Chapter 21 #2
Charles crossed his arms. ‘That production was hardly Hollywood. I don’t think it was even union.’
Samson rolled his eyes. ‘He’s just mad because he didn’t get a speaking line. Or get into the Irvington Men’s Choir this year.’
‘It was a competitive year!’ Charles shot Samson a look that indicated they would absolutely be relitigating this conversation later. ‘Anyway, we won’t ruin your party. Girls, you have the code to get in after hours?’
‘We don’t do after hours,’ promised Larissa.
‘Well, Larissa does, but at triple her standard billable rate,’ teased Cleo.
After walking the group through the location of the board games, the wall-mounted barometer, and the duck-headed umbrellas (you never knew when it might rain), Charles and Samson retired upstairs.
Nick and Cleo rubbed their hands together in exaggerated excitement – the way they’d used to as kids when Mom and Dad had left them home alone.
‘No shenanigans,’ said Larissa sharply.
‘Zoey, you should’ve seen us as kids,’ said Cleo cheerfully, helping herself to a glass of bubbly and a handful of grapes.
‘Once we thought it was a good idea to take out the Christmas tinsel and set it out all along the hallway carpet for our plush toys. You should’ve seen the mess.
Mom aged about a decade on the spot when she saw what we’d been up to. ’
‘And what about My Little Pony tennis?’ added Nick.
‘Oh my God, I forgot about that. We used to play over the clothesline. Well, Nick and I did. Larissa kept score.’
Nick sipped his wine. ‘She never was a joiner.’
‘I was a joiner!’ retorted Larissa. ‘I was just selective about what I joined.’
‘Zoey, would you like me to pour you anything?’ asked Cleo, who’d finished her grapes and now had a free hand.
Zoey made an odd grunting noise. Nick understood – his voice betrayed him sometimes when he had to speak in front of an audience. At the small-business luncheon he’d presented at a few weeks ago, he’d sounded like Tom Waits.
Yep, that was absolutely all that was going on. Nerves.
‘How about some cheese?’ suggested Nick. Zoey never said no to cheese, after all. (Rare was the human who could say no to cheese.) ‘They’ve got a nice blue and a decent Camembert out.’
Zoey seemed to nod. Nick loaded her up with a plate while Cleo poured her a generous glass of bubbly. Hopefully a few mouthfuls of cheese would help break the ice.
‘So, Zoey, Nick tells us you have a master’s in children’s literature.’ This was Larissa’s attempt at making small talk. Thankfully, it was fairly benign as Larissa’s commentary went: she was making an effort.
Zoey stared at Larissa, crumbling a piece of cheese between her fingers.
Nick grimaced, shaking his head lightly at Larissa. Zoey had hinted more than once that the smoothie shop wasn’t her dream career. And now here they were, rubbing it in that she could’ve been doing something she was passionate about instead.
This was a disaster. He shouldn’t have put pressure on her to meet Cleo and Larissa. Especially after the busy week that she’d had. Especially when she was feeling … out of sorts.
Cleo valiantly tried to steer the conversation, chitchatting about the coffee shops she planned to visit while she was in town, and how many books she could feasibly buy from Powell’s before the tyres on Larissa’s car popped.
‘I can always drive you back up in the truck if things get too dire,’ said Nick.
Larissa shuddered. ‘Is that thing rated for highway travel?’
‘Alice certainly thinks so,’ said Nick. He grinned. ‘So, are you going to come visit the farm?’
‘Of course!’ Cleo beamed around a quince-slathered cracker.
‘I can’t wait to see what you’ve done with it.
Remember when you first moved in and we could barely see the house behind all the weeds?
And you got Deirdre bogged in that field and had to call the tow-truck guy and it cost, like, five hundred bucks? ’
Nick tried to disappear behind a wedge of salami. ‘So, that might have happened again. Although I wasn’t at fault this time.’
And also the tow-truck driver had vanished, so there could be no more backyard-bogging incidents.
‘Zoey, did you get the truck bogged?’ Cleo cackled, almost spilling her wine. ‘Oh, I love this. Peas in a pod. Was Nick upset? Did he say I told you so? Most importantly, did he pay for the tow truck?’
Zoey smiled awkwardly. She nodded, but in a slightly ungainly way, as though it was the first time she’d ever tried the movement. Then she extricated herself from Nick and wandered off through the nearest hallway.
‘Bathroom’s around the corner and to the left, babe,’ called Cleo. ‘It’s a pale blue door with a retro sketch of a toilet on the front. You can’t miss it.’
‘Sorry,’ whispered Nick, as Zoey disappeared. ‘She’s really not feeling well. She’s not usually …’
Not usually dressed like this. Not usually monosyllabic like this. Not usually sporting green eye shadow like this.
Not usually … this.
