Chapter 32
Friday, 5:00 p.m., Greene household
A reminder alert sounded on her phone. The party was at five o’clock tomorrow, twenty-four hours from now. How could someone kill children over some bank codes? Fucking codes. Smirnov was going to kill her, the kids, and probably Granny and Burt over—she didn’t even know how much money. It had better be a lot.
But this wasn’t a horror movie where she could peer between her fingers or step out and make popcorn until the scary part was over. It was her life.
She passed Justin’s. A new Botticelli-style statue was in his garden. The TWENTY IS PLENTY sign in Shelly’s yard missed the actual danger lurking outside entirely. As she turned in to her driveway, Mischa gave her a big wave, almost like he was glad to see her. She didn’t return the greeting because what the hell, Mischa.
A flash of light caught her eye as the setting sun glinted off Shelly’s front door slamming shut. Gabby slunk low in the driver’s seat, but it was no good. In the rearview mirror, she saw Shelly’s angled bob making a beeline right for her like she’d been waiting for Gabby to pull in. Gabby shut her eyes and gathered herself. What was it going to be? Was she supposed to volunteer for something or host a neighborhood party or… it could be literally anything. There was no bigger busybody than Shelly, except Fran. There was one in every neighborhood or office.
Gabby could do it. Compartmentalize. Talk to Shelly. Box the feelings up to process later or discard when they’d expired. Make dinner. Save her family. Save the world.
With a deep breath and the calmest expression she could muster, Gabby stepped out of the car to find Shelly standing at the end of her driveway, tears streaming down her face, holding Tarragon, who was supposed to be in Gabby’s closet, not causing any trouble. How the hell had Shelly gotten it?
Mischa sat up and took note.
“GABBY FUCKING GREENE,” Shelly hollered slowly and loudly.
This was not supposed to be happening. She did not deserve this anger. She hadn’t killed the cat. She hadn’t stuffed him, or even bought him at the Pacific Palisades Farmers Market. Tarragon had been in her closet, safe and sound, until she was ready to deal with this problem, which is when she remembered—it wasn’t her closet anymore.
“Your grandfather brought me this cat and had the audacity to ask for the reward money.”
Jesus, Burt.
“Like I would give him a thousand dollars for returning him in this state.” Shelly was trembling with rage. “How did this even happen? What kind of monster are you?” she cried, her voice quavering.
Justin, the vegan taxidermist, and Burt—they were all going down.
“No no no. I’m so sorry. This is a big misunderstanding.” An epic misunderstanding. The mob surveillance was now leaning his head out the window watching. It was undoubtedly the best show he’d seen all day.
“How? You had my dead cat in your closet. That’s not a misunderstanding. That’s depraved.”
Gabby took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She did not have time for this. In the even tones of a hostage negotiator, or Sloane Ellis for that matter, she said, “Tarragon was hit by a car. Justin found him for sale at a taxidermy booth at the Pacific Palisades Farmers Market.”
Shelly cocked her head to the side. “What?”
Mischa blurted out a laugh, and Gabby glared at him.
Shelly yelled, “See, it doesn’t make sense to—” She gave him a confused look and finished, “Whoever the hell that guy is.” In a too-loud voice, she yelled, “You’ve been putting up flyers for a cat you were keeping dead in your closet. What kind of person does that?”
Mischa flinched and shook his head. Shelly was clearly winning him over.
“Sorry. I was just trying not to upset you. I didn’t know how to break it to you.”
“Grow a pair, Gabby. I’m an adult. I know bad things happen. What I don’t get is you.”
Shelly thrust the cat into Gabby’s arms. “I can’t display my dead cat like some kind of psycho.” She stormed off in a cloud of righteous energy, leaving Gabby holding Tarragon at the end of her driveway, a Russian Mafia goon staring her down like she was the bad one.
“Killing animals…” He shook his head at her. “That’s cold.”
Her eyes practically bugged out of her head. “You—” She couldn’t even finish her sentence. “You’re going to kill my whole family if I don’t do what your boss says.”
“That’s just business.” He gestured with his head toward the cat. “That’s some serial killer shit.”
Just then Granny walked out and saw the cat in Gabby’s arms. “Did you get the reward?”
