Page 80 of Devil in Disguise
Thanksgiving had always seemedlike a little bit of a pointless holiday to Dyma. You shopped like a maniac beforehand in time you didn’t have, prepared a big dinner that took half the day to cook, ate it in fifteen minutes, then cleaned up for another two hours. The only good part was watching football with her great-grandpa, and that you had three days off school afterwards.
This year? She was standing in front of the dorm with Owen’s blanket-print alpaca coat wrapped tightly around her against the cold November wind, watching for her first view of the car.
That couldn’t be them, and neither could the next one. She thought she saw them, though, farther down the block. And then she was sure. That had to be the thing Annabelle had told her about on the day after Dyma’s life-altering dinner with Pavani’s family.
She’d just climbed out of the shower after her Sunday shift as the pit vipers hissed in the room outside, and had been getting dressed to go to the library, feeling a little sorry for herself that Owen was gone and waiting not very patiently at all for Monday to roll around and her housing change to go through, when the phone rang.
Annabelle said, “You would not believe what just happened. So Harlan waited until your mom went out for her walk, because by the way? She’s serious about getting her walk in. The doctor said a half hour, and she did that the first day and then started building up. She’s bugging Harlan about making her a postnatal workout program, too, when he’d rather she was lying on the couch.”
“Really?” Dyma asked. “Are you sure this is my mother we’re talking about?”
“Yep. She says she likes the endorphins, and she doesn’t have to kill herself to get them the way Harlan does, so he can either make her a program before he goes back on the road again or she’ll hire a personal trainer to do it.”
“Ooh,” Dyma said. “Fightin’ words. You know he’s not going to trust anybody else to do it right. She’s oddly sneaky. I never realized.”
“She is! But anyway, she didn’t take her walk. She came back a minute later and asked him who was at the house, because there was a car out there with nobody in it, and he said, ‘Huh. Really? Let’s go see. If somebody’s prowling around, we’ll call the cops. Come on, Bug. We’d better stick together.’ So he puts Nick in his carrier and stands up, all firm and resolute, like we’re creeping down to the basement together in a slasher movie. Jennifer’s saying, ‘Do you really think it’s a prowler, or maybe a stalker? Parked right outside the door, though? He’d be kind of obvious, wouldn’t he? But if it isn’t, whereishe? You don’t think somebody would try to kidnap Nick, do you? Shouldn’t we call the police right now?’ AndHarlan’ssaying, ‘Stick close to me,’ in this really serious voice, like he’s Dwayne Johnson in an action movie and not, you know, Harlan Kristiansen, surfer dude. And when we get out there, he says, ‘Oh. It’s just your new car, that’s all.’”
“Seriously?” Dyma asked. “Really? He justboughther a new car, though! When was that, July? About thesecondthey got engaged?”
“That’s what she said!” Annabelle said with delight. “Wait. It gets better. Well, for me, it does. She says, ‘Harlan, you alreadyboughtme a car. An SUV, even. A Lexus! The best car I’ve ever owned by about amile.I do not need two cars!’ Andhesays, ‘Yeah, but I realized that it has hardly any cargo space. What if you’re taking Bug and Nick someplace? Nick’s gear barely fits as it is. What if Dyma’s home?’ Andthenhe says—wait, this is my favorite part—‘Besides, Bug needs a car. She’s going to college next year, and she needs to drive to her races and games right now. And don’t tell me you’ll drive her, or that she can take your car. Yeah, I can just see that. She’s got the car, and Nick gets a fever and needs to go to the doctor. Nope. You both need a car.’”
“And meanwhile,” Dyma said, “You’re trying to keep your mouth closed, because all you want to do is jump up and down and scream, ‘I get a car! That won’t break down! Because Lexus is extremely reliable!’ If he was going to do that, though, too bad he didn’t at least buy Mom aredLexus instead of that gray one. The good news is, you’ve got a car. The bad news is, it’s a Mom Car.”
“Are you kidding?” Annabelle said. “It’s acar.”
Dyma said, “Excellent point.”
