Nothing Bad Is Going to Happen (8 page)

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Libby says, picking at my french fries.

“I want you to be safe,” Rosa says, cramming handfuls of onion rings into her mouth. “You”—she points to Libby—“with the
pierski kobiece
, the bing bongs size of small moons. You know man, he is monster for
kobiece.
You must attack to survive. And you”—she nods at me, still scarfing down her ‘meats'—“baby tiger, you have
claws and teeths but you are too small.” She sighs softly. “My
zabko
, my
robaczku
, you have the bird bones. Your
koteczek
face is ‘talk to me please' face, you are my heart and my moon, but you are mouse—”

“Miss Rosa,” I mutter, feeling my face turn red. Her endearments can get a little over the top.

“Miss Rosa learn you self-defense,” she says decisively, swallowing another huge chunk of hamburger. “After meats, we go, is field trip.” The next bite is so big that I think she's going to choke.

“Do you know the Heimlich?” I whisper to Libby.

“Ew,” she says, “the what?”

But after a few minutes of determined gulping, it's a moot point: The goiter-like lump in Miss Rosa's neck is gone and she flashes us a smile full of ground beef. “Soup is on, my chickens,” she says, her voice all hoarse. “Today I am teaching you the murder.”

“Message sent today, December 22, at 11:00 a.m.:

“End of message. To delete this message press seven, to save it press nine—

“BEEEEEEEEEP.

“Message deleted.”

“Is only for very,
very bad times,” Miss Rosa says sternly, offering me a knife handle first. Rosa's been trying to teach me self-defense techniques ever since she got together with my dad, but this is the first time I've let her bring me to Knock Em Bop Em, Friendship's shooting range, where they keep the sawdust dummies and extra targets.

Technically it's a storage closet, but it looks more like the sort of place a serial killer goes to be alone or have tea parties with his corpses. Someone's lined the dummies against one wall, facing us, and there's a long aisle cleared, and duct tape on the linoleum where you're supposed to stand when you chuck the knives at their faces. Apparently Miss Rosa once taught anger-management stuff to
the owners, free of charge, so now they're letting us practice back here as a favor.

“Decorate this face with knife,” Rosa says, pointing at the dummy. “Pretend is Rolph.”

She calls Ralph Rolph. One time in the hospital, I awoke to her standing over me muttering some kind of “kill Rolph” mantra chant thing. When she saw that I was awake, she said, “Kippy, give hand. I teaching you how to make fist for to punch the Rolph.” At the time I was too sleepy from the drugs in my system to even squeeze, but she made me go through the basic motions of shoving my palm upward at her nose, which she said was the most efficient way to kill a man in one fluid motion. “Bone goes into brain,” she said, “he die, you learn.” She's very protective of me, when it comes down to it, which is a nice sentiment, I guess. Especially since she's not trying to be my mom or anything, regardless of what Dom says. (I cannot imagine my mom handing me a giant switchblade before bed and saying, “Good night,
robaczku
.”)

“Oh my Gah, look at this,” Libby says, laughing. She's in the corner behind us, pawing through the storage trays marked
Hostage Targets.
She's totally ignored everything Miss Rosa's said so far, and hasn't even looked at all the knives Miss Rosa laid out on the nearby folding
table—which I feel bad about since Miss Rosa is obviously proud of them.

“And remember me, Kippy: murdering only for emergencies,” Miss Rosa says, emphasizing each word.

“What counts as an emergency?” Libby asks, suddenly alert.

Miss Rosa grunts, putting her hands on my hips to adjust my stance. “Maybe you are rape, maybe you are murder, maybe you are might be.”

“Maybe I am murder,” I repeat, wishing Davey were here to laugh at all this.

“Have you ever stabbed someone?” I ask Rosa.

She snorts.

“Have you?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

She sighs. “Once, I have girlfriend—”

“Girlfriend,” Libby snaps. “Like a lesbian?”

Rosa shushes her. “Isadora, she has son, and he eats part of my arm.”

“He
bit
you?”

“No, full eat. Bites and swallows. I get tattoo of flowers for to cover.” She rolls up her sleeve and shows me the flower. It's really badly drawn and dips in where a chunk of her arm is missing.

“So you stabbed him?”

“A little, but I drop knife, and he eats more of my arm.”

Libby makes a gagging noise.

“So did you dump her after that?” I ask.

