Chapter 33
Friday night, Greene household
W hen she was a teenager, Gabby would cry herself to sleep in the middle of the day because she didn’t have anything to do but lean into the despair and wake hours after the sun had set—disoriented and hungover from sobbing over god-knows-what. It had been twenty years since she’d done that. In the foggy twilight of her wake-up, a moment of perspective hit. Just existing as a teen was comparable angst-wise to running from the mob and CIA while caring for children, grandparents, and getting divorced. Being fourteen with math homework, an unreciprocated crush, and a couple of bad zits was rough.
Just like after a healthy teenage crying jag, Gabby walked downstairs to find the TV on and everyone doing stuff like the world had only fallen apart for her. It was falling apart for them too, not that they knew it.
The kitchen was clean, and everything had been picked up. Kyle was sitting at the kitchen table with a notebook and pen. It looked like she was actually doing her homework.
It was as good now as it had been bad before. No one was screaming or fighting. Bubbles was in his dog bed chewing on a bone. Granny was packing lunches for tomorrow with Lucas. Guilt about her freak-out warred with total satisfaction. She was Mother of the Year. Sort of. Not really. Either way, it was peaceful for now, and Gabby knew enough not to tap the glass. Plus she needed to seek the advice of counsel. It was time to call on Justin.
She slipped on a sweater and her Crocs and stepped outside. The neighborhood was quiet, the sound of distant nighttime traffic as comforting and monotonous as ocean waves. While she had slept, it had rained, almost like she and Mother Nature had had the same idea. She breathed in deeply. There was nothing like the smell of wet asphalt. Wet dirt was probably okay too, but Gabby was a city girl. Smirnov’s goon gave her a nod and watched her walk next door. A single car passed by, splashing through a shallow puddle.
Justin’s house was an oasis of light, music filtering onto the street. When he opened the door, he took one look at her face, and he ushered her in. “Oh no. Who did it?”
At his loyalty, tears pricked at her eyes again. “It’s all my fault. I screwed up, Justin. Big-time.”
“Honey, you don’t know anything about screwing up until you try to do the splits in front of a crowd of a hundred people, sprain a groin muscle, and have to be carried off the stage on a stretcher after the paramedics cut you out of your Spanx in front of the still-rapt crowd.” They sat down in some comfy chairs. He flipped on a fireplace and yelled, “Hugh, it’s an emergency. Gabby is experiencing… some sort of disaster. Can you make cocktails?”
Hugh, who was the steady one in the relationship, slid his glasses up his nose and set his book down. He was a history professor at UCLA and fulfilled the stereotype. No one looked more like a history professor than Hugh.
“I can’t get drunk,” Gabby said. “A little something to loosen up would be fine, though.”
“Okay, spill. What happened? Is it Phil?”
“It’s everything.” She bit her lip. Where did she even start without discussing the EOD or the Russian Mafia?
She gave him a rundown on the things she could explain:
· Granny and Burt
· Sleeping on the futon
· Child gambling
· Getting Dr. Piggie back from Phil
· Shelly’s cat
As she was talking, a timer went off on her phone.
“Are you burning something?” Justin asked.
She shook her head and exhaled dramatically. “No, that’s the erection timer.”
He spit out his water.
“I know. This is my life. Burt took a handful of Viagra before dinner. The nurse said he should go in if the boner lasted more than four hours.”
Justin raised his glass. “To Burt.”
Hugh joined in. “To Burt.”
“That nursing home kicked him out for a reason. He’s barely housebroken.”
“Your granny likes him though, right? Have you tried to get to know him?”
“I bet she was just bored.” Gabby had read an article about high-achieving women choosing to be with dumb idiots. That was Granny.
“Maybe she thinks she can change him,” Justin said, which made Gabby laugh.
“Change him at the age of eighty-three.” An image of Burt’s wrinkled gray ass came to mind.
In an overly serious voice, he said, “She’s doing God’s work. Don’t be getting in that woman’s way.”
“But anyway,” Gabby said, “that’s just the background noise. Work is the real problem. It’s so much pressure. They want me there all day. And I’ve been getting… texts and calls at all hours of the night.” Being kidnapped was part of her job these days. Bad guys didn’t keep their schedules nine to five, so neither could she.
Justin gasped. “For an executive assistant job?”
“My boss had a family emergency yesterday…” She didn’t mention that it was because she had the bright idea to light his garage on fire. “I’ve ended up with more stuff to do than normal.”
“That’s a lot on top of Burt’s erection,” Justin said dryly.
“Especially depending on how well-endowed Burt is,” Hugh added as he passed them each a Grand Marnier. “Just a little digestif.”
“Thanks again for handling the party, Justin. I don’t know what I would have done without you this week.” The worry started to creep back in. “And I’m worried about the kids.” She didn’t specify that she was worried the guy parked outside was going to shoot them.
“Why?” Justin said flippantly. “They’re great kids… for the most part.”
