If You Could See What I See (9 page)

She kept punching and panting.

6

7

“T
hank you, ladies, for joining me on this sunny afternoon for our first Bust Out and Shake It Adventure Club event,” Grandma said. “The three of you look like wrecks.”

Lacey, Tory, and I stood in the circular driveway of Grandma’s home, her fountain flowing high in the middle. She had told us to wear jeans and boots—not fancy boots. It was Saturday, and I was so tired from working that it felt like peanut butter had invaded my bloodstream. I could hardly move.

Lacey was battling morning sickness and was the color of white sheets with light green stains. Cassidy had been caught by the PE teacher, a friend of Lacey’s, having sex with Cody in the locker room. Cassidy’s excuse was, “I earned an A on my AP Chemistry test and I wanted to celebrate, Mom!” Regan had brought home yet another mouse that was now loose in the house, and Hayden had been crying.

Tory was wiped out, as she can’t sleep without Scotty, that “freakoid, nerdy, computer obsessed weirdo robot and I hate him.”

“Your outfit, Grandma,” Lacey said, grinning, though bent over from nausea.

“You are flippin’ rockin’ it, Grandma,” Tory said, thumbs up.

“Love it, Grandma, I love it,” I said.

Grandma was dressed in leathers. She opened up the trunk of her red Porsche, pulled out a helmet, and put it on over her perfectly coiffed hair. “Guess what we’re doing today for our first event?”

“What?”

“The four of us are going to be daring and dangerous.”

“Daring and dangerous?” Lacey said, swaying a little, hand to stomach. “I am not daring or dangerous. I am having a surprise child and he is making me sick.” She suddenly turned and threw up on Grandma’s hydrangea plant.

“Did you have to pick the purple one?” Grandma asked, taking her helmet off. “And it’s not a boy, it’s a girl.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because I’m magic,” she snapped.

I patted Lacey’s back. “Want some crackers?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Gross, Lacey, gross,” Tory said, examining her nails, which were painted bright red with tiny pink flower on the pinkies.

Grandma picked up her cell phone, dialed a number, and said, “We’re ready, gentlemen!”

We heard the growling blasts seconds later.

Three Harleys appeared at the bottom of the hill and roared on up.

The men on top of the Harleys were dressed in full leather. They were definitely hard-core biker dudes. Dark glasses, tattoos, bandanas. Scars. Grandma told us later that two of them were ex–Hell’s Angels. The other one was a family doctor, the brother of one of the Hell’s Angels.

“What’s going on?” Lacey said.

“We’re going on a motorcycle ride to a biker bar,” Grandma said. “Get on, ladies.”

Grandma opened a box and pulled out leathers for Tory and me.

“Oh, this is spectacular,” Tory breathed. She pulled on her leather jacket and pants and yanked on a helmet. She pointed toward the roughest-looking guy, one of the Hell’s Angels. The Hell’s Angel guy gave her the thumbs-up. His name, we later learned, was Harold Jr. “I’m taking that guy right there. He’s enough to get my mind off Scotty.”

Grandma climbed on the back of the other motorcycle, the doctor driving.

The third biker waved. His name was Monster Mouth.

I looked at Grandma, whose hands were up in the air as if she was going to ride the bike that way, then to Tory, whose arms were already around the waist of her Hell’s Angel, and finally to my Monster Mouth.

“Might as well do it,” I muttered. I pulled on my leather pants, jacket, and helmet.

“What about me?” Lacey yelled.

Grandma dug in her pocket. “You, my dear, being pregnant yet again—do you not know what a condom is, can you not use a diaphragm—are going to drive the Porsche.”

Lacey’s face said it all. Grandma doesn’t let anyone drive her red Porsche. No one.

“Really? Really, Grandma?” Lacey said, bopping, the pale look leaving as joy spread like a song across her face. “I can drive it?”

“Did you think I would put you on the back of a motorcycle? Hello? Has pregnancy taken your brain synapses along with your uterus? No pregnant people on motorcycles. Now get in there, and let ’er rip!”

“Oh, thanks, Grandma!” Lacey tipped up on her toes and wriggled about, clapping her hands, before her face paled and she leaned back over the hydrangea bush.

