Coed Demon Sluts: Omnibus: Coed Demon Sluts: books 1-5

by Jennifer Stevenson

  At first, there was considerable doubt whether Pog or Jee could be pried away from their comforts for a cold, muddy campground. And if Jee wouldn’t go, Reg wouldn’t go. Then Pog said that taking rooms at a lodge would be more comfy. Predictably, Beth shamed them all into agreeing to come along and sleeping in actual tents.

  Cricket decided on Starved Rock. Amanda got busy with the internet.

  At three-forty-five in the morning, in the dark, with the Metra train thrashing and clacking by outside, Cricket couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow they would hold her Celebration of Life, ugh, reception. Dread filled her bones like molten lead. She wanted to blurt out her fears to Amanda, who always made them seem, oh, not trivial, but less dangerous than they did to Cricket. Manageable. But Amanda might be asleep.

  She opened her mouth to say this and remembered that Amanda was probably sleeping.

  What would she say, anyway? That Sharon would try to shame her out of anything that didn’t accord with what Sharon thought was due to Cricket’s dignity? What was the point? When you were four foot ten, people just naturally patted you on the head. Her great-grandkids had done it as soon as they were tall enough. Everyone she’d ever known had rested an elbow on her head.

  She felt her lips move. She couldn’t help it. “If only they wouldn’t lean their elbows on my head.”

  “So grow six inches.” Amanda said aloud, and Cricket jumped so much that her pillow fell off her bed.

  “I didn’t wake you up on purpose,” she lied.

  “I was awake,” Amanda said. That had to be a lie, too. Cricket felt a gush of gratitude.

  “I was this short for a century,” Cricket said, answering Amanda’s suggestion. “You think they won’t notice if I show up and I’m tall?”

  “Sure they will. That’s the point. They’ll go to rest their elbow on your head and oops.”

  Cricket giggled. Amanda didn’t say any more. Cricket wasn’t fooled. That girl thought all the time.

  “I’m sorry you have to room with an old lady. Consider yourself lucky,” she said, trying to make a joke out of it. “At least now I got this demon body, you don’t have to deal with my diapers or my false teeth in a jar or my colostomy bag.”

  “You’re not fooling anybody, Cricket. In there, you’re somewhere between nine and seventeen. That’s okay too.”

  Hot happiness stung Cricket’s eyes. She said nothing and let the good feeling wash over her.

  “Way I see it,” Amanda said, turning over in bed, making her sheets rustle, “you can do it one of two ways. “

  “Do what?”

  “Run the play on this party.”

  Amanda was talking sports. Cricket snuggled down deliciously in her bedclothes.

  “You could grow a few inches, do the dignified thing, shock the shit out of them. Or...you could just be your squirrelly self.”

  Whoa. Amanda made a judgment! “I’m squirrelly?”

  “Tree full of squirrels.” There was a smile in Amanda’s drowsy voice. “Barrel of monkeys. Backpack fulla ferrets.”

  In the orange-and-black darkness, Cricket whispered, “That could be fun.”

  “You don’t have to do it, you know.”

  Cricket snorted. “You’re nuts. I love you, but.”

  “Why not skip it?” Amanda insisted. “Beth can tell everyone you’ve decided at the last minute you’re not feeling up to it.”

  “Tempting, but no.”

  “You’re hating this. You haven’t slept all night, have you?”

  “No,” Cricket admitted, feeling a rush of love flood her. She sighed again, and tears stung her eyes. “It doesn’t seem fair that I have to do it. But Beth’s right, I have to do it.”

  “So what’s bothering you about the party?” Amanda said, amazingly. She didn’t often ask the hard questions. “Is it Sharon? Sharon can never take you away from us and put you back in that place.”

  When Amanda said something, it stayed said.

  Cricket’s shoulders relaxed suddenly. “No. No, she can’t.” She dragged in a mountain of air and sighed.

  “She’ll want you to go back, though,” Amanda warned. “You’ll have to face her down and tell her no tomorrow.”

  Cricket felt her heart jump in her chest. “Yeah. If I’m thinking with my nine-year-old head, sometimes I worry about that. But no, that’s not it. I’m not just ducking Sharon. I’m ducking all the others. My phone is full of texts and voicemails.”

