Undead and Unsure (9 page)

“Yep. I think exactly that. About what you just said.”

“What
did
I just say, Betsy?” Her eyes were squinty with bitchiness, or because she was facing west.

Before Sinclair could cover for me with a bluff, prompt me with what she’d said, or stab my sister so I could get away, I tried: “What you’ve
been
saying, Laura. And not just since you got here today. It’s like you keep bringing it up because you think I’ve forgotten about it.”

“Yes, well, my sister’s murder of my mother tends to prey on my mind. I’ll drop it,” she said grudgingly, almost but not quite apologizing. “For now at least. No reason the rest of your guests should have to endure our—”

“Family problem?” I prompted.

“—insipid power struggle.”

Hmmm.

“I’m sure we can be civil for one meal,” she decided.

Her confidence was inspiring, since I wasn’t sure at all. Also: “your guests”? Cold, cold. But that was a worry for half an hour from now. Right now I was exulting in the “I guessed right!” moment, which felt as good as “wait, the test results were negative?” and “I’m getting how much back for my tax refund?”

Laughter in my head:
Well played, my love!

Damn right!

And so self-effacing, it’s quite fetching.
Out loud: “We’re pleased you could join us today, Laura.”

“Thanks. I wanted to see my brother anyway.”

“How’s your drive now? You know, since you’re running over to my mom’s these days.”

No need for envy, darling. You know your mommy loves you best of all.

Shut. Up.
Aloud: “Laura moved out of her Dinkytown place.”

He politely arched dark brows. “Oh?”

“She said it was a kid’s apartment and as of a couple of weeks ago she wasn’t a kid anymore.”

Sinclair’s expression remained politely inquiring, but the corner of his mouth twitched and I didn’t need a pipeline to his thoughts to know why. My husband was old. Not “isn’t it adorable how when you were born I was excited about starting middle school” old or “when I was your age they hadn’t invented computers yet” old. He had decades on me (I was vague on purpose about how many), so by definition he looked at the world in ways Laura and I couldn’t. Thus, her whole “a few days ago I was a kid but now I’m
totally
an adult so, like, just be aware that I’m officially a grown-up ’n’ stuff” thing was hilarious to him. Luckily he wasn’t a rude jerk like me. Most of the time he wasn’t a rude jerk like me.

“We should love to see your new home,” he was saying.

“Even if it’s Hell?”

Sinclair didn’t pause. “Yes indeed.”

Yeah, sure. Spoken like someone who hasn’t been there.

Laura came up with an insincere smile and a “sure,
that’s
gonna happen” shrug.

“Is Hell rent-controlled? Wait, if Hell was real estate would it be Manhattan prices or Memphis?” I’d been there (Hell, not Manhattan, though I’d also been to Manhattan) and it was like being stuck in a beehive. The beehive . . .
from Hell
! Lots of little chambers, lots going on . . .
in Hell
! My stepmother worked for Satan; she was the assistant . . .
from Hell
!

“Whenever you wish,” the classy half of our partnership continued.

“And what kind of housewarming gift do you bring to Hell? A plant’s out of the question. Candles, too, I bet. Maybe a gift card? But to where . . . hmm . . . IKEA? That would just suck. Did you know IKEA designed their entrance like a cow chute to the slaughterhouse on purpose? Machiavellian bastards.”

Sinclair was still doggedly pretending we were two parts of a civilized and intelligent couple. “Truly, Laura, we would be delighted to see you anytime. We are glad you’re here with us now.”

“And let us know what you want for a housewarming present. Are you having a party or just casually mentioning to people that you’re registered at whatever place you would register at?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, and I caught the context on that one (I almost never do, so I try to mark the occasion).
There’s no point in answering your question since you’re not invited to my new place, big sis, and even if you were, why would you think a Galleria gift card changes one single thing?

Sinclair’s sympathy came through loud and clear.
Be patient, my own. I have every confidence your shrill charm will wear her down.

Thanks, asshat.

