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  Amy Maxwell’s 6th

  Sense

  Heather Balog

  Amy Maxwell’s 6th Sense

  Heather Balog

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2015 Heather Balog

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design and Photography by: Anita B. Carroll of Race-Point.com

  ISBN 978-1517783730

  Published 2015

  Published in the United States of America

  ~*~

  “This is a fine kettle of fish you’ve gotten us into, Amy,” Roger whispers into my ear.

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Only Roger would find himself being held prisoner in a hut, with life flashing before his eyes, and using clichés like “fine kettle of fish”. Who even talks like that anyway?

  “Oh shut up, Roger,” I snap back. “It’s not just my fault. This is partly on you, too.”

  Roger wrinkles up his forehead in disbelief. “This is my fault? How on earth is this my fault? You’re the one who was snooping...again.”

  I sit up straighter—which, believe me, is a little difficult with a spear pointed directly at your chest—before I retort, “Oh come on, Roger! How was I supposed to ignore all those clues?”

  “Clues? There were no clues! You’re just crazy!”

  I ignore him and change the subject. “I told you something bad would happen if we all went on vacation together. I felt it in my gut. If you had just let me go on vacation alone—”

  Roger immediately pouts. “Well, I’m hurt by that statement. I thought you would love a chance to spend time with your family. Spend time with me. I try to do something nice and you never appreciate it.”

  “Did you read the travel brochure thoroughly, Roger? Because even if I wanted some good old-fashioned family time, this certainly wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Well this isn’t what I planned either, Amy,” Roger stammers. “I’m pretty sure that being held captive by a spear wielding native with a fig leaf covering his privates, was not in the brochure!” He jerks his head in the general direction of our captor.

  The native grumbles in an indecipherable language, shoving the spear closer to Roger’s fleshy middle.

  “I wouldn’t upset him if I were you,” I tell my husband. “He can take you from a size forty-two waist to the twenty-eight inch waist you’ve been dreaming of since we met.”

  “Okay, that’s hurtful. And you still haven’t explained to me what you were snooping around in a dark alley for. Didn’t the kids tell you that we were meeting for dinner at six o’clock? What the hell were you doing back there anyway?”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. I guess now is the time I have to come clean. This is par for the course, isn’t it? This is the life I am destined to lead…if I live much longer. This time, it’s not my fault. I tried to warn Roger that my sixth sense was tingling the day he got the brilliant idea for this vacation.

  ~One~

  Seagulls squawk happily above, their cries mixing with the sound of waves crashing against the shore. In the distance, dolphins fly gracefully out of the water. The cloudless sky is a blue that indicates no threat of rain, and the ocean is so crystal clear that you can see the tropical fish darting around the bottom.

  As I step off of the veranda of my first floor walk-out suite, the toasty, silky sand threads between my toes. I lazily sink down into the plush chaise lounge near the shore line, delighted to discover that there is not a child in sight. Shielded from the harshest rays of the afternoon sun by the canopy above, it is the perfect temperature. A warm breeze floats underneath the canopy, lightly rippling my hot pink cover-up.

  On the off chance that I might become overheated, I have a lovely Pina Colada at my right hand to cool me down on this tropical day. There is also a cabana boy in full view to bring me a refill should I become parched. I push my sunglasses on top of my head and adjust my bikini bottom as I reach on the side table for my paperback novel, a picture of a cowboy with rippling chest muscles gracing the cover. I sigh with contentment at my feeling of peace and total relaxation.

  Raising the glass, I wrap my lips around the straw and take a sip, my mind becoming light and airy as the alcohol courses through my blood stream.

  This is the life. How wonderful of Roger to send me on a Caribbean vacation all by myself! Seven days and six nights of lounging in the sun, devouring trashy novels, drinking unlimited cocktails, and relishing uninterrupted sleep awaits me! I can hardly contain my excitement!

  “Mom! Mom! Mom!” Lexie’s shrill voice shocks me from my reverie, causing me to drop the open bottle of sunblock on the bed.

  “Shit!” I stare at the white blob on the brand new green and white comforter for a second, until Misty leaps onto the bed and begins licking it up. “No, Misty!” I yell as I pull her by the collar. She doesn’t listen as she resists my pulling, craning her neck to get at the new treat she’s never had. “No!” I repeat loudly, in case she still doesn’t understand English. “Forget the kids, I swear you’re gonna be the death of me,” I grumble, shoving her toward the floor. I reach for the box of tissues near the bed. Might as well use them to clean up some white stuff on the bed… I chuckle to myself at my little joke.

  “Mom!” Lexie continues to whine as she hovers in the doorway.

  “What?” I snap, and whirl around, tissues dropping from my hand. I stare at my daughter, my mouth falling open involuntarily. She is wearing a bathing suit. Or at least, I think it’s a bathing suit. At one time it may have been a bathing suit. Whatever it is now is so stretched out that I can barely make out the design of the American flag that once graced the front of the fabric. Translation: it’s too damn tight on her.

  “I think I need a new bathing suit,” she moans, pulling at the bikini line. “It’s so tight!”

