The Queen of Cool (37 page)

“
What’s going on, Manny?”
Lo repeated.

He turned back to look at her.

“
How many days has it been
since Don died?” Manny asked.

“
One hundred and
eighty-three,” Lo said.

“
It didn’t happen right
away, maybe a hundred days ago,” Manny said. “But I woke up to my
life. Just woke up one day and noticed how amazing my life is. My
children are incredible. They’re so smart, funny… My wife… she’s… I
see you. I see all that you’ve lost – your home, your friends, your
life, and Don. I…”

Manny’s eyes welled with tears. He shook his
head.

“
It could happen to me, to
any of us, at any time,” Manny said. “I thought you had everything.
I used to say, ‘Lo? She really won the lotto when Don rescued her
from me.’ But I really get it now. You didn’t win anything. You
built something, like we all do, but you built something
incredible. I want that.”

“
You have that.”

“
I have that,”
Manny said. “And I
do
not
want to lose it. And you…
You have to go on otherwise everything you had will be… gone…
forever. I can’t live with that.”

Manny gave her a bear hug and stalked out of
the room. She heard the front door slam and his car start. Stunned,
Lo sat down on the couch to think.

Manny was right. She’d been so caught up in
who killed Don that she paid very little attention to what happened
to her. Don, the real Don, not the one in her dreams, would be
furious with her if he knew how much she wanted to die. Nothing in
this world mattered more to Don than Lo. If she broke a fingernail,
he was there to make it better.

All of these people – Marilyn, Don, even her
mother and father – didn’t think twice about sacrificing themselves
to this mystery. Lo blinked at the weight of devastation their
deaths had left behind. For the first time, maybe in her entire
life, Lo made the decision to take care of herself like she had
cared for the girls or Don or even the baby.

On that note, she went to bed. Everything
else would have to wait.

Q

A day and a half later

Sunday, early morning—2:25 a.m.

Lake Worth, Texas

Days: 185

“
God damn it, Lorraine,”
Don yelled at Lo. “You only do this to piss off the neighborhood
association.”

Wearing a skimpy white bikini, Lo was
standing in the middle of the entry way to their River Crest home.
Her skin was warm from the sun, but her feet were chilled by the
marble floor. Just home from college, bikini-clad Alisha gave Don a
sour look and walked past them to the kitchen. Amanda stood in the
front doorway with a large towel wrapped over her bikini.

“
Those old biddies are
worse than the Fairmount mafia,” Lo said. “And so what? When did
you care if the neighborhood association was pissed
off?”

“
I care when they phone me
at my office and tell me to get my ass home and remove my mostly
naked wife and children off the front lawn,” Don mimicked the golf
course manager’s voice. “Now between you and me, I like seeing a
little sweet young thing glistening in the sun, but some of our
members don’t share our sensibilities.”

“
So the perv at the golf
course called,” Lo said. “He’s disgusting.”

“
He’s really disgusting,
you’re right,” Don said. “So, why do you put on this
show?”

“
We were hot!” Amanda said.
At seventeen, Amanda was just starting to get bossy.

“
You will not use that tone
with me, young lady,” Don said.

Amanda sneered and pushed past them. They
heard Alisha and Amanda laugh in the kitchen.

“
What’s going on Don?” Lo
asked. “You laughed the last time we ran through the front
sprinklers. You put on your suit and joined us.”

“
That was last time,” Don
said.

“
And…?”

“
You’re not a child
anymore, Lo,” Don said. “This kind of behavior was acceptable when
you were a kid, but you’re an adult now. You should know
better.”

Lo raised an eyebrow at him and walked
upstairs. Don put his hands on his hips.

“
Where are you going?” Don
asked.

“
I’m taking my adult self
to the shower,” Lo said.

Unwilling to let her have the last word, Don
trotted up the stairs after her. She went into their bedroom and
slammed the door. She was standing naked in the middle of the
bathroom when he pushed open the door.

He put his hands on his hips.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He chuckled and looked down at the floor.
After collecting himself, he looked up at her.

“
You’re not getting out of
this that easy,” he said.

“
The only thing I wanted to
get out of was my bikini.”

As if she was challenging him to a duel, she
put her hands on her hips.

He flushed bright red.

She raised her index finger.

“
In the first place, I
didn’t do anything,” Lo said. “We were hot. The air conditioner is
broken, as you know. We went out to play in the sprinklers. We had
a nice time. That’s what happened.”

She held her hand out for him to speak his
peace.

“
Were we talking about
something?” he asked.

Lo laughed. He stepped toward her. She
wagged her finger left to right. He laughed and scooped her up in a
hug.

“
What’s going on Don?” Lo
asked in his ear.

The scene shifted. She was lying under a
sheet in their bedroom at the back of the River Crest home. Feeling
the bed sag, she rolled over toward Don. He caressed her leg
through the sheet.

“
Shh, don’t get up,” Don
said. “You have a big day tomorrow.”

“
You’re out late,” she
said. “What time is it?”

“
A little past two,” he
said.

“
How was it?” she
asked.

“
My boring dinner?” Don
repeated what she’d said when she bowed out of going.
“Boring.”

He stroked her face.

“
Do you ever get the
feeling that your life is written in stone?” he asked. “That every
choice was already made for you? That you’re an actor in someone
else’s play?”

“
No,” Lo said. “I don’t
believe that and I know you don’t.”

“
Hmm,” he leaned over so
that his forearms rested on his knees. For a moment, he seemed
every day of his fifty years.

“
Are you all
right?”

“
I just found out that my
father did something so horrific…” Don shook his head. His face was
marked with sorrow and shame. “So very, very bad that…
I…”

Lo scooted over until she was near him. She
tugged on his shoulder and he fell over onto the bed. She spooned
around him. Her hands slipped under his shirt to stroke his
chest.

