Chapter 4
“It’s laughable,” I said.
Fox—from what they had taken to calling their “fainting couch”—said, “Ridiculous.”
“It had to have been a mistake.”
“A blunder.”
“An oversight.”
“A colossal blunder.”
“I sold two stories to Hitchcock. Two! What have the rest of those hacks sold?”
“Have they seen my latest piece? It looks exactly like those earrings Princess Diana wore when she got bit by that terrier! And that was a coincidence!”
“Pippi’s going to be so embarrassed,” I said with what I hoped was a note of conviction.
“Who cares if she’s embarrassed?” Fox said. “I want revenge.”
After getting home from Hastings Rock, everyone except Bobby had abandoned us in the billiard room—probably because Fox and I refused to, as Keme put it, “shut up already.”
It wasn’t my fault. The shock was too great.
Bobby, although not given to eye-rolling, did look like he might be approaching his limit. He patted my leg, stood, and said, “You know, the best revenge is living well.”
“That’s not revenge at all,” I said. “That’s just living your normal life.”
“That’s the opposite of revenge,” Fox said.
“I’m just saying,” Bobby began, “if you want to show her she made a mistake—”
I sat up straight. “Slash her tires!”
Several long seconds passed.
“That was a joke,” I said.
“No,” Bobby said.
“Bobby, I would never—”
“I’m serious,” he said over me. “No.”
I tried for a laugh. “I mean, obviously I’d never—”
“I would,” Fox said.
Bobby looked like he was itching to find his badge, but all he said was “If you want to show her she made a mistake, maybe you should focus on doing your own work, achieving something that will prove to everyone that she made a mistake by leaving you out.” He let a beat pass, and then he added, “Or you could do the healthy, mature thing and just let this go.” He ruffled my hair and said, “I’m gonna get you a cookie, sweetheart. ”
He was barely out the door when I said, “That ‘let it go’ stuff is nonsense, right?”
Fox flipped a hand in Bobby’s direction. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He does have a point, though, about showing up Pippi.”
“Like what? How?” An idea sparked. “Like throw our own book launch party and gallery event?”
“Exactly,” Fox said. “The only problem is you don’t have a book.”
“Okay, well, I do have a book—”
“And you’ve never sold a book.”
“I actually have several agents who might be interested. Well, I mean, I sent them a query letter—”
“No prospects, nothing on the horizon, really no hope at all.”
My normal tendency would have been to bicker about this last bit, but then I realized we were losing the thread. “Fox, focus: Pippi.”
Their eyes narrowed. “What about that short story? You’ve got a short story just sitting around, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess—”
“Perfect. You’re going to make it the start of an anthology. And we can use my gallery for the event.”
I squirmed to the edge of the chesterfield. “Okay. Wait, this might actually be something.”
“Of course it’s going to be something,” Fox said. “It’s going to be a tremendous something. Now, we’ll need to find other local artists who can collaborate. And other writers.”
“Hear me out: what about the college? I’m already plugged in over there, and I can reach out to the faculty, even some of the more talented students. I bet there are a lot of writers—talented writers—Pippi totally snubbed.”
“Perfect.” Fox actually cackled. “And there are a lot of artists on the coast, brilliant artists, who aren’t doing watercolors of majestic cliffs and all that other horse plop tourists buy.”
(Fox didn’t actually say horse plop.)
“I bet if we ask Indira to help, she’d cater,” I said.
“Of course she will,” Fox said. “And it’ll be better than whatever slop Pippi had at her event.”
“And Millie would probably help with decorating.”
“I’ll decorate,” Fox said. “Millie may assist me.”
“What about catering staff? Oh shoot!” (Not quite what I said.) “Keme and Bobby would help! And they’d look so good in tuxes!”
That might have revealed a bit more of my Bobby-as-007 fantasy than I had intended, but Fox only squinted at me and said, “That is literally genius.”
“All the stories for the anthology could be gritty,” I said. “Neo-noir. ‘Coastal Crime,’ that’s what we could call it. Or something like that.”
“Trust me,” Fox said, “the pieces I curate for this collaboration are going to be real art. They’re going to shake people’s foundations. They’re going to be disturbing. They’re going to make a statement, and people won’t be able to look away.”
“I mean, not too gritty,” I said. “Like, I don’t want them to be dark dark.”
“How much nudity is too much?” Fox asked. “Will there be children?”
“Is ‘Coastal Crime’ already taken? Should the theme be cozy noir?”
At that point, Bobby came back with my cookie. And because he knew me and he loved me and he accepted me for who I was, he brought two cookies.
“Bobby,” I said, “we’ve got the whole thing planned out. It’s the best revenge, just like you said—we’re going to throw our own event, and it’s going to be ten times better, and we’re not going to invite Pippi.”
“That’s not actually what I said—” Bobby began.
“Indira’s going to cater,” Fox said, “and Millie’s going to help me decorate, and you and Keme are going to be wait staff.”
“Is that right?”
“And the anthology is going to be either neo-noir or cozy noir,” I said. “And the title is going to be ‘Crime on the Coast.’ Maybe.”
“The nudity is going to be an eight out of ten,” Fox said. “Scratch that—nine.”
Bobby was silent for about ten seconds. And then he said, “Just to be clear, in this elaborate revenge fantasy, you’re going to host an event where Keme and I are waiters, Indira caters, and Millie does everything Fox doesn’t want to do.”
“Which is pretty much everything,” Fox confessed, “on account of ennui, fin-de-siècle, etcetera.”
Bobby, to his credit, just let that one slide past. “And what you two are going to do is—what exactly? Talk to some of your writer and artist friends?”
“And leave Pippi out,” I said. “That’s the most important part.”
Bobby kissed my forehead. “I’m going to bed.”
“Wait, what does that mean?”
“Goodnight,” he said over his shoulder. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I called after him.
In the silence of Bobby’s wake, I glanced at Fox.
The look on their face matched what I was feeling.
“Is it just me,” I asked, “or did he make it sound like way too much work?”