“No,” I said. “Frida is there the entire time. To supervise. What could happen?”
Exie made an amused noise.
“Damn, girl,” Starla murmured, completely titillated. “This is almost Playboy Mansion–level drama. Next thing we know, you’ll be bringing the brothers to the grotto.”
They were teasing me. Good-natured. Fun. But underneath it all, my stomach was knotting. I needed to try to text Eddie again. If I could just get in touch with him, all of this would be better. I could let him know that I’d been hanging out with Fen, so I could stop feeling so guilty. And Eddie could tell me his side of the story.
But would I really want to hear it?
Track [16] “Story of My Life”/Social Distortion
Fen
I didn’t think this through. When I texted Jane’s dad to ask him about fixing the Skeleton King, I should have probably tried to move the Jeep out to Aunt Zabel’s place. Quiet out there. But here, in the tiny record store parking lot off the Strip, it was anythingbut.
Road traffic. Foot traffic. And the worst traffic of all: Aunt Pari traffic. Because Mr. Marlow had only been here forty minutes, and my lovable but extremely busybody aunt had already ambled out to the parking lot a couple thousand times, first with water, then an old blanket—“In case you need to get under the Jeep. You won’t get dirty.”
He told her he didn’t need it. She didn’t care. That’s one thing that she has in common with my mom. All three Kasabian sisters, really. If they think you need something? You will fucking get that thing. Argument is futile.
“How long have you been doing this?” my aunt asked Mr. Marlow, peering into the engine over his shoulder. “Fixing cars, I mean.”
“All my life, really. Since high school,” he told her. “I’ve always been good at tinkering.”
“Mad Dog must have a lot of cars to keep you on full-time,” she said.
“Auntie,” I warned, feeling mildly panicky. “It’s none of our business.”
Maybe I was too self-conscious about the stuff Jane had told me—that her father hated Eddie. And I was no Eddie, thank the saints, but I was still cut from the Sarafian cloth. Mr. Marlow could decide that he didn’t like the looks of me and tell Jane not to hang around that horrible Fen Sarafian anymore.
Basically, I didn’t want to piss the big guy off.
And I didn’t have a great track record when it came to fathers.
Thankfully, Mr. Marlow wasn’t offended by my aunt’s curious poking around into his life. “I take care of all the vehicles for the family and staff too,” he said. “But yeah. I do all the maintenance, and I’ve rebuilt a few old cars for Mad Dog too. And he’s legally blind, so I drive him.”
“That’s right,” she mumbled. “One summer, about four or five years ago, my brother-in-law, Serj, had a driver. For the life of me, I can’t remember what happened to that guy.…”
“Dad kicked him out of the car in the middle of the Strip because he wouldn’t follow directions,” I reminded her. “He sat in front of the Bait Shop for two hours, waiting for a ride back home to Fresno.”
“Ugh,” Aunt Pari said, gritting her teeth and looking embarrassed. “Forgot about that. My brother-in-law is a demanding man, Mr. Marlow. I’m sure you’ve heard.”
Jane’s father lifted his blond head from the dark of the hood.“I try not to listen to gossip, but eventually there’s no avoiding it.”
“You can’t walk through a mud puddle and come out clean,” I agreed.
“Our family can be quite the mud puddle,” Aunt Pari said with a soft smile, then she handed me a printout from an online order. “Can you fix this in the system? The status is stuck as ‘shipped,’ but I never mailed it. It’s the one with the damaged sleeve—remember?”
Was she trying to get rid of me? Oh, yes. Distinct whiff ofAdults onlylook in her eye. Why couldn’t she just let the man fix my car and go?
I gave her a look that said,You will have to cleave me in half with an axe forged from the souls of the damned before I move from this spot.
But she was immune to my dark powers. “Thanks, babe.”
Frowning, I snatched up the printout and strode toward the shop’s back door. As I made my way around a delivery van, I heard Jane’s father say, “Speaking of mud puddles, I am curious about why Fen isn’t living at home anymore.”
Ah, shit.
I stood in place, hiding behind the van, and listened to my aunt’s response.
