Page 10 of Caught in a Bad Fauxmance
We figured it wouldn’t take long for Dad to crack, but I’d made the mistake of thinking he’d last until the end of the week. “Fine,” I mutter, pulling out my wallet and slapping a twenty into her hand. That’s what I get for underestimating the Seo-Cookes’ ability to annoy us.
Dad comes back into the living room with a notepad and a phonebook that looks as old as me. He slams it onto the dining table, a cloud of dust sending him into a sneezing fit. “What’s the name of that couple who used to live behind the Mexican restaurant on Irving?” he asks once he gets his sneezing back under control.
“The Khans?”
“That’s the one.” He rewards me with a high five before flipping to the KH section of the phonebook.
Isabel pulls out one of the earplugs she’d wisely thought to pack. “What’re you doing?”
“The other neighbors have got to be hearing this too. If enough of us file complaints at the visitors center, the bastards will get a fine.” He doesn’t look up from the phonebook until Isabel clears her throat, deflating at the look on her face. “Or a polite warning.”
“I don’t think we have other neighbors,” I point out.
At least not on our side of the lake. The locals, wisely, invested in cabins that’re farther from Fulton Drive and, by default, the noise. Besides the Seo-Cookes, our only immediate neighbor is the mushroom growing on the roof of the empty cabin to our left.
The brief silence is broken by Henry screaming at the top of his lungs. Dad’s grip on the pencil tightens enough that I’m sure it’s going to snap, but Isabel comes to the rescue.
“We deserve a break,” she announces, shouting over the noise. “How about lunch on me? Screw the budget.”
We haven’t even finished priming the walls yet, but I’m not going to turn down a chance to get out of the house.
Dad scowls when the engine revs yet again. He throws the pencil down and stomps across the room, grabbing his coat off the rack in the entryway. “I need a drink.”
We quickly bustle out of the house. Maya stalls in the driveway, double-checking that Dad and Isabel are occupied with finding a place to go. She carefully creeps over to the Seo-Cookes’ dock, grabbing the messy pile of stuff Henry left behind. She tosses the pile—a T-shirt, sneakers,his phone, and a Gucci fanny pack—into a bush on the side of their house before racing back to us.
“Nice,” I whisper, rewarding her with a subtle high five.
“Still got it, baby,” she replies with a grin.
According to Google, our favorite haunt—the Italian restaurant that served meatballs the size of your head—went out of business last year. Guess that makes sense, considering they were selling ten-pound platters of those monster meatballs for five bucks. By the time we make it to the only restaurant in Lake Andreas that’s both open and serves alcohol, Dad’s not the only one who needs a drink. It took thirty minutes of idling in the car just to find a place that wasn’t over an hour away.
The Swordfish Bar and Grill isn’t a place we’ve been to before, and I can quickly see why. There’s an unsettling layer of grime covering every surface—from doorknobs to tabletops—and a hazy, lingering scent of cigarette smoke despite theSmokers Can Go to Hellsign on the front door.
But it has half-priced margaritas and that’s enough for Dad.
“See, peace and quiet,” Isabel says once we’re settled at our booth.
I wouldn’t describe a place with such a threatening vibe as peaceful, but it is quiet. I can make out three men lingering by the bar, and there are a few occupied tables on the opposite end of the room, but the place is so dimly lit I can’t tell if any of the faces are familiar, or friendly.
The quiet doesn’t last long, though. Now that we don’t have to shout to be heard, we can get back to what we do best: bickering.
“Hot wings are obviously superior,” Maya argues when the topic of appetizers comes up.
“No, they’re not!” Andy replies, going red in the face. “At least with a chicken tender you don’t have to eat around the bone.”
I’m prepared to present my argument for mozzarella sticks when Maya leans across the table to punch Andy in the arm. He narrowly dodges the blow, pulling me into the line of fire instead. Maya’s fist lands right on top of the wound from yesterday’s pasta sauce incident, the dulled pain reigniting on impact.
“What the hell?!” I snap through gritted teeth. The pain is even stronger than it was yesterday, the sting stretching down to my fingertips.
“Take it easy on the innocent bystanders,” Isabel warns. She takes a sip of her mango margarita before rolling up my sleeve to assess the damage. A drop of blood creeps beneath the lining of the bandage and trickles down my arm. She does what she can to stop the light bleeding with a napkin before sending me off to the bathroom to clean up. At this rate, I’ll run out of shirts that aren’t stained with blood or sauce by the end of the week.
I set my phone on the edge of the sink and pinch my sleeve with my chin, nose scrunched up in concentration as I struggle to unfurl the fresh bandage Isabel gave me. The pain starts to come in waves, each more intense than the last. I curse like a sailor at full volume, focusing on as many colorful ways to sayshitto distract myself from the pain.
My phone starts to vibrate every few seconds, almost sending it off the lip of the sink. I’m prepared to text backwhoever it is to shut up and let me concentrate when I catch a glimpse of the most recent message, the seventeenth in a series from Maya.
GET BACK OVER HERE NOW!!!!!
If this is about the hot wing debate, I’m going to kill her.