‘I get it,’ said Cleo, with an easy shrug. ‘There’s a reason I don’t meet family. Stakes are way too high.’
Nick was on high alert waiting for Zoey to return as his sisters picked at the snacks platter, chatting about their Portland itinerary and adding their own foodie photos to the family text thread.
He could barely concentrate as Larissa grilled him on his business structure and whether he’d covered himself from litigation – she was appalled when he explained the Darina situation.
‘What happened to her after that?’ asked Cleo. ‘Did she get help?’
‘I assume so,’ said Nick, after a moment – he’d been watching for movement in the hallway. ‘Although as far as I know she hasn’t gone back to work.’
‘I don’t blame her. I’d be in hiding, too, if after a bop on the head I propositioned a mushroom farmer so shamelessly that I had to be locked in a shed. Are you sure she wasn’t possessed?’
‘Pretty sure,’ said Nick.
Although he wasn’t, not really. In fact, he was feeling quite uneasy. Especially since Zoey was behaving not unlike Darina had. And Darina had behaved like, well … a zombie.
The grandfather clock bonged the hour: Zoey had been gone a solid fifteen minutes.
‘I’m … going to check on Zoey,’ he said.
He left Cleo and Larissa poring over the decor in the sunroom, Larissa using a reverse-image search to estimate the combined value of everything, and Cleo plotting an imaginary heist.
Where was Zoey? He’d knocked on the bathroom door, cautiously pushing it open after there’d been no answer. He’d peeked into what looked like a study, ducking to check beneath a giant walnut desk just in case she was trying to sleep off her illness.
A clatter from the kitchen drew his attention.
He carefully made his way over, mindful of not scaring Zoey if she wasn’t feeling well.
There she was, sitting on the floor in a corner behind an open fridge door.
He could see the hem of her shift dress and the untied shoelace from here.
She’d probably gone looking for ginger beer and crackers, he told himself.
Something to settle the stomach. That was all.
Reba’s Razor was just a silly notion, nothing more.
‘Zoey?’ he murmured, keeping his voice low and calm.
His boots squeaked on the chequerboard-patterned floor, and Zoey stiffened.
So too did Nick when he got close enough to see what she was eating. Because it wasn’t ginger beer and crackers. It was … raw meat. Handfuls of ground meat, mushed into globs that she was jamming into her mouth.
Nick blinked, trying to make sense of the situation. Well, not make sense. Excuse.
Perhaps she was anaemic. Or maybe this was some sort of strange stress response. Or someone had seriously spiked one of her smoothies.
‘Zoey?’ he murmured again, carefully approaching her with his hands out. ‘Are you … feeling okay?’
Zoey’s eyes narrowed as she registered his appearance, and she shrank back towards the subway tiles on the wall. Overhead, a fan hummed lazily, casting triangular shadows.
‘It’s all right, babe. Let’s get you home so that you can rest up. My sisters are feeling tired anyway – it’s a long drive from Seattle. Maybe we can all catch up tomorrow.’
He knelt down next to her, his heart squeezing at how vulnerable she looked. How scared. All he wanted was for her to be safe. Well. Happy. Loved. He wished he could take everything she was dealing with and rest it on his own shoulders. Carry the weight of it for her.
‘Can I help you up?’ he asked gently, reaching out a hand.
For a moment, Zoey just stared. But then something flickered behind her eyes, and she relented. Nick took her hand in his and gently helped her up.
‘Give me just a sec, babe,’ he said, as he binned the leftovers of her gruesome snack and closed the fridge. ‘Okay. Crime-scene evidence is gone.’
He led Zoey out of the kitchen and back to the sunroom, where Cleo and Larissa were huddled, whispering between themselves.
‘There you are!’ said Cleo warmly, as Zoey blinked blearily.
‘She’s really not feeling well. I’m going to get her home,’ said Nick, apologetically.
‘I think that’s a good move,’ whispered Cleo. ‘I’m sure she’s lovely when she hasn’t … overimbibed.’
‘And still better than Jessica,’ muttered Larissa. ‘She was a doozy, wasn’t she. We warned you, but there are some mistakes you just have to make yourself.’
Nick wanted to snap that there was a reason that no one in the family had met any of Larissa’s partners: there hadn’t been any. Because no one could live up to Larissa’s standards. But now was not the time. He had to get Zoey home and looked after.
‘Speaking of mistakes,’ added Larissa. ‘Is that a new tattoo?’
She jabbed at Nick’s wrist, where the vegetable-ink tattoo from InkWell peeked out from under the cuff of his flannel shirt.
‘One of six,’ said Nick, deadpan. ‘Unfortunately they misspelled the one on my stomach, but I’ll just get a bigger one to cover it up.’
Larissa visibly recoiled. Cleo hid a grin behind her glass, which was somehow still full – she was supremely skilled at maintaining a full glass at all times.