19. Jenna #2
“I’m drunk.” I clap a hand over my mouth.
“Good. Little liquid courage is just what you need.” Granny Mavis waves a bottle under my nose.
I almost hurl.
“Now, who do you hate most in the world?”
“Fucking McCarthy.”
“Not the cutie pie!” Crocus cries.
“He’s not cute.”
“Is that where we’re going? ”
“No, Rainbow, pay the fuck attention. We’re going to Nathan’s house,” Granny Mavis hisses.
“I really think this is a bad idea…”
Granny Mavis slaps me. “Man up, soldier. Respect isn’t given or earned. It’s taken.”
“Yeah, and Nathan doesn’t respect me. Never did, never will,” I slur.
“Make him,” Granny Mavis whispers.
“Yeah, I’ll make him. Come on, Truman.”
My mom doesn’t believe in throwing things away. I pull down several boxes of powdered potatoes. Expired? Yes. She found them in a dumpster eight years ago, and they’ve been in the pantry ever since.
“Thank you, Mom,” I whisper, kissing the industrial-sized boxes.
The seniors are piling into Cher as I lug my cartons outside.
Granny Mavis tries to hand me the keys.
“I am too drunk to keep the car in a straight line.”
“Mavis can’t see all that well, and Crocus’s wrist is makes a weird crackling noise,” Rainbow tells me. “So I’m going to work the gearshift, and Mavis is going to steer.”
Gardenia and Sunflower are singing filthy army songs in the back of the van and drawing war paint on their naked bodies.
Yup.
I take a long swig of mead.
This is just a nightmare. I’m going to wake up and be snuggled up back in McCarthy’s penthouse…
Wait, no! I mean I’m going to be… Well, I don’t know. Apparently, I’m homeless in my dreams too.
“Shit, the guards are awake! ”
“You lost your license, Mavis!” Zephyr is frantic as he runs out of the house. “Jenna, your mom burned all the cash, and I can’t bail you out if you get arrested.”
“I never want to see another naked man again in my life.” I burp.
“I do.” Granny Mavis is emphatic. “Especially McCarthy.”
Crocus guns the engine.
“Drive, drive!” Granny Mavis orders. “We’re storming Normandy, bitches!”
My mom, also unclothed, runs after Cher as the seniors whoop.
“We can’t get off the island, Granny.”
“That’s why you need a plan, girlie.” She wrenches the wheel, and Cher takes a hard right.
“I’ve been giving the ferry operator’s grandfather a little taste of the homegrown coochie on Tuesdays.” Sunflower beams.
“Always have an escape plan and money in a bank account the man doesn’t know about.” Granny Mavis taps her helmet.
We all scream when she takes her hand off the wheel because Cher starts to veer into a ditch.
“You all need to grow some doggone balls,” Mavis hollers as Cher careens up to the dock. “Where is that damn ferry, Sunflower?”
Rainbow lies on the horn.
An elderly man with a beard and a legit corncob pipe hobbles up. I half expect him to have a peg leg. “My grandson won’t let me take the big ferry out. After all I’ve done for him. He says the City of Seattle Department of Transportation won’t allow it. Can you believe it? ”
I’m starting to sober up enough that this actually seems like the best possible scenario.
“If you want that Viagra to actually be put to good use, Al,” Sunflower says threateningly, “then you better get us across the bay.”
“Now, now, Sunflower, I’m getting there.” He takes her hand and kisses it lovingly. “Got my daddy’s crabbing boat all oiled up.”
We peer into the darkness.
Riding low in the water is a boat. Well, “boat” is a generous term. Raft? Impromptu flotation device? “Death trap” may be most accurate.
“Granny, we’re not riding on that thing all the way to Seattle. It’s like an hour to cross the bay. There aren’t even any guardrails.”
“Life doesn’t have guardrails, girlie!”
Gardenia passes around a jug of mead.
“Stitch those labia up, ladies. Your blood spatter needs to match my blood spatter. We’re all in lockstep here.”
In the distance, we hear the bells from Zephyr’s one-speed bike. Or I do. The elderly don’t have young ears anymore.
