“That beast he dragged into the house is riddled with fleas! And now we need to tent the entirehouse!”
Mom shakes her head, rolling her eyes at how pathetic Tad is—even though I highly suspect he’s right. “We have termites, Tad. It’s an entirely different species.” She looks to me. “When we tore out the poopy carpet on the stairs, we found rot leading straight to the floorboards. It turns out the entire house has been eaten from the inside out and we need tofumigate.”
“Gah!” I clutch onto Nathan a little bit tighter. It sounds as if my mother and Chloe are on the same nerve gaspage.
“Don’t you worry about a thing.” She lifts a glitter-covered finger at me. “Once we schedule the appointment, we’ll all be forced to leave the house for three shortdays.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tad grumbles, falling back into his seat. “It’s all just a ploy to get you out of the way so they can up and leave with your valuable treasures. I’m stayingput.”
Mom clicks her tongue. “They won’t fumigate with you here. In fact, the paperwork says not even a houseplant can survive. We’ll have to store all of our food in plasticbags.”
“Just plastic bags?” I won’t eat here for a year. “Dear God, it’s going to be Chernobyl all over again.” As if Gage turning to the dark side wasn’t bad enough, the boys and I are going to lose all of our hair—forever.
Tad scoffs at the thought. “They’re not getting rid of me, Lizbeth. I’ll hide out. I’ll prove all that gas-smash baloney is just a get-rich-quick scheme—offyourjewelry.”
“She has no jewelry,” I say, stepping over. Mom is the most bling-deprived wife on the planet, no thanks to Tad’s inability to provide her with an ounce of anything that sparkles and shines, sans the glitter she’s covered with at themoment.
A row of miniature Mason jars filled with gold encrusted tubules catches myeye.
“What are we making?” I ask both Misty and Beau who flank my mother proudly, each busying themselves with the craft at hand. Misty proudly holds up a glob of elongated paste covered with glitter. “Poopy!” she shouts with pride. Her dark hair and those Gage Oliver blue eyes make me melt on cue. Damn Demetri for creating such perfectchildren.
“Unicornpoop,” Mom corrects. “In fact, we can’t sell it fast enough. I’ve got thirteen more orders just in the last halfhour!”
“What?” I reach over and pick up a bottle of what appears to be glittered-covered turds floating in water and I hand it over to Laken for inspection. “Who’s ordering this and why?” Clearly people have far too much spending money to ever be safewith.
“Everyone.” Mom tosses up her hands in the air and gold dust rains from herlimbs.
“It’s her new little hobby.” Tad gives an arrogant grin. “I set up a shop for her on eBay, and all she does now is sellcrap.”
“Profitable crap,” Mom is quick to correct. “I make about five bucks a bottle, and the buyer covers shipping. My little hobby is how we plan on paying for the fumigation we need to have done. Not to mention the fact I’ve cornered the market on glitter-covered fecal snowglobes”
Oh, my dear God. There it is. Tad has finally driven my poor saint of a mother to the brink of insanity, and in order for her to give her children the most basic necessities in life, she now wades in shit full-time. Scratch that saint comment. Demetri has turned her into quite the devious vixen. One of these days I’m going to bust her balls over the fact Misty came from an out-of-marriage arrangement, but, tonight, like any other night, Demetri is just a means to anend.
“Why don’t you ask Demetri for the money?” The words fall from my lips like rusted coins. “In fact, I bet if you asked for a new house he’d throw that in, too.” Okay, so he may not be my favorite demon, but dear God if he could stop my mother from rolling in crap just to survive—a dollar or two from that devil wouldn’t be a bad idea. Not that I personally would take a demonic dime from him. Asshole. Although technically, living in a house that Demetri paid for would amount to the samething.
“Youknow”—Chloe picks up one of my mother’s fecal treasures and gives it a quick shake—“unicorn shit is great and all, but vaginas are all the rage rightnow.”
The room grows eerily silent as the entire lot of us secretly plots to muscle shut the talking vaginaherself.
“Vaginas?” my mother practically whispers, but the labial intrigue on her face is unmistakable. My mother might have a tiny obsession with procreative parts in general so the intrigue is almost understandable.Almost.
“That’s right.” Chloe smacks the glorified Mason jar back to the table with a wallop. “Vagina pendants are sweeping the country. It’s an iconic symbol of feminism, not to mention the curves and texture are practically a work ofart.”
The quiet hush continues to suppress the room as I gauge how worried I should be that Chloe seems to have a superior understanding of the vajayjay subject matter athand.
“Vaginas, huh?” Mom’s anatomical wheels are spinning as she looks to the ceiling. After all, profiting off pink parts is only a stone’s throw from turds bathed inglitter.
“Bagina!Bagina!” Beau barks it out, inspiring a laugh from both Mia and Rev. Soon Misty joins in on the vaginal fun, and, swear to God, Tad’s face just froze in an unholygrimace.
“Crap,” Laken hisses under her breath. “We’d better getgoing.”
“Yes.” I’m quick to agree. God, I’m so embarrassed that Laken had to witness firsthand the lunacy that is my family. Who am I kidding? That lunacy is the norm. We overbreed, and come up with outrageously bad ideas while our financial means remain just above the poverty level. If my mother’s life is any indication of where I’m headed I’ll have eight kids before my twenty-fifth birthday, my boobs will be swollen milk jugs that everyone on the island would have had the displeasure to ogle by then, and I’ll be filling Mason jars with glitter-covered poop because that’s the way things work in our cult. “Chloe”—I growl over at her because it just so happens the she-devil and I are in a private cult of our own at the moment—“why don’t you wait outside before you start a mini feminist revolution without meaningto?”
She clicks her tongue my way. “I more than mean to start a revolution. And every revolution I start, I plan to finish.” Her dark eyes flit to mine as she takesoff.
“That girl is a menace!” Tadbarks.
Oh hell, I’m agreeing with Tad on every single pointtonight.