“
The man was evil,” she
said in his ear. “Everything he did was tainted in some way.
Everything, except you.”

She kissed the back of his neck.

“
And, he’s dead,” she said.
“He has nothing to do with us.”

“
I’m not so sure,” Don
said.

“
I am.”

Unwilling to let him disintegrate into his
shame, she began taking his clothing off.

“
What about your
competition tomorrow?” he asked.

“
What about it?” she
asked.

“
What about your rule – no
sex the day before the competition?”

“
It’s the day of the
competition now,” she said.

He gave her a cocky smile and took his shirt
off. Still half asleep, she pulled him on top of her.

“
Don?” Feeling someone near
her, Lo reached out her arms. “Don?”

“
No dear.”

An elderly woman’s voice woke Lo from her
memory dream.

Lo blinked.

An old, stooped woman was sitting on her bed
at the Lake Worth house. Deep creases lined her wizened face. Her
eyes were slits in a maze of wrinkles. Her slight body curved
forward and her knobby hands held tightly to a rustic walking
stick. She wore a floral scarf over her shoulders and a gorgeous
red floral skirt. She looked like a wicked witch or a… Lo sat up in
bed.

“
I know you. You’re a
gypsy,” Lo pointed at the woman. “You read my fortune. At the state
fair. When I was little. You told me I would know great love and
great pain.”

“
And you have,” the woman
said.

“
How…?” Lo
asked.

She heard a noise. Looking up, she saw Mutt
standing in the doorway.

“
My grandson brought me to
you,” the woman said. “I would have been here sooner but… I do love
reading gadjo fortunes at the summer fairs. And… well, there wasn’t
an emergency. There is now.”

“
Fairs? Emergency?”
Confused, Lo could only repeat random words the woman said.
“Gadjo?”

“
Non-Romani,” the woman’s
eyes scanned Lo’s face. “Like you.”

“
Okay.” Lo was pretty sure
the woman was trying to tell her something, she just wasn’t sure
what.

“
I am your great-great
mother-in-law. Do you hate me right away?”

The woman’s smile brightened her face. For
an instant, she looked more like a kind grandmother than a wicked
witch.

“
I… Um.” Lo started. “What
can I do for you great-great-mother-in-law?”

“
You may call me Olga,” she
said. “Or Granny O. That’s what the children call me.”

“
Why are you…?”

“
You need my help,” Olga
said. “Sooner rather than later. And so does your didikai
child.”

“
I thought Don was didikai
– half-Gypsy,” Lo said.

The old woman blinked at her.

“
No?” Lo shook her head
slightly and the woman smiled.

“
Sure, Lorraine, and Henry
Downs had all of those women and only three children,” Olga said.
“Don’t be stupid.”

“
I…”

“
Come,” Olga said. “Get
dressed. We have a lot to do and a lot to discuss.”

“
But…”

“
Now!” The old woman stood
and tapped her cane. She was instantly terrifying and powerful. “We
don’t have much time.”

Lo hopped out of bed and did what she was
told.

Q

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Sunday, early morning—3:05 a.m.

Days: 185

Mutt drove hard out of Lake Worth. Lying
flat in the back of Mutt’s extended cab truck, Lo had no idea where
they were going. She clung to the seat in the hopes they would get
to wherever they were going in one piece.

With his foot
on the gas, one hand on the wheel, and one hand constantly
shifting, Mutt saw fit to argue with Granny O in rapid fire Romani.
He was angry, Granny O was stubborn, and Lo was terrified. She felt
like a child caught by the Child Catcher from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. She kept telling herself that Mutt would never hurt
Don’s baby. The argument ended with Granny O cackling a laugh so
terrifying that Lo gave a little squeal.

“
Don’t be frightened,
Lorraine,” Granny O said. “We’re arguing about Yazmin, not
you.”

“
Wh-wh-why?” Lo asked.
“What’s wrong with Yazmin?”

“
Granny O believes we
should get married right away and not wait for the classes and the
wedding and all of that,” Mutt said. “She wants to make sure our
child is…”

“
Has no immigration
problems,” Granny O said. “I’m just old enough to remember when our
own Romani were dragged from their homes in the middle of the night
by the immigration police.”

“
Oh,” Lo said.

“
You can sit up now,” Mutt
said. “We’re out of the city.”

He slowed the truck to a stop and turned
right onto Highway 114.

“
Where are we going?” Lo
asked.

“
To meet the in-laws,” Mutt
said.

“
My in-laws?” Lo
asked.

“
Something like that,” Mutt
looked at her in the rearview mirror. “Yazmin is waiting for
you.”

Lo nodded as relief coursed through her
veins. If Yazmin was there, she would be safe.

“
Cooked on a spit?” Granny
O turned around to look at Lo.

“
Taken by the Child
Catcher,” Lo said.

Granny O threw her head back and gave an
even more terrifying cackle. Mutt caught Lo watching him in the
rearview mirror and crossed his eyes at her.

“
Watch the road,” Granny O
said in English. She began a long, and clearly familiar to Mutt,
rant in Romani.

Mutt turned left into a private dirt
road.

“
That’s the International
Exotic Animal Sanctuary,” Lo pointed as they drove by. “We donated
to them every year.”

“
Don was a good Romani,”
Granny O said.

“
You live nearby?” Lo
asked.

“
We’re gypsies,” Granny O
said. “These are big lions, tigers, and bears. Where else would we
live?”

They rumbled down the private dirt road, and
Mutt turned left. He pulled into a wide dirt cul-de-sac with five
large homes. Their driveways faced the dusty center.