At Peace (70 page)

That was just me though. Maybe she was
experiencing post-traumatic stress or something.

“Josie –” I started.

“
You the one toilet papered Tina’s yard?”
Susie, eyes to Josie, asked over me.

“
Nope but I’ll give you ten guesses as to
who did it and I’ll bet you
still
won’t figure it out ‘cause there’s probably a hundred women
in this town who’d do it,” Josie answered. “Both of you tryin’ to
cozy up to our men, talkin’ shit about what we do and wear, makin’
trouble,” Josie said. “You know, Susie, anyone shot me because I
was a bitch, I’d learn my lesson. Maybe you should take some of
your Daddy’s money, go somewhere quiet and reflect. For, I don’t
know, say,” she paused then finished, “a hundred years?”

Susie paled and whispered over the wind, “I
can’t believe you’d say that to me.”

“
And
I
can’t
believe you’d get in Violet’s face when her brother was murdered
three weeks ago!” Josie snapped. “Let me set things straight for
you, Susie. Your Daddy’s money didn’t give you carte blanche to
traipse around town bein’ like you are and you can’t trade on the
tragedy of what happened with Denny Lowe to be like you are. We all
know you sold Colt and Feb’s story to that reporter. We didn’t
think much of you before, now we don’t think anything at
all.”

“Josie –” Chip started, Josie jerked her head
to look at her husband and lifted a hand.

“I’m done,” she stated, turned to me,
switched topics and turned off her attitude so quickly I wasn’t
keeping up. “You two come over for dinner. Maybe I’ll get Colt and
Feb to come over too. I’ll make my pot roast. That’s a winter dish
but my pot roast kicks ass. I’ll call,” she offered this invitation
again like she wasn’t standing in the pouring rain and like she
hadn’t just laid it out for Susie Shepherd in an extremely brutal
way.

She came up to me and gave me a cheek kiss
even though Joe still had me in his arms and I didn’t resist and
cheek-kissed her back mostly because I was a little scared of her.
Then she moved away, smiled at Joe and trotted over to her husband
while I could do nothing but stare.

“Sorry, Cal,” Chip muttered.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” Joe replied and
since his arms had loosened, I pulled a bit away and looked up at
him to see he was looking at Susie.

“Later, Vi,” Chip called.

“Bye Chip,” I said and Chip and Josie moved
away.

“You done or is Vi gonna have to put up with
your shit every time she sees you?” Joe asked and I looked to see
he was speaking to Susie.

“You gonna threaten me like you did Tina?”
Susie sneered and I stared again since I couldn’t believe after
that scene that she still had a sneer left in her.

“Nope, just not gonna pull her off you next
time,” Joe replied.

“Whatever,” Susie muttered and started to
turn away.

“Why?” Joe asked and Susie stopped.

“What?” she asked back.

“Why are you such a fuckin’ bitch? Honest to
God, I don’t get it. You have everything and you always had.”

Susie’s face twisted briefly, a flash of pain
then gone.

Then she snapped, “Not everything, Cal.
Didn’t have a Mom.”

I almost felt sorry for her before Cal
replied, “No excuse, woman, I didn’t either.”

They locked eyes and I was acutely aware that
I was enduring their staring contest while standing in the wind and
rain with a possible tornado approaching.

“Joe,” I whispered and Joe’s arms tensed
around me.

“Learn from today, Susie,” Joe advised.

She rolled her eyes, flicked out a hand and
repeated, “Whatever.”

“She won’t learn from today,” Joe muttered,
let me go, took my hand and turned us toward the Mustang.

I noticed Vinnie and Gary’s cars were gone.
We’d had to take three to fit everyone in what with Dad coming
along, we were one over. This turned into a good thing as they had
plenty of room to get everyone in and they’d all disappeared.

Joe moved me to the passenger side, bleeping
the locks as he went.

He had the door open and I was about to fold
in when we heard Susie call.

“Cal!”

We both looked at her.

“Don’t piss me off, Susie,” Joe warned.

She pulled her wet hair from her face and
held it at the back of her head. Her eyes moved to me then back to
Joe.

“I can make a man happy,” she announced.

“Seriously?” I whispered, my body getting
tense and Joe put pressure on my back to push me in the car.

