Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
PEARL
One month later
K nitting needle?
No, no.
Not painful enough.
Rusty hacksaw, maybe?
Pearl idly thought about how to disembowel the man in front of her who’d berated Violet, her sweetest of sweet peach bosses at Bloom, for the past two minutes.
Pearl was usually behind the wheel of the Bloom delivery van, but today she was just a customer, waiting to pick up her special-order balloons for her niece’s birthday.
The man pointed a finger at Violet. “And I overpaid for an expensive Boston fern four months ago and it’s dead now.”
Violet’s smile wobbled with nerves. “I’m so sorry, I know how hard it is to lose a plant?—”
“So where’s my refund?” the man sneered, leaning across the counter.
Pearl growled.
Extra rusty, dull hacksaw it is.
Pearl rifled through her enormous purse searching for her wallet so her hands didn’t wrap around the guy’s throat.
Keys, AB’s EpiPen in case she’s glutened, a book, lotion, another book, black nail polish, book, broken granola bar, headphones… ah, wallet. Always at the fucking bottom.
She stuck her arm in the long satchel, disappearing like Mary Poppins into the never-ending bag.
Violet pushed her curls behind her ears. “Our store policy only covers thirty days after purchase. I’m happy to show you what fertilizer?—”
“As if I’d buy anything here again,” he said, puffing his chest. “You need to hire a man who knows what he’s doing and dress properly.” He gestured to Violet’s crop top, where a band of skin was barely visible. “No one wants to see a fat tummy when they shop, little girl.”
Violet’s mouth fell open in outrage.
Pearl saw red. Her hand was instantly fisted in his shirt as she pushed him hard into the counter.
“The fuck did you just say?” Pearl roared, getting in his face.
The man flinched, startled by her.
Pearl already stuck out in the cute-ass town of Fairwick Falls with her demon sex tattoos, facial piercings, and fishnets. Might as well use it to her advantage.
She pointed a long, sharp black nail at Violet as she twisted her fist in the man’s shirt, pulling him closer. “That woman is a fucking gorgeous angel, you rat-faced turd. Violet is too nice to throw you out, but it would be my pleasure to drag you out by the four hairs clinging to your greasy bald spot.”
“Pearl,” Violet said, shooting a warning look at her.
“Whatever,” the man said, stepping back now.
But Pearl saw the fear in his eyes. Ha .
“I’m takin’ these, and writing you a review.” He swiped a pecan bar and cookie from the checkout counter where local snacks were sold.
The man tore open the bar and took a bite as he took photos of the store and started typing.
Violet blew out a breath. “It’s fine. Leave him be,” she said, waving a hand at the man. She gave Pearl a tired smile as she rang up Pearl’s order. “I’ll get AB’s balloons; they came in today.”
Pearl looked at her bank app as she waited.
She gulped.
There was just enough in her checking account to cover five balloons and buy groceries. Her niece was turning six today, but five would have to be enough.
Ah hell. Who was she kidding?
She’d buy six. Who needed groceries when your favorite tiny human was obsessed with unicorns?
Lily walked down from her studio above the store. “Hey, Pearl. You excited for the party this evening? Nash said?—”
A noise clattered behind them.
The asshole man lay on the floor clutching his throat, flowers and chocolate bars scattered around him from crashing into a display.
“Were there nuts in those?” he croaked, looking at the wrapper in his hand as he coughed.
“Nuts in the pecan bar? Yeah, genius,” Pearl said, unimpressed. He was probably faking it for an insurance scam.
She was unfortunately all too familiar with what a real allergic reaction looked like.
“Allergic,” he coughed out.
His face turned red and he started gasping for air.
No one moved in the store as everyone stared in shock.
She groaned, already seeing how the next five minutes of her life were going to go.
Fuuuuck me.
Be the goddamn change you want, or some shit.
“You.” She pointed at Lily. “Call 9-1-1. You”—she pointed to a woman browsing in the store—“check his phone and see if he has a contact to call.”
Pearl kneeled beside the piece of shit clutching his throat. “Got an EpiPen?”
He shook his head. “Think I’d be…like this…if I did?” he said, gasping.
“Well, I have an EpiPen, smartass.” Pearl’s eyes gleamed as she saw him register that his life was in her hands.
That she could let him just wither away.
Tempting, honestly.
But alas, a glimmer of a soul sparked under her cold, dead heart. This little bitch isn’t going to die today.
Unfortunately.
She smirked, raising an eyebrow. “I can watch your ugly, misogynistic face turn purple”—he gasped for breath beside her—“ oooor I can be nice. But you’ve gotta Venmo me seven hundred dollars. This shit’s expensive when you don’t have insurance.”
The man nodded, panic in his eyes.
She started feeling in her purse for the EpiPen. “And apologize to Violet.” Pearl pointed to Violet, who stood in shock with a handful of unicorn balloons.
The man coughed and nodded with fear. His face was turning an alarming shade of purple. “S—s—sorry.”
Pearl reached deeper in her purse. “ And tell her she’s really pretty.”
“Pearl, come on!” Lily said, talking with 911.
“I’m trying! Jesus fuck me in the eardrum,” she muttered, peering in the bag. “Why did I think carrying a five gallon bucket bag was a good idea?”
Her hand landed on it. Finally .
“Okay, this is going to hurt,” Pearl said, uncapping it. “Mostly because I don’t like you.”
She stabbed his thigh with the EpiPen way harder than necessary.