“After you, Laura.” He stepped back so she could walk past him and into the kitchen, and I kicked him in the back of his right knee when her back was to us. His surprised yelp was followed by my sinister giggle, and he’d chased me through the kitchen and into the main hall before remembering to go back for the puppies.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

My mom didn’t hesitate to
carpe
the
diem
. She walked right
up to Laura and gave her a hug. “We haven’t really talked about it, hon,” she said, putting an arm around Laura’s shoulders and walking her toward the dining room. Laura was several inches taller, so my mom had to either tip her head back or rise on tiptoes to make eye contact. Since she was wearing her comfortable-but-no-support Freudian Slippers, I figured it’d be the former. “But I’ve been meaning to tell you I’m so sorry about your mother.”

“Why?” For the first time that day Laura sounded honestly curious, not bitter.

“Because it’s terrible to lose a mother,” she replied simply. “No matter who she is.”

Jessica had been following them, of course; they were headed toward the dining room. But when she heard
that
nugget she turned her head away, so I caught up to her and slung my bony arm around her pointy shoulders.

“It
is
always terrible to lose a mother. Except when it’s not.” I got a small smile for that and was glad.

“Hon?” Not-Nick’s voice floated in from the kitchen. “Do you want milk or Coke or a V8?”

“Yes,” she called back.

“Just promise me you won’t mix them,” I begged.

“There’s also ginger ale.”

“Yes. And an orange. And some Newtons. You can put the gravy boat right on my plate.
Two
oranges.”

I could hear Tina coming down the stairs—Thanksgiving dinner 2.0 was served. We’d skipped the organic turkey for a few reasons: the time factor (nobody wanted to watch or listen to Laura and me making awkward small talk for hours), the practicality factor (hardly any of us would eat the thing), and the ’tis-the-season factor (Laura agreed to bring the turkey to a food shelter, simultaneously relieving my mom of something to be annoyed about as well as speeding up the dinner hour).

Our dining room was huge and unused. We were all on different schedules; living in the mansion was a lot like living in a dorm. Somebody’s always asleep, somebody’s always awake, somebody’s always in the kitchen looking for a snack. When we did congregate for a formal meal, it was always in the kitchen, unless a bunch of us were on our way somewhere (like the Princess Diana exhibit at the Mall of America), in which case we’d eat in Tina’s yellow minivan with black runners. (She was starting some sort of bee thing, but it was none of my business.)

All that aside, the dining room was too big and too old and too fancy for most of us to feel comfortable using it for everyday meals.

The dark wood (was it walnut? I could never remember . . . something the Founding Fathers chopped down with their own hands, by which I mean their slaves’ hands) on the walls and under our feet did nothing but increase the gloom, not just in the room but through the whole mansion. The houses on Summit are old, huge, and a challenge for their designers due to the lack of light for the location. Which is why there were more solariums than bathrooms in a four-mile radius.

The room had built-in shelves and hutches that, back in the day, held lots of china and . . . I dunno, other stuff designed for storage within china hutches. We kept it full of two sets of china, several sets of paper plates, cups, and napkins, and for reasons I’m not interested in discussing, Monopoly (Tina was a goddamned cutthroat), Chutes and Ladders (I hate that goddamned cheap spinner), and Candy Land (I hate that goddamned Molasses Swamp).

The hot-tub-sized chandelier, which looked like it would creak if it ever moved, and kill thirty people if it fell, loomed over the dining room table (also dark and creaky), which, best guess, could seat seventy or eighty people or two hundred people . . . I dunno, I wasn’t a caterer. It was big.

Last was the fireplace, also big. So big that even with the flue closed the wind would come whistling down the chimney.
Hmm, the wind appears to be coming out of the southwest today.
You know how some people say a fireplace is “big enough to roast an ox!”? This one wasn’t that big; it would, at most, roast a small cow.

I’d question the sanity of anyone describing the room as cozy, intimate, warm, or board game free. And I wasn’t the only one . . . like I said, we tended to eat in the kitchen.

The whir of the blender chopped through my thoughts as efficiently as it was chopping through cranberry jelly. Which meant . . . yes! Here came my dinner now.

“Is it a spell?”

I was surprised my mom had asked such a question straight out like that until I realized she hadn’t. She and Laura were whispering together and had forgotten I could now hear a cricket fart when I applied myself. Especially since the blender had just quit.

“I have some ideas . . . let me do some research, Dr. Taylor.”

