I pulled my face out of Joe’s chest and looked up at him.
“Tequila,” I muttered and I heard Keira and Kate giggle.
“Baby,” Joe muttered back and touched his mouth to mine before he finished, “relax.”
I was about to explain, again, that Joe telling me to relax didn’t mean I’d do it when I felt a presence and I turned my head to see, shockingly, Bea had come close.
“Vi, sweetie, I’ll make my sangria later. We can have it with dinner. How does that sound?” Bea asked.
Bea’s sangria was brilliant. Way better than her chocolate cream pie.
And Bea getting close to our huddle even though she still looked timid, she nevertheless was close, was the best.
“We’ll go to the grocery store when we get school supplies,” I said to Bea.
“Perfect,” Bea replied quietly then she smiled at me.
Then I watched as she smiled at Joe.
It was then I relaxed.
Storms in the Midwest, bad ones, had a way of announcing their arrival well before they arrived. You could feel them and you could see them as the air went still and took on what I could swear was a tinge of yellow. You could even smell them.
Considering the emotional start to the day, the emotional months that had preceded it and the fact that it looked and smelled like there was going to be a storm, a bad one, maybe even one that heralded a tornado (tornados being something that scared me shitless), it maybe wasn’t so surprising when I lost it on the sidewalk outside the store.
See, making matters worse, I’d had nothing but a corn dog and a Slurpee for lunch and I was starving. Further, I saw the lightning and heard the far away thunder. The time between lightning flashes and thunder rolls was dwindling, the storm was fast approaching and I was getting antsy because I didn’t want to be at a strip mall, a veritable magnet for tornado activity (in my storm fevered imagination). I wanted to be home.
What made matters even worse was Dad, Gary and Uncle Vinnie decided to come with us and Joe came along too, likely to play his self-appointed role of emotional bodyguard. I was very aware of the facts that Dad and Gary weren’t the best of friends; Bea was still stinging from had happened nearly two decades ago with Mom and Dad was a stark reminder of that; Dad wasn’t Joe’s favorite person at that moment; the girls were with a bunch of people they loved, their favorite thing in the world and in full on shopping mode, their second favorite thing in the world and something which nothing penetrated, even if they were only buying notebooks and pens; and I was a walking emotional zombie, barely holding it together. Therefore, Vinnie and Theresa were working triple time to keep our troop from descending into madness.
That said, Vinnie and Theresa, just being Vinnie and Theresa, weren’t the best choices for this job considering they were naturally pretty bonkers.
Even so, we were somehow making it through the day. We’d been to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for sangria, it was closing in on Sangria Time and I’d started to count down the minutes.
After the grocery store, the girls got their stuff and they’d scored huge what with Gary and Bea, Vinnie and Theresa, Dad, and lastly Joe vying to spoil them rotten so they had enough school supplies to last them until they were eighty. They also had new CDs by their favorite bands (Joe’s contribution though he flatly refused in a teasing way to buy Keira any boy band music to which Dad stepped in, thinking he was doing something good, and bought them which ticked Joe off for reasons only known to Joe and Keira had to play peacemaker). They also had new brushes, combs, shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, makeup and enough hair accessories to service the entire freshman class (Theresa’s contribution on a smile and a vague “All girls need a little… you know,” when I tried to intervene).
Joe was loading their multitude of bags in the trunk of the Mustang while both girls were close, gabbing at Joe. Dad was trying to help at the same time looking like he was going to burst into tears. Vinnie was trying to distract Dad and failing which meant Dad was getting in Joe’s way. Gary, Theresa and Bea were down the sidewalk looking into the windows of the bakery, Theresa exclaiming loudly, “They have no cannoli!” to which Bea nervously giggled. And I was standing alone and slightly removed from the rest of them.
This made me the bizarre target for a beautiful blonde who walked right up to me and started speaking.
“Rumor’s true. You broke him,” she said, her eyes on Joe who was grinning down at Keira and ignoring Dad as he slammed the trunk of the Mustang.
I turned my head to look at her, seeing firstly that she was beautiful and secondly that she had bitch written all over her.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Cal,” she tipped her head toward Joe but kept her eyes on me, “you broke him.”
“What?” I asked.
“Tina told me,” she went on and I felt liquid steel injected into my spine at the mention of Tina’s name. “I had a taste of him,” she shared, smiled and the way she did it I knew I was right. Total bitch. “Delicious,” she finished.
I turned fully to her.
“Who are you?”
“Susie Shepherd,” she answered. I vaguely knew her name from somewhere but I didn’t have time to figure out where since I was focusing on her smile getting bitchier, this didn’t give me a good feeling and I’d shortly find out why it was doing that. “You’re done with Mike, you won’t mind I have a go?”
That steel in my spine solidified.
“Are you kidding me?” I whispered.
“Or, my preference, you get done with Cal, I’d like another taste. More accurately, I’d like to give him another one.”
“You’re kidding me,” I whispered hopefully.
She leaned in, dashing my hopes. “Best head I ever had. Cal works miracles with his tongue, sheer talent. He made me come so hard, I thought for a second I died and I didn’t mind one fucking bit.”
I leaned in too and hissed, “My daughters are five feet away.”
She leaned slightly back. “No worries. They get a bit older, he’ll do them too. They got something to look forward to.”
“What?” I shrieked and she grinned a catty grin.
“Nails everything in town, don’t you know?” she informed me. “We’re all just wondering when he’ll get done playin’ with you.”
“Susie –” I heard Joe say, his voice sounding supremely scary, even scarier than a very scary Joe could sound but I’d had enough.
I was done.
There was a huge clap of thunder that rumbled through the air like a physical thing and this was accompanied by a streak of bright lightning.
The storm was there. The heavens opened and the rain poured down.
This all drowned out my scream as I took Susie Shepherd down right there on the sidewalk.
I found quickly that she’d grown up without brothers because she fought like a girl which was why I was able to start beating the crap out of her.
That was until Joe pulled me off of her, set me on my feet, wrapped an arm around my chest, one around my ribs and backed us away several steps all the while I struggled in his hold.
“Get the girls in the car.” Joe ground out.
“Cal –” Vinnie said.
“Car! Now!” Joe barked and this time it was an actual bark. “Get them outta here!”
“Mom, you okay?” Kate asked with worry in her tone.
I was so out of it, Kate’s tone didn’t register as I was still struggling to get at Susie Shepherd, a woman I did not know but I didn’t care. I was going to rip all her now sodden golden tresses out by the roots.
“You bitch!” I shrieked.
She was pulling herself to her feet and wiping blood from her lip. She looked at the blood mixed with raindrops on her hand then she stared at me.