“Dump?” Rosa narrows her eyes at me. “Is this the poop word?”

“No, like break up,” I explain. “Your girlfriend. Isadora. After her son ate more of your arm . . . I don't know. . . . Was the romance over?”

“Oh.” She sighs. “Isadora is saying . . . how do you say, bad power?”

I think for a sec. “Evil?”

“No.”

“Bad
influence,
” Libby says, nodding knowingly. “Everybody thinks I'm a bad influence.”

Rosa grunts. “This is word. Bad influence. She take Adolf and they go countryside to live in forest like animals.”

“No way,” I say. “Her kid ate your arm and she blamed
you
?”

“You only stabbed him in self-defense,” Libby says, examining her nails.

“Ehhh.” Rosa grits her teeth, looking guilty. “One thing I do not tell before is . . . I bite Adolf first. Only one ear now, he is having.”

It's quiet for a long time.

“So you're, like, a real lesbian then,” Libby says finally.

Rosa shrugs. “I am not knowing.”

“Oh.” Libby flips her hair over one shoulder. “Well, Kippy's probably better at definitions, but being a lesbian is, like, when—”

“I know what is lesbian,” Rosa says. “I love Isadora once, and now I love Dommy. Is fine.” She squints at me. “Actually sometimes I am thinking your father is lesbian.”

“I don't know how to respond to that,” I grumble.

“She's kind of right.” Libby says. “Your dad is, like, almost identical to Rosie O'Donnell—physically, I mean. Personality-wise he's more like . . . I don't know. Maybe the teapot in
Beauty and the Beast
?
Hey
, look at this.” She yanks a huge sheet of paper off the top of the target pile. On it, Sheriff Staake's face is laced with target lines. He's pointing a gun. “I cannot
wait
to post this on Facebook. I want to hang it in my room. He's so
fat
.” She cocks her head. “I just . . . What does he eat?”

I smile. This is fun. Just a few gals having gal time at a shooting range with knives.

But then I frown. “Guys, do you think our friendship passes the Bechdel test?”

“Uggggggh,” Libby says, sounding so bored. “
Bechdel
is the stupidest word I've ever heard, and I hate quizzes.”

“What is this Bechdel?” Rosa asks. “Is doctor?”

I take a deep breath. “No, it's like . . . it's like this test for whether a female relationship is meaningful. Like, if they ever talk about anything other than guys, it's a real, meaningful relationship, and it passes the Bechdel test. But if not . . . Well, then you're kind of just like this victim to cultural norms and societal pressures—”

“Is stupid,” Miss Rosa says, nodding.

“I agree with her,” Libby mumbles, making a face.

“But critical theory is a really good way of examining our values and untangling knee-jerk prejudice,” I insist. Then of course Rosa wants to know what theory is, which is totally hard to translate, but I try my best.

She remains unimpressed. “Theory is sounding to me like fear,” she says, nodding at the knife in my hand. “Now throw. I am not wanting for you to bleed fingers. But when you throw, throw by blades. Goes smoother.”

I stare at the dummies lined up against the wall,

“Throw,” she screams.

I toss the first knife and it lands halfway to the targets, hitting the concrete floor with a feeble
twang.
“Shit,” I mutter.

Libby laughs. “Again,” she cheers, clapping her hands. “Again!”

“Is okay.” Miss Rosa hands me another knife. “We will
take many times practice.” She hooks her thumbs through the belt loops on her elastic pants. “But when you hit target, I will give knives for you to keep. Also candies.” She shimmies, and I recognize the distinctive sound of loose M&M'S clacking in her pockets. She used to keep M&M'S in her pockets to motivate those of us in her anger management group. I guess she never noticed that none of us ever wanted them, since they had been removed from their packaging and were rolling around in lint, adhering to one another from her groin sweat. “You are liking candies, no? Many prizes for you if you win.” She continues shimmying. “Now hit dummy, Kippy. You can do it. Pretend is having Rolph Johnston's evil face.”

I envision Ralph charging toward me with his machete, and fling the second knife so hard it bounces off the whitewash brick above the dummies' heads.

Rosa puts a little hand on my arm, gurgling slightly like a pigeon. “You are not focus!”

I want to tell her about the sound of Ralph's voice in my ear, how I want to hurt him badly for what I know he did, but how part of me also wants him to live forever. Hate and love are both obsessions. You can't hate someone without caring, too.

