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“Mom! Let’s go come on”
Henry’s voice rang out from the back seat of the car, him and Charlie had been sat in there for at least an hour according to the eldest of the two, while Jen had waited at the front door for Judy to get herself downstairs.
They’d planned a family day out to the theme park, it had arrived in a town nearby a few days ago and Henry insisted they had to go, Charlie backed him up with his ‘if I can’t have a car then you can at least take us out for the day’. Jen had sighed and rolled her eyes while Judy had beamed an ‘of course we’ll take you’ before even consulting her. When Jen turned to her apparent co-parent, who was smiling like a fucking Barbie doll in a store window display, she couldn’t find it in her heart to say no to her dysfunctional yet perfect little family, the cheers from the youngest pierced her eardrums as she tried to finish the paper work that she’d abandoned minutes ago, however the blooming smile on each brunettes face made up for the racket.
“Well you can all blame Judy when the lines for all the rides are really long-seriously” Jen tuts, “what the fuck is taking her so long-“
As soon as the words are muttered, a fresh faced Judy appears in the hallway, quickly pulling on her shoe and slamming the door behind her in a hurry.
“All done!” Judy smiled and it felt like it went right deep down into Jen’s soul, which is probably why she lagged in noticing the huge bag Judy was struggling to hold.
“Um, what is in that a fucking dead body?”
Jen winced as soon as she’s said the words, a flash of guilt appearing on her own face as well as the hurt and regret that appeared on the brunettes in front of her, as quickly as it had come though it had disappeared, replaced with a giggle and wrinkles.
“Maybe” Judy heaved the bag into the back of the car while Jen watched her struggle with a smirk.
“Or, it’s for me, you and the boys, some drinks, some snacks and some games for the car ride” Judy flashed a grin.
Jen slowly nodded, matching Judy’s grinning head that dipped up and down as she spoke excitedly. She’s about to reply, probably say something sarcastic and pretend she’s totally not looking forward to the day ahead, but Charlie knocks loudly against the window, breaking the two women out of their bubble and hurrying them into the car.
“Hurry the hell up” Charlie groaned, rolling his eyes when Jen slaps her hand through the air and points at him.
“That’ll be your cheek if you don’t pipe down” she jokes.
***********
“There’s literally nothing else in here that begins with ‘t’” Charlie states, his hands slapping against his shorts for emphasis.
“Who said it was in here?” Judy says with a smirk on her face, her eyes trying to meet Charlie’s through the car mirror.
Jen muffled a laugh as her eldest raised his eyebrows comically at Judy.
“Um, you did! You said ‘let’s play eye spy but everything you spy has to be in the car’” Charlie’s voice went into a higher octave to mimic Judy’s, making the brunette along with his younger brother laugh.
“Oh, well…my game, my rules”
“Hey that sounded like something mum would say” Henry said, turning his head to pay attention to the conversation for a second, then looking through the window the next, mesmerised by the farm animals in the fields they were passing.
“Yeah and that’s not a good thing” Charlie rolled his eyes, taking his phone from his pocket that had surprisingly been left there since the first quarter of an hour into the journey.
“You know you can just-“
Jen glared at Charlie through the mirror when they came to a stoplight, the teenagers face becoming more amused each second he knew that his mother was wound up. Jen took a deep breath, today was about having fun and not getting into petty arguments with her little shit of a teenage son, no matter how annoying and bone grating he was being. Jen feels a calming presence, a pressure on her thigh and she knows without looking that Judy has placed her hand on her leg, the warmth dialling down her frustration at being trapped inside this muggy car for another hour.
“Jennn…”
“Yeahh…” Jen mocks her.
“I kinda gotta pee”
Jen groans loudly and slams her head roughly against the head rest on her seat. Judy grimaces while Henry and Charlie try to hide their chuckles in the back.
“We’ve stopped twice already Jude! Jesus how fucking small is your bladder”
Jen huffs at the beep behind her after she misses accelerating on the green light, too busy trying not to turn the car around all together after this fully grown ass woman pleads for a potty break for the hundredth time in the last hour. Jen hasn’t even seen her drink anything.