“Really?” My mom sounded almost tearfully grateful. “I’d be so grateful, Laura. I can’t get any of them to admit what’s going on, never mind care. Thank you so much.”

The Antichrist ducked her head and smiled. I figured she’d scuff the floor with her toe and murmur, “Aw, shucks, ma’am, twarn’t nothin’,” in another few seconds, which I looked forward to since it would be hilarious.

What could Mom be bugging Laura about?
Please, please, let it not be some kind of sex question.
Not that an unholy virgin would be much help. I sometimes pitied the poor nameless bastard who was destined to punch the Antichrist’s V-card.

“You mustn’t be so hard on yourself, Dr. Taylor. Betsy couldn’t see something if it knocked her down the stairs. Which Jessica’s belly could actually do.”

“Hey! Knock it off, you guys.”

“No one’s talking to you,” was the frosty retort.

“You’re talking by me! Or near me.” By now we’d assembled in the dining room, save for BabyJon; Mom and I had put him down for a nap.

Put down . . . heh. I always think of the
Ghostbusters II
scene where Sigourney Weaver tells Bill Murray to put the baby down, and Bill goes, “You’re short, your belly button sticks out too far, and you’re a terrible burden on your poor mother.” All I could come up with for BabyJon was, “You are a drooling machine,” and, “Also, you’re
still
incontinent.”

Tina had slipped in behind me, setting the spreadsheets and stock stuff and whatever else she did aside for the day. “How’s it going with Laura?” she whispered, which was polite of her since she probably heard everything.

“She’s definitely gonna murder me in my sleep,” I murmured back.

“No worries, my queen. We would never let her do such a thing.”

“Thanks.”

“And if for some reason we did, we would spend the rest of our lives avenging you.”

“That’s not as comforting as the first thing you said.”

Laura’s voice cut through Tina’s response. “And Betsy must always, always be comforted.”

“It’s true,” I said gratefully, “and thanks for understanding.”

She sighed. “I was being sarcastic.”

Nuts.
“Is this what it’s going to be like for the next few hours?”

“Is my angst about my murdered mom bringing you down?”

“One: yes. Two, duh.” I held out my hands like a traffic cop. A traffic cop trying to direct the Antichrist to a safe lane. “Look, if it’s gonna be like this, fine. You’ve got every right to be pissy—”

“Pissy!”

“—but it’s not fair to everyone else. So if the plan is for you to needle me every chance you can grab, can we at least do it where our friends and family—”

“Stop calling them that.”

“—don’t have to sit through it, too?”

“I don’t know,” Marc said thoughtfully. He had the watching-the-coolest-tennis-game-ever look on his face. “I’m caught up on everything in the DVR. This is the closest I’ll get to new drama until
Sons of Anarchy
starts up again.”

“Come on, ladies.” Not-Nick sighed, pulling out Jessica’s chair for her. He’d already set several drinks at her place. No oranges, though. “Play nice. It’s Thanksgiving.”

“It’s
not.
”

“Oh, picky picky,” I snapped. “The holiday’s not about calendar dates, except when every company and school and government office in America needs to know what day to close.” I knew,
knew
I should be taking the moral high ground (I hardly ever got the chance), but after careful consideration of the parties involved and the setting, the best I could do was
fuck this shit.
“You’ve got cause, we’re all in agreement that you have cause, and it’s a lie anyway. You’re not a bit mad that the artist formerly known as Lena Olin said hello to my sword with her neck.”

“What did you say to me?”

“Proof!” I cried, pointing at her. “You’re not mad! You just wanted to come over and mope because you’re a blonde.” Uh. Prob’ly should rephrase so it didn’t sound like a blonde joke.
How do you know when the blond Antichrist isn’t mad? When she’s the blond Antichrist!

“Nice ’N Silky #43,” was the terse reply. “Shimmering Wheat.”

“But that’s awful!” I couldn’t hide my horror. “That stuff is so caustic—don’t you listen to your color technician’s advice? If your local salon doesn’t have one—but they will, what is this—1955?—you can always use the Web, or call one of their 800 numbers. What were you thinking going in blind like that, you reckless fool? That stuff will ruin your ends and the roots will show; it’ll soak up the dye, but unevenly because it damages the follicle, too, but that’s not even the worst of it—”

“Please focus on the real problem instead of seizing on the part of the problem you think you can get a handle on!” This in a yowl. Also, I loved how the Antichrist could almost always work in a
please
even when she was near-foaming with rage.

