Where had my parents been lately, anyway? Suspiciously absent, that’s where. I was used to them popping up out of nowhere like they’d done the morning of the gala. But they’d been hiding away, like they were afraid of being perceived by their brilliant investigator of a daughter.
Don’t bleed on the couch, Richard.My mom had said that over the phone the day after the gala. She said my dad had had a nosebleed. Or… maybe his knuckles had split open from punching Conrad Phlume. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought more about it. When was the last time I’d seen my dad with a nosebleed?
Gabe looked up as I walked through our door, still stewing. “How was your lunch?”
I flopped down dramatically on our couch, sprawling with one arm over the side, groaning out the sound of a dying moose. “I think my parents might have killed someone.”
“Again?”
The moose was definitely dead now. “Again.”
CHAPTER
Nineteen
The one positive about having parents who consistently underestimated you in every way was that it wasn’t all that hard to manipulate them. For example, if they thought you were too stupid to solve an actual murder (even though you’d already done it once before, but who’s counting?), they wouldn’t assume an innocent dinner invitation was actually an interrogation.
Or so I triumphantly told Gabe the next afternoon, only to have his face slacken with dismay. “Did you forget my mom was supposed to come over for dinner tonight?”
Yes. Yes, I had forgotten. But, judging from that look on his face, that was the wrong answer. So I said, confidently, because you can get away with saying anything as long as you say it confidently (mental note: chapter title for my memoir): “Of course not. I was thinking that it would be a great night for the parents to meet. You’ve been saying that we should get them together.”
He blinked at me, probably hating that I was correct. “Right. I have been.”
I continued, growing in confidence as I went. “It’s best to do it like this, I think. Just rip the Band-Aid off.” My mom wouldn’t be too mean or lie too much in front of a witness. She’d want to make sure she looked good in case Andrea was selling secrets to the tabloids. “It’ll be great.”
“Right,” Gabe said dubiously. “Okay. Well, I guess it’s too late to uninvite anyone.” Thanks for the vote of confidence, beloved boyfriend. “And also to change the menu, right? I mean, nothing I make is going to impress your parents, and your mom doesn’t eat anything anyway, so it’s okay if I still make my roast chicken, potatoes, and salad?” I nodded, because everything he said was true. Also, his roast chicken over potatoes was delicious. “And then maybe you can pick up bread and some cakes from the bakery for dessert? My mom loves the pink lemonade tarts.”
A bubble of pride burst inside me. I’d spent weeks tinkering with those tarts, making them pink without using any artificial coloring (the secret was a little bit of rhubarb, but not too much, or it would make the tarts too tart, which, ironically, you did not want). “Sure,” I said brightly. Gabe stared at me for another moment.
“You’re going to interrogate them, aren’t you?”
I patted him fondly on one stubbly cheek. “Not ‘them.’ Just my dad.”
Another pause, another stare. “I suppose there’s no way to talk you out of this, is there?”
“Hey,” I said. “How long do we want to let a murderer run free?”
He had no answer to that, but I could see it in his eyes.You’re so right, Pom. Let loose the hounds of justice and let them bay until said justice is found, even if it wakes us up too early and is extremely annoying. I am your faithful sidekick, ready to serve. Your instincts are, as always, entirely brilliant.“Thank you,” I said generously.
He blinked. “For what?”
Honestly, I was glad we weren’t pushing out this whole thing. I already felt like I was going to throw up at the idea that—again, freakingagain—I had to interrogate my parents for murder, and I knew it wouldn’t fade until—again, hopefully freaking again—they were cleared. So at least I only had a couple of hours of mystomach swimming and me trying to tame it into submission with some yoga before our dinner party began.
Andrea was the first to arrive, a bottle of wine in her hand. “This is for you,” she said, handing it to me, then leaning in to kiss both of my cheeks. “You don’t have to open it tonight.”
“No, of course we will,” I said, even though it was a heavy, fruity red, totally wrong for chicken, and I didn’t recognize the label, which didn’t bode well for eliciting anything but puckers from my parents. “It looks delicious. Thank you.”
“Of course.” She leaned back, smiling wide. It was amazing how she hadn’t aged at all since her years as my nanny (fingers crossed Gabe had inherited those age-defying genes). Her black hair was threaded with silver, but flowed thick and lustrous to her shoulders; yes, she was curvy and soft in a way that would make my mom recoil and call her doctor, but Andrea was winning the wrinkle game even though she was up against my mom’s cheat code of surgery. “I have to be honest, I’m a little nervous about seeing your parents again.”
As I would be, too, if I were her, but I chose not to say that. “Don’t be nervous! You used to see them every day, and it was fine.”
She didn’t fiddle with her hair or toy with the edges of a sleeve, but she did press her lips together, which was her calm, unflappable version of fidgeting. “Not in this context.”
Not in a context of equals, she meant. When she used to see them every day, she was their employee. She hadn’t been young or pretty or rich enough for my dad to even remember her name, and my mom was one of those people who liked to pretend she didn’t have a nanny for her kids when asked by women’s magazines or newspaper columnists about how she “did it all.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said cheerfully, not entirely sure I meant it. “Come in.”
She went to the bathroom, and Gabe swooped in behind me to whisper in my ear. Advisable, since his mother had the hearingof a bat, something I’d learned when I was ten and decided I wanted to have a lemonade stand like all the kids did in the books I read, except obviously I only wanted to sell the best product possible, which meant using the sweet, juicy lemons I’d tried on the Amalfi Coast, which meant coordinating via whisper between an overnight shipping company in Italy and my dad’s stolen credit card. (Like, I was only trying to do right by my customers???)