“So are we not stopping again or-“
“No Judy of course we’re stopping, again, because I don’t want your piss all over my car thank you very much”
She turns off at the next road, a service station appearing as if by magic a few minutes later. Jen pulls into a space and turns the engine off. Before she’s stopped the car, Judy pulls her seatbelt off and is hurrying for the bathrooms. Jen rolls her eyes at her fondly as she notices her penguin-like walk, trying to contain the pee that’s about to ‘burst’ (according to Judy a few seconds ago).
“Hurry” Jen shouts after her, shaking her head in amusement.
************
“Ok boys, here are your wristbands, and I swear to god if you lose them-“
“Mom!”
“Jen!”
The voices come simultaneously, the latter comes with a soft hand on her elbow though along with a small encouraging smile.
“Ok! Ok fine, go, have fun, we’ll see you at the burger van in a few hours” Jen sighs, the boys dash off to escape anymore pestering, they look back a few metres later and the youngest waves at them both, they wave back and watch them head eagerly into the crowd of screaming girls and bustling families.
Jen turns to Judy, who looks as if she’s trying to contain all of her excitement, seriously, she may as well join the line for the tea cup rides because she’s basically a fucking adorable child.
“So, what do you wanna do? We can check out the arcades or…”
She trails off as Judy drags her by the hand into the sea of people. Jen trips over her own feet as she tries to keep a hold of Judy as they push their way through the crowd of people lining up for some pirate ship ride or something. When they emerge from the sweaty crowd, Jen composes herself and pushes her hair back. She wishes she’d tied it back because it’s like fifty fucking degrees and her forehead is sweating.
“Can we go on it?”
Judy points to the rollercoaster she’d pulled them too, Jen takes in the tall, fast moving machine and her heart beats a little faster as the carriages come zooming past above their heads carrying screaming customers.
“You wanna go on that?”
Shit. That was her hard ass bitch image flushed down the toilet.
“Sure! Sure” God no. It’s probably the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen, but Judy can’t know that. No way. Nope.
Judy gasps and quickly pulls them towards the line, it seems quite long so Jen figures she has time to try make up an excuse or at least prepare herself to go on that moving death trap.
“The boys will think we’re awesome after this” Judy beams beside her, unfazed by the loops of the rollercoaster looming above their heads.
“Then it’s totally worth it, yeah” fucking worth it, it’s not worth it, risking our lives but no danger, the boys will think we’re fucking cool and shit. Can’t wait.
A good half an hour later, they finally reached the front of the line, it had been a full 30 minutes of Judy wittering about anything and everything. No matter how much Jen wanted to hate it, she didn’t, couldn’t. She’d listened to every fucking syllable, she’d nodded along as Judy told her about a painting she planned to do when they were back home. She listened to her talk about work and she’d sometimes during that half an hour bring up Abe and Jen would reach to squeeze her hand, not caring about the family behind her nudging them to move forward in the line.
“Let’s go ladies”
A deep, miserable voice urged them forward past the barrier and told them to sit in a cart. Jens face falls when Judy hurried to claim the very front carriage, her heart would probably be falling out of her ass right now if it wasn’t already logged in her throat. Her breaths quickened as she lowered herself into the seat next to Judy, her hands creeping up to pull the heavy plastic protection equipment over her shoulders and chest. She hopes Judy didn’t notice them trembling as she did so. The woman turns to Jen and grins, flashing her pearly whites as she extends her hand towards Jen, who grabs it quicker than usual, it makes Judy frown a little.
“Okay?”
Jen just nods and turns her head to look forwards. She feels Judy’s grip begin to slip back to hold onto her own harness and in a flash of panic she grips the younger woman’s hand tighter, her palms sweating.
“Are you scared?” Judy asks and before Jen can deny it, a fearful gasp erupts as she feels like rollercoaster start to move upwards at a painfully slow pace.