“I don’t mean you!” she shouted and her head
jerked to the side and back to the front swiftly, reflexively,
making her look like she’d suffered an invisible blow and something
about that made me get even tenser but not with anger, with
surprising compassion.

She was struggling with something and
whatever it was, it was big.

“Why can’t I –” she started but Joe
interrupted her.

“Jesus Christ, it’s rainin’, Susie. What the
fuck?” Joe asked.

“Joe, listen to her,” I whispered urgently,
my eyes glued to Susie.

But at Joe’s impatience she’d lost it. Her
face closed down and she turned away.

“Forget it,” she shouted over the wind.
Lifting a hand and dropping it in a weirdly defeated way, she
jogged away, her ruined-sandaled feet making splashes in the
puddles as she ran until she was under the awning that came out
over most of the sidewalk in front of the strip mall and then she
kept running until I lost sight of her because Joe pressed me into
the car.

He slammed the door behind me, jogged around
the hood as I wiped wet off my face ineffectually since my hands
were just as wet and he folded in beside me.

“We’re goin’ to Florida, buddy, first fuckin’
chance we get,” Joe declared the minute he slammed his door. He
hadn’t even put the key in the ignition and we were both dripping
rainwater into the seats and carpet.

“Joe –”

He turned to me and cut me off. “Fair
warnin’, there’s nothin’ there. Just the house and the beach, a
coupla houses either side. Nothin’ to do but fish, cook, sleep,
eat, fuck and read.”

“Can the girls come?” I asked and watched his
face darken to a scowl.

“You ask shit like that again, I’ll turn you
over my knee.”

I felt my stomach flutter. He’d turned me
over his knee the night before, part of him being creative, and I’d
liked it.

I smiled, leaned into him and whispered,
“Joe, not sure that’s a deterrent.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth and he didn’t
answer though his lips twitched.

“Still think the day couldn’t go any better?”
I asked and his eyes came back to mine.

“Your mother-in-law make good sangria?” he
asked back.

“The best,” I whispered.

“Then let’s get the fuck home,” he
growled.

I laughed so hard, I had to close my
eyes.

This meant I missed the first part of Joe
coming in to kiss me.

But I didn’t miss the rest.

* * * * *

“
Therefore,” I finished as the girls sat at
their stools in front of me, “getting physical is never the way to
go.”

I was giving them the hardest lecture in a
parent’s arsenal. The lecture where you try to teach them not to do
something you yourself had done.

These lectures, by the way, never worked.

Kate and Keira’s eyes went over my shoulder.
Then they both fought smiles.

I was standing at the kitchen counter in
front of them and I turned around to see Joe behind me, his hips
leaned against the back counter, his arms crossed on his chest, his
feet crossed at the ankles, his head bent and he was looking at his
boots.

“Joe?” I called, his head came up and I saw
he was biting his lip and he was doing this in a clear effort not
to laugh. “Joe!” I snapped.

It was relatively late. We’d come home,
changed clothes, dried off and I’d done needed repair work on my
hair and makeup. We’d had sangria. We’d had steaks Joe braved the
storm to cook on the grill and loaded baked potatoes. And we’d had
chocolate cream pie (Joe had two slices, partly because he was
being nice, mostly because it was the bomb).

The tornado warning turned to a tornado watch
and then the storm became rain.

Everyone was gone. All of them, even Dad,
were staying at the hotel by the highway overnight and were coming
over for pancakes tomorrow morning. Everyone had avoided discussion
of me jumping a blonde woman on the sidewalk for no apparent reason
for all they knew. Everyone that was except Uncle Vinnie who every
once in awhile when he looked at me would snicker and twice he
out-and-out laughed.

Now it was just us, I needed to address the
issue with my girls and I didn’t need Joe mucking up the works.

“This isn’t funny,” I hissed at Joe.

“Baby –”

“It isn’t!”

“Vi –”

“Stop laughing!” I demanded because he wasn’t
laughing but he was smiling big and I knew, inside, he was
laughing. “This is serious!”

“
Buddy,” Joe’s voice sounded strangled,
“fuck me, baby, but you took her down.” He uncrossed his arms,
lifted a palm ceiling up and smacked his other hand down on it
making a huge clapping noise before the heels of his hands went to
the counter and he burst out laughing.