  “Maybe they love you.” And maybe they don’t. Amanda wasn’t judging. Cricket could tell she had an open mind.

  “They do. They take me to the theater and the zoo and out to lunch and stuff. They fight over who gets me for holidays. They don’t abandon me,” Cricket said mournfully.

  “Do you wish they would?”

  “Well, it would make it easier to leave,” Cricket blurted, feeling foolish and ashamed of herself. “They’re good to me.”

  “They’re disrespectful. They helped Sharon put you in that Home.”

  “I was ninety-six,” Cricket said. “Cut ’em some slack.”

  “You hated it there,” Amanda said strongly, and Cricket was surprised at the anger in her voice.

  “They think I’m old and frail. I was old and frail. I just wasn’t ready to be put in a museum. I think they thought I would age slower there. Like I couldn’t die. But a person ages faster there. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t feel good to be parked.”

  Something heavy and warm landed on the bed beside Cricket. As if she’d heard that thought, Amanda had put her hand out.

  Gratefully, Cricket took it. Right away she felt better. She snuggled down against her pillow, holding Amanda’s hand, and wallowed in the safe feeling.

  “Dammit, I wanted more.” Cricket heard herself, remembered where she was, and felt foolish again. She had more now. She was a succu-tart and she lived with young people who loved her and thought she was young. Wasn’t that enough?

  No. “I still want more. I miss being married,” she admitted. “The fire and the fighting and the closeness. A tiny world where nobody else knows you like this person does. The two of you have secrets. Half of ’em are secrets you don’t say. There’s no words.” Her throat threatened to clog up. “Is that over? Am I too old for that anymore?” Two tears rolled into her ears.

  Amanda’s hand tightened on hers. She didn’t speak.

  “That’s why they put me in the Loriston Home. I resented them for thinking it, but I couldn’t tell them that, because nobody said it out loud. And I was mad because it was the truth. And they didn’t deserve for me to be mad at them. Wasn’t their fault. Now they want me back there, where I’ll rot. And who gets married at ninety-eight? Nobody. It’s over.”

  She caught herself up on a gasp. “I sound so dumb. I’m mad at all my lovely grandkids and great-grandkids because they’re too tactful to say I’m too old for more life.” Whew, that took a lot of saying. “But they believe it. And it’s true. And how do I face them now?”

  “You escaped,” Amanda said.

  “Yes.” That fact still hadn’t fully soaked into Cricket.

  “If you’d run away when you were ninety-eight and frail, you couldn’t have answered their calls, because if you had, you would have had to go back.”

  Cricket appreciated that Amanda was taking her step by step through the maze in her own head. “True. Unless I just went on that cruise to Brazil and the heck with them. But I would never have done that. I’m not brave enough.” It cost her all her breath to admit that.

  “I’d say you weren’t dumb enough,” Amanda said. “But now you’ve run away and you’re healthy and strong and you’ll live forever. Does that change anything?”

  “Boy. You’re getting good at asking tough questions.”

  Amanda squeezed her hand.

  Cricket said helplessly, “How can I tell them I’m not grateful for them visiting me and taking me places and fighting over who gets me for the holidays? How can I tell them, ‘you’re not enough?’ I can’t thr
ow their love back in their faces for someone—” She stopped, teetering on the edge of saying too much, as she always did.

  Silence stretched between them.

  “Someone you haven’t even met yet?” Amanda said, her hand slack and still on Cricket’s.

  “Well, not exactly.” Back up, change direction, you old fool. “Although I did that twice when I married Lucien and Irving. That’s why they have to fight over me on holidays.”

  The silence from the other bed was like a live thing, poised for fight or flight. Cricket’s belly tightened around a sharp pain. She longed to take another step, but which direction?

  She settled for, “I guess you didn’t have so much drama in your family, huh?”

  Amanda slid her hand away, which didn’t tell Cricket a thing. She said, “I was raised to be a soldier. You put one foot in front of the other, and you take orders. Solved a lot of problems for my parents. And for me.”

  Translation: lots of drama, but Amanda hadn’t made any of it. “That’s why you didn’t leave the Regional Office when you realized where you were.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said lightly. “I was numb. Numb is comforting. People will settle for decades for comfort, once they’ve given up hope for anything else.”