But before I can answer I see a blur in my peripheral vision and hear a soft
hmpph, hmpph, hmpph
across
the room, like a basketball swishing cleanly through the hoop, three times. One dummy from the lineup now has three knives protruding from its crotch.

I gape at Libby.

“What?” she asks, all defensive. “My mom and I play darts. Also just because I know where to throw it doesn't make me a slut.”

Miss Rosa starts a slow clap and I join in with gusto. Once Libby realizes we're not weirded out by where she aimed, she curtsies very prettily, just like a little girl.

For the rest of the session, Miss Rosa makes me do this thing called a roundhouse kick, using my good leg to give the kick propulsion. It hurts a little to fling my bad leg up like that, and the thought of actually
kicking
something with it nauseates me; the anticipated pain alone is enough to make me queasy. But she makes me practice it over and over, until I'm sweating bullets and worry I might do it in my sleep, just from muscle memory. She says that if I suck at knives, I might as well have another trick up my sleeve.

“Remember,” she says, “maybe you are murder.”

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

“But what about our
knife bonding?” I ask. “We had such fun girl time, and now you're pulling, like, a dicks-before-chicks sort of thing.”

“A what?” Rosa asks. “Mud Dumpling, please. My heart is huge for you, but Dommy is boyfriend. Is causing problems.”

I cross my arms, feeling like an angry little kid. When we left Knock Em Bop Em, I figured we'd go back to her place—I was going to tell Dr. Ferguson to meet me there. Instead we're idling in my driveway with the car running. Dom and Miss Rosa are going out for their weekly date night, and she says it's probably a good idea for me to go home. Apparently they came to an agreement.

“And what about how it's dangerous out there?” I go
on, hating the sulkiness in my voice. “I thought that you believed me.”

“I do! Is why I teach you self-defense,” she says, sighing. “You come anytime, Mud Dumpling, always.” Her seat is cranked so far forward that her nose is practically touching the wheel. It's hard to be annoyed at somebody so small. “But is bad, I think, when this silence for Dommy goes too long.”

I try to remind her without crying that there's a homicidal whacko prowling Friendship's streets and that it's been less than twenty-four hours since I stormed away from Dom and took refuge at her house. I'm feeling pretty desperate, to be honest—I even tried to convince Libby to have a sleepover but her dad kept texting saying that if she didn't get to the Frostbite Challenge grounds lickety-split to work on their Jesus sculpture he was going to go ballistic and enter the contest as a solo contender.

“My father is
not
going to take the glory of Frostbite away from me,” Libby said, clenching her teeth before sprinting into the icy parking lot.

“For one thing, I just got the weirdest email from Davey's mom basically admitting she and Mr. Fried both believe that this was some kind of attempted suicide,” I tell Rosa now, “and I sort of want to talk to someone until
dawn about my feelings, and also I'm scared of Ralph, and also all the weapons are still at your house—”

“Is why I give you knife,” she says, rustling in her purse. “I give also to Libby. I like her. She good heart.”

“Um, I don't need a knife. I am the type of person who, if given a knife, will likely stab myself by accident.”

“What are you,
wilk
?” she asks.

“A little,” I admit. “I like being around weapons, I guess, and around people who could potentially use them—but as of now I do not consider myself to be one of those people.” I open the passenger door and nearly eat it on the ice. “I'm not exactly the most graceful person, if you haven't noticed—speaking of which, it's going to be totally awkward with Dom.”

She wrestles more forcefully through the contents of her purse and pulls out a giant switchblade. “Ah, here,” she says, handing it to me. “Tell Dommy I said is okay and remember the booby traps I learn you. Good-bye,
zabko
, my raisin.”

“Please tell Dom that my
psychiatrist
is coming over for a visit,” I snap, shivering in the cold. I still don't know how much I'm going to tell Dr. Ferguson about everything that's happened, but I'm glad he's coming over. Talking to him always makes me feel slightly less crazy. “So, like, if Dom comes home and sees me sitting with a
man
, he shouldn't think it's because I'm a
slut
—or a
szmata
or whatever.”

“You learn Polish!” she says, laying on the horn. This is how she picks Dom up for dates: by honking until he trudges through the snow, smiling all the while like his face might break.

