“I just wanted to say . . . I had a really nice time today.”
“Yeah, me too. Are you as surprised as I am?”
“Yeah! I just didn’t see that coming. Maybe we could do it again sometime?”
Stevie’s grin was wide. “I’d like that.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Max’s lip curled. “Are you two going to start dating now?”
Stevie’s fist came back so fast, Max didn’t have time to duck, and her nose was slammed farther into her head.
“Owww! You evil bitch!”
Ignoring her sister, Stevie took Oriana’s phone, which seemed to be surgically attached to the ballerina’s hand, and quickly typed in what Shen assumed was her phone number.
“Talk to you later,” Stevie said, handing the phone back. “And sorry about getting Max’s blood on the screen.”
“No problem.”
Oriana waved and made her way across the street.
Shen looked at the MacKilligan sisters. “You guys ready to—”
Before he could even finish his sentence, the pair began barking at each other.
“How could you commit to something so stupid?” Max demanded.
“Keep your voice down,” Stevie snapped, quickly moving down the stairs. “And it’s not like I had much choice. Did you want her to call the FBI on me? Besides, we need to keep her as sweet as possible here. Six figures to fix that house? Six figures?”
“What did you expect? It’s New York. You’re lucky it wasn’t seven.”
Shen followed the pair, remotely unlocking the SUV doors.
“Six or seven, we can’t pay right now. But this gets us out of it.”
“She will never agree to you doing this, you know.”
Shen expected one of them to get in the front passenger seat, but they both got into the back. He was a little insulted. He wasn’t their driver.
But he realized he had nothing to do with the decision once he got in the driver’s side and saw that Stevie had pinned her sister to the seat and was screaming in her face, “One word to Charlie about that goddamn violin and I will bury you!”
Deciding he wasn’t going to get into the middle of any of this, Shen started the SUV, turned on the radio to a rock station, and headed back to Queens.
chapter THIRTEEN
The arguing stopped once they were on the road and Shen had the foolish belief that the sisters would just spend the rest of the evening not speaking to each other. But once they were back at the MacKilligan house and before Shen could even settle on the couch and begin on a nice pile of bamboo stalks, they started again.
It got so bad—with the pair standing in the middle of the living room just screeching at each other—that Shen decided to spend his night off anywhere but here. He went to his room, threw a few things into a small duffel and texted his big sister.
Can I stay at your Long Island house tonight?
The Hamptons one? The Mill Neck one? The Old Westbury one?
Stop. Freeport is fine.
Yeah. Sure. Key under rock that looks like turtle. Everything OK?
Yeah. Just need a break. Thanks.
Anytime. Just don’t bring whores to my hot tub.
Shen laughed.
I’ll keep that in mind.
He picked up the small duffel and then a larger one that had a nice supply of bamboo. Just in case his sister’s housekeeper hadn’t kept her pantry stocked.
With everything in hand, he went down the stairs. He could hear the sisters going at it, still in the living room. Keeping his gaze on the floor, Shen moved into the room and got close to the couch, so he could slip by them and not be noticed. He’d just neared the door when Charlie bellowed from the kitchen, “That is it!”
Shen froze. He knew if he made a run for it, the three sisters could take him down. It was an instinctive response. Running made you prey. So he stood still and waited.
Charlie stormed into the living room, shoving her bickering sisters apart.
“I’m done with this bullshit!”
Stevie and Max started screaming at each other again; their faces close. But Charlie pushed them apart once more.
“Get out!” she ordered Max.
“Me? What did I do?”
“You exist!” Stevie barked.
“I want you out too,” Charlie told Stevie.
“Me?” she gasped, abruptly sounding like the innocent “baby” sister. “But you love me.”
Charlie ignored that and looked around the living room. She spotted Shen—he could feel those wolf eyes on him—and ordered, “Take her out of here, Shen.”
Now he had to say it. “Me? Why me?”
“She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?”
“No! She is not my—”
“She is now!” Charlie snapped and then she shoved her sister at Shen.
“Hey!” Now Stevie sounded like Stevie. Annoyed and petulant.
“Get out! Both of you!” She pointed at Stevie and then Max. “I want everybody out of this fucking house! I’m sick of this shit!”
“Fine!” Max yelled.
“Fine!” Stevie screamed.
Both sisters split off and Shen took his chance. He headed to the door, went outside, walked quickly to his SUV, got in, started it, and had nearly pulled away when the passenger door opened.
Stevie and her oversized backpack filled with her many, many notebooks nearly collided with his head before she settled into the passenger seat. She slammed the door, tossed the pack to the backseat, put on her seat belt, crossed her arms over her chest, and proceeded to pout.
“Look—” he began.
What?” she bellowed.
Shen briefly raised his hands, palms out. “Nothing.”
She settled back into her seat and Shen pulled onto the road.