  “You don’t say,” I mumble as I stare at my youngest daughter. When the hell did she get so tall? And grow those…boobs?

  “Is that your bathing suit from this summer? No, it can’t be,” I answer before she can even open her mouth. “It must be from last summer,” I tell her matter-of-factly. “Go look in your drawer again. It’s probably buried underneath something.”

  Lexie never cleans out her drawers. She has onsies in there from when she was an infant. I tried to throw them out one time when I was overcome with a once-in-a-lifetime spring cleaning bug, but alas, she held on to them tightly, claiming they would be perfect for her dolls. I’ve yet to see her put the onsies on her doll, further solidifying my theory that she’s a hoarder in training. That, and the fact that her closet is piled from floor to ceiling with half-finished art projects, toilet paper roll tubes, jars full of crap like missing buttons, beads for bracelet making, dried up pens, scraps of paper, and anything else she thinks that she “might” use sometime in the future. When you open her closet, objects literally clunk you in the head. It’s like bad comedy cliché.

  Pretty much anything anyone else in the house discards, Lexie snatches up. I have to sneak garbage out to the pail when she is sleeping to avoid her seeing me throw anything out. And not only does she have a penchant for junk, she absconds with all of our stationary stuff like glue and tape—I haven’t seen the stapler since last August. I have given up trying to get her to keep her room neat and clean. It’s a battle not worth fighting.

/>   Lexie shakes her head. “No! It’s from this year!”

  “That’s impossible,” I argue. “You would have only worn it two months ago. There is no way that fit you in August and doesn’t fit you now in October!”

  Turning around, Lexie grabs the tag in the back and shoves it under my nose. “Look! It says 12/14.”

  I stare at the tag incredulously. Holy crap. My baby has grown out of little girl sizes! And then, Damn! I’m going to have two teenagers in teenager clothing? Teenager clothing is ridiculously expensive. And just plain ridiculous. There’s no need for teens to prance around half-naked.

  Feeling myself going broke, I shake my head. “Well, I guess we will have to get you a new one.”

  “Where are we going to find a bathing suit in October?” Lexie wails. “There are only snow boots and snow shoes in the stores!”

  My face falls—she’s right. Where are we going to find bathing suits in October?

  “You can order them from Victoria’s Secret,” I hear a voice call out from the hallway.

  “Uh, I don’t think so!” I shout back at my older daughter, Allie, who is now coming into my bedroom. “She’s a little too young for Victoria’s Secret. And besides, we don’t have time to order anything.”

  Offended, Lexie puffs out her chest as I avert my eyes. Where the hell did those boobs come from? I wonder again, certain that my daughter has been replaced by an alien life form. She literally did not look like that two months ago.

  “I am not too young! Julianna got a bikini from Victoria’s Secret last year! Not even this summer! Last summer—”

  “Oh well, you can just forget a bikini, miss. There’s no way your father—”

  “Oh my God! I am not a baby!” Lexie wails—in a very baby-like fashion, I’d like to add.

  “You totally are,” Allie interjects. She is now lounging across my comforter, head resting on her propped up arm, snapping her gum noisily.

  “I’m in seventh grade!” Lexie pouts.

  “Exactly,” her sister tells her with an eye roll. “A middle school baby.”

  Lexie stomps her foot. “Just because you—”

  I don’t hear the rest of the sentence because the screaming starts. Lexie kicks Allie in the shin, causing Allie to lift her legs and pedal her feet in the air, attempting to kick her sister in the face. Lexie expertly dodges out of the way and grabs her sister’s hair, which elicits a shriek from Allie.

  “Enough!” I feel a throbbing right above my left eye. If I look in the mirror, I will probably see a vein dancing right through the skin. I am sure that a migraine is brewing.

  Both girls completely ignore me while they continue to engage in their daily battle to the death. I swear the hormones in my household are going to penetrate the ozone layer with their destructive tendencies.

  I grab my sunblock and tissues, and storm out of the room, praying that they won’t break anything. Not that there’s really anything to break. Anything breakable has been damaged long ago. (And probably stashed somewhere in Lexie’s closet if I had to gander a guess.)

  I stomp into the bathroom to retrieve the rest of the items I need, and I am met by a loud scream.

  “Mommy! I’m in here!”

  “Oops! Sorry!” I retreat out into the hallway sheepishly and speak through the door as I pull it closed. “Colt, how many times have I told you to lock the door when you’re going to the bathroom?”

  “It’s too hard,” my son whines from the other side of the door. “You gotta push against the door and then lock it, but you can’t let go of the knob…” What he really means is that he’s too lazy to lock the door. Typical male.

  “Well hurry up in there. I need to get a few more things out of the linen closet to pack.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute! The poop is poking its head out right now!” my darling child calls out to me cheerfully.

  “Colt! Definitely TMI!” I make a face at the bathroom door. He takes delight in attempting to gross me out on a daily basis. And most of the time, he succeeds. I am not sure what is worse, my daughters and their hormonal tornadoes, or my sons and their gross out obsession.

  The door swings open and my eight-year-old bounds out, beaming up at me. “All done!” Tucking a magazine under his arm, he bounces down the stairs.

