pretty girl (Lauren/You- first person)

chapter twenty nine.

"And so, then you color each feather whatever color that goes with the answer which could be brown or red or yellow or orange and then when you do all the math and all the coloring you glue them and then put his face and stuff on and you have a turkey hat!" Delilah was excitedly telling Lauren and I how she got her new paper headpiece as we drove home from school.

"That's awesome, when we get home I can show you how to draw a turkey really easily." Lauren said as she flicked the turn signal. "Or maybe, only if Mama says so, we can paint some turkeys so we have homemade decorations for tomorrow." I felt her eyes on me, so I looked up to find her smirking at me with playful, bright green eyes.

"You can paint whatever you want dear." I said teasingly as I patted her thigh. She giggled while Delilah cheered with excitement. As she started to settle down, we pulled into the crowded parking lot of the grocery store. I wasn't lookin forward to this shopping trip, but I suppose it was my own fault for waiting til the last minute.

"I'm scared." I whispered to Lauren. She looked at me with wide eyes before responding.

"Me too!" She whispered back. We grimaced and giggled while we both scanned the lot for an empty space, driving up and down at least five aisles until getting lucky and seeing someone start to back out.

"Right there!" I all but yelled, pointing up ahead. Lauren sped up, as much as she could with so many people walking around, and quickly snatched the spot just as another car was turning into the aisle and heading for it. They honked and yelled what I was sure were profanities, but luckily we couldn't make it out because the radio was on. Lauren and I shared an accomplice look, laughing as we jumped out. I helped Delilah out, grabbing her hand tightly and pulling her as close to me as possible. The amount of cars and people was making me nervous, she was too small to be seen and could very easily get hurt.

"Why is it so crowded?" She asked as we waited by the door for Lauren to grab a cart.

"Because it's almost Thanksgiving. Everyone is getting food to feed their whole family on Thursday." I explained. Lauren came back with a cart, grabbing a Purell wipe from the stand and really going to town on the entire front of the cart. I raised my eyebrow but didn't say anything. Once she had wiped it down at least three times, she seemed satisfied and tossed the wipe in the trash. She fanned it with her hand, testing to see if it was dry enough before nodding and scooping up Delilah, placing her in the now essentially germ free basket. I giggled to myself and shook my head as we finally walked into the store.

Going shopping with Delilah was fine, going shopping with Lauren was fine. For some reason, taking the two of them to a grocery store together was just asking for a headache. To save time, I suggested I run to the deli alone to pick up the macaroni salad and other similar foods we would have out before the actual dinner, while my two girls took the list and started aisle by aisle. The deli line was long, so by the time I caught up with them they were near the middle of the store, in the candy aisle of course. When I went to set everything from my arms in the basket, I couldn't believe what I saw.

"Um, no." I spoke incredulously. The basket was filled with nothing but baked goods, bags of mini candy bars, fruit snacks and not a single thing we needed for Thanksgiving dinner. They both looked at me innocently, already testing my patience as I wanted to be annoyed since they had just caused me more work but Delilah still had on her cute turkey hat and Lauren was back to wearing a beanie, one of my weaknesses. I sighed in defeat and looked to the ceiling for help. "You don't have to put it all back, but we really need the things on the list first." When I looked back down I was on the receiving end of two cheesy smiles, I tried to hold in my laughter as I spun on my heel and led them back to aisle one.