After about twenty minutes, he began, “You know—”
“Do you mind not talking to me right now?” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood!”
“If I’m so annoying, I can take you back to your house.”
Her head turned; her mouth dropped open in shock. “You would say that to me? I’m your girlfriend!”
“You’re not my girlfriend!”
Stevie let out a disgusted sound. “Keep up that attitude, mister, and I won’t be.”
And Shen really didn’t know what to make of that reply.
* * *
Stevie followed Shen into the house he said his sister owned. A five-bedroom, three-bath, two-story contemporary in Freeport, Long Island, overlooking the channel.
“I would live here,” she told him once they were inside.
“It is nice.”
“Hardwood floors? Cathedral ceilings in the living and dining room? Full, state-of-the-art kitchen with stainless steel everything?” she said, peeking into the kitchen next to the dining room. “This is a little more than nice.”
“I guess.”
She examined the living room furniture. “Your sister has very nice taste.”
“She should,” he muttered, dropping his duffel bags by the couch and walking to the large glass doors that looked out over the channel.
“What does that mean?”
“She’s in the style business. It’s her job to have good taste.”
“The style business?” Stevie asked, immediately becoming annoyed. “God, you don’t mean some idiot that promotes a tea that can help a person lose fifty pounds? Or shows twenty different ways to put on mascara?”
“I find those mascara tutorials very helpful.”
Stevie was analyzing the ramifications of a tsunami slamming into this area, so it took a few seconds for that last comment to get inside her head.
“Wait . . . what?”
Shen chuckled. “My sister is editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine in Manhattan. She has her own fashion channel on cable. She hosts a fashion party each year that every celebrity wants to be invited to. People have tried to bribe me for thousands of dollars for tickets. So when I say
style is her business, I mean—”
“Your sister is Kiki Li?”
Shen nodded. “That’s her.”
“The Kiki Li?”
“I have to admit, I didn’t imagine you being a fan. You seem to have your own style.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment—”
“It was.”
“—and just say that your sister’s write-up of my opera La Luna Destructo put me on the map. Took my work out of rich-people-who-like classical category and into the movie-producers-and-ad-companies-calling-my-agent-everyday category.” Stevie had to chuckle a little herself. “Actually, your sister is the reason I got out of music.”
Shen jerked around to face her. “What?”
“What I mean is I didn’t want to be a star. I didn’t want to be famous. I just wanted to do my music. But once your sister noticed me . . . she practically made me a household name and I couldn’t handle it. The pressure was too much—so I bailed.”
Shen scratched his head. “I feel like I should apologize for her, or something.”
“For what? Doing her job? She was just breaking out then anyway. It’s not like she did it on purpose. She was still learning her power,” Stevie teased. “And I was only ten. It was too much pressure already.”
“I can’t imagine doing any of that when I was ten.”
“What did you do?”
“Run around screaming with my friends, falling from things . . . usually trees. And eating. I was constantly eating.”
“Are you still close to your sister?”
“Sisters. And, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your sister’s famous. That, sometimes, gets between siblings.”
“Not ours. But we’re pandas. None of that fame shit means anything to us.” He glanced at her. “And it doesn’t seem like your fame has gotten between you and your sisters.”
“Well, these days, my fame is science-based. I mostly have geeky guys wearing T-shirts with Bill Gates as a Star Trek Borg coming up to me to challenge a recent paper I’ve just had published. And, honestly, my sisters and I didn’t really have the luxury to cut each other loose. We don’t have anyone else.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t sell yourself short. You have Kyle!”
Stevie glanced at Shen. He was gazing out over the channel again, but she could see the smirk on his face.
“You’re an idiot,” she said around her laughter.
“But we both know I’m right.”
* * *
Shen paused the baseball game on his sister’s giant screen TV in the living room and answered the front door.
“Mr. Li?” the young man asked.
“Yeah?”
“Hi. I’m from Chung Grocery. Ms. Li called in an order to be delivered.”
“Oh, sure.”
Shen stepped back, expecting a guy with one or two bags of groceries. He should have known better.
What traipsed into his sister’s house was an entire crew of delivery people. About eight. And they each had to make several rounds. They didn’t just bring in a fresh supply of high-end bamboo direct from Shaanxi, China, but bags of groceries, champagne, wine, and flowers in vases that were placed strategically around the home.
It was clear this was not the first time these people had performed such a function for his sister.
What confused Shen was why. He was here for one night, not a week. Not even a weekend. He texted her.
What is this?
Thought you could use a little glamour.
Since when?
When Shen didn’t get an answer, he rolled his eyes and began typing.
Okay. What did Steinberg tell you?
