Parked out front, passenger-side wheel propped up on the curb, is a bulbous, old-fashioned red pickup truck with a Christmas tree poking out of the bed. The license plate readsMMWCTfor reasons unknown to me.
“No!”
“The glovebox dispenses Linzer raspberry jam cookies,” he reports exultantly. “Findthatin an Aston Martin.”
“I would rather find myself in an Aston Martin!” I feel my nose scrunching. “This isn’t what I wished for.”
The new neighborhood attraction has attracted gogglers. A few of the neighbors, and Town-Hall-walk-around-ers from across the street, have assembled to argue over how long both the house and truck have been here. Nothing gets missed in a town as small as this one—which is my largest gripe with it, aside from my relatives up the mountain and the fact that I’ll have to show my face there soon.
If it weren’t for Grandma and Grandpa’s nearby residence and the fear of being spotted by them or someone who can tell them they spottedme, Teller City is an okay town. I appreciate the grocery deliveries on Wednesdays, which have pretty much kept me alive. Once a week, I look forward to the box of sauce, dry pasta, canned vegetables, batteries, and toilet paper on my doorstep. It’s delivered by a kid named Rudy who also delivers the newspapers, and I tip him in a new cryptocurrency that I made up.
“I don’t remember seeing any construction,” one elderly lady is saying.
“Oh, it was built months ago!” one of her friends exclaims. “Don’t you remember?”
The other one shakes her head.
“It’s been around for ages,” another one adds. “I pass that house every morning when I’m walking my dogs.”
Then they notice me.
I feel myself shrink back, but it’s too late. One face lights up,followed by another, like a strand of Christmas bulbs. “Oh! You’re Bettie and Lawrence’s granddaughter, aren’t you?”
My mouth falls open to say no, but Hall declares proudly, “Yes, she is!”
The gogglers are magnets for more gogglers. My name is tossed around in the air like a volleyball. They chirp questions at me, but it’s like my mouth is stuffed with cotton, heart pounding. It’s only a matter of time before my current living situation is discovered and all of my lies revealed. It would have been one thing for my family to find out I gambled away my millions two years ago, when I went into a tailspin. But now, it’ll look so much worse. They’ll know that everything I’ve said to them about my amazing, spectacular life has been a lie—and I haven’t been easy on the boasting. Last month, I told Athena I was having an affair with the king of Aldovia.
My nervous stare pans all the way down Old Homestead Road, to the gothic revival house on the mountain that you can see from anywhere in town, high enough on its perch to look down upon the rest of society. It’s painted like a woody nightshade flower: poisonous red berry for the siding, amethyst petal for the trim. A sharp, jutting turret is the yellow stamen, from which spins a gruesome weathervane of a honey badger eating a scorpion. On every steeply pitched gable roosts a gargoyle, serpent-faced lions whose purpose, I assume, is to horrify grandchildren sleeping in the rooms below.
In a town dominated by cozy lodges and Bavarian style, that house stands out like a night terror. As intended.
I swallow.
Beside me, Hall is chattering away obliviously, using my firstand last name several times per sentence, really hammering it home that I am, in fact, living in the town where my namesake resides.Like the village witch, I think, glancing at Bettie Watson’s fortress of doom, and then at my new house, which is its polar opposite. Children will be shoving their wish lists for Santa through my mail slot by the end of the day.
So much for keeping a low profile.
*
“Thehowis every bit as baffling as thewhy—experts are at a loss as to how a fully grown water buffalo has ended up on the fourth floor of a Chelsea apartment building. I’m Francesca Grace with NBC News, here with you live on West Twenty-First Street in New York City, at eleven minutes to midnight. We’re standing just outside a building where, believe it or not, awater buffalohas been found in the apartment belonging toNew York Timesreporter and pop culture critic Kelly Frederick.” The reporter can barely suppress her glee. “Kelly Frederick is perhaps best known for her work as an editor atThe Hot Gossand her snarky, claws-out critical style. Frederick has built a considerable fan base that delights in watching her no-holds-barred takedowns of celebrities.”
The news station slaps two pictures next to Francesca on the screen: one, a stock image of a water buffalo; and the other, Kelly Frederick’s headshot, smirking insufferably.
Hall turns from where he’s sitting on the sofa and pins me with a disapproving look, as though I have done something unsavory, when actually what I have done is serve up vigilante justice. Nobody would frown disapprovingly like this at Batman. “I hope you’re happy with yourself right now.”
“Thanks, I definitely am.” I wish I could pop a bottle of champagne, but hot chocolate will have to suffice. “Haven’t had this much fun in a while.”
He touches his temples. “My head hurts. I think you’re breaking me. I thought we’d be spending more time engaged in marshmallow-oriented activities.”
“Good idea. Let’s cover Salt Lake City in exploded marshmallow goo.”
“They’re going to tranquilize the animal,” Francesca says, and Hall gives me a pointed look. “Authorities are...”
I tune her out after the wordauthorities, as I do not respect authorities.
“There’s a hole in my wall!”
I zip back to attention. Kelly’s livid face appears on the screen, and it’s better than a trip to the spa. Her anger cleanses my pores and irrigates the trenches in my universally underestimated brain. She’s got a massive hole in her wall, and the buffalo defecated all over her couch. I’m overwhelmed with good tidings and joy—Hall’s succeeding with flying colors, filling me all the way up with holiday cheer.
