by Anna Roberts
Hanna gulps. “Oh,” she said. “Then my mother’s not crazy?”
“Debateable, but yeah. Let’s say she’s not. What’s wrong? Is Bob okay?”
She snorts and sobs and it’s like a chill settles on my gut. Oh shit.
“My Daddy’s been in an accident,” she says.
Chapter Twelve
Daddy Issues
In a tragic set of circumstances, Hanna’s idyllic vacation in Aspen was cut short when her Uncle Bob was run over by a motorcade of Rascal scooters.
Like most environmentalists, Bob had been down on the shore opposite the Seasteading Institute (aka Cheetopia), hosing off Cheeto-stained seagulls. The protests had gathered an increasingly odd flavour (the Cheetos didn’t help) when a bunch of masked counter protesters turned up to protest about Wikileaks, Scientology and – by the looks of some of them – salad. While many of the environmentalists and Anonymous had the same ideas about the legalisation of marijuana, there were clashes between Bob’s seagull hosing crew and libertarian types who thought all regulation was bad and were therefore not amused by the environmentalists demands for greater government regulations to protect the natural beauty of Puget Sound.
It all came to a head when Bob and some other militant vegans circled a hotdog stand and staged a ‘lie-down protest’. They smeared themselves with stage blood, the better to demonstrate that meat was murder, and told anyone who wanted a hotdog that they would have to step over them – and by extension their own consciences – in order to do so.
You can probably figure out what happened next.
Seven environmentalists were hospitalised following the incident, and one of the masked protestors almost choked on a hotdog but was given the Heimlich Manoeuvre by the hotdog seller, who was used to this sort of thing. Ironically, the hotdog seller went on to say that while meat was maybe murder, he had no idea how much meat the controversial hotdogs actually contained. “I think it’s mostly lips and assholes,” he said. “Can they legally classify that as meat?”
Poor Uncle Bob lay squished in a hospital bed, minus his spleen and his left kidney. He had tire-tracks across his face and tubes stuck up where the sun didn’t generally shine. His weekend had got off to a very bad start and was about to get a whole lot worse.
Observe.
I crash through the doors of the hospital, my heart racing and my throat clutched in an icy grip of fear. Daddy – oh my Daddy. Please be okay. Please, please, please be okay.
A blonde nurse sits at the reception desk. She’s wearing rather a lot of mascara. I stagger against the desk, my knees so weak from fear that I have to hold myself up. “Where is he?” I gasp. I’m all ashen and shaky.
“She’s looking for her Uncle,” explains Kate.
“My Daddy!” How could she split hairs at a time like this? “He’s my father!”
The blonde exchanges a look with Kate. “Okay,” she says, slowly. “I can’t tell you anything without a name.”
I lean heavily against the desk. I think it might be sandstone. “God damn you,” I moan. “Why must you be so cold and official?”
The nurse frowns.
“Sorry,” says Kate. “She just got back from Aspen. Jetlag. Or something.”
The nurse’s frown deepens. “But it’s like one time zone away...”
“Yeah. I know. But she got really drunk on the plane. We’re looking for a Bob Russell – her mom’s husband.”
Her voice fades into a drone. The hospital blurs and dips around me, viewed through the black lace and chiffon of my mantilla-style mourning veil. Why is my life so dogged with drama and tragedy? Is it because I’m more sensitive than other people? Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Celestia – perhaps she inherited it from me. Oh God – what is she going to do when I have to explain to her what happened to her beloved Pop-Pop?
Kate shoves me in an elevator and we ride to the intensive care unit. My mother is outside in the hallway, looking haggard. Celestia is asleep in her stroller.
“Nice of you to join us,” my mother says. I ignore the acid in her tone.
“Where’s Daddy?” I moan. “My Daddy.”
“Your Daddy died in a bizarre balloon huffing accident in 1993,” she snaps. “Your Uncle Bob is still being stabilised. Have you been drinking?”
