Rock Chick 01 (53 page)

I ignored the coffee.

This heralded a momentous occasion. It was
the first time I’d ever ignored a cup of coffee first thing in the
morning.

“Well, the baby scare is over,” I told the
ceiling, not sure if I was happy or sad my monthly visitor had
showed up. Then I was not sure whether I should be happy or sad
about the fact that I didn’t know if I was happy or sad. This was
too confusing so I stopped thinking altogether.

The bed moved when Lee sat next to me. He
leaned down, his handsome face filled my vision, his warm eyes
melty-chocolate and his lips brushed against mine.

His head moved away an inch. “We have
time.”

I stared at him a beat.

He was right.

We did.

I smiled.

* * * * *

To sum up:

First, Stevie was apoplectic about the state
of the yard after bits of burning debris fell on it. He didn’t talk
to me for a week. He was flying a lot during that time so maybe he
wasn’t holding that much of a grudge and just didn’t have time to
forgive me (I was going with that thought).

Second, Tex was a coffee hit. We were so
busy, I had to do a quick hire. Her name was Jet, which I thought
was a kickass, rock ‘n’ roll name but she wasn’t exactly kickass
and

rock ‘n’ roll. She was quiet, she was sweet,
she was pretty, she made a mean latte and the best part about her
was, I could tell, hell, everyone could tell, she had a secret.

Third, Hank told me The Kevster was going to
be okay. It was his first offense so he was likely to get community
service. Rosie wouldn’t fare so well, he’d probably get a jail
sentence. He announced he was seriously moving to San Salvador
after he got out. It wasn’t a joke or a drama. He was done with
coffee, done with pot and wanted to be far, far away from Denver. I
didn’t blame him, Denver had not been good to him (even if it was
all his fault) but I would miss him.

Fourth, Terry Wilcox and his goons
disappeared.

Poof.

Gone.

Lee explained some of this to me.

See, Marcus had a meet with the mob in New
York City with the goal of explaining his, shall we say,
frustration, at Wilcox’s antics. Not only with the diamonds but
also with cutting into Marcus’s action. Wilcox’s Uncle Gino was
already fed up with his nephew, fed up with the constant clean up
and fed up with the headache. It didn’t take much for Marcus to
talk Gino into intervening. It helped when Lee gave Gino a call and
told him that Wilcox was not only pestering his girlfriend but
also, that girlfriend was a cop’s daughter. Gino had enough
headaches, he didn’t need the Denver Police Department getting
interested. Gino decided to take care of Wilcox once and for all.
This might have meant that Wilcox took that long vacation he
planned. It also might have meant he was fish food.

I tried not to think about it. I really
didn’t like Terry Wilcox but I didn’t want him dead.

Incarcerated. Yes.

Out of my life. Absolutely.

Dead seemed kind of harsh, even for scary,
creepy, icky Wilcox.

As for Wilcox’s goons, Gary, Teddy, The Moron
and the Steroid Sidekicks, Lee told me they would no longer be a
problem. I got the impression that this had to do with Lee and his
badass army “having fun”, as Vance put it, but I tried not to think
about that either.

Last, no one ever found out that Eddie shot
someone on my behalf, such was the clean sweep of Uncle Gino.

Eddie and Lee had issues about this. Lee had
told Darius that he and Marcus were working together to take care
of Wilcox, once and for all. Eddie was kept out of this deal. Eddie
might be a maverick cop but he still liked to work within the
bounds of the law (when it suited him). Stepping aside for a mob
clean up was something he frowned on. With a bit of naked gratitude
as incentive, Lee told me that Eddie and Lee had a chat, with
Darius playing intermediary. They worked it out but I could tell,
it took a bit of effort.

That was it.

All that drama and then, in one day, it was
over.

* * * * *

It was a few weeks after the final showdown
and life had gone back to normal. Normal, that was, with Lee coming
home to sleep in my bed every night which was a new, happy normal
that I really, really liked.

Lee was a good roommate, he brought me coffee
in the morning, he wasn’t in my hair all the time and he called to
tell me when he was going to be late.

There were drawbacks, of course.

