I grinned. “Variety is the spice of life.”
“Hah?”
“Never mind,” I said, leaving him downstairs to ponder the mysteries of the world.
The last I heard him mutter was, “And what spice would Livio be?”
* * *
Scarlett was asleep when I made it into our bedroom. The night had been trying. She never took a sick day, so for her to miss rehearsal told me something. One of her rolling suitcases sat next to the bed. She must have taken it out and forgotten it. It was unlike her, but in the midst of all the chaos, she could have taken it out to find something else and fallen asleep before putting it back.
I placed it in our closet before jumping in the shower.
The hot water felt like the elixir of life against my skin, washing away the jail rot and the salt of my workout. My muscles responded and my head hung low, every part of me relaxed as the warm spray cascaded over neck and back. After the water had turned cold, I wrapped a long towel around my waist, brushed my teeth, and then slicked back my hair with a comb.
I stopped short when I walked into our room. The suitcase was out again. Scarlett sat up in bed, her hair a halo around her head, legs still covered by thick blankets.
“You had a visitor,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Cerise.”
It took a moment for the name to float from the depths of her memory, but when it did, she nodded. “She’s far from home.”
“She’s coming back tomorrow evening to see you.”
“I hope not here,” she said, throwing the covers off and putting her feet on the floor.
“This is your home, the last I checked.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Oh?” I copied her tone.
“I don’t want to lead you astray,” she said, keeping her back turned toward me. “I’ll leave before I ruin your life.”
Ruin my life, I repeated inside of my head. The woman was my life. It was no small coincidence that life rhymed with wife. Just a letter changed the sound but not the meaning. Without her, there was no life, onlyife,which was better off as strife.
“Your suitcase is already packed,” I said, realizing the significance of the suitcase now.
She breezed past me, going into the bathroom. A second later, I heard the drawer open. Another second and the water started to run. Brushing her teeth.
Sighing, I lifted the suitcase and brought it over to the window. Wherever shethoughtshe was going, she hadn’t planned on staying long. She packed light.
Throwing the bulk through the glass seemed to make more of a statement, but since it was zero degrees, I went the more conventional way. I slid the window open and flung her suitcase out of it. It landed with apow!on the pavement. Slush shot in all different directions from the impact. A few seconds later, a cat screeched.
Jet moseyed over to the window, staring down with a look on her face of superior smugness. She seemed to have a serious killer aura. She was the kind of cat who’d probably laugh when a suitcase from a second story window flattened one of her kind, but only if she tipped it over. That was how she got her fucking kicks.
Scarlett ran out of the bathroom, electric toothbrush hanging out of her mouth, her lips vibrating from the constantvrrrof the motor, white foam all over her chin. “Wat waz hat?”
“Hat wazyour suitcase, Bonnie,” I said.
“Ah!” Her mouth fell open and a splatter of paste fell to the floor. “Et it ack!” She waved her toothbrush at me like a vibrating wand.
I crossed my arms over my bare chest. “Make me.”
“Weally ature, Rando.”