“Don’t do that in my Porsche, Lacey!” Grandma called.

Lacey wiggled her bottom in reply.

 

It was sunny.

It was warm.

We rode fast.

Monster Mouth was an excellent driver.

We danced with the biker dudes in the bar.

We drank beer (except for Lacey) and had terrible nachos. Tory and Grandma had martinis.

We laughed and talked.

One of the Hell’s Angels recited a poem, all dramatic, about a pirate who lost his love when he sailed the seas. She wasn’t waiting when he came back; her soul had gone to heaven without him. The doctor motorcyclist regaled us with a raunchy song about three truckers, which we learned and sang with gusto.

Monster Mouth showed us how he could break small pieces of wood against his forehead.

When we walked out, back to the bikes and the Porsche, Lacey and Tory had their arms wrapped around each other and were singing the raunchy song, their foreheads marked where they’d tried to break wood.

Grandma looked at me, nodded at Lacey and Tory, and whispered, “That’s what I wanted. Right there. Those two happy together and not spitting or hitting or flinging things.”

“You have your wish, Grandma.”

“You
three
are sisters, Meggie. Tory’s never felt included. You need to fix that. Promise me.”

“I promise, Grandma.”

“Sisterhood is not always by birth, it’s by love.”

She kissed my cheek, and I climbed on behind Monster Mouth. His forehead was red and sore.

He winked at me.

I winked back.

 

I could feel him crawling inside me.

The rat was back, black and insidious.

He stroked my insides with his sharp claws, my heart, my lungs, my arteries. He bit me, here and there, his rat body lumbering around, squishing me, puncturing my organs, until he bit through a hole in my stomach and crawled out.

The rat giggled and Aaron’s face appeared, then his body. He whispered, “I will live in you. I will breathe in you. I will bite you. Bleed for me, my Meggie. Wherever you are, wherever you wander, bleed. I bled, now it’s your turn.”

He opened up his rat’s mouth and bit my face off.

I woke up and tried to scream, but my breath caught, my voice caught, my life caught.

I ripped off all the sheets, looking for the rat between the folds, under the bed, behind the dresser, but I couldn’t find him.

He was inside of me, invisible, giggling.

I lay naked on the couch the rest of the night, with all the lights on, and watched the sun come up.

It was the only way to keep the rat outside and a fingerhold on my sanity.

 

I fired four employees within the first few weeks of being at Lace, Satin, and Baubles.

“You’re a firing machine,” Lacey said to me.

“You betcha.”

“I was going to do it . . .” Tory said.

“No, you weren’t,” Lacey interrupted.

“Yes, I was.”

“You should have done it earlier, both of you,” I snapped. “They weren’t working. They didn’t appreciate the job or the product.”

“When I talked to Agnes about being more productive, she said I was trying to fire her because of her age and threatened to sue because of ageism,” Lacey said. “She’s only sixty-one.”

“And you should have said that sixty-one is young,” I said, “and the Petrelli sisters are all in their seventies, their jobs far more complex and difficult, and they are more competent and work more efficiently than she does. You should have told her she needs to do her job, to do it without complaint, and if she can’t she can find employment elsewhere.”

“I didn’t want the lawsuit, Meggie.” Lacey rubbed her forehead. “I was afraid of that threat.”

“I’m aware of that. That’s why I had a camera pointed at her since the third day I arrived.”

Lacey’s and Tory’s mouths dropped. “You did?”

“Yes. I also had a camera on Willy because he threatened to sue because he said we weren’t accommodating his medical issues well enough.”

“He says his joints hurt, his knees hurt, hips hurt . . .” Tory said. “Always in pain.”

“He doesn’t have a medical issue,” I said. “He’s obese. He doesn’t like to move. Being obese and hurting because you’re carrying two hundred extra pounds is not a medical issue, and I was sick of him asking people to do things for him. We have Kara’a here who’s battling a kidney disease, and I understand she’s hardly missed a day of work in marketing. Sharoq has only one hand and she always does her work and does it quick. I had a camera on Tamish and Monique, too.”

“You are a tough bird, sister,” Lacey said.

