Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
June, 1982
K atie Madigan was humming Cool Rider when she stepped out of the late matinee of Grease 2 and ran smack dab into the perfect opportunity to avenge her broken-hearted sister.
Really, who could resist when standing in front of The Creep's brand-new DeLorean?
Definitely not any of the Madigans siblings, and for sure not Katie—not when, for the past two weeks, her twin had been moping around the apartment they shared. Why? Because she'd caught that rich buttmunch with YUPPIE vanity license plates cheating on her.
Again.
And seeing The Creep's car was like, for sure, a sign that the universe wanted Katie to mete out some vengeance.
If the universe wasn't pushing her toward avenging her sister, why would she still have so much of her jumbo tub of extra-extra buttered popcorn with M&Ms left over?
Sure, she'd held onto it because it was Connie's favorite, and giving it to her might cheer her up—or at least get her to pick a different breakup song to play on repeat.
However, that didn't change the fact that Katie had the popcorn, a half-eaten Snickers already getting melty in the June heat, and an unopened can of Tab from the vending machine in the theater's arcade.
And the thing that pushed her over the line from thinking about exacting revenge in her sister's name into doing it? There wasn't another soul in sight at the Waterbury Movie House. It was just car after empty car in the parking lot. No doubt everyone was inside watching ET, Rocky III, Wrath of Khan, and Poltergeist. Grease 2 really wasn't getting the audience respect Stephanie Zinone and the Pink Ladies deserved.
Singing Cool Rider under her breath, Katie strolled past her dinged-up Pinto to the next row, where the DeLorean was parked at an angle so it took up two spots.
What a jackass.
Thank God her twin had dumped the rich jerkwad (good riddance) and had sworn this time it was for good. Now, if she'd just stop playing Skidmarks On My Heart over, and over, and over again in their tiny apartment, life would get so much better. The GoGos were great and all, but after two weeks, Katie had reached her breaking point.
Katie was into the spelling part of the Cool Rider chorus and a few steps away from the DeLorean when a loud bang made her jump. She whirled around, her heart in her throat as if she'd just gotten out of seeing Poltergeist.
Instead of a malevolent spirit talking through a TV, she spotted a guy in a bright yellow office supply store shirt picking up a see-thru garbage bag filled with packing peanuts. He'd just tossed one of the ten bags into the dumpster when a gust of wind slammed the metal lid back down. Grumbling loudly enough that Katie could hear it from across the parking lot, the guy dropped the second bag and pushed the lid open—quite a feat since the dumpster was as tall as he was. Once that was done, he picked up the bag right as the lid flopped shut again. The guy yelled out a curse and flipped off the dumpster before marching away, leaving nine garbage bags of packing peanuts in a pile in front of the dumpsters.
Katie knew the feeling. Anyone who worked in public education had those days on the regular—usually not because of the kids but because of the parents, or the administrator, or the fact that the schools were always underfunded.
And that's when inspiration hit.
After she'd taken care of The Creep's car, she'd grab the bags of packing peanuts and use them for an enrichment activity with her students. The school district never had enough money for those kinds of activities, and she could always store the giant bags in her parents’ basement until school started back up in September.
It wouldn't be the weirdest thing she or her siblings had kept in the basement. When he was eight, her brother Collin managed to hide a stray dog down there, completely undetected by their parents, for six months. It probably would have gone longer, but Dad came home early from his overnight shift at the fire department and had caught Collin taking Rufus out for a before-school walk. Some dads would have sent the mutt of undetermined parentage packing, and while their dad sure looked the part of the ‘mean dad’ with his permanent scowl and the scar that went across his cheek, he was a total softie. In fact, right now, he was probably out on the back porch drinking a Schlitz and tossing the tennis ball for Rufus The Fourth. She had to admit, it was a pretty great way to spend a June evening.
Yeah, her parents wouldn't care about nine huge bags of packing peanuts even if they did notice them.
Packing peanuts added to her mental to-do list, she stopped next to the DeLorean, knowing there was one little problem with her plan.
Along with having weird doors that went up like bird's wings, The Creep's car didn't have normal locks. That meant that she couldn't unlock the doors using her skills with a bent wire coat hanger slipped through the crack in the window. It was a skill she'd acquired since she had a bad habit of leaving her keys places—like inside her locked Pinto—and, as a third-grade teacher, didn't have the extra cash for a locksmith a few times a month.