Judy tuts and squeezes Jens hand. “Jen! You should have said something I’m sorry-“
“No, no, I’m fine I-oh my fucking…” Jen’s eyes glue shut after she takes a look down and they’re about a fucking thousand miles from the ground, everyone and everything looking like dots.
“Jen breathe…it’s fine we’ll be down soon” Judy tries reassuring her but all Jen hears is the slow grinding of the rollercoaster as it climbs it’s way up to the highest point of the ride. She dreads the drop down.
“Really because it feels like we’re about to fucking die” Jen opens her eyes to check how far up they are, the rollercoaster is slowly coming to a stop on top of the steep tracks, it balances almost, dropping down to the other side gradually. It feels like it stops for hours.
Judy tugs her hand, “look at me Jen”, she grips it and Jen turns to her, her eyes mad and panicky, looking as if they were about to pop out of her head.
“I promise you, we’re gonna be-“
Screams. A heavy gust of wind carrying the cheers and shouts and more screaming through the theme park, the rollercoaster zooming down at full speed and looping about a million times. Jen’s mouth feels like it’s being sucked backwards into herself by a vacuum cleaner as a gut wrenching scream leaves her body, her eyes remain firmly shut throughout while her head is forced back into her seat on the loops. Judy is screaming beside her but she also thinks she’s laughing, not once has she let go of Jen’s hand, she squeezes it tighter and when they finally slow down and the wind isn’t pressing up against their chapped faces, she kisses her knuckles.
“I told you, you’re fine, I’m fine” Judy says.
Jen doesn’t answer, her breath knocked out of her.
They climb off the ride, Judy steadies Jen as her legs threaten to buckle beneath her.
“Oh my god my legs are like fucking jelly” Jen’s voice shakes.
“I can’t believe your scared of heights! Why didn’t you tell me!” Judy flusters around her now, guiding her down the steps with her arm around her waist and a hand on her wrist. Jen takes deep breaths as she tries to compose herself.
“Because I’m a forty odd year old woman who shouldn’t be such a fucking pussy, there was kids going on that ride I-I don’t know I thought I could handle it” she feels herself blushing, god dammit Jen, so much for playing it cool.
Judy pouts sympathetically at her friend.
“Silly, you should have told me! We could have gone on the go carts or the arcade or-“
Jen nods and grabs her shoulder to stop her from rambling. The last thing she wants is for Judy to feel bad, especially if it starts her off with her saying sorry a million times business.
“Jude, it’s fine. I’m just glad we’re down and I don’t have to endure another fucking death machine” Jen blows hair from her face as she speaks, hair that’s tangled and messy and looks as if they’ve both been electrocuted. Judy reaches out to tame blonde locks, her hand brushing it flat against Jen’s head and then cupping the bottom of her jaw as she lets her hand fall back to her side. She then smiles softly at Jen, and a little apologetically but Jen smiles right back. Taking her phone from her pocket, she checks the time and also replies a laughing emoji to Charlie’s text, she shows it Judy too.
‘Henry’s made me go on the pirate ship 3 times’
“Aw I hope they’re having fun” Judy says.
“Oh trust me, Charlie will have dragged Hen on the high swingy ride thing about a hundred times as payback, they’ll be having fun” Jen puts her phone away.
“We still have another hour to kill before getting lunch with the boys so we could go play those coin machine thing-y’s you like” She says with a smile.
Judy nods eagerly and they make their way to the nearest block of arcades.
*********
“Well well well looks who’s late, you know anything could have happened to you guys-“
“Shut the fuck up Char”
“Sorry boys I swear it was my fault!”
Henry and Charlie had been waiting 7 minutes longer after the agreed meeting up time, if the shoe was on the other foot Charlie knows for a fact that they’d be in trouble for it or some shit, so yeah, he’s gonna take the piss out of his over protective and controlling mother and get a huge burger out of it as a bonus for waiting for so long. Jen and Judy had ran up to the boys hurriedly, the taller blonde in front while Judy trailed behind with her head just about visible for the fucking gigantic bear she’s carrying. Henry notices it straight away and his eyes widen in the middle of the teasing.
