“Trista hired me to deliver some comeuppance to Blake, and she told me Blake lived in your apartment—”
“Which he did until a few months ago.”
“I figured he—well, you—would cuss them out and then slam the door in their faces.”
“You thought Blake would do a Habitat build?” He laughed to the point of his own tears.
“And Habitat didn’t deserve to suffer, so I was in my work clothes and ready to go so they wouldn’t be short a volunteer.”
“So you, a supposedly mean person, took into consideration the feelings of volunteers and made a plan to make up for any damage you might do?”
“Yes, but that’s not the point.” I threw up my hands in exasperation, but my boobs jiggled, thus undermining the overall effect. “I’m thinking about it now, and I shouldn’t have put volunteers into a position where they might be yelled at just to put someone else in an awkward position.”
“All’s well that ends well, Stark,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to make a habit of it.”
“That’s not all. I told Mrs. Q to make one of her awful casseroles for you.”
His mouth dropped open. “Now that’s diabolical, Stark. What did I ever do to you to deserve that?”
“Nothing! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m an awful person. I take money to do petty things to other people.”
“Who paid you to make me eat that casserole?”
“Trista.”
“So you weren’t trying to get revenge onme—you were trying to get revenge onBlake.”
“Yes!”
“You silly, silly woman,” he said, his eyes radiating kindness. “You’re not mean. You just have a keen sense of justice.”
I sat agape. This was what it must have felt like to be truly seen, because Malone kept seeing only the good in my motives. He had easily observed something I only partially knew about myself.
One woman’s petty was another’s poetic justice.
“Wait a minute,” he said with a frown. “Did you mail those ladybugs to me?”
“That was not me,” I said.
He laid his head against the wall. “Thank God.”
“But it was a seed I planted.”
He groaned, and I told him the whole tale of Trista, Addie, and “All Too Well.”
“So let me get this straight: You thought a thirteen-year-old girlmightdo something to irritate Blake, only it was really me, and all because he doesn’t like Taylor Swift?”
“I mean, when you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous, but I figure you should never underestimate a middle schooler, and lo and behold if she didn’t out-petty the original Little Miss Petty. Truly impressive.”
He frowned. “I don’t know if you should encourage that sort of behavior.”
“What happened to my ‘keen sense of justice’?”
He sighed and stared me down, but he was struggling to keep from smiling. “I think enlisting a teen in your revenge business could be considered contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
“No, no,” I said automatically, “I didn’t encourage her to do anything illegal. Besides, you have to admit the deadpan ‘look what you made me do’ was hilarious.”
His expression didn’t soften.