“God, yes,” says Kate.
My mother shakes her head. “What were you even doing in Aspen?”
Kate shrugs. “Something to do with creating a faithful parody. I don’t know.”
“And you just dumped my granddaughter on Claudia Neigh, of all people?”
Celestia stirs at the sound of raised voices and Kate and my mother freeze where they’re standing. Nobody even breathes. Celestia snuffles, but it turns out she was just performing unconscious adjustments to the pacifier in her mouth.
“Look, I’m sorry,” says Kate, lowering her voice to a whisper. “But Claudia’s not so bad. And she is her grandmother too. Kinda.”
My mother frowns, but at that point a male nurse rounds the corner and sees Celestia.
“Excuse me,” he says. “But the baby will have to wait downstairs. She shouldn’t be up here.”
“I’ll take her,” says Kate. “I could use something to eat.”
She wheels Celestia off and I’m left sobbing alone in the hospital hallway. Oh God. My poor Daddy. All these years and he’s been my constant, my rock. And I’ve never really thought about it before.
Or at all, actually.
- Not you again. Not now.
Why not? It’s as good a time as any. I don’t think your mother’s speaking to you.
I turn to look at my mother. She looks at me, rolls her eyes and shakes her head. Shit.
We sit in stony silence for a while. Nobody even thinks to offer me a cup of tea or anything. I begin to weep softly.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Hanna?” my mother asks.
I snort. “My father might die and you ask me what’s wrong with me?”
She sighs. “That pretty much goes to the core of why I’m asking, yes.”
The tears come unbidden and I throw back my veil, showing her the extent of my stained, pain-ravaged face. “I’ve left Bennett,” I say. “He sold the company from under me and then I found him in his office with his hands on Betty Lasagne’s breasts – my marriage is over.”
My mother sighs again. “Hanna,” she says. “I’m your mother. And I love you. I love you more completely and perfectly than anyone will ever love you in your life, because that’s my job. And that’s why I’m saying this now.”
“Saying what, Mommy?”
“You really are an asshole.”
A door opens and a doctor steps out. My mother leaps to her feet.
“He’s stable,” says the doctor, and my mother exhales.
“How bad is it?” she asks.
“Well, he had a fair amount of weight run over him – the scooters alone are about three hundred pounds and the lightest of the hit and run drivers was about that plus fifty. I’m surprised his crush injuries weren’t a lot worse. We’ve put him in an induced coma for now.”
A coma? I turn faint.
I stagger to my father’s bedside, my head spinning. Why? Why him? Why me?
“Can he hear us?” I murmur, leaning heavily on my mother’s arm.
The doctor nods. “Probably. In fact some researchers are convinced that talking to coma patients keeps their brains stimulated and increases the odds of a full recovery.”
I sit down on the plastic chair beside the bed. My mother sighs and squeezes my shoulder. “You want some tea?” she says.
I nod. I’m shocked by the sight of Bob. He’s pale and still, hooked up to a million machines, all of them blooping and beeping and doing things I don’t understand. There are tire-tracks across his face and chest and somewhere under the various medicinal smells of the ICU I catch a whiff of hotdogs. If only he hadn’t been such a committed vegan.
Remembering the doctor’s words, I begin to talk. I
tell him about our weekend in Aspen and how Betty Lasagne is an ignorant slut who doesn’t know east from west and west from east. I tell him about the ankle bracelet I bought the other morning after my manicure and how nobody would help me with my latte and how it spilled all down my legs while the kidnapper was threatening to sexually molest Alicia. I tell him that my second marriage is over and I’m not even twenty-five yet, and where am I going to find a surgeon to finish my ear now that...
The machines let out a long, sinister beep. Suddenly the room is full of doctors and I’m hustled back out into the corridor. My mother comes running back in a panic and without my tea. Oh my God. This is it. This is really it – he’s going to die.