He threw the towel in the sink when he was
done with it and thought that the words “floor” and “closet” where
synonymous but I was quietly working through these issues.

A girl could get through these things knowing
that sometime during the night (or late morning, depending) the boy
she’d loved since she was five was going to slide in bed beside
her.

That, and there was also the fact that Judy,
the housekeeper, also came with Lee moving in.

Ally and I were lying out in the sun on my
balcony with melting spiced rum and diets, the phone and an egg
timer when we heard, “Yoo hoo!”

I lifted my torso up, looked through the
balcony railing and down and saw Tod standing on the decking at the
end of their yard.

“Hey,” I called.

“Drag Duty, Saturday night. You up for it?”
Tod called back, shielding his eyes with his hand, Chowleena
sitting by his feet.

“Sure.”

“Stevie’s on a flight that night, Ally, you
doin’ back up?” Tod yelled.

“Um-hum,” Ally mumbled loudly. She was lying
on her stomach and her face was smushed into the lounge chair.

“What time?” I asked.

Tod paused, then said, “Girlie, aren’t you
forgetting something?”

“What?”

Tod shook his head. “You’re living with
Hunk-A-Licous now, you might want to ask him if he has plans for
Saturday night.”

Ally’s eyes opened and trained on me.

Shit.

I was really not good at this relationship
stuff.

“Call Lee,” Tod advised, “then come over and
let me know.”

“Gotcha,” I shouted and settled in, reaching
for the phone and hearing Chowleena’s nails tapping on the bricks
as she and Tod walked back into the house.

I started to punch in Lee’s cell number.

“I’m still pissed you’re not pregnant,” Ally
said into the lounge chair.

“For goodness sake, why?” I asked.

“I’m never gonna get a niece named after
me.”

I hesitated before hitting the call button.
“Ally, I hate to break this to you but it’s likely genetically
impossible for me to have a girl. I don’t think Lee’s boys will
allow the female chromosome to dominate.”

“You can name a boy ‘Ally’,” she tried.

“I’m not naming a boy ‘Ally’. He’ll get the
shit knocked out of him in school.”

“Muhammad Ali didn’t get the shit knocked out
of him, he knocked the shit out of everyone else.”

“Muhammad Ali was born with the name Cassius
Clay. Cassius Clay is a kickass name. No one would fuck with a
Cassius Clay.”

“No one would fuck with Muhammad Ali
either.”

I couldn’t debate that point.

I gave up and hit the call button.

Lee answered after the first ring.
“Yeah?”

I got a thrill down my spine at Lee’s voice
saying that one word. I wondered when that would stop happening and
I hoped the answer was “never”.

“Hey. Do we have plans Saturday night?” I
asked.

“I thought I’d take you to Barolo Grill.”

“Yippee!” I cried.

Shit.

Did I say that out loud?

I snapped my mouth shut.

Silence on the phone.

“Lee?”

“Gorgeous, I know you don’t like it when I
say this but you’re incredibly cute.”

That gave me a thrill down my spine too.

I’d never, in a million years, admit that to
Lee.

“Whatever,” I said instead. “Anyway, Tod’s
asked me to do Drag Duty.”

Lee, who
was
good at this relationship
stuff, said immediately, “I’ll tell Dawn to make it an early
reservation.”

Hee hee.

Lee was going to get Dawn to make our dinner
reservations.

At the beautiful, fabulous, romantic Barolo
Grill.

I
loved
that and I didn’t even care,
not one bit, what that said about me.

“That sounds good,” I said and I couldn’t
help it, I sounded happy. This was maybe because I
was
happy.

“Is that it?” Lee asked.

“Yes, no, yes,” I answered, because I didn’t
want it to be.

Shit
.

“Which is it?”

I lost my courage. “It’s no. Later.”

“Later.”

Before I heard the disconnect, quickly, I
pulled myself together and told myself that even Rock Chicks could
fall in love.

Then, I said, “Love you.”

Silence for a beat then, quietly, “Love you
too.”

That didn’t only cause a thrill, it gave me a
warm feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I hit the off button and Ally said, “You guys
are kinda making me sick with all this gushy stuff.”

I stared at her. “I just said ‘love you’.
That’s hardly gushy.”