  “Wait a minute! What is that you have there?” I ask suspiciously. Colt does not have a subscription to any magazine.

  “It was in the bathroom downstairs,” he tells me, stopping mid-step.

  Fabulous. There’s only one magazine in Roger’s bathroom downstairs.

  “Hand it over,” I command with a scowl.

  “Oh, man,” Colt grumbles, returning to the landing and handing me the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated.

  I shake my head after him as he retreats down the stairs. Okay, so it’s not Playboy, but in my mind, it’s a gateway drug to Playboy. I’m not a prude or anything, but I don’t think an eight-year-old needs to be drooling over girls. I think he’s a little too young to be thinking about girls, let alone grown women, and I’m pretty sure my son is not reading the articles in the magazine as he…Holy crap! What did he eat today?

  My nostrils are assaulted with a noxious odor when I enter the bathroom. Gulping, I toss the magazine in the trash, and push the bathroom window open.

  Pulling my tee shirt over my nose, I spray air-freshener liberally. Was it taco day at school today?

  Still covering my face, I open the linen closet door where the towels are kept and peer inside. Not immediately finding what I’m looking for, I start to move the towels and bottles around in hopes of locating it. The closet is not the neat and organized area that I expected to see. There are towels and washcloths rolled up and tucked in the corner, and the new shampoo and body wash bottles are thrown around haphazardly. Last month, I spent an entire afternoon organizing this closet and I am get seriously pissed off at the state of it now.

  “Damn kids. Never put anything back where it belongs. How freaking hard is it to take a towel and not knock over everything else in the GD closet?”

  “Are you talking to yourself again, Mommy?”

  I glance down to see Evan, my four-year-old, staring up at me with his big brown soulful eyes, looking so sweet and innocent. Those eyes are deceiving. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing—me being the sheep he is most often attempting to trick. He doesn’t usually succeed because I’m wise to his ways by now, but he certainly keeps me on my toes. Just this afternoon, I discovered that he had gotten into my emergency stash of dark chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. At age four, he’s smart enough to find my hiding spots, but not smart enough to hide the evidence yet. The empty wrappers were tangled in his sheets. Not to mention the telltale sign of chocolate smeared over his lips and half of his face.

  “Yes, Evan, Mommy is talking to herself again. That’s what happens when you have four kids and a husband and nobody listens or does what…”

  I trail off as I realize that Evan has wandered out of the bathroom already.

  “Hmmm. Typical,” I mutter, slamming the closet door, certain that I am not going to find what I am searching for.

  I step out into the hallway and can see the girls are still in my bedroom. In fact, they are now wrestling on the bed. And not in a playful way either. Sighing, I enter the bedroom and plant my hands on my hips.

  “Will you two knock it off already?” I grab at Allie’s arm to pull her off of her sister. “Seriously, I expect this kind of behavior from the boys, not you girls.”

  They are completely oblivious to my presence as their arms continue to flail around. I drop Allie’s arm and leave the room with the sound of their slapping flesh echoing in my ears.

  Why are you ignoring them, Amy? Don’t you want to be a good mother and stop your children from fighting? Don’t you think you should intervene and prevent them from hurting each other? Is that what you’re thinking right now? That I should be a good mommy and prevent them from killing each other?

 
Well haven’t you learned anything? Since when am I ever a “good mommy”? Besides, they likely won’t even really hurt each other since neither of them can stand the sight of blood. They’ll probably get bored of fighting once I am out of earshot and they don’t have an audience anymore. It’s always a show with those two. If you remove the audience, you remove half the drama.

  I stop halfway down the steps and notice that someone has dropped a dozen socks all over them. “Who left their socks on the stairs?” I call out. I am met by a wall of silence from my children. “Son of a…” I bite my tongue—I’ve been trying really hard not to curse lately. Mainly due to what will be forever known as the “cursing office incident”.

  When my youngest child came with me to the high school last week to drop off paperwork Roger had forgotten on the kitchen table, Evan told Roger’s secretary (the one who I always roll my eyes at and comment on her attire...behind her back, of course), “Nice fucking dress”. I’m sure it sounded adorable coming out of his cute little four-year-old mouth, but neither Roger nor his secretary appreciated it.

  After I crawled out of the hole I climbed into, I made a vow then and there to not only cut out the cursing, but the sarcasm as well. Thus far it’s been going fabulously…not (oh crap…sarcasm again). The kids (and Roger) give me way too many reasons to curse on a daily basis.

  Scooping the sock balls into my arms, I notice that they are all mismatched. And purple. And pink. They must be Lexie’s. Mystery solved. I toss them into the laundry basket at the top of the stairs that contains all the clothing my children are supposed to put away. The basket has been sitting there for three days. It now smells faintly of cat pee. Furball enjoys taking a piss in a nice comfy laundry basket full of fresh, clean clothes every now and again. Which is exactly why I told them to put their clothes away days ago.

  Ignoring their laziness for the moment, I head down to my husband’s “lair”. Poking my head around the corner, I see that he is two scotches deep into his evening. His head is tilted to the side, his hand tucked down the waistband of his sweats, and his eyelids droop sleepily.