I hear the front door open and skid across the ice to the garage, punching in the code and ducking through before he can see me. I'm dreading our next interaction. I'm not sure I'm ready for whatever awkward apology he has in store. (
I understand that you have certain . . . urges
, I can imagine him saying.
Desire is natural, but . . .
) And if he's not going to apologize—if him treating me like some kind of monster is in fact our new dynamic—I'm not sure I'm ready for that, either.

The garage door cranks shut behind me. I climb onto the riding mower and watch my breath collect in clouds, turning the knife over and over in my hands, trying to calm down. What if whoever hurt Davey breaks into the house before Dr. Ferguson gets here? What if Dom never goes back to normal? What if Davey never wakes up? What if Libby was weirded out by my sleepover invite and never wants to come over again? (And why should that last one matter?) Why is Davey's mom acting so
formal
toward me? If she really thinks he did this to
himself, does she also think it's my fault?

I have a lot of feelings.

After a while I hear the car door slam and tires crunching over packed snow. I wait a few more seconds before slinking past Dom's tool bench and opening the door to the kitchen. The questions in my head won't stop swirling. So I lock all the doors. Then I start setting up the snares that Miss Rosa taught me. She probably didn't think I'd cover the entire first floor with booby traps, but that's what I intend to do.

The phone rings when I'm in the middle of a particularly complex snare that involves rigging dental floss to a fire extinguisher. I'd let it go to voice mail but part of me thinks it might be Libby. Maybe she changed her mind about that sleepover.

I step delicately through the web of traps I've laid, careful to place my walking cast just so, and lift the phone from its cradle.

“Hello? Bushman residence.”

“Kippy, it's Jim. Is your dad there?”

I know Dom and Jim are working together on the Cloudy Meadows suit, but it's starting to bug me how these used to be people
I
knew—Rosa, Jim, Ferguson—and now Dom has his own relationships with them and, like, has them over for hamburgers and stuff as if they're
his
friends. It's like being left out of a clique you used to rule. Not that I would know what that feels like, either.

“He's on a date,” I mutter.

“I see. So . . . Kippy . . . how are you?”

What an insane question. I hate when you know someone doesn't want to talk to you, and you don't want to talk to them, either, but there you are, talking. I guess it's called being polite. “Very well . . . thank you.”

“Did you get my messages about—”

“Yeah, but obviously I take issue with the word
suicide
.”

“Ah, yes—”

“He's alive, for starters.”

“Shit. I'm terrible. Sorry. Look—”

“Davey didn't try to hurt himself,” I press on, feeling my heart start to pound. “Someone else attacked him.”

He pauses. “Kippy, that's—”

“Crazy?”

It's quiet. I chew at my nails. “Sorry about your roommate, by the way. I should have said that first.”

“Thank you,” he says. “This might not be the right thing to say to you—or who knows, it might be exactly right to tell you. Personally I don't think that people need to tiptoe around you. Having been on the receiving end of that kind of delicate treatment, I know how irritating it can be.”

Oh no, now we're having a heart-to-heart. “Okay.” Is that Albus outside or a bush?

It's a bush.

“Ralph Johnston called me today,” Jim says.

My heart rate increases slightly. “Why?”

“Something about a storage unit. Bragging about being rich. It was hard to understand.”

I take a deep breath and pull myself up on the counter so I won't accidentally step into a trap. “Right, he mentioned that . . .
Star Wars
collectibles. I remember he used to have this gross Chewbacca head—”

“You
talk
to him?”

“Is that illegal?”

“What?”

“Look, you're the one calling to chitchat about the guy.”

“Technically I was calling to speak with your father.” There's a smile in his voice. “You're quick, you know that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So what's with this storage-unit stuff?” he asks. “He offered me money at one point. I told him no out of a sense of loyalty to you, but if it's interesting enough—”

“You mean if there's money in it, screw loyalty.”

“Your words, not mine.”

“He says he's got a Chewbacca head.”

“Yeah, I've seen it.”

“Ralph needs money for a lawyer. He's trying to get anyone he can to auction off his old
Star Wars
collectibles. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stuff in there.”

“Hm.”

“I know, right? Too bad you're too devoted to me to help him get any of it.”

He's quiet a second. “Is the Chewbacca head the same one worn in the movie?”

“Yeah, totally original. Why?”

He explains that he's been Googling “
Star Wars
collectibles rare” while we've been talking (typical Jim, to half listen when we're discussing tough stuff) and found a weird, anonymous chat room where one guy in Wisconsin is claiming to have the original Chewbacca head for sale.

