Polkacide (11 page)

"Tickle
me
, Aunt Lottie!" "No, me!" "Me
next!" "Do it again!" Every last one of the ADHD Dozen burst out
with variations on the same demand all at once. They converged on
me like ducks on a breadcrumb, piling on with greedy
abandon.

Just as the squirming,
squawking mass crushed me under its weight, turning a fun moment
into one that was nearly out of control, the doorbell rang. The
gang was off like a shot, leaving me gasping on the cushions. They
threw the front door open while the bell was in mid-ring, revealing
a teenage girl with a stack of five pizza boxes in one hand and a
finger still pressing in the doorbell button.

The kids started grabbing for the
pizzas the second they saw them...all except Lou, who stood back
and watched the chaos from the middle of the living room. He turned
and shrugged at me, and I just grinned and shrugged back at him
like we were the only two sane people in the place.

The embattled delivery girl
held the pizza boxes up out of reach, but the kids just pawed at
her neon green uniform. Her eyes met mine then, and she shouted
over the uproar from the crazed ADHD Dozen. "That'll be forty-two
eighty-nine, please!"

Suddenly, a piercing whistle shattered
the tumult. The kids backed off instantly, all looking toward the
kitchen with eyes wide as pancakes.

I knew that whistle well; we
all did. We'd heard it often enough growing up when we'd gotten out
of hand, or when dinner was on the table, or we'd wandered off and
had to be called back.

Sure enough, the whistler herself
strolled in from the kitchen with money in hand. She was old school
personified, none other than Baba Tereska. "Sorry about the
children." Baba held the cash out to the pizza delivery girl.
"Please keep the change and have a wonderful evening,
dear."

At which point the delivery girl
handed over the pizzas, smiled politely, and got the hell out of
there. She literally ran down the steps.

Meanwhile, Baba Tereska
walked with a regal bearing to the kitchen, carrying dinner in five
square boxes. All twelve of the ADHD Dozen gave her the same
respectful wide berth that my sisters and I had given her decades
ago when we were kids.

And still did in some ways.

Chapter 17

While Mom and Baba Tereska
fed and tended most of the kids in the living room, my sisters and
I set up pizzas in the kitchen and stood or sat around the table to
eat. It was the first time in at least three years that we'd all
been together like that, just us, eating and talking.

It felt familiar and strange
all at once. In many ways, we were the same family we'd always
been...yet we weren't the same at all. Though Dad had been gone
from our daily lives for years, he'd left a huge hole behind when
he'd died.

And then there was the
matter of all the water under the bridge. The Furies and I weren't
exactly best friends anymore. So how was I going to ask the
difficult questions that kept popping into my mind? The ones about
Peg's murder theory?

Especially since the Furies
had their own ideas about conversation topics. My new job, for
instance.

"So how's it going at Polka
Central, Lots?" Ellie, the sneakiest, snarkiest, and most
vindictive of the Furies, said it while feeding cut-up chunks of
cheese pizza to the toddler on her lap. "You rockin' the house with
good ol' Peg?"

I was determined not to let
her set me off. Leaning against the counter with a slice of garbage
pizza folded in my hand, I smiled down at her. "It's going okay.
She's acting okay so far."

"I heard she's already
spending Dad's money like it's going out of style." My sister
Charlie, who was feeding cut-up pizza to a toddler of her own,
laced the words with disgust. "Ran out and bought herself a bunch
of brand-new computer equipment today, didn't she?"

News traveled fast in a
small town like New Krakow. With a celebrity like Lou involved, it
traveled a hundred times faster. "Just one laptop," I said. "We
need it for the office."

The eyes of my sisters
locked in on me like white-hot lasers. In trying to set the record
straight, I'd made it sound like Peg and I were in
cahoots.

"What
else
do the two of you need for the
office?" Ellie sneered and bobbled her head from side to side.
"Some nice
jewelry?
New
cars
,
maybe?"

Time to meet sarcasm with
sarcasm. "Actually, Ellie, we were going to buy
you
a new
house
, but oh well. You've convinced
me we shouldn't spend any more of Dad's money."

All the adults laughed except Ellie,
who just gave me a frosty glare.

"Will there be any money left by the
time that woman gets done with it?" said Charlie.

I finished chewing a bite of
pizza and swallowed. "Look. You guys
know
expenditures from Dad's business
accounts are limited until after a week. If Peg and I get through
Polkapourri,
then
we can split up all the company's assets."

"So write me a check," said
Charlie. "'Limited' expenditures are better than
nothing."

"I'll take a check, too, while you're
at it," said Ellie.

"Count me in," said Bonnie.

"It's not that easy. We can
only pay out for justifiable business expenses, and most of those
have to go toward Polkapourri." Even as I said it, I knew my
explanation wouldn't impress the Furies. I didn't dare tell them it
had come straight from Peg's mouth.

"Who says so? That woman?" Ellie
scowled and stabbed another hunk of cheese pizza.

I shrugged. "It's how Dad set things
up in his will. You got a problem, take it up with him."

Ellie glared at me. "Believe
me, I'd
like
to."

Her nasty look spoke
volumes. I could feel the hostility oozing out of her. The urge to
smack her in the face welled up in me.

My sisters had resented me
for years, especially Ellie. I was the youngest and most successful
(at least as far as they knew). Being civil had been easier when we
were on opposite coasts of the country, but now that we'd been
forced together in the same little town, all bets were
off.

"I wonder why Dad did it
like this." Bonnie reached for a slice of pepperoni pizza from the
open box on top of the stack on the table. "Didn't he trust
the
rest
of us?
Didn't he think we could
handle
running the company?"