Jessica had taken the seat Not-Nick had held out for her; he’d sat down, too. They both had identical expressions of exhaustion on their faces. Marc was sitting across from them, hand under his chin as he watched. Sinclair, Tina, and my mom were just standing there. Funny how I knew that three very different people were having more or less the same thought:
the two of them have got to work this out, so let them.

I was still scoping the Antichrist’s deceitful coloring. “So those are contact lenses, huh? Okay, that’s annoying—lots of people
have
to wear them. You, you only had a pair made so you could stick it to me. Not cool, Laura. Your mother was the Lord of Lies and now you are, too.”

“This isn’t about who is—”

“Me. It’s me.”

“—or isn’t—”

“It’s you.”

“—cool!”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “Your tacky dry ends and blond roots and the coming eyeball infection are all your own problem. You’re not a victim here, you know. You
chose
to dye your hair, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you made that decision, but now you have to live with the consequences.”

“Live with the—” Wow. She was spitting while she raved and not even apologizing. Most unusual in someone who would apologize if someone stepped on
her
foot. “Consequences! You?” Again with the spittle spray. Not even an
excuse me, I know that’s gross, sorry, I’m upset.
I don’t ask for a lot from the Antichrist; why couldn’t she meet me halfway? “You don’t know what the word means.”

“I do, though! I can spell it, too; once in seventh grade I beat Jessica
so
bad in the spelling bee and as a
consequence
I won a Dairy Queen Blizzard. C-o-n-s-a-q-u-e-n-c-e.”

Tina opened her mouth, then closed it quick when Sinclair moved his head in a teeny tiny head shake. At the same time, Jessica did a spit-take and shrieked, V8 running down her chin, “Oh, you liar! It was a tie and you know it!”

“It was not! You choked when you had to spell
euthanasia
.”

With the Herculean strength only moms with babies trapped under cars and hormonal pregnant women were capable of, she stood so quickly she almost flipped the table with her thighs of rage. Not-Nick let out a yelp and managed, barely, to stop any of her glasses from tipping. Meanwhile, Jessica was on her feet and jabbing an unpolished finger (apparently the baby could accidentally suck the nail polish into itself through its shared bloodstream and
why
was I sad I’d never be pregnant?) at me. “And then
you
choked when you had to spell
quarantine
. And they didn’t have time to do a sudden death spell-off because that’s when Jeff Perryman pulled the fire alarm and we had to evacuate the gym and so it was never decided so we both won!”

“But when we were in the parking lot waiting for the fire trucks, you had a chance to—”

“Shut up shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP
SHUT UP SHUT UP
!”

The room practically shook in the backwash (literally) of her rage seizure. I’ve been out in thunderstorms that weren’t that loud. I wiped the spray off my cheek. “If you’re gonna do that, could you not stand so close to me? I might have killed your mom but at least I say it and don’t spray it.”

Her mouth was moving, but all that came out was a high-pitched gurgle. Until that moment I hadn’t known gurgles could even
be
high-pitched.

“Did you know that
consequence
is a neutral term?” Marc was tapping his iPhone, which did lots to keep his brain busy. “There can be a good consequence or a bad one; it’s more like another word for outcome. Jessica is pregnant and as a consequence has assorted food cravings. It’s not good and it’s not bad, see?”

“And that’s how I know you’ve never seen her dip sweet pickles in mayonnaise,” Dick-Nick said, earning an elbow in the side from his pickle-dippin’ sweetie, whose rage-gasm seemed to have passed; hormone-inspired rage-gasms were as quick and dirty as regular orgasms, and thank goodness.

Great. Now orgasms are gonna be in my head the rest of the afternoon.

Probably I should, what’s the word . . . ah, got it. Focus.

“Right!” I was relieved for all kinds of reasons. “Okay, a little off topic, but there, see? Not only can I spell the word—Tina, you can have your turn in a minute—”

“She doesn’t need a turn,” Sinclair said quickly, the first thing he’d said since walking into the room.