  The pain softened in Cricket’s belly. She wondered what Amanda meant by hope for anything else. That sounded like a hint.

  Tentatively, she said, “Sharon and I just never fit together very well.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  “People fit or they don’t fit. It’s people geometry. It’s like solid geometry. One of my grandsons took it in school.”

  “M-hm.”

  That sounded to Cricket like they’d got past the scary spot.

  She revealed one more of her kooky theories. “Sometimes I shut my eyes and I can almost see the shapes we make. I can feel ’em. Like big blocky kids’ puzzle pieces. Did you ever take a bite out of an apple and then try to put it back? Like that.” Soft pieces and hard pieces. Lonely pieces and loving pieces.

  Amanda chuckled. “People geometry.”

  “Sharon means well. I was ninety-six. I was pulling Break Dance Granny stunts. She hasn’t had an easy life. She wants what’s best for me.”

  She heard Amanda breathing. Then her voice came again, deep and slow. “Yadda yadda.”

  Cricket was passionately grateful for Amanda suddenly. The cold spot tightening in her belly began to soften and warm up.

  She reached across and patted Amanda’s hand. Then she got up and went down the hall and pooped a lot.

  When she came back, Amanda was lying in the same position, on her back. That meant she was still awake.

  Cricket slid into bed and curled onto her side, determined to sleep. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime,” Amanda said.

  AMANDA

  “Where is she?” Beth whispered to me an hour into the party. “Did she get upset and go home?”

  Beth was in full North Shore matron warpaint, as befitted Cricket’s party hostess: severely classic suit, chaste cami, masses of jewelry, First Lady makeup. I had on a waitress get-up: white blouse, black skirt, sensible shoes, ponytail, fake smile. The hotel suite was loaded with flowers, soft lights, soft music, elegant finger food, and enough champagne to kill everyone present, not counting the sex demons. Every ten feet stood another bulletin board covered with photos of Cricket’s long life.

  Twenty-five of Cricket’s nearest and dearest had showed up. Some of them were watching video of the latest Break Dance Granny moment on a TV in the corner. Beth had thought this might be less than tactful, but Cricket had insisted. Let ’em see who I am. If this doesn’t remind them why they stuck me in that Home, at least they’ll see why I need more fun.

  Cricket, looking very unlike herself in a beige dress sewn all over with beige beads and a little white bolero, was drinking champagne and fidgeting by the microphone. The champagne didn’t seem to be settling her nerve much. I hovered as long as I could, but she chased me away. “Cookie, I got this. Go pour for the nervous people.”

  I smiled at her and backed up against the wall.

  Beth turned up at my elbow. “Does she have her speech?”

  “Would it matter?”

  She snorted. “I suppose not.” With a sigh, she admitted, “It’ll go as well as we can make it.”

  “Nope.” I took the champagne bottle off my tray and swigged. “It’s up to her. It’s always up to her.”

  At that moment the sound of someone tapping on their wine glass, hugely amplified, deafened us all.

  “Hello, hello? Is this thing on? Hiya, dollinks. This is your Bubbe speaking from the USS Gettin’ Outa Dodge.”

  Beth drew a hissing inbreath. “That’s not in the speech.”

  I chuckled heartily. “Duh.”

  “Say, ‘Hi, Bubbe!’”

  People all over the room murmured, “Hi, Bubbe.”

  Cricket put one hand to her ear, her elbow out. “I can’t hear you!”

  “Hi, Bubbe!” they shouted.

  “So here I am, sitting in this cushy retirement home, bored outa my skull and wishing I was in a Tom Cruise movie. You know, where he’s dangling over a volcano on a rope, kind of thing? Don’t you love how his hair always looks so good then? Me too.”

  “Cripes, she’s doing stand-up,” Pog muttered, turning up at my other elbow. She borrowed the champagne bottle, took a slug, and handed it back.

  “And I thought, what am I doing? This is no way to live life to the fullest. Tottering around with the almost-deads. Going to bingo. Learning flower-arranging. Heck with this.”

  A glance at the lawyer twins told me that the comedy hour wasn’t going over as well with the designated adults.

  As if she’d seen me look at them, Cricket turned her focus on the twins. “I had your welfare in mind, too, boychiks. I totally understand why you moved me in there. Nobody wants to be the one to find their Bubbe dead in bed of dehydration because her air conditioner went out. At the same time, you don’t want to come right out and say stuff.”

