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The town hall meeting lasted for another forty minutes, in which I got grilled about the details in my as-yet-unsigned contract with GS Properties. I answered questions honestly and to the point, reminding people every now and then that I was volunteering information they had no business asking me for.
By the time the meeting was over, so was my will to live. I had a migraine that threatened to split my head in half and was in no mood to return to Descartes. I waited for the room to empty and helped Robbie with his laptop while people filed out. Mom, Dylan, Cal, and Fuckface loitered near the stage, with the latter helping stack chairs into a tall pile, one on top of the other.
“Man, that was brutal.” Captain Obvious, aka Kieran, wiped invisible sweat from his forehead after pushing a stack of chairs to the far corner of the room. “You okay, bro?”
“Not your bro.” I hopped off the stage. “And not your business. Dylan.” I spun on my heel, facing my sister. “You shouldn’t be on your feet. Let’s go.”
“Is it just me, or does Allison have more plastic on her face than The Container Store?” Dylan chatted happily, ignoring the tension hanging thickly in the air as she rubbed the small of her back. “Did she have a mini facelift? And like, why? She’s younger than some of the cans Mom has in the pantry.”
“Honey, you handled it so well.” Mom laced her arm through mine, smiling sympathetically.
I peered at Cal, but she seemed busy reading something on her phone, determined not to give me the time of day.
Was she pissed about Allison? If so, good.
“He held back on the snark,” Kieran agreed. Why was Fuckface being nice to me? He had nothing to gain from this. Maybe he wasn’t a world-class prick anymore (though I highly doubted it), but there was still no need to suck up to me. Unless he wanted to show Cal he was a good guy. The thought made me want to kill him violently, creatively, and slowly. “He only offended eighty percent of the people in the room, if that.”
“Honestly? Who cares about that train station?” Dylan puffed, rubbing at her belly as she wobbled toward the exit. “Before Row bought it and made it a restaurant, it was straight-up deserted. It smelled of piss, weed, and garbage.”
“People are afraid of change, signorina,” Mom said quietly, a shudder only I noticed moving through her. “That’s why we keep making the same mistakes.”
Only Cal remained curiously silent. Ironically, it was her words I craved more than anyone else’s. I nudged her with my elbow. “Earth to Dot. Now’s your turn to lay into me. Your five minutes start now.”
“Pass.” She took a sip of her coffee. Probably some offensive pumpkin latte bullshit. “What they did to you was brutal, and I believe everyone deserves a bit of grace. Even, and especially, those who don’t give it to others. I will, however, give you a generous piece of my mind tomorrow, when you pick me up for work.” She tried to smile, but I didn’t see any teeth. “That gives me a full twelve minutes, not five.”
“Are you timing our rides together?”
She hitched one dainty shoulder up. “The arctic gusts of wind from your scowls give me chills. Pumpkin spice latte?” She aimed the coffee at me.
“Thanks, I’d rather use Tabasco as eyedrops.”
“Hmm. I’m enjoying that mental image.” She wiped a thin foam mustache off her upper lip, and I wanted to trail the same path with the tip of my tongue before sealing her mouth with mine. “Anyway, I tallied every time you used profanity on my phone.” She raised her ancient iPhone in the air between us. “You should donate a dollar to the local elementary school’s baseball team for every cuss word you used.”
“I’ll go bankrupt.”
“A fitting punishment for your sins.” She smiled happily. “Want to know how many times you cursed?”
“Not really.”
“Forty-four. That’s an average of more than one a minute.”
“That’s bullshit.”
She flipped an invisible notepad open and pretended to cross something off with an imaginary pencil. “Make that forty-five. I see you’re eager to buy Staindrop Elementary another field.”
“Someone is being mouthy these days.” Not that I had any complaints. I’d come for seconds and thirds of that attitude.
“Oh, did you mistake my anxiety for weakness?” Her eyes flared. “Rookie mistake. My tongue is more lethal than any man’s fist.”
I bet so, sweetheart.
I was waiting for her to give me shit about Allison. But she didn’t. Instead, Cal swung her gaze to the ceiling and chewed on her lip, looking thoughtful. “I may or may not have also recorded ‘The Protest Song’ on my phone and put ‘Stan’ in the background.”
“Liar.” I pursed my lips. Dylan, Mom, and Fuckface trailed behind us, though really, they might as well have been on another planet.
“Their beat was something fierce.” She stopped dead in her tracks and swiped her phone screen. The Righteous Gang’s version of “Stan” filled the air.
I couldn’t help it. I let out a chuckle and shook my head. “You’re a nut.”