Did she feel sad that nobody was buyinghera car? No, she did not. For two reasons. First, that she had no use for a car, living on campus. And second, that She. Was. Not. Harlan’s. Child. The more firmly she kept that stuck in her head, the less chance she’d start feeling entitled about things like cars and college tuition. Harlan liked giving people things, sure. He wasn’t going to giveherthose things. He was doing enough. Besides, she could take care of herself. She had aplan.
Now, she forgot all that, because Annabelle was pulling to a stop, her mom was climbing out of her brand-new and very large Mercedes SUV, which was black on top and silver on the bottom and looked like a limo, even fancier than Avery’s parents’ Mercedes and something that Jennifer Cardello would never have driven in herlife,even as a valet parker—and Dyma was jumping. It was five weeks since she’d seen them, and she’dmissedthem. She hugged her mom,didn’tsay anything about how she looked good, not right off, because commenting on a woman’s looks meant you werejudginga woman’s looks, and instead said, “I missed you. Wow. You’re here! Oh—nice car. Harlan really came through, huh?” After that, she hugged Annabelle, then said, “OK. Baby. Sorry, guys, I love you, but …” and opened the back door.
Nick was wearing a little hat again, green this time. When he saw her, he waved his arms, kicked his legs, and started making cooing noises like he knew her. She said, “Well, hey, kiddo. Hey, baby brother. How’re you doing?” like the kind of person she’d never been, and he kicked some more. His outfit was printed with giraffes, and he didn’t look heartbreaking anymore. He just looked like a … baby. A reallycutebaby, with big blue eyes and the sweetest mouth and the tiniest little fingernails.
“Here,” Annabelle said. “I’ll show you how to get him out.” She pressed a release that freed the seat from its base, tucked a blanket around Nick, and said, “You can carry it in so your mom can feed Nick, and I’ll go park this thing. Very carefully. And then I’ll come see your room!”
“It’s not that exciting,” Dyma said, taking Nick from her. “Well, to me it is, but not otherwise.”
“Are you kidding?” Annabelle said. “I’m so jealous, you can’t imagine,” and started to climb back into the car.
That was when four guys came by, their duffels slung over their shoulders and their haircuts adhering to either the fade or the floppy trend, accompanied by an older guy wearing a plain black T-shirt, skinny jeans, Allbirds shoes, and aviator sunglasses, his shaved head all but tattooed with, “I’m trying to look like Jeff Bezos!” In other words, it was Logan, somebody’s dad, and Logan’s loyal posse, one of whom had been in the room with him, laughing, when he’d said all those things about Dyma. He hadn’t said anything to her since then. He’d just looked at her extremely creepily, every time she’d seen him.
“Hey, Dyma,” Logan said. “How’re you doing? Looking good.” It wouldn’t be cool to act scared of her, she guessed, not in front of his buddies. He didn’t think he had to anyway, because Owen wasn’t here.
The older guy stopped, and so did all the rest of them. Not because of Dyma, it was clear, because he said, “Is that the new Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600? I didn’t realize the dealers even had it in stock yet. I’ve been thinking about upgrading.”
“Yeah, right, Dad,” Logan said. “Like Mom’s not going to have a shit fit when you buy a car that costs two hundred thousand bucks, seeing as you keep telling her how strapped you are on all the tuition costs, so she’d better not ask for more child support.”
“What your mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” the guy said, and extended a hand to Jennifer. “Adrian Kendrick. Logan’s dad. Seems like Logan and your, uh—friend?”
“Daughter,” Jennifer said. “Dyma.”
“Like Logan andDymaknow each other already.”
“We sure do,” Logan said. “I know Dymarealwell.” Which caused a whole bunch of smirking.
“What kind of option package do you have on this thing?” Adrian asked. “That paint’s not standard.”
“I … I’m not sure,” Jennifer said. “It’s new. Well, you can see that, because it still has dealer plates. It was a surprise from my fiancé. For the baby. I mean, a baby present for me.” Looking rattled, like she was getting “how to be rich” completely wrong, and was probably wearing the wrong clothes, too.