“No, I didn’t get the reward! I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t call the cops.”
“Why?” Granny looked confused. “Didn’t she want it back?”
“Alive! She wanted it back alive!”
“Sorry to interrupt,” the mob goon said, “but do you mind if I use the bathroom?”
Gabby blew her top. She was “the ref made a bad call, and I’m from Philadelphia” mad. “Are you kidding me? What, do you want a snack too?”
“It’s number two,” he said, unfazed by her yelling.
“Figure it out, jerk-off.” In a huff, she stalked back toward the house.
Granny caught up to her in the front entryway. “Did you need to talk to him like that? He’s very nice.”
“He’s not our friend, Granny!” Gabby said too sharply.
Granny raised an eyebrow and let Gabby have her fit. “His mother is from Sviyazhsk, right on the Volga. Such a pretty town.”
Gabby plonked Tarragon onto the table by the door with the mail she hadn’t read in the last couple of weeks. If she didn’t figure her shit out by tomorrow, Tarragon wouldn’t be the only dead animal. Granny was bringing snacks to their executioner.
When she clicked the door shut, someone yelled, “MOM! I’m trying to use the bathroom, and Lucas won’t leave me alone.”
“Lucas, get in here.”
Lucas crab-walked into the room like Stephen King had written him into her life and he needed an exorcism.
“How much sugar have you had?” she asked, knowing the answer. Telltale Starburst wrappers littered the floor.
Lucas, clearly high on a gallon of Mountain Dew and at least one bag of Starbursts, squealed in delight and scuttled out of the room. The minute he went around the corner, he set Kyle off. Gabby’s nerves sparked like frayed electrical wires. Her eye was twitching almost nonstop.
She took a calming breath. If she could just find the codes and keep her kids alive, she could turn them into decent human beings tomorrow. If they could just let her think…
“LUCAS! STOP IT! MOM!”
Gabby rubbed her temples as she walked into the kitchen. She only had twenty-four hours left.
“Gabs, boil some water for the dumplings, would you? I can’t get the TV to work for Burt’s show.”
Gabby shut her eyes. “I thought you were cooking.” The kitchen was fragrant with fried onions and ground beef cooking on the stove.
“I made the pelmeni, but we have to boil them.”
“Yum!” Granny almost never made the little Russian dumplings, only on special occasions. The last time Gabby had had pelmeni was her eighteenth birthday. Granny had made dumplings and given her a necklace from the old country. “I wore this the day I defected,” she had said. “It’ll keep you safe too, pupsik.”
“I’m making them for those poor boys outside.” She shook her head. “Mischa is from Moscow. Poor thing hasn’t been home for years. And he has a friend with him today. Ivan is a sweet boy too.”
Gabby’s jaw dropped. “You’re cooking for them ?”
“Don’t worry. There’s enough for all of us. Actually, I’m making our batch now. They can have theirs whenever I get to it.”
Gabby stared at her grandmother in shock.
“Close your mouth. You’re going to catch flies.” Apparently done defending herself, Granny said, “Do you know the password for Hulu?”
“I don’t know any of the passwords,” she said, except the ones written on the whiteboard. Come to think of it, Phil had signed up for Hulu, and she’d never thought twice about it. She started to text Phil, but then she stopped herself. The Hulu password would probably be as hard to find as Kramer’s transfer codes. This was more than a password-lookup issue; this was a division-of-the-assets issue. She should probably get her own subscriptions, but on the other hand, she was more worried about living through tomorrow.
Granny yelled down the hall, “Is Family Feud on Hulu, Burt?”
“Only the celebrity one,” he yelled from the bathroom. “It’s not as good as the regular.”
Gabby’s eye twitched harder. They were all about to die, and he was worried about which season of Family Feud to watch. If he wanted to see a family feud, she was about to show him one.
“But I’ve got another problem, Vera. Would you come here?” Burt asked.
Gabby could have a glass of wine, boil dumplings, and gather her thoughts. At the end, she would feed everyone, and they’d stop screaming for as long as it took to eat dinner.
Trying to channel the calm she wanted to feel in the house, Gabby set a pot of water to boil. The steam on her face and the prospect of carbs did some work to calm her.
