before and after
starting a riot and crashing a wedding. [Book One people, catch up.]
Unfortunately, what happened after the wedding was anybody’s guess.)
“Don’t
shriek at me, missie. I doubt this was my idea.” Kat ran her finger over
Cartman’s head, wincing in pain. “Ouch.”
“So
we’re assuming I was the one who came up with the bright idea of getting
obnoxious tattoos where our belly buttons serve as cartoon anuses?” I asked.
“You’re
saying that doesn’t sound like something you’d suggest?” She put her
finger in her belly button and wiggled it around, sending us both into a fit of
giggles.
I looked
down at my stomach. “I’m pretty sure The Breadwinner isn’t going to like this.”
*