“The listing's only a few hours old,” Jim says. “He's got it listed for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars . . . Jesus, there are already five people interested.” He's quiet for a moment, scrolling, I guess. “These idiots might be rich but they cannot spell. You should see these comments.”

I take a few deep breaths, trying to stay calm about the
fact that someone's helping Ralph. And whoever's selling the Chewbacca head might be the same guy on the outside who went after Davey.

“Kippy, you there?” Jim asks.

“Maybe we could get some money out of this,” I respond, trying to sound casual. Jim's better situated than I am to intimidate Ralph's peddler—with legal recourse, or whatever—and odds are I can probably get him to find out who's helping Ralph if I offer him a boatload of money.

He doesn't say anything.

“Maybe we could get
all
the money out of it,” I add. “Then he wouldn't have any cash left over to get some big shot to lie for him at trial. He'll be sure to get what he deserves. And you and I could split the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“And what's this for again, exactly? So you can get back at Ralph for ‘causing' your boyfriend's suicidal inklings? You're in denial, you know that?”

I look down at my legs swinging from the counter, focusing on the walking cast. Jim is one of those people who believes in tough love, which I've never understood. Being on the receiving end of bluntness doesn't feel good and it isn't enlightening, either. It only makes me defensive. So what if I want Ralph to call me so badly I feel
sick, and at the same time I can't wait to go testify against him at trial so I can cry in front of the jury and get him sent to the electric chair? It's a complicated relationship. I look around at the traps I built and feel infinitely calmer. The weird thing about post-traumatic stress is how you can go from a huge and frightening adrenaline rush—this heart-pounding flight response—to feeling like nothing is real, and you're watching the world spin from a cloud.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I respond finally, drawing out each syllable.

“You're freaking me out, kid,” Jim says. But I know he's thinking about the money, and I can picture his face spreading into that evil grin he has whenever he stands a chance of making bank. “But, I don't know. . . . This might be fun. Hell, it'd give you a distraction, right? Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“Totally,” I say, egging him on. Who cares if he has to tell himself he's being greedy on my behalf? In a way, he is, because he's doing my bidding without even really knowing it.

“I could feign interest in this piece-of-shit geek gear,” he continues, “and find out who's selling for Ralph, and spout legalese in their direction until they shit themselves. Then you and I could split . . . Well, let's call it an
eighty-five/fifteen break. You get a finder's fee, but I'm doing the grunt work.”

“Fine, that's fair. Just one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I want to know who's selling it.”

He makes an exasperated noise.

“I don't care if you think I'm delusional,” I continue. “I wanna know who's selling Ralph's stuff. It's the least you can do since I'm sending you in the direction of, like, two new vacation homes, or whatever the hell you spend your money on.”

A car rumbles up the driveway.

“Okay?” I demand. “I want you to see this guy in person.”

“Deal, kid,” he says. “But don't tell your dad—he'd kill me for playing along with . . . with whatever this is.”

The idea that he and Dom have ever discussed my mental health makes me wobbly and furious.

“I've got to go to therapy now,” I tell him, watching through the window as Dr. Ferguson slams his car door.

“Tell Ferguson I owe him a phone call about this lawsuit,” Jim says. “You're lucky to have him, you know. He's taking big swings for you. But will you remind him he has paperwork I need?”

“Yeah, sure. Keep me posted about the Chewbacca head.”

“Promise me you won't go causing trouble.”

The doorbell rings.

I replace the phone in its cradle and skulk carefully to the front door—disarming the cast iron skillet I've rigged there in order to let in Dr. Ferguson.

“So,” he says, spotting the mess of traps behind me. “Should we start by talking about whatever all that is?”

“No, thanks,” I mumble, and lead him somewhere safe. “We'll sit in my bedroom.”

“I need to talk to you about something, Kippy,” he says, following me up the stairs.

“Yeah?” I say, running my hand up the bannister as we pass Bushman family classics framed against the wall: Mom and Dom on their wedding day, his mustache and her thick blond hair, that dress with poofy sleeves; the three of us sitting on the lawn; Dom and I alone at my eleventh birthday party, the first one after she died. “It's this way,” I say, cutting off Ferguson as he starts to talk again and leading him down another dark hallway to my pink-and-white bedroom. I gesture at the pink desk chair for him to sit and plop down on the springy bed. I wish Dom would let me redecorate. “What is it?” I ask.