“They will never forget our sacrifices!” Granny Mavis hollers as the seniors and the captain roll Cher onto the dinghy.
Zephyr stands at the edge of the dock, hands on his hips.
Granny Mavis raises the mead jug to him as we sail away.
“Well-behaved women never get the ultimate pleasure of their cheating exes’ nads nailed to their makeup vanity.”
I’m drunk again.
The mead-and-moonshine slushy the elderly women brought on our field trip of self-discovery and revenge is just what the goddess ordered to survive the knockoff ferry ride.
I figure we drown or make it across. Either way, I’m plastered and happy.
We park a couple of houses down. Not by design. Rainbow can’t get Cher to brake, and I grit my teeth as the VW bus almost flattens my neighbor’s mailbox.
Ex-neighbor, I remind myself, the mead feeding my anger. Even though I was the one who baked cookies for them and was nice to their kids on Halloween. Now Nathan and that home-wrecking giraffe reap the rewards of my emotional labor.
I take another long swig.
“Atta girl.”
After unloading my powdered potatoes, I hop out of the bus and wave the seniors after me.
They’re old and I don’t work out, so we’re a creaky, unsteady bunch as we sneak through the alley to unlock the gate to the back yard.
It’s starting to drizzle.
Perfect.
“Nathan’s going to be so pissed!” I snicker as I rip open the first container.
Nathan loves golf. He goes to the Masters in Augusta every year and spends his bonus checks on golf trips.
Shoot, he insisted we have our engagement party at his country club.
The backyard couldn’t be used for entertaining or—gasp—a fire pit, oh no.
It’s got extra-special putting green grass that cost two hundred bucks a square foot. And I am going to ruin it all .
Muhahaha!
He’s going to wake up in the morning and see his precious grass covered in a thick layer of—
“Stop it, Truman. Don’t eat that. Those are our revenge mashed potatoes. I’ll take you to Starbucks after this for a Puppuccino. Hey, Granny Mavis!” I wave to her and Crocus, who are huddled in the dark corner of the yard by the fence. “Do you want to hit the front yard while I finish up here…”
The figures both look at each other as I walk over, crossing the small yard quickly.
One of them crouches down even lower. It’s way too flexible for Crocus. Is it Nathan?
Shoot, I’m screwed.
The shadows seem to grow as men, huge, bulky men all in black, stand up.
One of them readies like he’s about to spring over the fence. Before he can, Truman rushes in, teeth bared. The man curses while the other one hisses, “ Truman, be quiet. ”
My dog immediately stops, sniffs, then gives a happy yip and jumps into the huge man’s arms.
“Oh. My. God.”
I stomp over through the already goopy powdered mashed potatoes. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
“What the fuck are you doing out here?”
I reach up and grab at the scarf covering McCarthy’s face.
No smirk, just a scowl.
I match it.
“I didn’t see your fancy motorcycle. Your friend better have driven you over here, buddy.”
“We walked.” McCarthy’s friend has a deep voice with a slight touch of New England in his accent. He’s wearing a face mask, his dark hood casting a shadow over his face. All I catch are wintry-gray eyes and dark brows. The man seems shocked to see me.
“Who’s your tall, hot friend?” I poke McCarthy in the chest. “I might have to swap him out on the threesome with your brother.”
“Dude…”
“He’s not that tall.” McCarthy’s scowl deepens.
“I think he’s taller than you.” I reach up and run my hand, palm flat, between them.
“I think she’s right.” His crime friend’s eyes crinkle.
“My shoes are thinner.” McCarthy is stubborn.
“Are you single?”
“I can be.” Dark eyebrows rise slightly.
“I’m in the market.” I gesture to the house. “Obviously.”
“Don’t date her. She’s a disaster,” McCarthy interjects.
“I like a disaster with a blue-collar body.” The wintry eyes flick up and down.
“Fuck off.”
“He has a nice butt.” I hiccup.
“Are you drunk, Cupcake?”
“Buddy, you have no idea.”
“I don’t know why you hired me. Sounds like you could have just called her up. Burning a man alive. That’s pretty hardcore shit.” Crime Friend jerks his chin.
