"Janice, What's wrong? Is Naomi okay?" Dallas peered in the back seat to Naomi.
She deeply exhaled, "Damien beat her and gave her a juice or something that had the blue or purple dye in it 'cause her face is breaking out."
"Are we taking her to the hospital?" Dallas raised her eyebrows.
She shook her head, "They don't do anything and really can't do anything. Plus, I don't need them reporting me for child abuse. We just need to go home and I need to plan this party."
Speeding along the empty highway, Janice thought silently to herself on what she was planning to do for her daughter birthday party with Dallas senselessly playing on her phone.
"We're going to Dave's & Buster's for her birthday. It's perfect. I'm going to pull some strings but I got this." Janice bursted.
Dallas locked her phone, cutting her eyes. "Are you going to invite other kids from her school?"
"None of them approve of a teenage mother raising a child so, they prefer me not reaching to them for what they call handouts with Naomi even though I'm part of the PTA." Janice snickered.
Dallas shook her head in dismay, "Well see if your step dad would let you cop the truck tomorrow and I'll round up some of my sisters kids or something. Are you baking a cake?"
"I might as well. You can't bake and Walmart cakes aren't the best." She laughed under her breath.
"Everybody can't be Janice The Barker." Dallas sarcastically rolled her eyes.
They continued on the highway, passing over the bridge, through all the previous places. Pulling onto Janice's backroad, she parked in the middle of the street.
"Take Naomi in the house please, I'm running to Walmart really quick." She threw herself to the back of the seat.
Dallas unbuckled her seat belt and took Naomi out the back seat.
Janice rolled down the window, "There's an extra key under the door mat, just lay her in my bed and you don't have to wait up for me."
Dallas nodded in agreement and Janice drove off to Walmart. She pushed through the parking lot and whipped into two spaces, inhaling her silence.
I need purple, pink and light blue everything. Food coloring, a cake pan shaped like something she likes.. A BUTTERFLY! Poster board, vanilla icing.
Janice raced through the parking lot, scooping up a cart. She zipped up and down the aisles, grabbing all the supplies she needed till she reached the cake pans.
Butterfly, butterfly, butter-
"There's no fucking butterfly?!" She shouted.
Shocking enough, there was more people in the store this late at night than anybody ever thought. Janice noticed a set of mothers from Naomi's school, glancing at her at the end of the aisle.
"You're Naomi's sister, right?" One of the blond haired women projected out to her.
Janice slowly nodded her head side to side as they made their way down to her, "I'm her mother."
"Aren't you a little young to have a daughter that age?" They tilted their heads in confusion.
Janice ignored them, thinking of how to make a butterfly cake with no butterfly shaped pan.
She felt one of the women's hand reaching in her basket, "You're baking a cake? What's the occasion?"
Cutting her eyes, Janice slowly lost her patience with the two of them, "Naomi's birthday. Anymore questions?"
They gasped in unison and the blonde haired sprouted her lips to spill out more questions, "Why wasn't Erin invited to this birthday party?"
"Because I wasn't originally planning this party. Her father was but he ditched the idea of it last minute." Janice rolled her eyes.
"Her father is around? You know who he is?" She put her hands on her hips.
"Look ladies, I really have to get going so I can go make this cake and cupcakes for her party." Janice cracked a fake smile and snatched up a heart shaped cake pan.
"Okay, it was nice talking to you, uhh? What's your name again?" She snapped.
"Janice. My goddamn name is Janice Neal." She stormed off to checkout an say the basket on the cashier belt.
"Janice?" The cashier smiled.
Janice made eye contact with the gray eyed female, "Chase?"
"Hey boo. How's the baby doing now?" Chase swiped the four boxes of cake mix and cake pan.
"She's doing good. Her birthday is tomorrow." Janice blushed.
"You never hit me up anymore. Wassup with that?" She swiped the last jar of icing and box of fondant.
"Just trying to better my life Chase. You know that. We discussed this multiple times." Janice snapped.
"So I get in the way of that for you? Last time I recall, I was all you and Naomi had at one point" Chase threw one of the bags in Janice's face. Janice exhaled and threw a 20 dollar bill on the belt and stormed off.
"Keep the change bitch." She yelled back.
Janice's phone buzzed, it was a text from Dallas.
Dallas: Naomi is tucked in bed, you coming back?
Janice: omw, I ran into Chase on the registrar. you know how that goes.
Dallas: her ole' mad ass.
Janice laughed and turned on the engine, racing through town then home. The house was dark besides the lights coming from the TV in the living room. She parked and made her way into the house, greeted by Dallas.
"What'd you get?" Dallas asked.
"Come the kitchen and see. I need you to make this big cut out '5' for me." Janice waddled with her hands full into the kitchen with Dallas following behind.
She sat the bags on the counter, pulling the components of the bag out.
"How big are you making this cake Nice?" Dallas turned over the heart shaped cake pan with her face scrunched up.
"I'm going to make a butterfly cake." She pulled the top off a cake mix box.
"Janice, these are heart shaped pans. How are you making a butterfly?"
"You will see Dallas. Don't get your nasty panties in a bunch." Janice smirked and grabbed eggs out the fridge, "Take the poster board, cut out a big 5 please and put the purple, light blue and pink tissue paper all over it. Please and thank you lovely."
Dallas grabbed the bag of poster board, tissue paper and glue going into the living room. Janice mixed a box of the yellow cake mix, putting red and blue food coloring drops in it to create a light purple color. She poured it into one of the heart pans and slid it in the oven. She repeated the process for the other cake pans and waited for them to bake. Janice mixed a few red dye drops into more white frosting, making it light pink.
The timer went off, and Janice took them out to cool.
"Do you need my help?" Dallas chomped and chewed on her gum.
"Stop chewing like a cow number one. Two, cover the little poster board in foil and fold the big cake box that's on this bag." Janice put her hair into a high bun, trying to imagine the look of a butterfly cake.
Use two of the hearts as the top of the wings, cut the third in half for the bottom of the wings and the middle that I cut out as the body.
Janice went to work on the cake, cutting, icing and decorations. Dallas stood over her shoulder and went behind her evening out any messed up icing. When the work was done, the girls stood back and admired Janice's work.
"Lets move it to the fridge in the add on then we can go to sleep."
Sliding the cake into the cake box, the girls put the cake into the fridge. Janice grabbed two blankets and pillows from the closet.
"Here. We might as well sleep down here." Janice threw a blanket and pillow to Dallas. They curled up on the living room floor across fro one another.
"Thanks for helping me Dallas." Janice whispered.
"No problem. Now go the hell to sleep." Dallas yawned and rolled over.