But he was mean to Violet, so whatever.
Payback’s a bitch, and so am I.
The man gasped as the epinephrine took hold and his face de-purpled.
Pearl pulled up the payment app on her phone, but the man just leaned over, gasping. She patted his back. “C’mon, assface, get your phone out. That EpiPen isn’t gonna pay for itself.”
EMTs burst through the door.
A uniformed woman ran in with a bag, and a man pulled a gurney behind her. “Luckily, we were next door eating lunch,” the EMT said as she knelt beside the gasping asshat.
Pearl got to her feet, panicking. “But?—”
They swept the man onto the gurney and out the door before Pearl could even form a coherent plea.
The store was quiet again.
“I, um, threw in a sixth balloon,” Violet said with a pained smile and handed Pearl the bright balloons.
She officially had six balloons, no money, and now no seven-hundred-dollar EpiPen for AB.
Fuck!
Pearl popped pink bubbles with her gum in frustration, attempting to read a pulpy 70’s sci-fi novel.
She leaned against her car in the kindergarten pickup line, the heel of her Doc Martens thumping on her car door. Six unicorn balloons were stuffed in the back seat for AB’s birthday surprise.
Giving up, she tossed the book through the open window of her car. She couldn’t concentrate, and the hot purple alien women deserved her focus.
Today was a fucking big day. It was the last day of school, AB’s birthday, the two-year-anniversary party at Bloom that I have to fucking go to . Then they’d do birthday fun stuff with AB until they all crashed on a sugar high from the over-the-top birthday cake she’d made for AB.
She knew who would make her feel better.
impossibly_bookish
i stabbed someone to life today
Hemingway_CanSuckIt
Am I your accomplice now?
Knowing you stabbed someone?
impossibly_bookish
stabbed to LIFE
plus, it was a consensual stabbing
Hemingway_CanSuckIt
Kinky
Pearl snorted. Hemingway_CanSuckIt was the only person who’d kept her going the last few months. He was her favorite person to talk to, to be distracted by, to dream about. They shared an overlapping taste in books, the same dark, ironic sense of humor, and dreams of running away from it all.
Hemingway_CanSuckIt
Are you okay? I saw the crazy storms in Denver.
Hemingway_CanSuckIt also lived in Pennsylvania, and so she didn’t get murdered in her sleep, Pearl had told a teensy lie, saying she lived in Colorado.
As a printer salesperson.
No one had follow-up questions on printer sales; plus, it was more impressive than “Girl who works gig jobs with no benefits so she can fuck off when she pleases and make time for her brother and feral, perfect niece.”
Once their chats had gotten steamy, he’d offered to exchange phone numbers, but her phone number was also a Pennsylvania number.
She’d thought about getting a burner phone, but then she’d have to carry two phones and that just felt crazy.
When her cheap vibrator broke during one of their X-rated chats and she didn’t have the thirty dollars to replace it, Hemingway had offered to buy her one.
They’d both gotten off to the idea of her using something he’d bought her.
She’d found a mail-forwarding service in Denver, and lo and behold, a week later she’d had a state-of-the-art vibrator in hand. It suctioned, it buzzed, it bounced, and it was huge. Literal perfection.
He’d passed the not-a-creeper test a handful of times now, but still.
She was in too deep.
Impossiblybookish
ya, on the road in Kansas, sellin those printers
She loved the anonymity of it all. She could just be a woman who liked books, not the generally disliked poor fuck-up with anger issues and weird interests who was stuck living a shitty, small life no one wanted.
Her car stereo blasted a screamy, death-metal cover of Let It Go , and, frankly, it fucking slapped. The moms in the pickup line sneered at the booming tortured voices screaming from the windows of her beat-up Nissan.
Peering over her sunglasses, she slowly rolled up her middle finger with a long, black, coffin-shaped nail, eager for this to be the last school pickup for three months. She helped her brother by picking up AB every day and couldn’t wait to not see those judgy bitches for three months.
AB’s birthday just happened to coincide with the last day of school, so her feral little niece would probably be a feral little monster today.
I can’t wait.
An old-timey bell rang, and kids streamed out the school doors. A tall-for-her-age girl with a too-big lavender backpack covered in unicorns pushed her way through. “AP! AP! AP!”
“AB! AB! AB!” Pearl shouted back. AB couldn’t say “Aunt Pearl” when she was little. All she’d gotten out was “AP,” so Pearl had called her AB instead of Annabelle.
Both nicknames had stuck.
“It’s my birthday!” AB launched herself at Pearl’s thighs.
Pearl wrapped her arms around the best thing in her life. “Well damn, good thing I’ve got unicorn balloons, huh?”
AB screamed when she saw. A thrash-metal chorus of Friend Like Me had started, and they both head-banged outside the car.
Pearl didn’t give a shit if she’d spent her last fifty dollars on silly birthday balloons or people thought she was an unfit aunt; this was what sixth birthdays were all about.
“C’mon, nugget. Let’s get you to Girl Scouts.”
“And then I have my birthday party?” AB asked as Pearl buckled her into her booster seat.
“Yep, your dad and I have to go do this boring work thing, and then I’ll pick you up and we will have a unicorn extravaganza.”
Pearl very specifically forgot to mention a certain someone would be staying at their house tonight. She didn’t want to hear AB go on and on and on about how fun he was.
The guy Pearl couldn’t stop thinking about since she’d seen him last month.
Reed Berry, her brother’s best friend and a giant pain in her ass.