"We could
too
handle it." Charlie
locked eyes with me when she said it, as if she had something to
prove to me. "Just because we're
single
moms
doesn't mean we can't be
successful
business
people.
"

"Maybe it's nothing to do
with that." Ellie said it in her snarkiest voice. "Maybe Dad just
didn't
love
us as
much as Little Miss Perfect."

Ellie had said it to get the
others riled up, but her words had the opposite effect. A gloomy
pall fell over the sisters, draining some of the righteous rage out
of the room.

My cue had arrived. Dropping
the pizza crust in the garbage can around the corner of the
counter, I turned and headed for the back door. Before anyone could
call attention to my exit, Charlie started yelling at some of the
kids. Moving quickly and quietly, I was able to slip outside
without making a scene.

Chapter 18

As I ducked out of Bonnie's
house into the cool evening air, I felt my strongest craving of the
day for a cigarette. It was what my sisters probably thought I was
doing out there anyway; I hadn't told any of them that I'd quit.
Why rub it in, since all three of them were still unrepentant heavy
smokers? It would just give them another reason to hate me if they
found out.

With a heavy sigh, I scuffed
down the three cement steps from the back stoop to the cracked and
weed-strewn patio slab. I felt discouraged as I wandered among the
brightly colored playhouses, tricycles, and pee wee sports
equipment.

Though I'd been dreading the
evening, fully expecting it to go south in a big way, I'd still
been hoping for some kind of peace with my sisters. A little
understanding would've been nice...and a chance to ask about danger
signs in the days leading up to Dad's death. But I hadn't gotten
any of that. There was just too much bottled-up bitterness waiting
to be uncorked.

I needed to think of a
friendly face. Walking off the patio out into the yard, I gazed up
at the stars and thought of Luke all the way across the country,
back in L.A. He'd be seeing the same stars in the sky in a matter
of hours, if he could manage to look up from the overdue bills long
enough to see them.

Maybe it hadn't been fair of
me to leave him alone in the heart of the storm. If our positions
had been reversed, I wouldn't have wanted him to leave me behind
that way. But the fact remained: by coming home, I might have still
been able to save our business.

But could I get to the truth about my
father's death, too? It seemed like an awful lot to handle, and I
wasn't exactly a detective. Having to buck the tide of my family's
resentment wouldn't make things any easier.

Reflexively, I patted my shirt pocket,
hoping for a stray cigarette. If I'd found one at that moment, I
would've lit it in a heartbeat. I would've totally inhaled that bad
boy. Fingernails were no substitute in a time of true
crisis.

Suddenly, I heard the back
door open, and someone cleared her throat. I guessed it might be
Mom or Baba Tereska, coming out to check on me. As much as they
rode me about my life, I knew they cared enough to worry. I had a
smile at the ready as I turned, expecting a dose of needed
TLC.

Instead, I saw the Furies walking down
the steps toward me.

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em." Ellie had
a cigarette lit before her feet touched the patio. She shook some
filtered tips up out of the pack and held it up as she walked.
"Tastes good and good for you."

My heart pounded. I wanted a
smoke so
bad
, I
could
taste
it.
Literally
taste
it. I
needed
one to
survive.

But if I smoked one, I knew my next
stop would be the convenience store down the street, where I would
buy myself a carton. All my hard work kicking the habit would have
been for nothing.

"Yay cigarettes!" Charlie snagged one
from the pack Ellie was offering. "The one thing that gets us away
from those kids for five minutes."

Bonnie took one of Ellie's cigarettes,
too. "It's also the one thing we sisters all have in
common."

"Other than our parents, of course,"
said Charlie.

"And our awesome looks."
Ellie smirked and batted her eyes.

The three Furies walked up and stood
in a semi-circle in front of me. Smoke wafted up from their
smoldering cigarettes, making me wish I wasn't standing down wind
from them.

Bonnie exhaled, and the
acrid puff drifted straight for me. My whole body reacted, pressing
toward the precious smoke like a flower bending toward sunlight. My
heart beat faster, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck
stood up straight, and my eyes widened. My mouth even
watered.

Then came the moment I'd been
dreading. Ellie stepped forward and held the pack toward me. "Need
to bum one, Sis?"

How could I say no? There it
was, right in front of me, just when I needed it most. Wouldn't I
be sharper with that nicotine rushing through my arteries,
accelerating the blood flow to my brain? Wouldn't I be better able
to cope with the challenges facing me?

And wouldn't it be rude to turn her
down? After all, Charlie had just said it was the one thing we all
had in common. Opportunities to bond with the Furies were few and
far between.

My hands actually shook as I
considered it. More smoke drifted toward me, the smell of it
driving me wild. It was like a living thing, a lover, tempting me
to surrender.

I reached out and tugged the cigarette
free of the pack. I preferred menthol, but this would do in a
pinch.

"Thanks." I nodded at Ellie and drew
the cigarette toward me, fully intending to ask for a
light.

But then something inside me
caught, holding me back like a dog on a leash. I held the
cigarette, I wanted the cigarette, but something wouldn't let
me
smoke
it.

I kept it between my fingers and let
my hand fall to my side. When Ellie frowned, I shrugged. "I just
had one. Not a big fan of chaining."

"Whatever." Ellie looked blasé about
the whole thing. "So. Are we having fun yet?"

"Oh yeah." Charlie took a
deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out through her nose.
"I can hardly wait to see how fun the
next
day turns out to be."