  In the pause that followed, I tried to imagine the stuff she had in mind. Then I tried to pick someone in the audience who would say it. But I didn’t see Sharon.

  She beamed at her relatives. “So I’m taking that out of your hands. Say, thank you, Bubbe!”

  Murmurs from the family.

  “I can’t hear you!” she sang.

  “Thank you, Bubbe!” This response was less enthusiastic.

  “I’m going on a cruise to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Always wanted to see South America. Now I’m going. And if I get that far alive, I’m going on from there on a round-the-world cruise. If I get bit by a tsetse fly or eaten by a jaguar, it still won’t suck as bad as dying for six months in an oxygen tent on the second floor of the Loriston Home. What looks better in the family album? ‘This is Bubbe, who went down in quicksand in Argentina,’ or ‘this is Bubbe, who’s still alive, kinda, in a museum full of fossils’?”

  She paused, and the room filled with rising murmurs. Because my demon ears were dialed way up, I could hear what the nearest relatives were saying, and mostly it was remarks like, I can see that. Their expressions were a little shamefaced, but grateful, too.

  “Do you wanna come with me on my cruise?” Her voice dropped. “Well, you can’t. This is my adventure. Take it from me, my lovelies. Nobody dies with you. No matter how much they wish they could hold your hand through it all.” She looked around the room, sending, I could swear, a demon ray of succubus mojo at everyone who had the nerve to make eye-contact. “I appreciate the thought. I truly do, schvitis. But I’m responsible for making this the best exit ever.”

  She raised her champagne glass over her head. “So have a glass of bubbly with me! Dance with me! Give your Bubbe a big schmeck and a hug! Who knows? If I make it back, you’ll all get a purple donkey piñata and a sombrero! Mwah!” She drank off her champagne, handed the glass to Reg, who stood handily behind her, and threw big two-handed Marilyn-M
onroe kisses to the crowd.

  There was a spatter of applause from the kids, and then Lauren’s voice set up a cheer from the back of the room, and then everyone was cheering. David and Jonah held back, looking dour, but eventually even Jonah joined the surge to give Bubbe a hug and a kiss.

  “I can’t believe she pulled it off,” Pog muttered.

  “She’s such a child,” Beth said indulgently.

  “That’s what makes her wonderfu—” I blurted and lowered my voice, “what she is.”

  Cricket was working through the receiving line pretty quickly. I thought, Does she even know how much she needs this?

  Over by the refrigerator holding the reserve champagne, Reg was trying to open a bottle with one hand and pour with the other.

  “We’re back on deck,” Pog said.

  We mobilized, Beth to greet latecomers, Pog to dig out another tray of canapes from the caterers’ wagon, and I to back Reg up on champagne duty.

  Fifteen minutes later, Beth was back.

  “Who’s watching Cricket?”

  “Me. Always,” I said. “She’s over there in the corner, under the tablecloth, playing with her great-great-great-granddaughter.” I focused my demon ears at the corner. Murmurs, giggles and squeals came from under the tablecloth at the veggie buffet.

  “She’s not working the room very well,” Beth said. “I’ve been listening.”

  “Nope.”

  “Her speech. She answered all the hard questions before they were asked.”

  “That was the big idea, wasn’t it?” I said, getting cranky. “She loves them. She wants them to take a positive attitude about this.”

  “She’ll never see these people again,” Beth fretted. Dammit, this whole party was her idea. “How could she have had all those families and then just walk away? She’s not even trying to say goodbye to everybody.”

  “I don’t think she did it for the kids or grandkids,” I said.

  “Did what? Remarry?”

  I nodded. “I think she did it for the....” I was imagining Cricket choosing a husband, zeroing in on him, scooping him up, saying, schviti, you need me. “For the marriages, I guess. She told me once that that was the important thing, for her. I don’t think she wants five percent each of twenty people’s love. She wants a hundred percent of one person. Intimacy. Intensity. Struggle,” I added, imagining how each of those three men must have felt, when he realized what he’d let himself in for when he opened the door to Cricket. Something sharp and hot, or cold, sank into my heart and gave me a rush of feeling. Yeah. It would have felt like that. Like being caught. Or found.