“Their safety. With Burt and Granny in charge,” she clarified, as if that justified her anxiety level.
He raised an eyebrow. “It sounds like Burt and Granny have lots of energy. They might as well watch your kids. And wasn’t your grandma an Olympic gymnast? That woman is in better shape than either of us.”
“Justin, I’m being serious.”
“Look, Gabby, it’s going to be fine. To me, it sounds like you’re worried about a lot of things you can’t control. You can’t be with the kids every minute of every day. You have to trust someone else. You have to trust me with the party. If Burt loses sexual function because he can’t read directions on his pill bottle, that’s not on you.” As her breathing got faster and shallower, he said, “Take a deep breath, relax.”
She nodded. “It’s just—”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “No excuses. I don’t care what’s on your plate. You can only do what you can do. Everybody has stuff to worry about. We can all only handle one thing at a time.”
Compartmentalizing—was that all anyone could talk about this week? But she nodded. It was a fair point, and she couldn’t risk telling Justin any more than she already had. Plus he was right. They might be bad, but they were just potential problems.
“Gabby, I gotta be honest with you. This is a personal assistant job with a jerk boss. And you are in a childcare transition. That’s stressful, but none of that is unusual. You can handle it.”
He was sort of right.
“Gabby, I love you, but I’ve watched you start and quit almost everything you’ve tried. You sold Avon for a day.”
And she had the closetful of makeup to prove it.
“Scrapbooking.”
She had ordered all the books and fancy papers. Except for the first page, they were almost entirely empty.
“Knitting. SoulCycle.”
It’s too bad SoulCycle hadn’t stuck.
“Bird-watching. Bird feeding. Gardening.”
Maybe those binoculars would come in handy…
“Don’t quit. You can do this.”
“You’re right. I should stick something out, but it’s more than that this time.” At least she thought so. “This job is scary.”
“Gabby, don’t be dramatic. That’s my role in this relationship.”
She laughed and he continued. “I don’t really understand why you’re scared, but if you focus on what you’re scared of, that’s all you’ll see. Focus on tasks you can accomplish, one at a time. How do you think I got through my last celebrity wedding?”
Gabby shut her eyes and tried to calm down, but he must have felt the small-dog energy radiating off her, pink skin peeking through curly white fur and trembling. She was more of a small dog than Bubbles was.
“Do you know how I judge a good queen?” he asked.
“Lip-synching and makeup?” she guessed.
“Well, that,” he said, “but there is more. There are four qualities that a queen should have: one, charisma; two, uniqueness; three, nerve; and four, style.” Just in case she didn’t take him seriously, he said, “That is straight from RuPaul.”
He waited for her to show she was listening.
“If you’ve watched Drag Race , you’ll see there isn’t one standard to shoot for. Not one body type, not one style, not one anything. Success comes from embracing your own unique talents and maximizing.” After a drink, he said, “It’s like they say in the Army, ‘Be the best queen you can be.’”
She stared back flatly.
“Walk the runway, make a dress, check your email, whatever. Do them one at a time, and Gabby Greene the shit out of them.”
That was a truth punch she couldn’t ignore. She couldn’t be sexy like Valentina. She couldn’t martial arts her way out of situations like Markus. She couldn’t be anyone but her.
Justin continued. “You are a mama bear who will do anything for her kids. You are a MILF, especially now that you got that makeover last week. Honey! And you are sort of good at almost everything.”
She laughed.
“That’s just a fact, and you might as well use it. You can half-ass the shit out of almost anything. That’s called makin’ it work. Same as MacGyver.”
Loud as fuck he said, “You, my dear, are Gabby motherfucking Greene.”
He was right. She could half-ass things as good as anyone—make a recipe with half the ingredients, get the kids to school every day sort of on time, plan half a trip to an Irish castle and sell it to a guy from Pasadena. Maybe she couldn’t find the codes, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep her family alive. She needed to stop trying to be a superspy and solve the problem Gabby Greene–style. An idea started to take shape in her mind. It was probably a bad idea, but it was a start—a little bit reckless, a little bit half-assed, and all her.
“Thank you, Justin.” She squeezed his hand. He might have just saved her ass.
“I’m going to give you something for good luck tomorrow.” After rifling around in the bathroom, he returned with a tube of red lipstick. “Tomorrow, I want you to be as bold as your lip color. Now go home, because Hugh took a Viagra an hour ago.”
Hugh looked up from his book with a “What?”
When she blurted out a laugh, he said, “Just kidding. But we both need beauty sleep before tomorrow’s party.”
As she was leaving, Justin gave her some final instructions. “Make sure to use lip liner, fully line your lips, and then lightly powder your whole face to set the color.”
“I love you, Justin.”
“I love you too, babe.”
Earlier that week, she’d told Markus that no one had ever believed in her before, but that was straight wrong. Justin always had.
It was time to stop whining, and half-ass her way out of this situation.