Five minutes later the doctor comes back out. “Okay,” he says. “We’ve got a pulse.”
My mother makes a noise somewhere between a scream and a sob. “What the hell happened?” she says.
The doctor shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, and turns to me. “Did you notice any change before he flatlined? Did his colour change or anything?”
I shake my head. “I was just talking to him.”
“Huh,” says the doctor. “Weird. We’re doing some more tests but it’s like there’s no organic cause behind it.”
My mother looks at me.
“What were you talking about?” asks the doctor.
I shrug. “Just, like, my life. And stuff.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” says my mother.
She calls me a taxi back to the penthouse, but to my horror I find it has been overrun with Neighs. There is taping equipment next to every phone and private detectives conferencing in the kitchen. This is typical of Claudia – she’s so selfish. She would turn my home into some kind of command centre while my father is lying in a coma. Then when I get to my bedroom I find Jessica Waters is in there, typing away on a laptop.
I go in search of Kate and find her lurking in Zen Garden, smoking a joint. “How’s he doing?” she says.
“Comatose. I think he might die.”
“Shut up,” she says. “He’s not gonna die. He’s gonna be fine. He’s going to live and make everyone terrible flavourless tofu dogs just like he did before.”
“Tofu Surprise,” I sniffle, remembering Bob’s signature dish.
Kate shudders. “Yeah. What was with that? I get that it was tofu and it didn’t taste of anything but that’s hardly surprising.” She glances through the window. “Did you hear the kidnapper posted Alicia’s monocle to this address?”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up. Claudia’s got about fifteen different private detectives either here or on conference call. I asked her why she didn’t call the police but she says they’re no help when you accidentally run over a pedestrian or kill a stripper in a nightclub, so why would they be any help now?”
“Oh my God,” I murmur. And they said this book had the thinnest plot of all three.
A young, dark haired woman peers out from behind a bamboo screen. She glances hopefully at what Kate is smoking.
“Who are you?” says Kate.
“I’m Leila. I’m a police psychic.”
Kate exhales. “Right. You mean you’re a ‘psychic’ who occasionally writes annoying letters to the police? Get lost – I’m in no mood to share.”
Leila retreats. I stare up at the grey Seattle sky. My head hurts.
“That goddamn Jessica is in my bedroom,” I say, rubbing my temples.
“Jesús,” says Kate.
“Gesundheit.”
“No – Jesús. Jessica is Jesús.”
I frown. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? ‘Jessica’ is Jesús. Didn’t you recognise him?”
I stare at her. “No. Of course not.”
Kate sighs. “Figures.”
“But...but what does this mean?”
She shakes her head and stubs out her smoke. “It means that while I was occupied wiping your kid’s nose and ass, Jesús was busy writing his way onto the New York Times Bestseller List and probably Forbes fucking rich list.”
There’s a commotion indoors and Kate goes in to look. I follow. The alternative is standing out here being introspective and whenever I get introspective my Inner Goddess turns up and starts calling me an asshole.
“Don’t touch it with your bare hands,” says one of the detectives. He’s holding a brown padded envelope with kitchen tongs. “There might be fingerprints.”
“Give it to me,” says Leila. “I might be able to sense something from it.”
“It’s not a goddamn Christmas package you can squeeze,” says another. “They might have posted one of her fucking kidneys this time, like Jack the Ripper.”
Claudia lets out a faint scream and fortifies herself with another glass of my favourite Sancerre.
One detective puts on latex gloves and opens the package. There’s a note. It’s typed in capitals on A4 paper and reads;
FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. MY FINAL OFFER.
“What’s going on?” says Kate.
“He keeps lowering the price,” says Claudia. “He wanted a million two days ago.”
Kate frowns. “Right. He’s not very good at this kidnapping thing, is he?”
The detective shakes the package. Its contents scatter on the kitchen counter and Claudia falls to the floor in a dead faint.
“What the fuck am I looking at here?” says Kate.