Leonard Steinberg was his sister’s neighbor. The old man had lived in his house for about thirty years and adored Kiki. Watched her house for her, kept her apprised of local gossip, and made sure that the place was locked down anytime there was a hurricane or bad storm. Kiki, in turn, had a handyman that helped out Steinberg whenever he needed it. He was on a fixed income, making Kiki’s assistance really important. Shen was sure the old man had told his sister that Shen had not come here alone.
Now his sister had ideas. Kiki with ideas was never a good thing. Like Stevie, she was brilliant, though in a different way. She couldn’t do math to save her life and science didn’t really exist for her. She also couldn’t draw, she was adamant that technology was out to get her, and she never read nonfiction anything unless it was a juicy gossip tell-all about celebrities. But when it came to fashion and art . . . Kiki had something not many people had. And she was positive she knew what was right and what was wrong; what was in and what was out. No one could tell her different, either. It made her an influential force to the world and an occasional pain in the ass to her baby brother.
All I’m going to say is . . . she sounds cute.
At that point, Shen just dialed his sister.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded as soon as she picked up.
Kiki sighed. “I really should start having my assistant answer my cell phone. Suze, put my brother on the do-not-answer list, would you?” she called out.
“On it!” Suze replied.
“Look,” he said, ignoring both women, “I just want to make it clear—”
“That you have a girlfriend and you didn’t tell your sisters about her?”
“She is not my girlfriend!”
“Really? Because she told Steinberg she was your girlfriend.”
“Oh my God! Seriously?”
“Shen . . . you’re not going out with that girl who wanted you to meet her parents on the first date, are you?”
“No! She’s a friend of my client. She needed to get out of her house for a little while. I was helping. But I’m starting to think she’s delusional.”
As Shen spoke, he glanced out the glass doors looking out over the channel. Stevie stood on the railing, facing the water.
“Oh, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid she thinks she can fly.”
“Oh! Is she a bird shifter? Wait . . . do we even have bird shifters? I’ve heard rumors of crows. Although who’d want to shift into an angry black bird?”
Shen couldn’t listen to his sister’s rambling and deal with a delusional MacKilligan. Not at the same time.
“I’ll call you back.”
“What about eagles? Do we have any eag—”
Shen disconnected the call and pulled open the sliding door.
“Uh . . . Stevie?” He kept his voice calm. Rational. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Listening to music.”
Except there was no music and she didn’t have on earbuds.
“O . . . kay. Does the music talk to you?”
“Music always talks to me. And right now it’s talking to me about flying over the ocean.”
“Oh God . . . you do think you can fly.”
She opened her eyes, looked at him. “No, I don’t think I can fly.” Then she added, “Go fuck off.”
“I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Ballet,” she said, closing her eyes again and facing the ocean and the wind coming off it.
“What about ballet?”
“Can’t you see it?”
Shen didn’t answer; he just closed the sliding door and looked at his phone again. He zipped through his contacts list and speed-dialed the number he needed.
“Yeah?” a voice said on the other end.
“I don’t want you to worry, but I think your sister is having a nervous breakdown.”
There was silence, a deep breath, then Charlie asked, “Okay. I’m not going to have an anxiety attack. Instead, I’m going to calmly ask you some questions and you’re going to calmly respond. Can you do that for me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. What makes you think my sister is having a breakdown?”
“We’re at my sister’s Freeport house. By the water. She’s standing on the railin
g. I’m afraid she thinks she can fly.”
“Oh. Oh! My sister loves the water. She especially loves when the wind is coming off the water.”
“Yeah. She’s facing the wind.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“She also said she hears music. There is no music.”
“My sister can hear music in her head. Like you listening to a radio. Hearing music when there is none, is totally normal for her.”
“Then she suddenly said ‘ballet.’ For no obvious reason I could ascertain.”
“That probably means she’s writing a ballet in her head. The music for a ballet anyway. Most likely because of Oriana. She’s probably inspired.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Just so you know, my sister isn’t delusional.”
“Manic?”
“No. She doesn’t have huge highs. She has inspiration, which might make her seem manic, but it’s just excitement over new ideas. Her depression can get bad, but she usually just crawls under her bed and cries for a while. Her anxiety is the thing you have to watch out for. She gets freaked out by—”
“Crowds?”
“Crowds of bears. Squirrels. She doesn’t like hamsters. Crowds of people, however, are fine.”
“Hamsters?”
“Anything that skitters. Oh, she doesn’t like snakes either, which is weird . . . ’cause she’s still half honey badger.”
“Right.”
“But you can tell when that anxiety is getting the best of her. You saw it the other day.”
“She was shaking and naked in the cabinet because there were bears in her kitchen.”
“Exactly. And that was when her meds had stopped working. It seems, though, that the new meds are working. And I’m going to have faith that they are working until I see definite evidence they’re not. I’m not going to assume there is a problem. I’m not going to worry needlessly about problems that aren’t there.”
In a Badger Way Page 18