Taking a look around the parking lot to make sure she was still alone, Katie tried the driver's side door. It opened up like something from a movie, as triumph made her giddy.
Oh yeah. Now we're cooking.
For someone who never stopped talking about this stupid car that he loved more than Connie, The Creep didn't care enough to hit the door locks.
Serves you right, Creep.
If she had a Pink Ladies’ satin jacket right now, Katie would have flipped the collar while smacking her gum. Instead, she just pulled the Snickers out of its wrapper and dropped it smack dab in the middle of the driver's seat. Then, she reached into her bucket and started chucking popcorn, M&Ms, and melted butter into the car. After that, there was only one thing left to do. She shook up the can of Tab and pointed it at the inside of the car, making sure to avoid the radio. (Because having to clean up the seats was one thing, but actual unfixable damage was something else.) She paused for a second, asking herself if this was really the right thing to do. Then she remembered all the times The Creep had belittled Connie, told her she was lucky to have gotten a job at his dad's car dealership instead of Radio Shack even though she had gotten straight As and a full ride to college. She thought about how he'd yelled at Connie if she even looked at another guy while he was fucking his way through Waterbury. Katie focused on the way her sister seemed a little less happy every day she'd been with The Creep.
Fuck. Him.
What she was doing was probably wrong, but it was right in the ways that mattered. The Creep was heinous to the max, and it was time for some righteous payback.
She popped the can's top. Soda streamed into the car, guaranteeing it would mix with the melted chocolate and buttery popcorn to make a sticky mess that would take hours to clean.
Mission accomplished, she reached up and pulled the doors down, careful to use the right technique. If Katie had a dime for every time The Creep had lectured her sister about how the doors could get stuck in the upright position if she didn't close them right, Katie's students wouldn't have to depend on her dumpster diving for science experiment supplies.
"Hey!" A man's deep voice boomed across the parking lot. "What are you doing to my car?!"
Still high on vengeance, Katie's pulse didn't even give a hint of an uptick as she turned around, a cocky grin on her face, ready to face The Creep and give him a piece of her mind.
There was just one small problem.
The man coming her way was not The Creep.
It also wasn't a cop, which, to be honest, would have been better than the reality of the situation. Yes, being arrested, booked, and having her parents—or worse, her brothers—bail her out would be the seventh level of hell bad, but this was worse.
Way worse.
It was six feet, six inches worth of hard muscle worse. It was a redheaded guy who was good at all of the ways a mouth could be used worse. It was a man who had dozens of cupcakes, pans of ziti, and once a full five-course dinner delivered to him at the firehouse by women who thought they were the ones who could make him settle down worse.
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw," Katie muttered as her gut dropped low enough to go swimming in the Waterbury sewers.
His car?
This could not be happening.
There was no way.
Not him.
Not after what had happened at Marinos. Thank God he didn't know she'd spent the following two weeks—and a lot of nights since then—getting off every night to the memory of coming on his dick.
Heart hammering so hard it was about to break through her ribs, she pressed a hand to her stomach to quell the rioting butterflies and sent up a quick prayer.
Please, God, let the car belong to anyone but him.
God didn't need a reason to ignore panicky prayers, but He didn't answer. That was probably because of her one-night stand with the one firefighter in all of Waterbury she never ever ever should have banged in a bar supply closet.
Somewhere out there, Sister Mary Michael was having a told-you-so laugh. The snarly old nun had declared, years ago, that all of the Madigans were nothing but trouble, and she wasn't wrong. She, and all the other nuns at St. Bernadette's, had tried their best to get the three Madigan girls not to roll up the waistbands of their plaid skirts, sing/moan all the lyrics of Donna Summers' Love To Love You Baby or sneak out of fifth period to meet up under the bleachers with the boys from St. Paul's.
None of their efforts had been successful, which the penguins were still bitter about. And that was just for the girls of the family. Whenever the Madigan brothers passed them on the street, the nuns sucked their teeth and blessed themselves while watching what could be confused for a professional football team pass by.
So yes, Katie fully admitted to God and man that she was a Madigan and therefore, trouble. But did she really have to pay for her many personal sins by having to make nice with Frankie Hartigan, whose car she'd just mistakenly vandalized?
And if so, how in the hell was she supposed to do that without ending up half-naked in a supply closet with him again?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She was big-time going to need the strength of Stephanie Zinone and all the other Pink Ladies to ensure that didn't happen.