“Oh no, these are mashed potatoes, see…”
The shadow man makes a knife hand behind me.
“Oh shit!”
Remember that backpack Sunflower is wearing? The one with the gnome? Yeah, that’s a flamethrower .
The old woman is working the flamethrower hose while Crocus and Rainbow try to keep her planted and Granny Mavis calls out expletive-laced instructions.
“Stop it! You can’t burn down his house!” I screech, running over toward them.
“Revenge is best served boiling hot!”
“I’m not going to jail,” I yell.
“I am! They can take me alive, but I’ll never talk.” Granny Mavis salutes the burning yard while I hastily gather up the garden hose and frantically pump the spray nozzle.
“I just bought this thing! Why isn’t it working?”
“Burn, baby!”
Inside the house, the smoke alarm goes off.
“Abort, abort!” Granny Mavis shouts.
Arm up to shield his face, McCarthy kicks down the glass kitchen door. The flames are raging, and he grabs the fire extinguisher—which Nathan bitched was too big—and sprays it on the flames licking the side of the house.
The vinyl siding is a little melted, but otherwise, the house looks okay.
“Cupcake.” McCarthy tosses the fire extinguisher on the ground. “What the fuck?”
“Once again,” I hiss at him, “I did not ask for your help.”
“And once again, you’re clearly in over your head. I mean, you asked the senior citizen arson brigade to help you instead of just sitting at home, putting your feet up, and letting me handle it,” he says.
“Handle it how? You won’t even say.”
His partner gives him a pointed look.
McCarthy’s lips thin. “Fixing your problem.”
The dark-haired man draws a hand across his throat.
“McCarthy! That is not in the ten-step plan. ”
McCarthy grabs the back of my neck and spins me around. “I’m the problem here? You don’t think someone’s going to notice the ass-naked senior citizens wandering around the neighborhood?”
“I don’t need you to judge me.”
“Just admit you need my help, Cupcake,” he croons. “I can make all this go away.”
Granny Mavis is having Rainbow shoot what’s left of the flamethrower at the TNT she’s pulled out of her bag.
I spray her with the hose.
“Now, missy, this is America, god dang it! I can blow up my great-granddaughter’s cheating ex if I want to.”
“I can make it all go away. You don’t even have to lift a finger.” McCarthy gives me a knowing look.
It’s tempting…
“Just get on your knees, and beg me,” McCarthy whispers.
I spray him with the hose.
“Man, that was a hell of a mission!” Granny Mavis crows as we wait, leaning against Cher and drinking while the old ferry operator siphons gas so he can run the death trap of a boat.
“Mission?” I screech. “You tried to burn down a house. We could have gone to jail. We could have killed someone.”
“Roasted dick of a cheater for a midnight snack, slurp, slurp !” Gardenia pumps an arthritic fist.
“He’s lucky I couldn’t get that TNT to light.” Granny Mavis pulls the lumpy, still-wet yellow bricks wrapped in faded paper out of her bag .
Why was McCarthy there? Surely not because he was trying to avenge my honor or whatever. Is he that butthurt that I rejected his help? I sure attract crazy men.
There’s whooping next to me and the smell of something burning.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
“Granny, no!”
I grab the TNT bricks from her and toss them in the water while she wallops me with her bag.
“Those are antique. They’re vintage explosives. You can’t just buy that on eBay. I was saving that for a special—”
BOOM!
The explosion spews a column of water. The concussion of it blows a hole in the dock. Old Al’s boat is collateral damage.
“Well, shit.”
We stand there dripping in charred kelp while old Al yells, “My boat! You blew up my boat!”
“Pshaw, it wasn’t anything to look at anyway.” Crocus waves a hand.
“You wouldn’t know. You can barely see, you old bat.”
“I can see you’re a useless tool.”
“Call the Coast Guard, and tell them we’ll exchange sexual favors for a ride back home on one of their boats.”
“I’m calling the police!” Al shouts.
“Abort! Abort!”
“Get in the van! I can’t go back to prison!” Mavis hollers.
“Where is Truman?” I cry as we run around.
Gardenia clacks her false teeth together. “Your boyfriend took him.”