“It’s gushy for you.”

This was true.

“Did Lee say it back?” she asked, squinting
at me.

“Yeah.”

“It’s gushy for him too. Off-the-charts
gushy.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“Girls!” We heard Kitty Sue call from inside
the house, luckily saving me from the gushy conversation.

“We’re out here!” I yelled.

Kitty Sue opened the door and stuck her head
out. “Come inside. I only have a minute and I have to do this
now.”

Then she was gone.

Ally and I looked at each other. Kitty Sue
was using her Mom No Backtalk Voice and, with years of experience,
we both knew better than to argue.

Kitty Sue’s arrival was a surprise.

“Do you know what this is about?” I asked
Ally.

She shook her head.

We got up, wrapped sarongs around our waists,
grabbed the phone, our drinks and the egg timer and went into the
house.

Kitty Sue was standing in the living
room.

“What are you drinking?” she asked Ally when
Ally had rounded the stairs.

“Rum and diet,” Ally answered.

Kitty Sue yanked the glass out of her hand
and downed it in two gulps.

Ally and I stared at her while she did this
then turned our heads to look at each other.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Kitty Sue because I
knew something was wrong. Kitty Sue was no teetotaler but she
wasn’t one to chug, especially not rum. I’d only seen her chug
once, during an out of control, marathon game of Scattergories one
Christmas Eve and she’d not been able to think of an “s” word for
the food category and that was so lame, we made her chug a beer as
penance.

Good times.

“I’m not good at this,” Kitty Sue answered
me, breaking into my trip down memory lane.

“At what?” Ally said.

“Being… doing… I don’t know. Girls, sit
down.”

Ally and I exchanged another glance, then we
sat.

That’s when I noticed a small wooden chest.
It had hearts and flowers painted on it and some fading glitter
stuck to it as well as some old stickers. It was sitting on the
ottoman between my couch and armchairs.

“What’s that?” I asked, putting my drink and
the phone on the floor beside me.

Kitty Sue plonked down on my couch opposite
us and put her empty glass on the ottoman beside the chest. “It’s a
Best Friend Box.”

My breath left my lungs.

“What?” Ally asked quietly.

“It’s Katie and my Best Friend Box. We put
all our most precious stuff in there.”

I stared at the box.

That was my Mom’s box.

Oh my God
.

I felt tears hit the backs of my eyes and I
started deep breathing.

Kitty Sue looked like she was deep breathing
too.

I heard Ally deep breathing beside me.

Kitty Sue leaned forward and opened the
box.

“Let me see…” she said and started pulling
stuff out of the box, trinkets, costume jewelry, what looked like
ticket stubs to concerts and movies. I watched these treasures
emerge in fascinated silence.

Then, she pulled out an old, yellowed
envelope.

“Here it is,” she said and without
hesitation, she opened it, pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it
and started reading. “
I, Katherine Maria Basore and I, Kathryn
Susannah Milligan do solemnly swear to stay best friends forever.
No matter what. Even if Curt Zacharus asks Kitty Sue to go with him
even though Katie is in love with him and wants to kiss him with
tongues. This is the strength of our Bestest Best Friendom. We will
get married in a double ceremony and live in houses with white
picket fences that are right next door to each other. When we have
children, they will play together and one day, they will get
married so we can be related for real. The End.
”

I was back to not breathing and I could feel
Ally was not breathing beside me.

Kitty Sue stopped reading and turned the
paper around to show me the flowery, young girl script on the
front. She pointed to some brown stains at the bottom.

“Katie wrote this and we signed it in blood,
kind of,” Kitty Sue explained. “We poked our fingers with pins and
then stuck them together in a blood pact then mushed them on the
paper.”

My head slowly turned to Ally.

She was breathing again and she was
smiling.

“Well!” Kitty Sue said sharply and jumped up,
“that’s done then.” She was rushing through putting the paper back
in the envelope and she laid it on the ottoman. “Gotta go. Things
to do. I’ll leave the box.”

“Kitty Sue –” I said, standing up.

“Mom –” Ally stood too.

Kitty Sue was headed to the door. “Don’t
forget, barbeque at Hank’s on Saturday.”

Damn.