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She eyed the oversized plastic Heineken bottle that served as a bank for her New York City fund, the money that would take her to the East coast so that she could find her mother. It was four feet tall and three-quarters filled with dollar bills and coins. Her goal was to have it completely filled by the end of the summer. Now realizing that she might have the money, but no novel, panic seized her.
She kicked the gray top sheet to the foot of her bed in a futile effort to release some of the nasty anxiety, then reached for her wine glass only to find it empty. “Un-freakin-believable,” she groaned.
Slipping out of bed, she pulled on a pair of sweatpants, then shuffled down the hallway, toward the kitchen. The air conditioner was set low and the house was chilly.
“Hello.” A soft voice behind her.
Erica stiffened.
“Oh sorry, dahlin’. Did I frighten you?”
It was Pamela. She was sitting on Erica’s mother’s leather couch, a romance novel in her hands. A sheer pink nightgown barely covered her body.
Erica folded her arms across her chest. “Did my father give you a key?”
Pamela laid the book down and cocked her head. Erica could see that the woman’s breasts were barely contained inside the lacy material. “If he had, cher,” she replied slowly, “would that be a problem?”
Erica stormed from the room and into the kitchen. She threw open the refrigerator door and looked inside. Two tomatoes and a cucumber she’d taken from a garden on the way home the night before, a case of Diet Coke, a jar of olives, and three Miller Lites.
She pulled out two Miller Lites and was balancing the beers, a box of tea candles, and some matches when Pamela walked into the kitchen.
“If you don’t want me here when yore daddy’s not home, I won’t come over,” she said softly. “Is that what you want?”
The woman looked even younger than before with her hair pulled back and no makeup. She was actually much prettier without it. As pretty as a cheap-looking bimbo could possibly be.
“Do whatever you want. It’s his house.”
“But it’s your house, too, dahlin’.”
Erica moved past her.
The woman’s voice followed. “I haven’t decided. Either yore into witchcraft or yore thinking about it. You into witchcraft, cher?”
Erica felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. She whirled around, nearly losing a bottle to the hardwood floor. “What?”
“Just somethin’ I noticed.”
Erica thought of the deck of tarot cards on her dresser. The valerian root, a relaxant that she used when she was messing around with simple spells that her mother used to cast. “You’ve been in my room?”
“I wasn’t prowlin’ or anything. I was lookin’ to borrow some cold cream is all and noticed some things. Yore incense. The book of invocations.”
“Don’t ever go into my room again! You hear me?”
Pamela’s face fell. “I just wanted to talk to you about maybe castin’ me a little spell. Don’t worry, I won’t go tellin’ yore daddy or nothin’. It’s a girl thing anyway. Business that should be left between us women.”
Erica shot the woman a dirty look. Us women? She and this woman were nothing alike. “Tell him what you want. But you’d better stay out of my room,” she said, “or I’ll make sure my father puts a leash on you.”
Chapter 14
HE SHIFTED HIS gaze from the television to the wall. The phone was ringing. It hardly rang. But when it did, it was always a sales call.
“Hello?”
“Hi sir. My name is Andrea and I’m calling from Total Decks,” a squeaky, hopeful voice began. “How are you today?”
He didn’t answer.
“Great, I hope,” she continued, cheerfully. “May I ask if you currently own a deck?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t? Fantastic. Then we would like to send someone out to your home to give you a free estimate. When would be a good time?”
“Not interested,” he replied, glancing at his watch. Nine P.M. It seemed too late to be getting a sales call. Weren’t small children in bed by now?
“You sure, sir? It’s complimentary. That means it’s free.”
“Yes,” he said, not concealing his a
The screen door opened and his sister, Allie, appeared. She glanced at him and shook her head, disapprovingly. Her long hair was down again and she smelled strongly of liquor and lotion. She stumbled past him, then slammed her bedroom door.
“Are you sure?” the voice on the phone continued. “We can just come out and give you that estimate. I promise it’s free. And Grady’s Custom Decks are rated the. . . “
Music erupted from inside her room. He could feel the vibration in his hands, his skull. He hung up the phone and sat back down. Grabbing his beer, he picked up the remote. Alarming images of female flesh flashed across the screen as he flipped through the cha
When she was home, he couldn’t relax. Since their mother had passed, Allie had become even more frightening.
Ian, the mangy cat, shrieked outside.
Allie’s door flew open and music spilled out from her room. She tottered to the kitchen and flipped on the fluorescent light, bathing the room blue-white.
“Staying in again?” she asked.
His eyes went back to the television. A Seinfeld re-run filled the screen and his eyes moved blindly over the characters. He’d never gotten into television. It was impossible for him to concentrate on one thing for even half an hour while he was inside the house. There was too much going on inside his head. Plus, it disturbed him. Aside from the black and white sitcoms and dramas that were taped in the ‘50s through the early ‘70s, the rest of the programming was nothing but filth, pure debauchery.
Out the corner of his eye, he watched her at the refrigerator. She opened it and looked in, her hands on her narrow hips. “Don’t you have two jobs? You know, if I had two jobs I’d buy groceries every once in a while.”
“What do you need?”
“Uh, let’s see,” she answered. “Two, or even one of the four food groups? Something besides a can of tobacco and cheap beer? You’re supposed to be the adult, you know. You should really start acting like one.”
She slammed the refrigerator door and twisted the cap off a beer bottle.
He hadn’t asked for this job and he knew he wasn’t any good at it. “Five,” he said.
“What?” she asked, tugging at her gauzy top.
“Five. There are five food groups.”
“Whatever.”
“I leave you money.”
“I spend the money. And not on food. On other stuff. Like condoms and blow.”
He stole a quick glance at her. She was smirking. He loathed her attitude and her outfit. He didn’t like any of her outfits. All the girls her age were dressing like tramps. Didn’t they realize how unsafe that was? What it did to certain men? Men. . . like him.
His eyes settled on the beer. “You’re too young for that.”
She snorted. “Too young? What, now you think you’re my father? Oh please, you’re not even an adult. You never will be.”
He turned back to the television screen. It had grown fuzzy. He cracked his neck and looked at the coffee table, where a cereal bowl sat, half filled with congealed milk.
A cockroach scuttled across the wall behind the television, then slipped through a crack in the wall. He shuddered. He’d always been afraid of roaches, even as a kid when Allie would chase them and laugh as she crushed them between her small palms. But she was older now, and had moved on to more dangerous things.
She tossed the bottle into the trashcan with the rest of the empty bottles and frozen food cartons and picked up her purse. “Don’t you wish you had a life?” Her eyes took in the room. He watched them flit from the old pulled-up carpeting to the large, gold-framed St. Barts print that hung lopsided on the wall.