I gaze down at the items on the breakfast bar, my stomach churning.
“Flaps,” I whisper, hoarsely.
Kate stares at me. “Flaps?”
I nod. “They’re Alicia’s.”
“Her flaps?”
“Yes. The ones off her deerstalker hat.”
Chapter Thirteen
Car Chases, Kidnaps and Comas – Oh My!
The phone rings. There’s a wild flurry of activity as at least four different detectives hurry to their listening devices at once. “You answer it,” one says.
“Why me?”
“Don’t you live here?”
“Oh. Okay.” I step over Claudia and pick up the phone. “Hello?”
My voice reverberates around the room. They’ve got it on some kind of speaker.
“Hanna?”
“Yes? Who is this?”
“It’s me,” says the voice at the other end. “We spoke the other day. About your sister-in-law.”
“Oh. Yes.”
There’s a long pause. Then the man on the end of the line clears his throat and sighs. “Well...do you want her back or not?”
“Um...probably?” Claudia is still out cold. At least, I hope she is. I don’t think I was supposed to say that.
“Ten grand,” says the man. “I’ll take ten grand. That’s my final offer.”
“You’re terrible at this,” says another voice, and the detectives jump like scalded cats. Kate has picked up the telephone in the bedroom.
“Who are you?” says the kidnapper.
“Kate,” says Kate. “I thought you were supposed to increase the ransom account?”
“Don’t give him ideas!” I hiss.
“Dude, I’m just saying,” says Kate. “If you’re going to do a thing, you may as well do it properly. One minute he’s cramming bits of El Fupacabra in the mail and the next he’s dropping the ransom demand? It’s like, mixed signals, you know?”
“Look,” says the kidnapper. “When I kidnapped her I didn’t realise she was...well...you know...”
“Insane?”
“I was going to say ‘annoying’, but that also works.”
Kate laughs. “You should have kidnapped her like three years ago. Five minutes of her fucking fangirl Japanese and you’d have been paying us to take her off your hands.”
The kidnapper sighs. “I’m not sure it won’t come to that.”
“Why? What’s she doing? Is she still doing that dicked-up British accent?”
“Yes! She sounds worse than Dick Van Dyke.” He lowers his voice. “
And she keeps going on about her fucking fanfiction...”
I groan. Oh God. Claire warned me that this was the next stage.
“...I don’t even understand it,” the kidnapper says. “It’s just...gross. It’s Sherlock Holmes fanfiction but they’re all having sex with each other – even Sherlock and Mycroft, who are brothers...”
“Yeah, that will happen,” says Kate, sagely nodding her head.
“And they’ve all got dog penises and they keep getting each other pregnant. Even though they’re men.”
Kate stares at me and shakes her head. “Dog penises?”
“And lactating nipples.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up.”
“I know, right? She talks about it all the time.”
Claudia crawls up from the floor. “Give me the phone!” she shrieks. “Let me talk to him!”
“Lady,” says the kidnapper. “Your daughter is a goddamn pervert.”
Claudia grabs the phone. “GIVE ME BACK MY BABY!”
The line goes dead. Claudia starts sobbing hysterically into it. God, she’s such a drama queen.
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” she gasps, clutching at her pearls as she gazes wildly at the private detectives. “WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ANYTHING?”
The psychic girl puts an arm around her and I take the opportunity to sneak into the bedroom. Jessica Waters is still typing and Celestia is sitting on the end of the bed watching TV. I wince at the sight of the Anonymous masks on the TV news.
“Dog penises,” says Kate, apropos of nothing. She pokes Jessica with her foot.
“Hmm?”
“Dog penises? Do you know anything about dog penises vis a vis weird Internet porn?”
Jessica glances up. “Oh...um...probably? Why?”
“Alicia’s into it. She keeps talking about it and now her kidnapper is really grossed out.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? He’s more likely to release her.”
“Or cut off her head and dump her body in waste ground,” says Kate.