For there behind me on the stoop of Bonnie's house stood a grinning little girl with jet black hair and a bone china face.
"Milly!" I gaped at Bonnie's eldest daughter in all her seven-and-a-half-or-three-quarters years' old glory. "What's the big idea?"
"I scared you good, didn't I?" Milly nodded with eyes wide and clapped her little hands. "I snuck right up on you, Aunt Lottie!"
Leaning against the door jamb, I took deep breaths and tried to calm down. "You shouldn't scare us old people like that, honey."
"How old are you?" Milly cocked her head to one side, shut one eye, and sized me up. "Sixty-seven?"
Thanks a lot, Milly. "Just don't do that again, hon." I ran my hand over the top of my hair braid and looked around. "So where's everyone else?"
Milly whipped around and pointed up the street. "Walkin'."
Sure enough, the sound of multiple voices reached me a second later, kids and adults combined. So there it was--the commotion I'd expected, getting closer. No danger after all.
"Hey, look who's here!" I heard my sister Charlie shout out from half a block away, as she and the others rounded the corner. "You missed out on some great exercise, Lottie!"
I watched as the whole gang strolled down the twilight street as one: Charlie and my other sister Ellie in front, each pushing a stroller with a toddler inside; Mom and Baba Tereska in the middle, both waving in my direction; Bonnie behind them, a toddler holding each hand; and the rest of the ADHD dozen scattered around them, chasing and chattering in a state of perpetual motion.
"It was such a lovely evening," said Mom. "We decided to go for a walk, sweetie. We thought you'd catch up with us."
"Yeah," said Ellie. "Didn't you get the note we left on the door?"
"It must've blown off." I took a quick look around but saw no note in the vicinity. Then again, of the four sisters, Ellie had always been the most likely to tell a lie.
Also the most likely to needle me. "I'm surprised you even made it, what with your big new job and all."
Too bad I wasn't about to take the bait. "Milly, honey?" I turned to my little niece, who was running up and down the front steps. "Weren't you going to show me some of your gymnastics moves?"
Milly stopped running and lit up like a sun. "I sure will!" It didn't matter that we hadn't talked about it until that moment; she was all too happy to prance and spring and flip across the yard for the next fifteen minutes. Consider the spotlight redirected and the subject changed.
Though I knew it wouldn't last.
*****
Chapter 16
Bonnie's idea of making dinner had nothing to do with preparing food. Her idea of a cooking implement was a trusty telephone with a pizza delivery place on speed dial.
When the gang retired inside the house after their walk and Milly's gymnastics demo, Bonnie ordered up pizza for everyone in seconds flat. Mom offered to pay, but Baba Tereska wouldn't hear of it; picking up tabs for the family was an art form to her, though she wasn't exactly loaded.
As we waited for the pizza to arrive, the ADHD Dozen swarmed me like ants on a candy bar. As I sat on the beat-up plaid sofa in the messy living room, the twelve kids literally crawled all over me. They jockeyed for position on the cushions beside me, the backrest behind me, and the carpet in front of me. The two littlest ones squirmed on my lap like salamanders on a wet rock. All twelve of them fought for my attention with the ferocity of starving puppies fighting for the mother to feed them.
The Furies, always grateful when the kid spotlight shifted off them for a change, chattered in the kitchen with Mom and Baba Tereska. I strained to hear snippets of what they were saying, but the ADHD Dozen drowned them out with their never-ending fussing.
"Aunt Lottie! Aunt Lottie!" Milly's younger sister, Crystal, held up a scrawled crayon drawing on a crumpled sheet of paper and rocked it back and forth to catch my eye. "Here's a picture I drew of you!"
"Why that's beautiful, Crys." I smiled and nodded.
Crystal shoved the drawing at me, swiping the paper across the faces of the two toddlers in my lap. "Put it on your wall in Los Agnes! Make people pay to look at it!"
The toddlers started crying, so I bounced my knees up and down to distract them. The boy, Derek, belonged to Charlie, and the girl, Jamie, was my sister Ellie's. They both had fine blond hair and were the exact same age--three years, five weeks, and two days. Even though they weren't twins, they'd been born on the same day and acted like twins when they were together.
"My pitcher's better!" Five-year-old Roy, Bonnie's boy, shoved a drawing of his own in front of Crystal's, which set off the Un-Twins all over again. Dark-haired Roy shook his drawing in my face so I couldn't help but see it--a swirly scrawl of red magic marker that looked like it had taken him all of three seconds to crank out. "Put this one in La Agnes! This one's the best!"
Reaching between the Un-Twins, I took both Roy's drawing and Crystal's. "They both rock! You know I'll put them both up when I get home!"
Crystal leaned forward and whispered loudly. "You don't have to put up Taylor's and Mitch's if you don't want to. We won't tell them."
Looking past her, I saw Taylor, Mitch, and three other kids clustered around the coffee table, churning out their own works of art for me.
Before I could say anything else, a little hand drifted around from behind me, wriggling in front of my face. A little boy's voice, pitched higher than normal in falsetto, chirped in my ear. "I'm Handy Fingers! I'm gonna kiss you, Aunt Fingernails!"
Then, the little hand swung toward me and lightly pinched my cheek. The voice made a smacking kissing noise, and the hand darted away in a twitching blur.
Twisting around to look over my shoulder, I saw the cherubic face of six-year-old Louie grinning back at me, hanging upside-down over the back of the sofa. He was one of my favorites, and I think he knew it; not only was he sweet and imaginative, but he had the kind of musical talent you might expect from Polish Lou's namesake.
Louie's bright green eyes sparkled with mischief as he gazed back at me. "That kiss was delicious, Aunt Fingernails!" He fluttered his fingers as if his hand were doing the talking. "Mmmmm!"
"Well, I'm Handy Tickle-Tock!" I raised my hand, flickered the fingers, and spoke in a deep bass voice. "And I'm gonna tickle me a little boy!" Then, I lunged my hand at the side of Louie's neck and let my fingers dance over his skin.
Louie instantly dissolved in giggles and threw his head to one side, trying to pin down my hand and stop the tickling. It didn't work. My fingers kept twitching, Louie kept howling with laughter, and the next thing I knew, he'd slid down into a writhing ball on the sofa cushions.
I laughed out loud. It was something I hadn't done much lately, between losing Dad and the troubles back in L.A. I actually felt happy for a moment, lost in the simple play with my little nephew.
But things only stayed simple for a moment, because I'd forgotten a basic rule of kids: if you did something fun with one of them, you had to do it for all of them.
"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 m
ine 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 need
ed 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.
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