Read Online Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner - Free Book Online Page B

quickly. “Timmy loves it.”
    Allie was looking at me as if I’d grown two heads. “We’re taking him? I thought he was staying home with Stuart?”
    “Kate,” Stuart said, “you know I’ve got things to do around the house.” He’d been hidden behind the metro section of the San Diablo Herald , but now he snapped the paper down, his frown almost as deep as Allie’s. “That window, for instance. I won’t get any of it done with Timmy underfoot.”
    Timmy perked up, apparently realizing he’d actually let most of a conversation pass without a significant contribution. Deciding to remedy that, he began to sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands” at the top of his lungs.
    “I’ll handle the window,” I said to Stuart, dutifully clapping my hands on cue. We did need to get it fixed, of course, but I have to confess that after passing the night without incident, my paranoia quotient had dropped dramatically. “I was thinking that you could take Allie and Timmy to the mall.”
    He stared at me as if I’d gone mad, and Allie’s expression mirrored his. For two people without a single genetic bond between them, at the moment they were doing a good impression of twins.
    Allie spoke up first. “Mom, no way. Shopping with Stuart? He’s a guy .”
    “Yes, he is,” I said. “And he has wonderful taste, don’t you, darling?”
    “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. My taste is fine.” His eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something to tick you off?”
    I stifled the urge to bang my head against something hard and instead pushed back from the table.
    “Momma Momma Momma. Where you going, Momma?”
    “Just right over there, sweetie,” I said, pointing to the wall that separates our breakfast area from the living room. “Finish your toast.”
    I tugged Stuart with me into the living room. I won’t say he came willingly, but he did come, and the second we were out of sight from the kids, he let me have it. “Are you insane?” he stage-whispered. “The mall ? You want me to go to the mall ? What did I do? Seriously, I’ll make it up to you. A trip to Paris. A day at the spa. You name it. Just not the mall.”
    I confess to being somewhat moved by his plea. If Stuart didn’t make it in politics, I saw a bright future for him in acting. The man had melodrama down to a science. “Be serious,” I said. “I thought about this a lot, and I think it’s a wonderful idea.” All of which was true, just not for reasons that I could share. I grasped for a Stuart-worthy reason. “You and the kids need some bonding time. Especially Allie.”
    “What’s wrong with Allie? We get along great.” His brow wrinkled. “Don’t we?”
    “Sure,” I said. “ Now you do. But she’s fourteen. Do you remember fourteen?”
    “Not very well.”
    “Well, I’m a girl, and I do. Fourteen’s a hard age.” Not that my fourteen had been anything like Allie’s. I’d impaled my first demon at fourteen. That isn’t something a girl is likely to forget. “She needs father-daughter time.”
    “But shopping?” He looked vaguely terrified by the prospect. “I couldn’t just take her out to dinner?”
    I gave him a sideways glance. “Stuart . . .”
    “Fine. Fine. The mall it is. But you can’t expect me to take Timmy, too.”
    Timmy was trickier, I have to admit. While I’d managed to concoct a psychologically sound argument for Stuart accompanying Allie to the mall, there really was no reason for a two-year-old to tag along for the ride.
    I resorted to righteous indignation, the ultimate fallback for every stay-at-home mom. “Stuart Connor,” I said, propping one fist on my hip and fixing my very best glare on him. “Are you telling me that you’re incapable of spending time with the same two children I spend every single day with? That you can’t find the time or energy to take your own son out for the morning? That you—”
    “Okay, okay. I get the drift. I guess