So did my girls.

“Joe –”

“In the rain,” Joe choked out.

“Joe!”

“Both of you wet,” Joe continued.

“Joe!”

“You coulda sold tickets to that shit,” Joe
went on.

“
Joe!
” I shouted.

“Word gets around, honey, gonna have to beat
the men back,” Joe finished.

I glared at him and then I swung my glare to
the girls who were both giggling their asses off. Keira had her
elbows to the counter, her face in her hands. Kate had collapsed
onto her bent arm on the counter.

“
I’m glad you all think this is
so
funny!
” I snapped and
then moved to flounce out but I was caught at the waist and pulled
into Joe’s arms. My head jerked back and I demanded, “Let me go,
Joe.”

“Baby –”

“Let… me… go!”

One of Joe’s hands curled around the side of
my neck and his grinning face got in mine.

“Vi, honey, shit happens, you gotta laugh.
You can’t laugh, you’re fucked.”

“You don’t know what she said,” I whispered,
hoping the girls were still giggling so hard they couldn’t
hear.

“I heard enough to know she deserved a busted
lip and then some and any woman talks to Kate or Keira like that, I
hope they got enough attitude to do the same fuckin’ thing.”

My body got tight and I informed him, “Girls
don’t do that.”

“Maybe they should. Tina and Susie had that
lesson taught to them a long time ago, maybe they wouldn’t be such
bitches,” Joe replied.

This, I had to admit, was a point to
ponder.

“
Okay, I don’t want
my
girls doin’ that,” I amended my
statement.

“You’re tellin’ me, some woman comes up to
them and treats them to what Susie did to you, you want them to
walk away?”

“Yes,” I kind of lied.

“What’d Susie do to you?” Keira asked from
behind me and I turned in Joe’s arm but didn’t move away because
his arm was now around my belly and it tightened, pulling my back
into his front.

“It doesn’t matter. I was hungry and
emotional but I still shouldn’t have acted that way,” I told Keira.
“The better woman turns the other cheek.”

“Then she gets the upper hand,” Joe put in, I
got tense and twisted my neck to look up at him as he kept talking.
“Maybe wrestling with them on the sidewalk in the rain isn’t the
way to go but don’t let anyone treat you like shit. No woman and
especially no man. Anyone talks trash to you, you walk away. It
follows you, you deal with it. You wanna know how, no matter where
you are, you call me and I’ll tell you how.”

“Okay, lecture over,” I announced before Joe
got on a roll.

“Thanks, Joe,” Keira said and I sighed
because I had a feeling everything I’d said to her during my ten
minute lecture about how physical violence was never the way was
totally forgotten but Joe’s last words about getting the upper hand
were etched into her brain.

“
Yeah, Joe, thanks,” Kate said and added,
“And thanks Mawdy, we’ll start with turnin’ the other
cheek.”

“
Great,
start
with that. Makes me feel better,” I muttered.

Kate smiled at me then said, “I’m gonna
listen to music and put my new CDs on my MP3. Is that cool?”

“Sure, baby,” I answered.

“
I’m goin’ to my room to get on Messenger
and tell all my friends my Mom got in a catfight at the strip mall
today. Is that cool?” Keira asked, Joe chuckled, Kate giggled and I
looked at the ceiling.

Then I looked back at my daughter. “Laptop
confiscated, you do that.”

“
Right,” she muttered and grinned, “then
I’ll put my new CDs on my MP3 player.”

“Good call,” I told her.

They moved off to their rooms and Joe’s mouth
moved to my neck where he kissed me then said in my ear, “You know,
even if Keira doesn’t share, that shit’s gonna get around. Josie
Judd’s got a big mouth.”

I sighed again then turned back to face him.
I put my hands on his chest and leaned in deep.

“I know.”

He grinned. “You’re gonna be a local hero,
buddy. Susie isn’t real popular.”

I bit my lip, lifted a hand to fiddle with
the collar of his tee and watched my fingers doing this.

“Joe,” I called and stopped speaking.

“Vi, you’re pressed up against me, baby.”

I looked up at him. “What happened to Susie’s
Mom? Do you know?”