Page 37 of Spicy Ever After
Outside, I crawl into the backseat of Mom’s white Chevy Tahoe like it’s a foxhole. The hem of my dress rides up before I can pull the door shut behind me, but I don’t even care.
My eyes are closed before I even stretch out across the seat.
I’m a spent shell casing, split open. All my powder burned away.
The air inside the Tahoe is still and silent, but I can hear the hum of traffic on Pinhook Road. Mom parked in the shade, but with all the doors closed, it won’t be long before I start sweating. But it’s October, not July, so I won’t die in here.
The phone in my pocket, pressed between my hip and the leather seat, buzzes with a text. I don’t move. It might be Beck. I’m tempted to check. Our text chats make me feel light and swoopy and cozy at the same time.
Like riding on a magic carpet.
But a conversation should be two ways, and I have nothing to give right now, so I’d hate to take what he’s giving and leave him on read. That would be shitty.
Besides, it’s just as likely that the text message is from Margaret. If it is, there’s a fifty-fifty chance she’s messaging to console me or to guilt me into coming back inside to salvage lunch.
Contemplating either option adds another block of emotional lead to my constitution. At this rate, I’ll never leave the Tahoe’s back seat.
Yet I both want Mom to come out so we can go home and also want her to never come out because I know she’ll want to talk, and I can’t even.
I sigh, sinking deeper into the backseat.
And then, like an acidic burp from the maw of my subconscious, Grandma Eloise’s parting words to Mom burble up.
You had better let Randall know about this before I do.
What did she mean by that? Was that a threat? It sure sounded like a threat.
My stomach dips, but not in the magic carpet ride way it does when I’m talking to Beck.
But in a way it would if I were crossing a sketchy rope bridge over a steep ravine somewhere in the Amazon and a dry-rotted plank gave way when I put my weight on it.
Because what am I missing about Dad knowing that I offended Grandma?
Why is that dangerous?
And suddenly, I’m reaching for my phone because not knowing is worse than anything.
“Siri, call Dad,” I say, so I don’t have to dial or look at the screen.
Why does it take so long for calls to connect? And why is it that the connection time always seems to be the inverse of the urgency of the call? Like if you’re calling your dad to ask him what flavor barbecue sauce he wants for Saturday’s cookout: Stubb’s or Lilly’s? The call connects in nanoseconds.
But when your blurted insult destroys—as your Mom puts it—“peace in the family,” and your grandmother actually threatens to tattle to your dad, and you don’t know why that’s significant, and maybe it means the tribal elders will be taking a vote to banish you, AT&T suddenly functions like it's run by a hand crank in a bunker a la Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?
Finally, the inside of the Tahoe fills with the tinny sound of the call ringing through. Once. Twice. A third time.
And then I’m relegated to voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached Randy Mercier, CEO of Offshore Solutions. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you soon—BEEP!”
Oh. God.
Now what?
Do I hang up?
But the call is already recording me. Recording dead air. And Dad might hear the empty static and think I’ve been kidnapped or something.
But then, do I just tell him to call me back and say nothing? And what if Mom—or worse, Grandma Eloise—talks to him first? Will they make it sound like I’m solely the one to blame for the dearth of family peace?