A few minutes later, she pulled the doughy balls of goodness from the pot and plopped them on a tray with sour cream for dipping. For just a second, a sense of well-being and purpose filled her. Just like Shelly said, not to mention every queen on RuPaul’s Drag Race —she was Gabby motherfucking Greene. One foot in front of the other. Put food on a plate, get the kids to bed, try to figure out how to steal the codes. She had this handled.
“Um, Gabby.” Granny’s voice quavered uncharacteristically.
“Is there something wrong?”
Granny took a deep, troubled breath, like she didn’t know how to say what she needed to say, which was concerning, given that the mob didn’t even raise her blood pressure.
Gabby raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“Burt took too many Viagra.”
You could have bounced a Ping-Pong ball off Gabby’s face. She was dead. Smirnov couldn’t even kill her now.
“Kids, it’s time to eat,” she called while robotically dialing the nurses’ line at the clinic. When the nurse asked her to describe the problem, she said, “Eighty-three-year-old man who took too much Viagra. He’s had a…”
Granny spoke into the phone.
“A painful erection that won’t go away.”
The nurse took it in stride and put her on hold.
“Yuck,” Lucas complained. “What are these? Can I have something else?”
And that was it.
“No. This is what Granny made. Say thank you and eat it.”
Kyle breezed by her and got out the third glass in the last hour because she didn’t care about dishes. “Geez, Mom. Lighten up.”
Gabby’s eye twitched violently.
“No, Kyle, I will not lighten up.” She slammed a plate of dumplings onto the counter for dramatic effect. “Damn it, everyone,” she said in a not-quite-yelling voice. Suddenly the room was quiet, except for the clinic’s hold music and Bubbles’ toenails on the hardwood as he ran to her side, probably confused by her tone of voice. Gabby never yelled at anyone. Seething with anger and still twitching, she started listing her complaints. “I am not your maid. Your chauffer. Your nurse. I am not tech support. I started a new job this week, and I am stressed. I need you all to get it together. Kyle and Lucas, you aren’t babies. I need your help. Granny.” She looked at her. “You can live here, but… I don’t even know where to start. I can’t deal with your dumb boyfriend. I do not exist purely to serve all of your needs.”
She looked back at Burt, who was peering from around the corner. “Particularly Burt’s needs.”
At that moment, the nurse came back on. “Ma’am.”
She’d set the phone on the counter on speaker. The nurse continued. “How long has he had the erection?”
Kyle’s eyes about popped out of her head.
Completely unselfconscious, Granny said, “Just an hour. Is that right, Burt?”
“Is your grandfather on any heart medication or have a history of heart or blood pressure issues?”
“No, he’s as healthy as a horse,” Granny said in the same tone she had announced that he used to be a doctor.
“After four hours, go to the ER. In the meantime, see if he can resolve the issue with sexual intercourse or masturbation. He should also rest and drink plenty of water. You need to bring him in if it takes any longer. He could suffer permanent erectile dysfunction and it will begin to stress his heart.”
That sounded like a good solution to Gabby.
“I heard that it might explode after four hours,” said Kyle.
Why had Kyle heard anything about Viagra boners?
Breathing too heavy, tears burning at the backs of her eyes, Gabby rushed out of the kitchen to her room, which wasn’t even her room. She sat on the stupid futon and let the floodgates open. The tears streamed down her face. What had happened to her life? What had she done?
Everyone was in danger, and it was all her fault. She knew the risks. Darcy was murdered, and she had taken over her job. No matter how safe the EOD made it seem, she should have known better. She was the person who hugged the wall when walking up a stairwell. A person who couldn’t enjoy balconies. Peanut butter was basically arsenic in her mind. The one time she’d dismissed her caution, ignored her better instincts, she’d gotten burned.
Bubbles pushed his way into the room and hopped up next to her. The little dog licked the tears from her cheeks as she sobbed. His fur was still mangy from where she’d cut the duct tape out yesterday.
There was no one she could ask for help. She had never been so alone in her life.
“How am I going to get us out of this mess, Bubbles?”
Bubbles looked back with his tongue hanging out, and she realized he was begging. No one had even fed him dinner.