“Nice bear Judy, where’d you get it?” He asks, his hand patting the soft fur material.
“Jen got it for me!” Judy tells them excitedly looking back and forth between the kids and Jen.
“So that’s what you were doing while me and Henry were stood here like losers?” Charlie teases with an eye roll.
“The asshole running the stupid rubber duck game shouldn’t have took the piss out of you when you couldn’t hook the duck fucking immediately” Jen huffed, her head tilting to Judy and back.
“She tried 11 times until she won for me isn’t that sweet” Judy beams while Jen’s blush gets redder by the second.
“Very sweet, and now I’m very starving so can we please go get burgers” Charlie sighs. Henry perks up and they agree to treat them to a burger from the burger van, totally (not) their plan when deciding to meet up next to one but if it allows Charlie to feel like he has a victory over the adults then so be it.
“Yes! Burgers” Henry’s already walking off behind his brother to join the short queue, as if lured in by the smell of fried food.
********
“That was the most fun day ever” Henry says, the tiredness from the packed day they’ve just had evident in his hushed voice.
“Yeah thanks” Charlie pipes up, his headphones only half on his head, one ear peeking out.
They’re driving home now, Jen’s driving despite Judy inspiring she would. The younger woman is now dropping off to sleep beside her though, a lazy smile still on her face. After eating they’d spent the rest of the day together, they’d gone on a few more rides, simple rides like the log flume and the go karts. Jen and Henry has watched as Charlie challenges Judy to ride the boomerang rollercoaster, supposedly the highest one here and they’d laughed at their windswept pale faces after they’d come off of the ride. Jen could tell by Charlie’s face that he was definitely surprised by Judy’s eagerness to ride with him, Jen had never been one for rides so that had been Ted’s role, to entertain and do all the exciting shit with him. She could also tell Charlie loved having Judy around to go on all the craziest rides with him. They’d had ice cream and candy floss and more sweet food in that one day than they’d ever had before, and they’d pigged out on fries and donuts and hotdogs. In the evening they’d gone to more arcades, played air hokey as a foursome, Jen and Judy vs Charlie and Henry, the latter had won (the former had let them).
Jen pulls up to their home around 11:30pm, Henry and Judy had fallen asleep and Judy was still asleep by the time Jen turned off the engine.
“Ok guys straight up to bed…” she climbs out of the car and presses kisses to both foreheads, Charlie doesn’t even pull away. He’s carrying Judy’s enormous bear out with him that he’ll probably dump on the hallway.
“Night mom”
“Yeah night” Charlie shuts the door to the house.
Jen carefully opens the door to Judy’s side of the car. Her head lolls forward, she’s clearly deep in sleep as she doesn’t even stir when Jen reaches over to unplug her seatbelt, she guides it gently around her body and then pushes the door open further. It’s dark and the only thing that helps her see is the street lights above them.
Jen places a hand on Judy’s forearm. “Judy” She whispers, then repeats a little louder when Judy doesn’t move.
“Hmm, oh…” Judy comes round, sleep fills her voice as she stretches in the seat. “We home?”
Home.
“Yep, lets get you to bed hon…”
Judy groans and closes her eyes again, “carry me”
Jen laughs, “fuck you, come on”
Judy smiles and stifles a laugh, grabbing the hand that Jen had offered and pulling herself out of the car. After locking the car, Jen leads Judy up and into the house, she locks the door downstairs and helps Judy remove her jacket, which she hangs up next to hers on the rack.
“Thanks for today, despite almost having a heart attack, I’ve had the best time, and so have the boys” Jen says sincerely, her hand rubbing a circle on Judy’s back.
Judy shrugs smiling. “I love it when you’re happy”
“Well incase you haven’t noticed it’s usually you that makes me…happy” Again, she blushes. For the fiftieth fucking time today.
“Good”
They retire to their room, turn off their lampshades and rest tired heads on their pillows.