Page 28 of Dream House
“Least I could do.”
“You see that?” She gives my brother a saccharine smile. “He served me first and said it was theleasthe could do. What about you, honey?”
Bear gapes with a mouthful of pancake. He chews and swallows, glaring flamethrowers at me. “Margaret, if you’re telling me you want me to start every morning by flashing you my dick and then putting the breakfastyoumade onyourplate, consider it done.”
Her hand is a blur as she smacks his elbow. “Stop. Grayson will hear you.” But she’s cracking up. And then she looks around. “Where is he anyway?Grayson?”
She tosses her napkin on the table and stands. “He’d better not be waking that baby.”
“Look, Mama!”
Maggie turns around and gasps.
Bear and I look up.
Grayson is standing five feet away with a menacingly large pair of scissors in his hand. The fringe that covered his forehead is just… gone. Just a few stubby spikes stick out the top of his head, but the rest is still draped in bowl-cut.
“Drop those scissors right now.”
Grayson obeys at once, and I don’t blame him. Maggie’s ice-cold tone would make me drop a load. Scissors clatter to the floor, and my now-balding nephew pokes out his lower lip and proceeds to cry.
Maggie narrows her eyes at me, and all I can think about is that time I got bit by a water moccasin on the banks of the Bayou Teche. Right before that sucker bit into my calf, he looked at me just like that.
Bear’s wife raises a trembling finger at me. “You. This isyourfault.” Then her finger slices the air like a fencing foil as she aims it at my brother. “Andyourfault. And one of you is going to fix it. Before pictures.”
Bear points his loaded fork at himself. “I have to be at work. We have a safety meeting at eight a.m., and if I’m not there, I can’t go offshore next week.”
Maggie’s head swivels in a way that reminds me of the demented doll from that horror movie franchise that’s been around for like thirty years.
Demon dolls seem scary, but that’s only because they haven’t made a movie about Maggie.
“You,”she seethes, and I expect to see foam leaking from her mouth. “Are taking him to get a haircut and then dropping him off at school.”
“Yes, I am,” I say, nodding.
And then I’m going to find a place—even if it’s a cardboard box—to move into. Today.
I learned something this morning.It’s hard to find a barber shop that’s open before eight a.m. Even the one in Wal-Mart doesn’t open until ten. I have Analysis of Geo Data with Dr. Dixon at ten, and I don’t intend to miss it.
My phone tells me that Pete & Ronnie’s Barber Shop opens at nine, so Grayson and I get there by 8:45.
The old guy who opens up the small barber shop takes one look at Grayson and says, “High and tight?”
“High and tight,” I echo with a nod.
Grayson’s eyes go wide. “Will it hurt?”
“Nope.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
When the barber sets him on top of the booster seat and settles the drape over him, he winces. “Not too tight,” Grayson whimpers.
The gray-haired barber’s chuckle is like a crackling fire. “Not too tight, son.”
It’s a credit to Grayson that he doesn’t shoot out of the chair as soon as the barber touches the buzzing clippers to the back of his head. Instead he just breathes a shaky breath and watches in fascination as his straight brown fringe falls to the floor.
Only then do I take out my phone, snap a few pictures to harass Maggie with later, and get to work checking on rental properties.