“Yep. But I don’t want to be sued, either. Yesterday when Agnes’s attorney called, I sent him a copy of the tape showing how Agnes takes naps repeatedly, comes in late, wanders around the production floor, and does nothing except read her celebrity magazines and pick at her pointy teeth.

“When Willy’s attorney called, I sent him a copy of the tape showing Willy smoking out back and looking at porn for hours on his computer. I gave him the phone records of Willy’s calls to Vegas to some phone sex place. If Tamish and Monique hire an attorney, I will produce evidence from Tamish’s computer about her continual chats with a psychic on company time. Monique liked the psychic, too.”

“How do you know?” Lacey asked.

“Because I’m psychic.”

“Super. What am I thinking right now?” Lacey asked.

“You’re thinking that you feel enormously pregnant.”

“No, I’m thinking that I’m glad you’re back.”

“Thank you.” I felt my irritation lower.

“Me too,” Tory said.

I eyed her. “Is this a trick?”

“No, not a trick at all.” She crossed her arms. “I’m glad you fired them. I’d been wanting to get rid of them, but the lawsuits scared me.”

“You’re not scared of anything.”

Tory sat back in her chair. “I am of lawsuits. I’m not stupid. I understand the financial morass we’re in, and I envisioned the costs of those lawsuits sinking us to the bottom of the ocean. They could have gone on and on, and attorneys, those demented sharks, are so expensive. What if we lost the lawsuits? I did the math and thought it was easier to pay ’em. I didn’t even think about filming them.”

“It’s not easier to pay them.” My voice sounded sharp, ticked off. “They’re lazy and spineless. Plus, I hate when people try to take advantage of me.”

“I hate when people take and take and don’t give back.” I kicked my chair, then stood and glared out the window at that stupid Mount Hood, mocking me for not skiing anymore.

“I hate when people try to cheat.”
He had cheated me out of a choice. He had sucked me dry. I had let him because I felt I had to.

I inhaled, my breath sounding like scraped sandpaper.

“I hate when people manipulate other people.”
I hadn’t even known I was being manipulated for a long time. I was so over my head with his emotional issues, his fury, I couldn’t even see truth. That was the way he wanted it.

“I hate when people use threats to get what they want.” I picked up a mug on my desk.
He had threatened again and again.

I threw the mug. It shattered against the wall. I liked the sound.

I threw another mug. It broke, too.

I bent over, my hands on my knees, one debilitating flashback after another churning through my mind.

When I could breathe again, the fury simmering back down, I noticed that Lacey and Tory were staring at me, mouths open. “I’m sorry. Sometimes my anger gets away from me.”

“No problem,” Lacey said.

“Looks like your anger not only got away from you, it went flying up and around, smashed some ceramic mugs, then settled back in,” Tory said.

Lacey waddled over and gave me a hug. “Give me a hug, baby.”

Tory said, “Might as well give you a hug, too, since you’re so deranged and crazy. Who knows what you’ll do next, like a rabid animal.”

I hugged them for a second, my past making me sickly dizzy, then said, “Okay, that’s enough. I’m not totally whacked out.”

“Yes, you are, my sweets,” Lacey said.

“You are a whacked-out woman,” Tory said. “Teetering. Edgy. You’re like a cannon and you just shot off a ball, but it’s partly your star sign, so don’t blame yourself.” She patted my shoulder. “That’s why I don’t blame myself for checking up on Scotty, the Viking slug-face algae.”

I laughed. I would not further contemplate a Viking slug-face algae. I looked at the broken pieces. I hadn’t liked those mugs anyhow. “Where do we keep the broom?”

 

If I were to say that being the CEO of Lace, Satin, and Baubles was a challenging position, it would be putting it mildly. It would be like saying Mount St. Helens blowing its peak off was a wee blast.

I will not get into the full details of running a company like this, but there are many people and many moving parts. The people and the moving parts explode on a regular basis.

Tory’s the design director, Lacey’s chief financial officer. We also have a creative director beneath Tory who is in charge of seasonal ideas and direction, whose job it is to figure out what the consumer wants to wear. Plus about a hundred other things. We have sales and distribution people. This involves all of our orders, retailer relationships, shipping and warehouse management. Also, another hundred things.